Book: What Can I Do? by Jane Fonda: ‘If Greta Thunberg can do it, so can I’ (excerpt): The Guardian

Jane Fonda, actor and climate activist

"There was a long silence, and then she said, “Well, Jane, that’s wonderful and I’m blown away that you’re ready to put yourself out there like that, but you can’t camp overnight in Washington. It’s illegal since Occupy Wall Street camped there. But let’s figure out what is possible.” She offered to set up a conference call with her, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, Naomi Klein, the environmental lawyer Jay Halfon, and me. Bill suggested a once-a-week protest that involved civil disobedience. Fridays had been claimed by Greta Thunberg and the student climate strikers, but the youth had also called on adults to join them. “Maybe you could do an action on Fridays as well.”

I’d been getting ready for this my whole adult life – a weekly

Jane Fonda climate activist

action that culminated in nonviolent civil disobedience. And I wouldn’t have to worry about pooping. I began planning for the maximum time I could spend in DC before I had to get ready to film our last season of Grace And Frankie on 27 January 2020. It added up to four months, 14 Fridays."

• What Can I Do? by Jane Fonda is published by HQ, at £20. To order a copy for £17.40, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
 
Go to The Guardian's article 

Related: 'The Future We Choose', Book by Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac

‘A Bomb in the Center of the Climate Movement’: Michael Moore Damages Our Most Important Goal: Rolling Stone

'Basically, Moore and his colleagues have made a film attacking renewable energy as a sham and arguing that the environmental movement is just a tool of corporations trying to make money off green energy. “One of the most dangerous things right now is the illusion that alternative technologies, like wind and solar, are somehow different from fossil fuels,” Ozzie Zehner, one of the film’s producers, tells the camera. When visiting a solar facility, he insists: “You use more fossil fuels to do this than you’re getting benefit from it. You would have been better off just burning the fossil fuels.”

That’s not true, not in the least — the time it takes for a solar panel to pay back the energy used to build it is well under four years. Since it lasts three decades, it means 90 percent of the power it produces is pollution-free, compared with zero percent of the power from burning fossil fuels. It turns out that pretty much everything else about the movie was wrong — there have been at least 24 debunkings, many of them painfully rigorous; as one scientist wrote in a particularly scathing takedown, “Planet of the Humans is deeply useless. Watch anything else.” Moore’s fellow filmmaker Josh Fox, in an epic unraveling of the film’s endless lies, got in one of the best shots: “Releasing this on the eve of Earth Day’s 50th anniversary is like Bernie Sanders endorsing Donald Trump while chugging hydroxychloroquine.” '

Read the Rolling Stone article

Climate Change is a cause of attacks on democracy

As the climate crisis worsens and conflict increases over scarce resources expect more threats to authentic democracy.

In The Maldives

President Abdulla Yameen of the Maldives. AFP/Getty

"According to a 2017 study published in The Lancet, extreme weather could displace up to a billion people around the world by the middle of the twenty-first century—an unprecedented human migration will undoubtedly influence the politics of wealthy countries, pushing them to the right.

The best way to counteract this phenomenon is naturally to halt, or at least slow, the effects of climate change. So far, the Paris agreement is the only tangible result of those efforts, and its fate is far from certain .............  But this might change, if the problems caused by climate change—not just stronger hurricanes, droughts, and rising seas, but political rupture—keep washing up on the disappearing shorelines of wealthy governments."

Go to The New Republic article



Around the world

"In its 5th Assessment Report (2014), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unequivocally confirmed that climate change is real and that human-made greenhouse gas emissions are its primary cause. The report identified the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters, rising sea-levels, floods, heat waves, droughts, desertification, water shortages, and the spread of tropical and vector-borne diseases as some of the adverse impacts of climate change. These phenomena directly and indirectly threaten the full and effective enjoyment of a range of human rights by people throughout the world, including the rights to life, water and sanitation, food, health, housing, self-determination, culture and development."

Go to the ohchr.org story



In Australia

"Scott Morrison (Australia's Prime Minister) has signalled a crackdown on “selfish, indulgent and apocalyptic” environmental activists."

Go to The New Daily story 

"It takes some chutzpah to stand up with a straight face and deliver a speech foreshadowing a government crackdown on protest activity while in the same breath declaring that a new insidious form of progressivism is intent on denying the liberties of Australians."

Go to The Guardian story
 

Our democratic freedoms are under threat in Australia and around the world.

Australian Federal Police raid the ABC offices

"Source confidentiality is one of journalists’ most central ethical principles. It is recognised by the United Nations and is vital to a functioning democracy and free, independent, robust and effective media. 

Go to The Conversation article

"If the major parties and politicians want to rebuild trust with voters, they will need to change the way they do politics: stop misusing their entitlements, strengthen political donations laws, tighten regulation of lobbyists, and slow the revolving door between political offices and lobbying positions."

Go Grattan Institute article 

Let's safeguard our democratic institutions such as free speech, restrictions on overwhelming amounts of corporate donations to political parties, freedom to protest, freedom to privacy, freedom to gather.
 

In the USA

Go to The Atlantic article: David Goldman / AP

"As heat, disaster risks, and rising seas bombard local governments, the ability of those governments to fulfill their basic functions—the delivery of services, the maintenance of the safety net, and managing civil, familial, and educational institutions—could be degraded, too. This could manifest in three distinct phenomena that are already on display in disaster-affected areas: the increased dominance of private and developer-class interests in local politics, the acceleration of existing wealth inequality, and the collapse of institutions dedicated to disaster response."

Go to The Atlantic article

Prominent media corporations are supporting climate deniers, fossil fuel dependent corporations and corporations whose profits depend on degrading the human environment.

Let's care for our vulnerable. 

Lets support action plans (see below) to tackle climate change.

Go to World Bank document

If the Climate Change Crisis were World War II, it’s 1939: Medium

"The question is really, as Superchunk observed, “how fast?” Can we make this transition in time to prevent clathrate collapse or the popping of Yellowstone park? How many billions will die from famine, disease, water-shortages and toxic air pollution before we clean up the place? How many need to die before head-in-the-sand deniers get out of the way of those of us trying to make a difference?

To me a “climate emergency” means a war footing; and that means waging war against the deniers first, as they are the real obstacle. I’d be very happy to see a lot of our current senior political and corporate leaders hauled up in The Hague and charged with crimes against humanity, and I’d regard that as entirely appropriate. But that’s a fantasy and is, alas, unlikely to happen.

In various countries citizens are resorting to the courts to force their governments into action, and that’s certainly a pathway to progress in places where laws are designed to enforce the rights of ordinary people, rather than simply there to block action against climate change.

The sad truth is that almost no-one really believes that global warming, and the myriad other issues that stem from humanity’s abuse of the planet, are truly anything to get too worried about.

Most people I know, even those who completely accept that climate change is real and happening, continue to act as if they believe, deep-down, despite what they say, that the risks are overstated and, if impacts are going to be felt, they’ll be felt by other people and way in the distant, to them, future.

People may say that they accept the science, but they act as if they

don’t. A lot of people subscribe to a kind of magical thinking, wherein some hitherto undreamed of technological fix will just make the whole problem go away, so we can just continue polluting.

The emergency is upon us. We must urgently and radically change the way we generate power, fuel, and food, while putting in place adaptation measures to deal with the global warming already locked into the planetary system. If we do hit the runaway global warming tipping point, then no amount of adaptation will be possible. But simply explaining the facts clearly is usually written off as being alarmist. And that’s the core of the climate crisis."

 Read the much larger Medium article

See also

Climate change is a health emergency, RACGP declares: News GP

Climate Action: I don’t know jack shit about activism I need guidance

Question:

 

Yo! So it’s been established that most pollution issues are caused by corporations and organisations, rather than individuals. 

What now? How does one go about putting pressure on them/getting things to change? Start where?? I don’t know jack shit about activism I need guidance

hope-for-the-planet  answered:

 

This is a great question and I’m sorry I took so long to get to it.

The short answer is: Find other people working on the same problem you want to tackle and join them.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t sure how to start making a difference if you can find a group/organization that has been working on it for a while and already knows what they are doing.

Two additional pieces of advice: 1) I recommend joining a cause that you’re passionate about/interested in or that fits your skill set. 
 It will be more rewarding for you and easier to stick with it. 2) If you’re joining/supporting/fundraising for a bigger organization it doesn’t hurt to do a little research on them to make sure they’re reputable and actually making a difference with the resources they are given.


If you’re interested in boots-on-the-ground political activism in particular, checking out the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion would probably be good places to start (I believe the Sunrise Movement is fairly US-centric).

However, environmental activism can take many forms: You could volunteer with a tree planting or habitat restoration project. You could help campaign for environmentally friendly politicians or laws. You could volunteer at a local nature center, zoo, or aquarium to educate people about conservation and habitat loss. You could fundraise for or donate to an environmental cause.


To quote environmental activist Bill McKibben:

“Part of the problem is that climate change seems so big that it’s hard to conceive that any individual action on our part could work. When people ask me ‘What can I, as an individual, do to save the planet?’ I say, ‘The most important thing you can do is be less of an individual’”

 wewantclimateactionnow

#criminales climáticos de la cárcel
#criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel
#jailclimatecriminals
#gaolclimatecriminals

 

I'm an Extinction Rebellion protester and I'll be disrupting your work commute. Here's why: ABC

"This week thousands of ordinary Australians, and many thousands more across the globe, will disrupt major cities with rolling blockades to draw attention to the climate crisis. 

They will do so under the name of Extinction Rebellion (or XR for short), a new environmental movement. 

As a result of their actions, your life may be disrupted. You may be forced to wait or find another route. You may even become angry.
Inevitably these protesters, myself included, will be reduced by some news media to just another bunch of climate activists.
I want to tell you though, that term "climate activist", whilst true, is limiting. 

It certainly doesn't capture the truth of who I am or why I joined XR. It doesn't tell you that I am a mother of two small children. Or that I have lived a law-abiding life."

Read the complete ABC article 

Satellite Data Record Shows Climate Change's Impact on Fires : NASA

 

#jailclimatecriminals   #suefossilcorpdirectors  #climatecrisis

It’s Time to Try Fossil-Fuel Executives for Crimes Against Humanity: Jacobin

"The fossil-fuel industry is lawyering up. 

To date, nine cities have sued the fossil industry for climate damages. California fisherman are going after oil companies for their role in warming the Pacific Ocean, a process that soaks the Dungeness crabs they harvest with a dangerous neurotoxin. 

Former acting New York state attorney general Barbara Underwood has opened an investigation into whether ExxonMobil has misled its shareholders about the risks it faces from climate change, a push current Attorney General Leticia James has said she is eager to keep up. Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey opened an earlier investigation into whether Exxon defrauded the public by spreading disinformation about climate change, which various courts — including the Supreme Court — have refused to block despite the company’s pleas. And in Juliana vs. U.S., young people have filed suit against the government for violating their constitutional rights by pursuing policies that intensify global warming, hitting the dense ties between Big Oil and the state.

These are welcome attempts to hold the industry responsible for its role in warming our earth. It’s time, however, to take this series of legal proceedings to the next level: we should try fossil-fuel executives for crimes against humanity."

Read the Jacobin article 

"Left unchecked, the death toll of climate change could easily creep up into the hundreds of millions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in turn unleashing chaos and suffering that’s simply impossible to project. An independent report commissioned by twenty governments in 2012 found that climate impacts are already causing an estimated four hundred thousand deaths per year.

Counting a wider range of casualties attributed to burning fossil fuels — air pollution, indoor smoke, occupational hazards, and skin cancer — that figure jumps to nearly 5 million a year. By 2030, annual climate and carbon-related deaths are expected to reach nearly 6 million. That’s the rough equivalent of one Holocaust every year, which in just a few short years could surpass the total number of people killed in World War II. All caused by the fossil-fuel industry."

Read the Jacobin article 

Related:

The destruction of the Earth is a crime. It should be prosecuted  George Monbiot

 

Climate Action in Nambucca Heads Sep 20, 2019

Related:

It’s Time to Try Fossil-Fuel Executives for Crimes Against Humanity: Jacobin

Climate Action Rally in Bellingen August 17, 2019

See also:

Australia coal use is 'existential threat' to Pacific islands, says Fiji PM 

 

 What does your local community do to mitigate climate change?

Read about:

Forests, logging and climate change: IA

Related: Can Earth be saved? Climate change is threatening the world's food supply, according to a UN panel.: Al Jazeera

Want to Build a Stronger Climate Movement? Integrate. :NexusMedia

"Dr. Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University in Houston, believes that big green groups need to do more to support environmental justice groups, which treat pollution not as an isolated problem, but as part of a larger constellation of issues that includes poverty, discrimination and political marginalization."

"We saw that in Hurricane Katrina when we didn’t take care of the levees in the lowest-income communities. That’s obvious to many communities on the ground who are facing the ravages of climate right now. For them, it’s not a debate. It’s not theory. It’s real. For workers who work outside, they know it’s getting hotter. They know it’s more difficult to work outside, and they know that if it’s too hot to work, or if it’s raining every day, they can’t do their job, and they’re losing money. It’s not a matter of whether or not climate change is real. They know it’s real."

Read the original Nexus story 

Related: 

The World's Poor are Hurt Not Helped by Fossil Fuel Subsidies

 

#environmentaljustice   #environment   #workers   #climateactivism   #climatejustice   

Students Strike for Climate Action in Regional NSW

Students in Bellingen, NSW

"School strikes were held across Australia today, 15 March 2019, but it was the students, not the teachers, leading the charge. The strikes were held to demand more meaningful climate action from the government; something the organising students believe to be truly lacking." Student Edge

Bellingen Students

Bellingen student strike for climate action

Bellingen Student Strike for Climate Action in park

Adults supporting student strike for climate action

Grey Power supporting the student strike

Be careful who you vote for in the NSW state election

Climate change strikes across Australia see student protesters defy calls to stay in school: ABC NEWS

#climateaction #climatechange #climatecatastrophe #youth #students #globalheating

Students Marching in Coffs Harbour

March preparations in Kempsey

New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a 'Risky Distraction': Desmog

climate change quote

" A new report makes the case that the fossil fuel industry prefers geoengineering as an approach for addressing climate change because it allows the industry to keep arguing for continued fossil fuel use.
 
In Fuel to the Fire: How Geoengineering Threatens to Entrench Fossil Fuels and Accelerate the Climate Crisis, the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL) warns that geoengineering, which includes technologies to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide and to shoot particles into the atmosphere to block sunlight, potentially offers more of a problem for the climate than a solution.

“Our research shows that nearly all proposed geoengineering strategies fail a fundamental test: do they reduce emissions and help end our reliance on fossil fuels?” said CIEL President Carroll Muffett, who co-authored the report with the support of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

If you've ever wondered about geoengineering, @ciel_tweets has a new report–you should definitely read it, and then you should get to work repowering our planet with renewable energy!https://t.co/XoRXOW73ap

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) February 13, 2019"

Read the DeSmog Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science article

Read time: 7 mins

By Justin Mikulka • Wednesday, February 13, 2019

#Bill McKibbon  #geoengineering  #carbondioxide  #climatechange  #climate action  # fossilfuels

A Huge Climate Change Movement Led By Teenage Girls Is Sweeping Europe: BuzzFeed

Climate action march Eric Lalmand / AFP / Getty Images

"LONDON — A huge student protest movement led almost exclusively by teenage girls and young women is sweeping Europe, and it's on the brink of breaking through in the US."


"The protests are injecting a new urgency into the debate around climate change, and calling attention to a lack of action by governments. They are also a sign of the new political power of young women, especially in Europe. 
Climate strikes have also been organized by students in Australia, and US organizers are planning to participate in an international day of action on March 15.
Jamie Margolin, the 17-year-old founder and executive director of Zero Hour, a group working on the March 15 protest in the US, told BuzzFeed News that climate activism has given young women like her a chance to be heard."

Read the BuzzFeed article 

Rolling Stone: What’s Another Way to Say ‘We’re F-cked’? One of the leading climate scientists of our time is warning of the horrifying possibility of 15-to-20 feet of sea-level rise

Climate Action Now

 #climateactionnow  #climate action now  #climate catastrophe  #climatecatastrophe