Sonoma County Winegrowers bought an expensive, full-page, color ad, using tax dollars, in the July 12 daily Santa Rosa Press Democrat and in various weeklies, such as the North Bay Bohemian and Sonoma West. The ad ignited a firestorm of protest with angry letters to editors and online comments from the community storming local publications that ran the ad.
Every so often a nonfiction book comes along that, because of its objective, comprehensive coverage of a hot topic, should be carefully read with a highlighter in hand by everyone. That new book is Unprecedented by David Ray Griffin. Be warned, this book will probably bum you out. It presents the most readable treatment of the global warming and climate change issue that anyone could wish for. It is not an emotional rant, but rather a carefully organized and detailed discussion. Most significantly, wit
All of the elements required to create climate justice seem to be in place. The climate movement can put hundreds of thousands on the streets, organize creative civil resistance, get thousands to risk arrest and mobilize blockades of tar sands, fracking, oil pipelines and mountain top removal.
Editor’s note: Oh, the pharm-ag industry. It is a complete nightmare out there, as all of humanity is one giant petri dish and mice lab. Environmental factors, aromatic particles, nanoparticles, endless combusted materials, plastics, ugly chains of percolated fats, GMOs, pesticides, metals, resins, hydrocarbons, the entire mess that is American-European capitalism through chemistry.
No longer dominated by the traditional “Big Green” groups that were taking big donations from corporate polluters, the new environmental movement is broader, more assertive and more creative. With extreme energy extraction and climate change bearing down on the world, environmental justice advocates are taking bold actions to stop extreme energy extraction and create new solutions to save the planet. These ‘fresh greens’ often work locally, but also connect through national and international actions.
Here’s today’s essay topic: The Paper of Record Does In-depth Profile of White Guy Environmentalist
Subtopic: Where’s the story?
Key discussion questions: 1) Is despair just a “White Male Thing?” 2) What is the role of art in times of ecocide?
First of all, it should be a subject of some bemusement that our contemporary media culture is so Talmudic that an entire essay can be a commentary on a single brief passage in our infinitely scrolling Torah of news; i.e., an interview in the New York Times – but so it is.
The findings of the most recent IPCC report are sobering. We have 15 years to mitigate climate disaster. It is up to us to make a major transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy within that time frame.
Humans have caused climate change by pumping ever more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we must quickly cut these emissions.
True, but what has this got to do with unions?
Well, at their core unions are organizations that bring people together to fight for the common good. This essential truth is reflected in the structure, philosophy and history of most unions.
But exactly whose “common good” a union is fighting for can vary widely.
There are a lot of seemingly disparate things happening at various levels of scale in the world outside my window these days. But there is one color that describes them more than any other.
