Why We Can’t Just #PlantATree

"Plant a Tree and Save the Planet" can now join recycle plastic and change your light bulbs in the dust bin of destructive memes foisted on us for 30 years.  We must overcome the industrial and financial system and stop exploiting mother earth.

Not Every Forest Is a Forest

The most recent publication of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s Forest Terms and Definitions paper defines a forest as any land above 0.5 hectares (roughly 1.2 acres) with a canopy cover of 10 percent or more. This includes land that has been clear cut but that is expected to regenerate within five years. It also includes certain types of tree plantations, including Christmas Tree plantations.

Ultimately, the UN definition of forests misses a lot of points. Be it the damage done by so-called sustainable forestry practices, biodiversity or real climate change mitigation, this definition side-steps reality and misguides the well-meaning plant-a-tree movement.

This is a short read and basic but we should understand that current popular remedies and international initiatives as well are out of step with science and are just covering for the convenience and profit of self interested industrial extraction industry.

https://truthout.org/articles/why-we-cant-just-plantatree/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a03eed1b-ca2e-4aa7-b41c-c307023a2499

Climate Resolution: North Bay Governments Grapple with Climate Change

Thanks to Will Carruthers at the Pacific Sun for this great reporting on climate activism and specifically the Emergency Climate Declarations.  It is clearly time to escalate our demand.

But activists ask: Will the declarations change anything? Not fast enough, according to Dr. José Hernández Ayala. 

Hernández Ayala, a climate scientist at Sonoma State University, compared the county’s recent emergency declaration to a New Years Resolution and noted the goals set are not sufficiently urgent. 

“We’re saying we’re not going to eat as much and we’re going to do a lot of exercise,” he says. “We make all of these promises that we really want to be reality but, at the end of the day, there’s nothing really forcing us to actually achieve those things.”

The Sunrise Movement, a national organization with regional chapters which organized strikes nationwide, advances the idea of shaming politicians into taking immediate action on climate change. Politicians, they argue, are negligent in sitting idly by while the earth continues to heat, setting off a chain of negative consequences. 

Christine Byrne, organizer of the Sunrise Movement’s Sonoma County Hub, says the current crop of climate activists is more prone to anger than previous generations of activists. 

Byrne says they should keep the focus on systemic change, with a focus on those profiting from carbon emissions. 

In 2017, a report by the nonprofit CDP concluded that just 100 companies are accountable for 71 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. 

“It’s good for us in our individual lives to take some ownership [for our lifestyles.] … but more and more, especially young people, are recognizing that they as individuals did not create this problem,” Byrne says. Instead, a select group of businesses and the politicians who enable them are to blame. 

That causes anger among young people who realize they will live with the cascading damage of climate change for the rest of their lives.

https://pacificsun.com/climate-resolution/

Love the Earth | Protect the Earth | Make Ecocide a Crime Now!

This is clear and logical. Ecocide is a crime against humanity. Allowing and subsidizing corporations and states to destroy our world for profit and power must end. A new initiative has just been launched to make ecocide a crime. Go here, join, donate and stay connected.

 

 This is a transformative, heart felt call for a new criminal law to address global warming and the story of an elder, Polly Higgins, a hero of our time a and friend of XR who recently died and is celebrated here wth the launch of large scale effort to make ecocide a crime.

 

Naomi Klein on the Green New Deal & the Working Class: "We cannot trust our elites"

Great political framing in 5 minutes.

Cooperative ownership of community solar

This new project is a great model for equitable solarization This video is short and worth watching

Protesters dragged off tube train as Extinction Rebellion delay commuters in London

A letter was published today by XR after the "tube" action met with violent response by commuters.  This is an important moment to remember.  The media has been pressing this questions ever since the first XR actions in April, "won't inconveniencing the public alienate them from your cause".  The answer of course has been "but we must because otherwise the issue is completely ignored".  Both are true by measure but the letter holds to the necessity of disruption. This is why the framing of this letter is important. Also see the clip at the bottom as an example of how these questions from the media are framed and a good example of XR spokesperson staying on point.



It is regrettable that there was violence at today’s action at Canning Town tube station. We would like to express our sadness that events escalated this way.

We are aware that one of our activists responded in self defence in a moment of panic when confronted by a threatening situation. He acknowledges his accountability for this action and we offer gratitude for members of the public who helped to protect him.

To those that engaged in violence, we acknowledge that we disrupted your life today.

Rather than let this incident divide – at this moment of heightened attention – we think it is right to reach out to you, to invite you to have a conversation about what happened today. [1]

In light of today’s events, Extinction Rebellion will be looking at ways to bring people together rather than create an unnecessary division.

The people involved today did not take this action lightly. They were a grandfather, an ex-buddhist teacher, a vicar and a former GP among others who acted out of rational fear for the future as this crisis deepens.

We are aware that this action was divisive. We are a broad and diverse movement with a wide range of views, and are aware that many people were not for this action. Those that acted this morning planned their action autonomously, within Extinction Rebellion’s principles and values, centred around nonviolence and compassion.

Extinction Rebellion remains fully committed to nonviolence and will continue to put ourselves in vulnerable situations to highlight the climate and ecological emergency we face. It is unfortunate that something like this has to happen for this to become ‘newsworthy’.

This follows 10 days of peaceful actions in London. Extinction Rebellion’s supporters are ordinary people who are trying desperately to preserve the safety and security of all life on earth.




Her is another good article.

Extinction Rebellion has been clear that its primary goal is not to secure majority support for taking the necessary action to tackle climate change. 

Instead, XR’s goal is to cause enough disruption to the economy and the functioning of society that governments are forced to do what is needed to make a dent in global warming. If the cost of their protests and direct action outweighs the investment needed to turn us into a zero-carbon economy, the economic arguments should succeed where the existential and moral ones haven’t.

 https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2019/10/extinction-rebellion-may-enrage-commuters-it-doesnt-rely-majority

It's All Your Fault -- BBC

I have trouble with this video.  I did not build this world.  I understand that inaction can be a form of complicity but we did not consent even if many were duped into thinking they agreed to it.  Nonetheless hearing this is useful to understand that as we organize to change the world we know that we are not saintly or better than ordinary people. Corporate media blaming ordinary people is a deceitful share the blame game.

XR Mothers and Children - "Nurse-In" outside Downing Street

This is a brilliant tactic and again reported on ITV UK independent station.  I wish we had independent television

1000's Join Peaceful Protests - 200+ Arrested

I have never see such good reporting on television but this one was on UK's ITV news.

Non Cooperation may not be a strategy here -- Yet!

XR UK is a very decentralized organization and sometimes hard to tell what is "official" policy, but this is interesting. I wonder how they will support funding this as it will also increase costs for those incarcerated.

What Is The Speed Of Climate Change? Faster Than You Think

David Wallace Wells is not my favorite spokesperson on this issue but in this video he does nail down a very important perspective -- this happened not because we did not know but because the system could not stop or would not stop and still has not stopped.

The 83 Yr. Old Rebel | Extinction Rebellion

This is just inspirational. A role model for me.

Heading for Extinction - A Background for Action

This is an hour long lecture goes from A to Z explaining the background, structure, philosophy and moral justification for XR disruptions.

Deep Adaptation - Jem Bendell

It is time to talk about adaptation. This 45 minute lecture is a starting point for acceptance of what is likely coming. Accepting and then having conversations rather than denial, panic and fear will be essential in living in a way the preserves not our former system but rather values of love and compassion and community even as that former system collapses.

 

What if the answer to California's wildfire woes is more fire?

This article supports my contention that clearing dead wood and brush to save homes and protect against wild fires is wrong.  Nonetheless this is likely to be our response.




In a review of scientific studies on forest carbon management, two professors at Oregon State University, Beverly Law and Mark Harmon, made the case that cutting small trees to reduce carbon emissions from wildfires simply doesn’t work because you end up having to remove more wood than those fires would burn — leaving fewer trees to store carbon.

Even if you embrace Hanson’s position that a hands-off approach is best, utilities and municipal workers in California continue cutting down trees to protect themselves from fire. Homeowners are supposed to clear a “defensible space” 100 feet from their houses. All that work is generating tons of woody biomass. I asked Kathryn Phillips, who leads the lobbying efforts for Sierra Club California, if she thought it made sense to burn that wood to generate energy.

Though Phillips’ organization is officially neutral on the point, her response was that people shouldn’t be burning wood at all. The best option is to leave the wood in the forest. The rest might be chipped up or used for furniture and building materials. If people need to clear fuels off their land, “they need to figure out options to do something with that wood,” she said. “And if those options don’t exist they need to complain to the state. Burning it in a biomass plant isn’t the answer.”



https://grist.org/article/why-california-is-fighting-fire-with-fire/

The Trouble with Trees

This video looks critically at the rush to plant trees which is often thought of as a climate change silver bullet. The video strongly dispels this myth and shows that by in large the cap and trade tree planting business is actually bad for the planet because it focuses on monoculture tree plantations (that's where the money is) which store a fraction of the carbon of a natural forest and is uniquely bad for biodiversity and the people that live near them. It shows an alternative as well but you are not going to like it. Just leave the land alone and it will on its own regenerated into a bio diverse mature forest -- in time! Keep in mind that as Paul Hawkin of Drawdown says, "there are 100 proven and scalable solutions to drawdown but no silver bullet -- we have to do them all.

 

I also provide as second video featuring Simon Lewis, professor of global change science in which he restates the trouble with trees but then goes on to promote biomass burning, energy generations and direct air capture which is according to the consensus of 200 drawdown contributing scientists not yet proven or scalable, lacks data sets sufficient to make conclusions and include in the top 100 solutions

Awareness vid for XR Oct 7

Regenerative Agriculture

This is an extensive UN report on the Drawdown identified solution "regenerative agriculture " entitled Growing Better.  It is linked here to our google drive for access to this important 237 page report

Guerrilla poster ninjas get the job done

Greta gets tough on the UN

First she is cute and then youth warms our hearts and give us hope and then Greta asks "How dare you ask what my message is ... why aren't you fixing this?"

Greta Thunberg on NPR

Thunberg also believes the U.S. has an "incredibly important" role to play in fighting climate change. "You are such a big country," she says. "In Sweden, when we demand politicians to do something, they say, 'It doesn't matter what we do — because just look at the U.S.' "I think you have an enormous responsibility" to lead climate efforts, she adds. "You have a moral responsibility to do that."

Greta Thunberg on Daily Show

Something Drastic Has To Happen --Roger Hallam on BBC

This is worth watching as much for the persistent, clueless question asked by the shows moderator as by Roger's message. We must understand how they don't, indeed can't get it. Only disruption can change this.

BBC report on Extinction Rebellion

Greta Thunberg Video

Greta's new story coming to US by sail boat and assessment of our movement is compelling.

Climate Strike with Us on 9/20

We have replace the past deadline action network sign in with news of this wonderful event provided by Alexa Forrester.  

I wanted to share the following links covering the event, in case you haven't seen them.

Following links covering the event, in case you haven't seen them.
The marchers, from beginning to end, as we left the JC for Mendocino avenue (thanks to Franchesca!): CLICK HERE

The whole event, including clear footage of the entire stage program starting at minute 55, thanks to The Oak Leaf (student newspaper at the JC): CLICK HERE

The Press Democrat coverage: CLICK HERE

Solving Climate Change: a blueprint (10 min. video)

Very good explaination of the context of Project Drawdown and answers the question, why we at Sonoma County Pachamama engage in presenting drawdown. A 90 minute walk Drawdown Introduction is offered at the Pachamama global commons website but you must first join the group (no cost) to access.  We suggest you watch this short video first. We also have made course documentation on our google drive available to download.



Our starting point -- Why do people tune out? Why do people switch channels when another gloom and doom climate change story comes on, piling problem upon problem?  Katharine Wilkenson, Senior writer for Project Drawdown says "It is very hard to face this kind of dramatic existential threat and feel like you have no agency."  One of the things that could provide that sense of agency would be leaders and a government that we actually believed in.  This as it turns out is also a core element of the demand of Extinction Rebellion -- The government should tell the truth".  When we come to the challenge through the lens of solutions we see the many positive and near term benefits of this work and it is very exciting.  Working together in community with wonderful creative people on a challenging project is innately rewarding. Climate change and ecological collapse is after all the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced.  Approached passionately through the myriad solutions that people care deeply about it is very motivating.

Greta Movie

Adults must embrace and support this and help this grow!

BEIS Strategy Committee question Extinction Rebellion

This is a difficult video (1:40) to watch and study as Gail Bradbrook struggles to be even handed and cordial with regulators and policy wonks who can not seem to be able to hear that we no longer have faith that government's piece meal approach is credible, indeed it is feeble.  However it touched on many difficult specific questions such as nuclear, jobs, time frames, carbon trading, etc, that come from the establishment point of view on possible policies and is good to know how these conversations go down.

The Terrible Ethical Calculus of Catastrophe

Ian Welsh, Blog, May 31, 2019, posted by Wayne Morgenthaler Normally I do not re post blogs, however this one points to a critical question that does not need restating -- under a government plan to fix the climate catastrophe, who will the save?  Our government's track record for 30 years does not inspire confidence in the outcome, but that does not mean we can wait.  It is pretty certain that the task ahead will require constant vigilance and popular resistance to programs to save the rich and abandon the poor. Let us say you know a catastrophe is coming, and you cannot stop it and thus save everyone.  What do you do? You start making choices about who to save. Not just their lives, but their stuff and their power. Catastrophes often lead to changes in societies, but sometimes they don’t.

Bioneers with Paul Hawkin, Dream of a Hundred Year Plan

This is a wonderful and well produces video.  Unabashed in dreaming of a new society. The ideas and content delivered in this 3:26 min piece are revolutionary and yet everyone would want this future.

'Beautiful Trouble' Grows With Friday Climate Strikes on Multiple Continents

Youth is rising up -- We are so luck that they are.

The momentum for the weekly climate strikes shows no sign of abating as young people in hundreds of communities across the globe are hitting the streets on Friday to make a stand against the environmental crisis.

"We can make a difference," said Matilda Lane-Rose, one of the protesters in Perth, Australia.

The Fridays for Future website has 725 strikes mapped out for the day. They cover the Americas from Canada to Chile; Europe from Norway to Italy; Africa from Mauritania to South Africa; Asia from South Korea to India in Asia; and multiple marches in Australia and New Zealand.

As Capitalism Fails, We Need a Roadmap to Survive Climate Change

This article is very clear incisive in it's economic and geopolitical thinking. Paavo Järvensivu, co-author of recent UN report is founder and researcher at an independent, multidisciplinary research unit, launched in Helsinki in 2015. Like the IPCC report the frame is current economic models that assumes capitalism for good or ill so my interest in this work is qualified by my bias against capitalism in general.  However my revolution is less likely to happen than these scenarios so it is wise to understand them.

Green New Deal Town Hall

Wednesday, May 15, 2019  6:00-8:30 PM
This is a must go event.  Go to this -- Find your Passion, Find your Team, Find your Power!

Climate Mobilization Update

How to Build the Zero-Carbon Economy

Winona LaDuke, In These Times, April 22, 2019, posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

This short read contains 6 problems and 6 great thinkers that have answers.  Read this and then track down the think tanks and get an education

http://inthesetimes.com/features/green-new-deal-zero-carbon-economy-plan.html

None of the 2020 Frontrunners Go Far Enough on Climate

Dahr Jamail, Truthout, April 28, 2019, Originally Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler and revised 5/2/19

Here is an article by Dahr Jamail on prospective candidate's climate platforms that concludes that "If you read the 2020 Democratic candidates’ platforms in a vacuum, they may sound compelling. However, if we keep in mind the true magnitude of this crisis, they are nowhere near adequate."

Drawdown Introduction -- can we reverse global warming?

Game On: Yes We Can Reversing Global Warming!

DRAWDOWN: The point in time when CO2 in the atmosphere begins to decline -- 100 projects that sequester carbon from land and sea

Arlene Francis Center, Santa Rosa, hosts Introduction to DRAWDOWN Thursday, May 9th from 6-9 pm, a workshop enabling participants to become part of the solution to climate crisis. “Daily climate news is bleak,” says organizer, Wayne Morgenthaler, “but we must support solutions to this crisis now". 

 

DRAWDOWN workshops are slated for each city in the county through Sonoma County Pachamama Alliance (SCPA). Based on Paul Hawken’s book, DRAWDOWN, “the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.”

The presentation will be preceded by a short street theater piece by Jessica Litwak and H.E.A.T. theatre troupe and a panel of youth activists will offer views on how to engage our communities, government and especially youth in the hard work of shifting toward a healthy planet and equitable life for all its people.

“DRAWDOWN is the work of... a geologists, engineers, agronomists, researchers, fellows, writers, climatologists, biologists, botanists, economists, financial analysts, architects, companies, agencies, NGOs, activists, and other experts who draft, model, fact check, review, and validate all text, inputs, sources, and calculations...to provide helpful information and tools to a wide variety of actors who are dedicated to meaningful change... ” – DRAWDOWN

Climate Mobilization Update

IPCC Policy Summary Report

October 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

Keep in mind that this Summary for Policymakers is in itself a dumbed down version of the full report made more palatable for the ruling elite by leaving out many conclusions.

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

New York Times, Oct 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

This article, on the release of the IPCC report is basically bad beltway journalism full policy insider quotes, misinformation and dangerous framing. It even contains quotes from coal executives.

The report “is quite a shock, and quite concerning,” said Bill Hare, an author of previous I.P.C.C. reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organization. “We were not aware of this just a few years ago.”

Mr. Hare must have had his eye closed as we have known were this goes for 30 years and we did not just find out. Even the Time has shown this in Losing Earth.

Petaluma Activists Gear Up For 'Climate Emergency

Argus Courier, Feb. 2019, Posted by Connie Madden

Matt, wanted to let you know reading your article made our day - and we'll be passing it along to those who came to DRAWDOWN DOWNTOWN, the first of a series to visit each SoCo city.

Big news!  SF is hearing a presentation of Climate Emergency Declaration at 2pm Tues. Jan 26.  its happening all around us and will happen here soon, we believe.

Again, thanks for all you do and more will come from us to you soon...

                     - Yours, Connie Madden

https://www.petaluma360.com/news/9285576-181/petaluma-activists-gear-up-for?sba=AAS  

Full text below:

No Room for Climate Deniers

Petaluma Argus Courier, Feb. 2019, Posted by Connie Madden

Excellent article by Argus Staff.  Whenever this happens it shoud be a call to action for our letters-to-the-editors writers. (we don't have this down yet but will soon.)

https://www.petaluma360.com/opinion/9250339-181/no-room-for-climate-deniers?sba=AAS  

COP24 Climate Protesters Must Get Radical and Challenge Economic Growth

Conversation, December 10, 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

Decoupling economic growth from resource extraction is an obvious necessity for a sustainable world.  It is also true that this is the most under-assessed element in the climate emergency debate. The Green New Deal for instance promises jobs, education, healthcare and a better life especially for marginallized communities.  Although we support the initiative, at its core GND is nationalist and hence insufficient to the international challenge.  Truth about growth will eventually immerge but it is indisputable that given our current system we should fully expect a serious lowering of standards of living especially in the first world countries if we are to reduce emissions radically over 5-10 years especially and if we do so in a fair handed way with regards to actually increasing standards of living in the third world.

Wildfires in California pose crisis for human health and air quality, experts say

In local news, GUY KOVNER, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT February 13, 2019, Posted by Jorje

Notice how public officials talk about Climate Change as a fact of life that we can not do anything about. This is another argument for a Climate Change Emergency Declaration

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9278656-181/wildfires-in-california-pose-crisis

The UN's Devastating Climate Change Report Was Too Optimistic

By Nafeez Ahmed, Medium, Oct 15 2018, Posted by Jorge

Here is again the article "The UN's devastating Climate Change report was too optimistic" that discusses how and why the IPCC Report underestimated the state of Climate Change and proposed changes that, even if implemented, will guarantee an unstoppable Climate Change. Even though it recognizes that the Earth and humanity are in deep trouble regarding Climate Change, it still proposes that there is still more time to pump GHG into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, most governments and non-profits (including the Center For Climate Protection) take the IPPC Report as the ultimate word on the state of Climate Change and solutions. That is why we have seen that almost everybody in Climate Change Action is talking about "making major reductions in GHG emissions within 12 years and stopping all emissions by 2050.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43e8yp/the-uns-devastating-climate-change-report-was-too-optimistic

The Transformative Power Of Climate Truth

Margaret Klein Salamon, Medium, Feb. 2019, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

Salamon is founder of Climate Mobilization. Her powerful article "The Transformative Power Of Climate Truth" quotes Philip Sutton (Climate Emergency Declaration - Australia) to summarize the alarming conflict within the Climate Change Action movement:

Over those last 27 years, while all the research, activism and negotiation has been going on, the climate has actually become dangerous. So, the key goal now must be to provide, at the 11th hour, real protection for the vulnerable people, species and ecosystems of the world. The principal struggle must shift, from the clash between no action and some action, to the crucial struggle between those who want to constrain reform to levels that are not too disruptive and those who want action that will provide highly effective and timely protection.

This article is long, detailed and clear thinking

https://medium.com/@margaretkleinsalamon/the-transformative-power-of-climate-truth-6e5622ce84fe 

​It's Possible to Face Climate Horrors and Still Find Hope

MARGARET KLEIN SALAMON, TRUTHOUT, Feb. 2019, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

This is an important assessment as we enter the new era of "It is just too late unless we mobilize". People will be asked to sacrifice. The time for talking is past.

For decades, the climate movement suffered from a self-imposed "lead by hope, not fear" dictum, which hindered a real understanding of the crisis. Author David Wallace-Wells broke through that barrier with his New York Magazine article, "The Uninhabitable Earth." In his new book of that name, Wallace-Wells expands the conversation by examining likely outcomes of the climate crisis but fails to discuss a major source of hope: the sudden surge in climate activism, which his article helped catalyze

COP24 climate talks end in agreement -- barely

Katowice, Poland (CNN), Dec. 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

COP24 climate change conference in Polish coal country was not a bright spot.  If we are to put our survival as a species in the hand of these rulers perhaps we should think again about who will fix this.  I suggest you read this and the take to the streets.

"We regret what happened last Saturday, but we need to remember it was just a handful of countries that contested this report ... What matters is what you do about it."
The what-to-do-about-it is what concerns Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in New York. The fight over how to treat the IPCC report, which is regarded as the premier science on this issue, is a massive distraction, he said.

How Regenerative Agriculture Could Be Key to the Green New Deal

Organic Consumer Association, Dec. 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

As part of a New Food Deal, we could erase these inequities by shifting land use, investment, and subsidy patterns away from corporate giants and towards regenerative agriculture’s local networks of farmers and food growers. Building food security across the country region-by-region will better address future climate disruption than expecting unresponsive monopolies with cheap food and expensive advertising to do it. Rural economic development has the added benefit of putting a safety net under rural populations maligned and rendered invisible by neoliberal policies and politicians

https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/regenerative-agriculture-green-deal

What a Climate Emergency Act (or Green New Deal) could look like

From Austrailian Climate Mobilization July 2016, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

Currently there is no legislation under which Parliament could declare a Climate Emergency and mobilise resources accordingly. The Model Act drafted by Philip Sutton, the 40-page ‘Climate Emergency (Restructuring & Mobilisation) Act’, is an example of the type of legislation that would be required in order to declare a Climate Emergency and establish the mechanisms necessary for an orderly and effective restructuring of the economy.

There has been much talk about the Green New Deal but what will be in it?  I provide this here as a jumping off point for ideas and dream of what could be in our future and to illustrate that this will be the most fundamental shift in human economic in many centuries

http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/RSTI/Climate-Emergency_(Restructuring-&-Mobilisation)-Act_National.pdf

Shell’s vision of a zero carbon world by 2070, explained

From Vox, March 13, 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

Shell Oil is dead serious but dead wrong and yet they say “trust us, we are the experts”. I include this here simply as a counter example of the work of fossil fuel vested interest's on climate change -- Shell and others are at the table as a valid stake holder positions in most government agencies including the IPCC and hence influences consensus in those processes and their findings.  Thus the consensus is clearly not unbiased.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/30/17171370/shell-oil-climate-change-carbon-2070

TALKING POINTS ON THE AOC-MARKEY GREEN NEW DEAL (GND) RESOLUTION

​​From The Indigenous Environmental Network, Dec. 2018, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

One obvious conclusion in this assessment is that there is just too much opportunity for subsidies for industry including carbon pricing.

The Indigenous Environmental Network applauds the Green New Deal resolution for its vision, intention, and scope. With this resolution, Representative Ocasio-Cortez (Resolution House of Representatives) and Senator Markey (Resolution US Senate) have begun a critical process to change the national conversation in regards to addressing the climate crisis at hand. From sea level rise to loss of land to food insecurities, Indigenous frontline communities and Tribal nations are already experiencing the direct impacts of climate change, and we are encouraged to see these congressional leaders take charge to help Indigenous communities and Tribal nations protect their homelands, rights, sacred sites, waters, air, and bodies from further destruction.

The Climate Emergency and the Election: A Pathway to WWII-Scale Mobilization

From Common Dreams, October 2016, Posted by Wayne Morgenthaler

Our team at Drawdown event

Two years ago before the election of Trump, Ezra Silks from Climate Mobilization wrote this article. It was very critical of the the Americans. He said "We are a broken people, destroyed by our own cynicism, desperate for quick fixes, obsessed with our imagined victim hood and helplessness, and totally at a loss for how to save ourselves."