A well-written article on the disastrous new interest in nuclear power by Serhii Plokhy, from the UK Guardian – click here.
Plokhy speaks of “the hazard inherent in all nuclear power. In order for this method of producing electricity to be safe, everything else in society has to be functioning perfectly. Warfare, economic collapse, climate change itself – all of these increasingly real risks make nuclear sites potentially perilous places.”
Great! As long as we can guarantee world peace and security for the next 10,000 years – not to mention solve all of the environmental crises – then nuclear power and waste make total sense.
Our old activist comrade and my close friend Steve Nadel passed away in early December 2021. Steve was 68, and had been in good health until a stroke in October.
In my circles, Steve marched with Teen Earth Magic in the 2011 Solstice in the Streets event. We traveled together to Nevada Test Site several times for actions in the 1980s. He helped defend Peoples Park in the 1990s, and organized around Richmond Oil Refinery in recent years. He was also the Funky Nixons’ number one roadie!
Some folks from the old days knew Steve from Livermore Action Group, a 1980s Bay Area anti-nuke and anti-intervention coalition. The character Mort in my book Direct Action is based on Steve – http://DirectAction.org/book
The decades-long effort to limit logging in Northern California’s Jackson State Demonstration Forest, which contains Mendocino Woodlands, is currently facing vast areas of active and proposed new cuts.
Mendocino Woodlands is home to four Reclaiming witchcamps as well as dozens of other grassroots camps and retreats.
Indigenous People and allies are working to protect the Fairy Creek watershed. Front-line report from Kyla-Rose, with many links to resources and documents.
Direct action has a long and honored place in American history – from the revolution itself through abolitionists, suffragists, union organizers, civil rights advocates, feminist and gay rights activists, and on to today’s vibrant climate and social justice organizing.
Join author Luke Hauser for a profusely illustrated 25-minute journey through our past. We’ll focus especially on nonviolent organizing from 1980 to the present, with sections on the 1980s anti-nuke movement and 2011’s Occupy actions.
Originally created around 2000, the show has been updated with a revised text and many new images.
So make a big bowl of popcorn, pull up your beanbag chair, and get ready for a journey through our history!
Since 1950, the world has created 6.3 trillion kilograms of plastic waste — and 91 percent has never been recycled even once. More than half the plastic now on Earth has been created since 2002, and plastic pollution is on pace to double by 2030.
The Petroleum Connection
At its root, the global plastics crisis is a product of our addiction to fossil fuels. The private profit and public harm of the oil industry is well understood: Oil is refined and distributed to consumers, who benefit from gasoline’s short, useful lifespan in a combustion engine, leaving behind atmospheric pollution for generations. But this same pattern — and this same tragedy of the commons — is playing out with another gift of the oil-and-gas giants, whose drilling draws up the petroleum precursors for plastics. These are refined in industrial complexes and manufactured into bottles, bags, containers, textiles, and toys for consumers who benefit from their transient use — before throwing them away.
Oh, I never met her. i’ve never actually watched a video of her speaking.
But every time I read about her, she’s setting some old farts straight. I find myself spontaneously saying, “Give ’em hell, Greta!”
“You’re Failing!” – Who, Us?
I loved when she told the US Congress: “You may be trying, but you’re failing.”
Only here’s the hitch – I think Greta, for all of her obvious brilliance, still has the naive notion that those Congressional representatives actually represent the American people – as opposed to various corporate and financial interests.
So when she told them they were failing – she really meant it for all of us here in the U.S.
Not just the rich and powerful – every one of us.
Taking It to Heart
Honestly, I took it to heart. I’ve been trying for a long time to make a difference in the world – and in terms of climate justice, I don’t really have a whole lot to show for it..
Why do I keep trying? Good question that I ask myself some mornings.
Partly because I have to keep living in this world. And partly because I want young folks in my life – and those like Greta that I will never meet – to know that we tried.
Here’s a group working to make a difference around the world – this is their Bay Area website. Google for other locales.
Several hundreds people gathered at San Francisco’s Civic Center on October 16, 2019 for a solemn procession punctuated by die-ins, as part of a day of Climate Justice protests.
The action, organized by Bay Area Extinction Rebellion as part of international protests during October 2019, included people from Red Rebels, Decolonization, Playful Animal Parade, Mindful Direct Action, the Climate Anxiety Tent, DAWG, and WICCA (Witches Invoking Creative Climate Action – our Bay Area Pagan Cluster!).
The actions focused attention on California government and Governor Newsom, and demanded that the state:
– Declare a climate emergency
– Commit to fossil-free California by 2025
– Empower communities through citizen’s assemblies
