Global climate strike

By
Dr. Luis Contreras
-
515

“Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.” – Greta Thunberg

Greta found a way to get people all over the world to act on climate, how cool is this? Thank you, Greta, the Sunrise Movement, and everyone rising up.

Eureka Springs will join Little Rock, and thousands of other cities on a Global Climate Strike week, September 20 – 27. Please meet at the Eureka Springs Courthouse on Friday, September 20, 11 a.m. to 12:30 and bring a hand-drawn sign with what you want to act on. This may be our last chance to speak up, we will have a peaceful protest, be colorful, be creative, be there. Please join, and if you can’t leave work, close your office and make a list of what actions you will take. For more information please see the Facebook event “Eureka Springs Climate Strike” and globalclimatestrike.net.

Sunrise Little Rock

Laura Neale of Sunrise Little Rock says, “We are a hub of the national Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activism organization. We started in August 2019, so we’re still fairly new & hoping to grow. We are students and professionals, children and parents, friends from many backgrounds and walks of life who all share a burning question: will we have a just and livable future? There is much to do, and not much time to do it. We only have 11 years, if that, to build a more sustainable society on renewable energy and prevent a catastrophic cascading collapse. We are the first generation to experience the effects of climate change and the last generation who can prevent humanity from crossing a carbon threshold from which there is no return. The science unites us, the survival of our species hangs in the balance.”

Laura adds, “It’s been said that a problem cannot be solved within the same parameters it was created. A better world is possible, and we are capable of making it. So we organize and take direct collective action. We hope you join us.”

Dead trees

Mailboxes are full of trees. Go paperless and be green. The Environmental Paper Network, environmentalpaper.org, has many suggestions to save trees.

Climate and forests

Last month, the Dogwood Alliance and the Center for Sustainable Economy released a breakthrough report for North Carolina, on climate and forests. Planting trees to create forests, replacing trees in existing forests, and letting trees grow to maturity, can remove 3-gigatons of carbon dioxide. Tree plantations with short rotation store 50 percent less carbon than native forests. Logging in North Carolina, releases 44 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, the state’s third most carbon-intensive sector.

The results show that traditional forestry practices are flawed. Foresters claim young trees capture more carbon dioxide than 40-year old trees, implying logging and seeding are “scientific management.” Foresters ignore the value of the soil and the synergy between soil and plants. Foresters build logging roads and let commercial loggers choose trees using massive logging trucks and equipment. They care about forest yield, not carbon sequestration.

Weyerhaeuser, the world’s largest timber company implemented their High Yield Forestry Plan for the planting of seedlings within one year of harvest, soil fertilization, thinning, rehabilitation of brushlands, and, genetic engineering to modify tree’s DNA. Weyerhaeuser dreams of frankenforests, an ecological nightmare.

Forests are being destroyed and degraded at an alarming rate, not only in other countries but all over the Southeastern U.S. states for energy, the new coal.

The U.S. and Brazil are burning the Amazon Rainforest. Secretary Pompeo plans a $100 million biodiversity investment fund for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro!

Donald Trump, our Forester in Chief, plans to log the Alaska Tongass National Temperate Rainforest. Trump has a passion for forest management, a synonym for logging.

The U.S. Forest Service will now work for Big Timber with the passing of Rep. Bruce Westerman’s Deforestation Act of 2019.

Profits before people have led to ecocide. The Global Climate Strike demands a safe future. No more wars for oil.

Dr. Luis Contreras

9 COMMENTS

  1. Children at the Little Rock Climate Strike:

    One sign held by a teenage protester Friday at Little Rock’s City Hall summed up their message to officials that immediate action is necessary: “You’ll die of old age. I’ll die of climate change.”

    About 200 people gathered at City Hall to demand action to counteract the effects of pollution and carbon emissions on a warming planet. They were college student-activists, high schoolers who had ditched their pencils in favor of cardboard posters, and even toddlers toting signs with pictures of the Earth they had colored in with markers. “If you were smart, we’d be in class” — “Climate change is worse than homework”

    The world has warmed about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1.0 Celsius) since before the Industrial Revolution, and scientists have attributed more than 90% of the increase to emissions of heat-trapping gases from fuel-burning and other human activity, according to The Associated Press.

    Doug Barton, an organizer with Climate Emergency Arkansas, said the aim of Friday’s protest was to urge leaders to pass a Green New Deal, put a price on carbon, divest from fossil fuels, stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and to increase incentives for renewable energy.

    Climate Emergency Arkansas worked with Sunrise Little Rock, another grass-roots advocacy group, to organize the Little Rock protest.

    Tyler Childers, 16, drove to Little Rock with his dad for the event and read a message to leaders that he had written on notebook paper. “You failed us,” Childers read to the crowd. “It’s your responsibility to protect the youth, but when faced with the choice of fossil fuel money for your campaigns, or the well-being of your children, you picked fossil fuels.”

    Megan Duggan had her three children with her — Owen, 8; Gwyn, 4; and Violet, 3. The three had colored pictures of the Earth on the backs of packing material their mom had recycled from her office. Owen said he went to the protest “to save the planet,” and because he likes animals. His favorites are puppies and kittens.
    When asked why she was there, Gwyn said she wanted to make sure the elephants were safe, but first of all “To save the Earth.”

    https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/sep/21/young-activists-in-lr-join-global-clima/

  3. Whatever Bolsonaro, Trump, and others say about climate change is irrelevant. Only what they do matters.

    How do you explain the destruction of the rainforests, higher carbon emissions for transportation, fracking and mining in public lands and the elimination of environmental regulations? Why are the economic and environmental justice gaps between white men and minorities increasing? Why are indigenous people and climate refugees abandoned?

    Please look for an op-ed next week on these questions.

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/09/eco-apartheid-post-dorian-refugees-fleeing-bahamas-ordered-ferry-bound-us

  7. Foresters see profit in the forests, replacing rainforests and intact forests with pine pulp plantations and frankenforests.

    Ecologists see life and future in the forests, protecting rainforests and intact forests, gently caring for the soil and the trees, letting trees grow old and die.

    http://www.maforests.org/Wuerthner.pdf

Comments are closed.