Monday, December 24, 2018

Unprecedented New Map Unveils Illegal Mining Destroying Amazon


The illegal La Pampa gold mine, seen here in 2017, has devastated the Peruvian Amazon and spread poisonous mercury.


A first-of-its-kind map has unveiled widespread environmental damage and contamination of the Amazon rainforest caused by the rise illegal mining. 

The survey, released Monday by the Amazon Socio-Environmental Geo-Referenced Information Project (RAISG), identifies at least 2,312 sites and 245 areas of prospecting or extraction of minerals such as gold, diamonds and coltan in six Amazonian countries—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. It also identified 30 rivers affected by mining and related activities.

more: Unprecedented New Map Unveils Illegal Mining Destroying Amazon



Tuesday, December 18, 2018

The Coming of Hyperwar: "Alexa, Launch Our Nukes!"



Artificial intelligence and the future of war

…With artificial intelligence, or AI, soon to play an ever-increasing role in military affairs, as in virtually everything else in our lives, the role of humans, even in nuclear decision-making, is likely to be progressively diminished. In fact, in some future AI-saturated world, it could disappear entirely, leaving machines to determine humanity’s fate…

read: The Coming of Hyperwar: "Alexa, Launch Our Nukes!"

www.stopkillerrobots.org

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots - Facebook

Friday, December 14, 2018

#COP24 :: Civil society rises up as fossil fuel companies and climate deniers block progress at COP24 Katowice climate talks - Friends of the Earth International



Katowice, Poland, 14 December 2018: As the UN climate talks go into their final hours in Katowice, progress on the ‘Paris Rulebook’ and other key decisions, like acknowledging the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5 degrees report, has been terrifyingly slow. Negotiations are not on track to pass the tests of science or justice, with obstruction from key fossil fuel-pushing governments.

Sara Shaw, Climate Justice and Energy International Program Coordinator for Friends of the Earth International said:

‘We always knew this was going to be a tough conference, taking place deep in the heartlands of the Polish coal industry, with companies like Shell, Exxon and BP inside the negotiations promoting the myth that we can stop climate change without dismantling the fossil fuel industry. But it is still devastating to see countries like the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait destroy our chances of a safe and liveable planet by blocking progress at every juncture. It has been known for over 50 years that greenhouse gases cause climate change. Yet here we stand on the brink of catastrophe because corporate interests and fossil fuel money have infiltrated the climate talks to perpetuate the dirty energy system regardless of the cost for people and planet. The fact that Shell boasted this week of how it helped to write the Paris Agreement is only more evidence of this reality.’

more: Civil society rises up as fossil fuel companies and climate deniers block progress at COP24 Katowice climate talks - Friends of the Earth International


Thursday, December 13, 2018

You Are Stealing Our Future: Greta Thunberg, 15, Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change | Democracy Now!




Fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N. plenary last night in Katowice, Poland, condemning global inaction in the face of catastrophic climate change.


"…Until you start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself…"

transcript: You Are Stealing Our Future: Greta Thunberg, 15, Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change | Democracy Now!

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Why Green New Deal Advocates Must Address Militarism


(Photo: Sunrise Movement / @SunriseMvmt)

Where is the call for the New Peace Deal that would free up hundreds of billions from the overblown military budget to invest in green infrastructure?

In the spirit of a new year and a new Congress, 2019 may well be our best and last opportunity to steer our ship of state away from the twin planetary perils of environmental chaos and militarism, charting a course towards an earth-affirming 21st century.

The environmental crisis was laid bare by the sobering December report of the UN Climate panel: If the world fails to mobilize within the next 12 years on the level of a moon shot, and gear up to change our energy usage from toxic fossil, nuclear and industrial biomass fuels to the already known solutions for employing solar, wind, hydro, geothermal energy and efficiency, we will destroy all life on earth as we know it. The existential question is whether our elected officials, with the reins of power, are going to sit by helplessly as our planet experiences more devastating fires, floods, droughts, and rising seas or will they seize this moment and take monumental action as we did when the United States abolished slavery, gave women the vote, ended the great depression, and eliminated legal segregation.

Some members of Congress are already showing their historic mettle by supporting a Green New Deal. This would not only start to reverse the damage we have inflicted on our collective home, but it would create hundreds of thousands of good jobs that cannot be shipped overseas to low wage countries…

more: Why Green New Deal Advocates Must Address Militarism


Monday, December 10, 2018

#COP24 :: Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors


UN summit urged to end all coal burning and introduce substantial taxes on emissions

Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said.
The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.


Ministers arrive at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, on Monday for its crucial second week, when the negotiations on turning the vision of the Paris agreement into reality reach a critical point, with finance for fighting global warming a key area of dispute.
“The long-term nature of the challenge has, in our view, met a zombie-like response by many,” said Chris Newton, of IFM Investors which manages $80bn and is one of the 415 groups that has signed the Global Investor Statement. “This is a recipe for disaster as the impacts of climate change can be sudden, severe and catastrophic…”

more: Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors | Environment | The Guardian

#COP24 :: Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets


The group of 414 institutional investors with $31 trillion under management say governments must take serious steps to cut emissions

The 414 global investors - which represent US$31 trillion of assets-under-management - say they are deeply concerned about the “ambition gap” that exists between governments’ commitments and what is needed to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
They say that gap is increasing the physical risks from climate change and hampering investors’ ability to properly allocate trillions of dollars needed to support the much-needed transition to a low carbon economy.
They have signed a “Global Investor Statement” to be handed to world leaders this week at the COP24 - the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poland…



more: Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets | Environment | The Guardian


Monday, December 3, 2018

Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People - Yale E360




From Alaska to Australia, scientists are turning to the knowledge of traditional people for a deeper understanding of the natural world. What they are learning is helping them discover more about everything from melting Arctic ice, to protecting fish stocks, to controlling wildfires.

While he was interviewing Inuit elders in Alaska to find out more about their knowledge of beluga whales and how the mammals might respond to the changing Arctic, researcher Henry Huntington lost track of the conversation as the hunters suddenly switched from the subject of belugas to beavers. 
It turned out though, that the hunters were still really talking about whales. There had been an increase in beaver populations, they explained, which had reduced spawning habitat for salmon and other fish, which meant less prey for the belugas and so fewer whales.
“It was a more holistic view of the ecosystem,” said Huntington. And an important tip for whale researchers. “It would be pretty rare for someone studying belugas to be thinking about freshwater ecology.”
Around the globe, researchers are turning to what is known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to fill out an understanding of the natural world. TEK is deep knowledge of a place that has been painstakingly discovered by those who have adapted to it over thousands of years. “People have relied on this detailed knowledge for their survival,” Huntington and a colleague wrote in an article on the subject. “They have literally staked their lives on its accuracy and repeatability…”

more: Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People - Yale E360


Thursday, November 29, 2018

Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360


Landscape change between 1992 and 2015. White reflects little change. Darker shades reflect the greatest rate of change in each category. CREDIT: TOMASZ STEPINSKI/UC

A new map that stitches together 24 years of satellite observations provides a detailed look at striking changes in land use and widespread environmental degradation. According to the map, 22 percent of Earth’s habitable surface has been significantly altered since 1992, primarily from agricultural-driven deforestation.

“We already knew about deforestation or wetland loss or increasing urbanization,” said Tomasz Stepinski, a geographer at the University of Cincinnati and a co-author of the new map. “But now we can see exactly where all of that is happening… What makes this so depressing is that it’s examining a timescale that is shorter than our lifetime.”

The map illustrates widespread losses of wetlands in the Southeastern United States; the rapid disappearance of the Aral Sea, which “dried up in the 1990s after farmers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan diverted its tributaries for cotton fields,” a press release explained; deforestation in the tropics; and the expansion of the Sahara Desert…

more: Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360


Wednesday, November 28, 2018

climate ::: #COP24 articles at EcoWatch



UN: Nations Must Triple Action to Avoid Disastrous Climate Change

The United Nations issued a wake-up call to world leaders on Tuesday for urgent climate action.
Despite national pledges to curb planet-warming emissions, the current pace of government action is "insufficient" to limit global warming to well below 2 C this century, much less the more ambitious 1.5 C target, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) determined in its 2018 Emissions Gap Report.

5 Things to Know Before Next Week's Critical UN Climate Talks

Next week, heads of state and representatives from roughly 200 countries will descend in Katowice, Poland for the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, informally known as COP24.

Trump Team Plans 'Sideshow on Coal' at UN Climate Talks

No one really expects the coal-friendly Trump administration to take significant action on climate change, but this is just trolling.
A new exclusive from Reuters claims that the president's team will "set up a side-event promoting fossil fuels" at the global climate summit this December, aka COP 24, in Katowice, Poland.

MORE: COP 24 tag at EcoWatch


How You Can Help Those Affected by #CaliforniaWildfires – LINKS




How You Can Help Those Affected by #CaliforniaWildfires –


You can donate to these orgs, 
hand-picked by Union of Concerned Scientists

#NorCal #CampFire

North Valley Community Foundation


Wildcats Rise Recovery Fund (at Chico State)


#SoCal #WoolseyFire

Ventura County Community Fund

California Community Foundations Wildfire Relief Fund


- details from their email - -
For the Camp Fire in Butte County
  • The North Valley Community Foundation is a trusted local philanthropy that funds local nonprofit organizations and has expertise in knowing where the greatest need is and who can address it in the community.
  • The Wildcats Rise Recovery Fund was created for the California State University at Chico community, where many students and others in the community are now homeless. We were alerted to the fund by CSU scientists who recommended it as an effective and reputable local organization helping the campus community and beyond.
For the Southern California Fires
  • The Ventura County Community Fund is a well-regarded fund for services in much of the area that was hardest hit by the Woolsey and Hill fires, as well as the Thousand Oaks shooting.
  • The California Community Foundations Wildfire Relief Fund opened in 2003 and has raised more than $5 million for relief and recovery efforts in the aftermath of the wildfires. The organization helps those who have lost their homes to wildfires to rebuild, while providing financial, medical, and mental health assistance.

How You Can Help Those Affected by #CaliforniaWildfires! LINKS [post on Facebook]


Bruce Springsteen on Donald Trump: He 'Has No Interest in Uniting the Country, Really' | Billboard



Bruce Springsteen has never shied away from expressing his political views onstage and in his music, and the rocker's most recent interview is no exception -- especially when the conversation turned to Donald Trump.

For Esquire's December cover story, Springsteen invited the magazine backstage at the Walter Kerr Theater, where he's in the midst of his Springsteen on Broadway run. The show is a combination of memoir and song, in that the star reads from his own writings about his childhood, his family, his career and his love, and stripped-down musical interludes separate these throws to Springsteen's memories. Several times, he turns to the Vietnam War, 9/11 and other events that have shaped modern American history and identity, and he took the opportunity to explain his perspective on what's currently going on in the United States and what Trump and the "dark angels" who support him represent…

…“[He] has no interest in uniting the country, really, and actually has an interest in doing the opposite and dividing us, which he does on an almost daily basis." he continued. "So that’s simply a crime against humanity, as far as I’m concerned. It’s an awful, awful message to send out into the world if you’re in that job and in that position. It’s just an ugly, awful message. You are intentionally trying to disenfranchise a large portion of Americans... And then there’s just the rise of -- whether it’s the alt-right or the folks who were marching in Charlottesville with their tiki torches and all of that coming to the fore again, you know? Which our president was more than happy to play into and to play to. So these are folks who are invested in denying the idea of a united America and an America for all. It’s a critical moment. This has come so far to the surface, and it’s so toxic... It’s a scary moment for any conscientious American, I think.”


more: Bruce Springsteen on Donald Trump: He 'Has No Interest in Uniting the Country, Really' | Billboard


Saturday, November 24, 2018

Climate: A New Story | Charles Eisenstein




Flipping the script on climate change, Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction

With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply for carbon credits or preventing the extinction of one species versus another. After all, when you ask someone why they first became an environmentalist, they’re likely to point to the river they played in, the ocean they visited, the wild animals they observed, or the trees they climbed when they were a kid. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.

The print version is available on Amazon or from the publisher directly. Other online booksellers, such as IndieBound carry the book as well. Or better yet, ask for it at your local bookstore.

Climate: A New Story | Charles Eisenstein


Science Says Saving the Planet Could Really Be as Simple as Saving Trees – Mother Jones



The role of forests in combating climate change risks being overlooked by the world’s governments, according to a group of scientists that has warned halting deforestation is “just as urgent” as eliminating the use of fossil fuels.

Science Says Saving the Planet Could Really Be as Simple as Saving Trees – Mother Jones


Monday, November 19, 2018

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers | President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN


just a few items cobbled together...

this first one thanks to California Chaparral Institute on Facebook –





Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers preventing logging and a supposed fuel build up via past fire suppression.
1. Most of California's most devastating fires were far from any forest (see map below).
2. For those few devastating fires that were near forests, all of those forests around the communities destroyed had the kind of suggested thinning and fuel treatments misinformed commentators claim didn't exist.
3. Much of the area around Paradise that burned in the Camp Fire had burned 10 years ago, had been salvage logged, and was composed of habitats other than forest (e.g. post fire shrublands). The wind-driven ember rain that destroyed the town came primarily from open grassland/post fire/mixed woodland environments northeast of the town. A large percentage of the trees within the devastated town did not burn. See the fire progression map here and match it with the current view on Google Earth:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6250/4/90791
4. Climate change is drying the state. Dryer conditions lead to a more flammable landscape. We may see more of the kind of winds that powered the Camp Fire into Paradise. More fires will dramatically alter the kinds of habitats we are used to seeing. Non-native weed filled landscapes that dominate places like Riverside County will likely become more common. More on this issue here:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/threatstochaparral.html
It is more than discouraging when someone claims our wildfires are all about forests, dead trees, lack of logging, or unnatural fuel build up via past fire suppression. Such claims are a disservice to the families who have lost so much and hamper our efforts to solve the problem.
What is it about? Flammable homes and communities located on flammable terrain.
Please see our solutions in our letter to Governor Brown below.
Here is a well-researched article on the Woolsey Fire from the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/proj…/la-me-woolsey-fire-progression/
Here's how to protect your home from wildfire:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/bprotectingyourhome.html
Here's our information flyer on external sprinklers:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/INDEPENDENT_EXTERNAL_S…
Here's why Governor Brown and the California State Legislature failed us - they ignored the real problem:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/Gov_Brown_2017_Wildfir…

Here are the most devastating wildfires in California to November 17, 2018 (fire, structures burned, fatalities):
Fires 2017-2018
Camp/12,263/71 (as of 11/17/2018)*
Tubbs/ 5636/ 22
Redwood/ 546 / 9
Carr/ 1599/ 8
Atlas/ 783/ 6
Nuns/ 1355/ 3
Woolsey/500+/3 (as of 11/17/2018)
Thomas/ 1063/ 2
Ferguson/ 131/ 2
Mendocino/ 277/ 1
Previous devastating fires prior to 2017 where losses were also unrelated to forests and dead trees:
Tunnel (1991)/ 2900 /25
Cedar (2003)/ 2820/ 15
Harris (2007)/ 548/ 8
Old (2003)/ 1003/ 6
Witch Creek (2007)/ 1650/ 2
Butte (2015)/ 921/ 2
Jones (1999)/ 954/ 1
Paint (1990)/ 641/ 1
Significant forested area involved, but not seriously impacted by dead trees:
Valley (2015)/ 1955/ 4
*Camp Fire involved forest within the fire perimeter, but most of the area within/near the devastated town of Paradise was a mix of habitats.


President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

(CNN)With the shocking loss of thousands of homes and dozens of lives in the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California, people are looking for answers as they try to understand how a tragedy such as this can be prevented in the future.

As people struggled to evacuate, President Donald Trump in a tweet blamed the fires on poor forest management and repeated the claims before his visit to California. While Trump did not explicitly call for an expansion of logging in his latest response, he has previously touted this strategy as a way to curb fires. Meanwhile, the federal government is moving to allow commercial logging in areas such as the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara, claiming it will prevent fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also blamed "environmental terrorist groups" for preventing the government from properly managing forests.

It is deeply troubling that Trump and his administration would support logging as a way to curb fires when studies have shown it's ineffective. In the most comprehensive scientific analysis conducted on the issue of forest management and fire intensity -- which looked at more than 1,500 fires on tens of millions of acres across the Western United States over three decades -- we found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging actually tend to burn much more intensely, not less.

This may seem counterintuitive, but logging leaves behind combustible twigs and branches on the forest floor, which can make fires spread faster. It also reduces the cooling shade of the forest canopy, which creates hotter and drier conditions, and the invasive weeds that take over readily burn. Denser forests buffer and reduce the winds that drive wildland fires, but this effect is largely eliminated by logging.

The fact is that Northern California's Butte County, which has been ravaged by the Camp Fire, had been heavily logged in previous years. In the area immediately to the east of Paradise, dead trees had been extensively logged and removed on both private and public lands, and commercial "thinning" operations had been conducted across large expanses of the nearby Plumas National Forest, supposedly to protect nearby towns from wild land fire…

more: President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

Monday, November 12, 2018

As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice



U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote recently that “radical environmentalists would rather see forest and communities burn than see a logger in the woods. ” In Zinke’s zero-sum equation, the devastating wildfires in California would stop if those radical environmentalists would let the timber industry cut down more trees.
The truth is that Zinke and House Republicans are using the destruction across the West as an excuse to chip away at bedrock environmental laws created to ensure that science drives decisions about the future of our nation’s forests.
Everyone agrees that we must protect homes and lives from the catastrophic effects of fires, but Zinke’s argument is dangerously oversimplified, cynically disingenuous and downright false. And that’s not the worst part. He also proclaims that climate change has “nothing to do” with these wildfires, even as scientists and firefighting officials unanimously assert that climate change is creating the conditions that allow destructive wildfires to thrive. These types of fires will only grow in intensity and frequency if we do nothing to address climate change…
more: As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

see also: 

Trump, offering no evidence, blames deadly California fires on “gross mismanagement of the forests”

Camp Fire: The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Blaze | WIRED


Monday, October 15, 2018

U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter | EcoWatch


Abandoned Air Force Base in Greenland. Ken Bower

(May, 2017) Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean. 

While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet little-known fact—that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation's and the world's, largest polluter.

more: U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter


Thursday, October 11, 2018

Arctic Sea Ice Is the Thinnest and Youngest It's Been in 60 Years - YouTube





Working from a combination of satellite records and declassified submarine sonar data, NASA scientists have constructed a 60-year record of Arctic sea ice thickness. Right now, Arctic sea ice is the youngest and thinnest its been since we started keeping records. More than 70 percent of Arctic sea ice is now seasonal, which means it grows in the winter and melts in the summer, but doesn't last from year to year. This seasonal ice melts faster and breaks up easier, making it much more susceptible to wind and atmospheric conditions.

Arctic Sea Ice Is the Thinnest and Youngest It's Been in 60 Years - YouTube


Monday, October 8, 2018

IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels – as it happened | UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning




UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says coal-fired electricity must end by 2050 if we are to limit global warming rises to 1.5C


more:  IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels – as it happened | Environment | The Guardian




Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning | phys.org




Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Trump administration lifts ban on bee-killing chemicals and GMO crops in wildlife refuges | The Independent

Trump administration lifts ban on bee-killing chemicals and GMO crops in wildlife refuges | The Independent: (Tuesday 7 August 2018) Donald Trump's administration reversed an Obama-era policy banning genetically modified (GMO) crops and use of bee-killing insecticides in protected wildlife refuges. The policy reversal will affect more than 50 wildlife refuges across the country out of a total 560 which covers approximately 150m acres (607,000 sq km). Jamie Rappaport Clark, CEO of charity Defenders of Wildlife, told Reuters: “Industrial agriculture has no place on refuges dedicated to wildlife conservation and protection of some of the most vital and vulnerable species”.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

thoughts for a friend –




thoughts for a friend  –

maintaining a healthy relationship with the environment, respecting animals and nature, not over-using your "resources" could be a good theme!

developing respect for and reverence of "Mother Nature" and finding our place in the larger scheme of things... Finding balance! We have much to learn from "the old ways" as it seems that we have lost our way in the world of capitalism and exploitation. In these current times it would be good to remember that there are no jobs on a dead planet! So, I would say taking our place as part of a family rather than as overlords, and to be Stewards of the planet, would be good :)

One ecosystem of which we are a part - we depend on it for our very lives - we are not separate from Nature. We have a responsibility to help restore and maintain a balance, not only to survive as a species but for the good of all life, our brother and sister plants animals sky water earth... To walk the right path in order to be true human beings and not just a plague upon the planet.


Wednesday, September 12, 2018

book :: Advice From a Geographer: Put Away the Map


Consider how strongly geography influences our deeper beliefs about the world, our notions of what is true and real.



In ‘Beyond the Map,’ Alastair Bonnett argues that when it comes to describing the world, lines and borders are hopelessly inadequate, even misleading.


OUR LIVES ARE saturated with maps. We see them in cars, subways, and airplanes. We access them with our phones, computers, and GPS devices. There are maps of deep space and of the topography of the deepest ocean floors. Then there are the maps of us — of our genomes, of the cognitive landscape of our brains, of the web of neural connections that allow us to see and think and act. Our faith in the map as a true representation of reality, and a reliable metaphor for experience and the concepts of modern life, is exercised every day, largely without question…

Advice From a Geographer: Put Away the Map


Tuesday, August 21, 2018

The Pentagon Can't Account for $21 Trillion (That's Not a Typo)


…Given that the entire Army budget in fiscal year 2015 was $120 billion, unsupported adjustments were 54 times the level of spending authorized by Congress…

…At the end of the day, there are no justifiable explanations for this amount of unaccounted-for, unconstitutional spending. Right now, the Pentagon is being audited for the first time ever, and it’s taking 2,400 auditors to do it. I’m not holding my breath that they’ll actually be allowed to get to the bottom of this…

The Pentagon Can't Account for $21 Trillion (That's Not a Typo)


Wednesday, August 1, 2018

September 8 – Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice! and Vote on November 6! :: People's Climate March 2018




On September 8th, after months of organizing and movement-building, the Peoples Climate Movement will move tens of thousands of people across the country into action, joining partners from around the world, to show our elected leaders that we demand action on climate change.  

Eight weeks later, millions more will take those demands to the polls, making Climate, Jobs, and Justice central issues in the mid-term elections and beyond.

Will you join us? Sign up at peoplesclimate.org

In the past year Trump has launched unprecedented attacks on our environment, the clean power plan, and the Environmental Protection Agency. His administration has trampled on the rights of frontline communities hardest hit by climate change and deregulated protections for our precious natural resources. The good news? More than ever, people are ready to take action, to hit the streets, and fight back.

Throughout 2018, using the Global Climate Action Summit and the 2018 mid-term elections as motivating moments, the Peoples Climate Movement will execute a comprehensive organizing, mobilizing, and movement-building program.

Launching this spring and escalating throughout the summer, our 2018 plans will manifest on September 8th in hundreds of events across the country with tens of thousands of people taking part in events and actions for climate, jobs, and justice. Then, even more civically-engaged Americans will demand climate action at the ballot box in the mid-term elections.

We will be calling for a transition to a new 100% clean and renewable energy future that creates millions of family sustaining jobs, and ensures that racial and economic justice are core to action on climate in every community.

Our communities, our planet, and our future depend on a climate movement that reaches all corners of this country. To change everything, it takes everyone — and with your help we can build a sustainable world for generations to come.

More info: peoplesclimate.org


Peoples Climate Movement (Facebook) | Organizing for Action (Facebook)

Facebook Event Page: Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice