4 Gorillas to Save the Earth: Election Protection, No Nukes, Military Money for Solartopia, Kill King CONG

4 Gorillas to Save the Earth:

 Election Protection, No Nukes,
Military Money for Solartopia,
Kill King CONG

By Harvey Wasserman

The Greta/AOC generation is marching for our place on this planet.  

We can all turn off lights, get off plastic, go vegan, ride bikes, sail the Atlantic, demand eco-straws, solarize our homes. 

But four gorillas block our way to survival.  They demand a next step of mass action far beyond anything we can do as individuals:

1. ELECTION PROTECTION:  Big corporations have stolen our democracy When Jeb Bush ripped Florida 2000 for brother W, the corporate Democrats did nothing but rant at Ralph Nader.  But Jeb was ALWAYS going to get George exactly the votes as he needed.  Trumputin did it in 2016.  In 2020, stripped voter rolls and flipped vote counts could again steal the Electoral College.  Our Mother Earth DEMANDS universal hand-counted paper ballots, easy and open registration, fair access to the polls and much more.  This year Al Gore should shift his climate organizing to election protection—-and do it with Ralph. 

2)   NO NUKES:  Reactors are killing us all.  They (430 worldwide, 96 in the US) spew heat, radiation, and carbon.  Chernobyl killed more than a million people and cost more than a trillion dollars.  Fukushima is poisoning the Pacific.  More will explode.  Radwaste is out of control.  Fantasy designs (thorium, fusion, etc) are absurd.  All existing reactors can be replaced with cheaper, cleaner, safer, more reliable and more job-producing solar, wind, batteries, and LED/efficiency.  DO IT NOW!!…before the next one blows!

3)  MILITARY MADNESS:  America’s imperial military (Earth’s worst polluter) wastes trillions.  We need our soldiers here installing wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, efficiency/LED lighting, planting trees and hemp.  The trillions wasted on worthless weapons (war is a racket!) must instead ride us to Solartopia. 

4)  KILL KING CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas):  WE need to own & run the fossil-nuke corporations.  The “free market” is a myth.  A handful of billionaires sucks up our cash.  Why do we bail them while they kill us and our planet?

Corporations are not human.  They care about nothing except money.  We need to control, own and reshape these industrial death machines. 

We need to tax heat, carbon, and radiation.  Plant a trillion trees and an ocean of hemp.  Fund Solartopia with the military budget.  Own/control these “too-big-to-fail/kill-us-all ” corporations.  

NOW!  

———

Harvey Wasserman’s People’s Spiral of US History:  From Deganawidah to Solartopia will soon appear at www.solartopia.org.  His Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.FM; California Solartopia airs at 90.7FM-KPFK/Pacifica, Los Angeles.  

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

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

A retired Army general just gave an epic response to Trump's military parade demand

“Donald Trump has continually shown himself to have authoritarian tendencies, and this is just another worrisome example,” his barrage opens.  He was just getting warmed up.

“For someone who just declared it was ‘treasonous’ to not applaud him, and for someone who has, in the past, admired tactics of everyone from Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, it is clear that a military parade isn’t about saluting the military – it’s about making a display of the military saluting him.”

“The military is not Donald Trump’s to use and abuse in this way,” Eaton’s statement continues. “Our military is the very best in the world – they are not to be reduced to stagecraft to prop up Donald Trump’s image.”

“Any commander in chief who respects the traditions of the military would understand that. Unfortunately, we do not have a commander in chief, right now, as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman.”

complete article with link to original text: A retired Army general just gave an epic response to Trump's military parade demand

:O

NRDC Challenges Navy's Plan to Utilize Dangerous Sonar in More Than 70% of World's Oceans

:: October 18, 2012

Today, NRDC sued the U.S. Navy and the government agency charged with protecting marine mammals from the Navy’s harmful use of sonar.  Both the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) have a responsibility to manage, conserve, and protect living marine resources, like whales and dolphins, particularly those protected by the Endangered Species Act.  Unfortunately, the Navy and NMFS failed to meet their obligation to protect whales and other marine life from the harmful impacts of low-frequency active sonar (“LFA”), when they authorized the deployment of LFA in 70-75 % of the World’s Oceans without instituting adequate protective measures...

more: NRDC Challenges Navy's Plan to Utilize Dangerous Sonar in More Than 70% of World's Oceans | Zak Smith's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

see also: what next: Will the Federal Agency Charged with Protecting Whales and Dolphins Stand Up to the Navy? | Zak Smith's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

Will the Federal Agency Charged with Protecting Whales and Dolphins Stand Up to the Navy? | Zak Smith's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

Yesterday, the National Marine Fisheries Service – the federal agency charged with protecting whales and dolphins – announced that it received requests from the Navy for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to training and testing activities offSouthern California, Hawaii, and the East Coast, including the Gulf of Mexico, for the five-year period starting in January 2014.  It all sounds very innocuous until you dig a little deeper and discover that the Navy is asking for authorization to take 33 million (yes, that’s not a typo:  33,000,000) whales and dolphins over the next five years, including more than 5.23 million instances of temporary hearing loss; almost 16,000 instances of permanent hearing loss; almost 9,000 lung injuries; and more than 1,800 deaths.  It’s a staggering and unprecedented amount of harm that should give any federal agency involved, be it the Navy or the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”), pause.

Yet, the Navy is not pausing, apparently has no plans to go back to the drawing board, and instead continues to rely on a mitigation scheme – centered on the ability of lookouts to detect whales and dolphins and then limit the use of sonar when they get too close – that is demonstrably ineffective and inadequate.  It’s ineffective because, as the Navy admits, lookouts on Navy ships only detect about 9 percent of whales and dolphins in the best of conditions.  It’s inadequate because the Navy’s own analysis shows that some of the most severe impacts, such as permanent hearing loss, will occur well beyond the Navy’s “too close” zone.  How else then does the Navy propose that the harm from its activities can be limited?  It doesn’t.  Its analysis and application to NMFS fail to present decision makers with any alternatives or mitigation measures that would appreciably reduce the harm to whales and dolphins.

So what’s an agency like NMFS to do when the Navy – no small fry in the Executive Branch – comes calling?  Follow.  The.  Law.

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, NMFS has a legal obligation to minimize the harm to whales and dolphins from the Navy’s proposed activities.  If the Navy’s application and draft Environmental Impact Statements fail to offer a path forward for minimizing harm – as they do – NMFS is required to develop alternatives and mitigation measures of its own that limit impacts to marine mammals, while still meeting the Navy’s training needs.

Comments to NMFS on the Navy’s application and request are due November 5.  NRDC will be submitting comments urging NMFS to meet its obligations under the MMPA – develop and adopt alternatives and mitigation measures that appreciably reduce the harm to whales and dolphins from the Navy’s activities.

Will the Federal Agency Charged with Protecting Whales and Dolphins Stand Up to the Navy? | Zak Smith's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

Zak Smith's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC | NRDC

see also: what next: Nuclear seismic testing threatens wildlife in California | Greenpeace Blogs