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#Post#: 13679--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: September 20, 2019, 1:30 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4.msg13672#msg13672
date=1568993236]
[center]Martial law masquerading as law and order: The police
state’s language of force
HTML http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/28155[/center][/quote]
[quote]Indeed, this is martial law masquerading as law and
order.
Any police officer who tells you that he needs tanks, SWAT
teams, and pepper spray to do his job shouldn’t be a police
officer in a constitutional republic.
All that stuff in the First Amendment (about freedom of speech,
religion, press, peaceful assembly and the right to petition the
government for a redress of grievances) sounds great in theory.
However, it amounts to little more than a hill of beans if you
have to exercise those freedoms while facing down an army of
police equipped with deadly weapons, surveillance devices, and a
slew of laws that empower them to arrest and charge citizens
with bogus “contempt of cop” charges (otherwise known as
asserting your constitutional rights).[/quote]
BINGO! [img
width=40]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418202709.png[/img]<br
/>
[quote]It may be that things are too far gone to save, but still
we must try.[/quote]
Yes, all human action for the purpose of righting wrongs must be
based on ethics, not the probablity of success in righting said
wrongs, be they perpetrated by a police state or anyone else.
Where there is life, there is hope. We ain't dead yet.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-111018132422-1693180.gif<br
/>But, I admit things looks pretty grim (see below).
[center]Police Say They Killed a Man Holding a Gun, But a Video
Raises Doubts[/center]
3,740 views•Premiered 17 hours ago
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/gptwesEGEk8[/center]
The Real News Network
351K subscribers
Police in Aberdeen, Washington shot and killed a man while
trying to serve a warrant two weeks ago. On this Police
Accountability Report, we look at the video that raises doubts
about their story and reveals underlying tensions caused by
aggressive policing in the small Pacific Northwest town.
Subscribe to our page and support our work at
HTML https://therealnews.com/donate.
Category News & Politics
#Post#: 13692--------------------------------------------------
Red Fawn Fallis Sentenced to 57 Months in Federal Prison
By: AGelbert Date: September 22, 2019, 2:26 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]BLACK BEAR NEWS 9.21.19 Texas Flooding - Storms
Forming[/center]
1,054 views•Published on Sep 21, 2019
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/wNDqdDFRKgY[/center]
Black Bear News
2.41K subscribers
'They're forming like roaches.' The 6 tropical storms whirling
at once have tied a record
HTML https://news.yahoo.com/theyre-forming...
Fifth death in Texas following flooding caused by remnants of
tropical storm
HTML https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/...
Red Fawn Fallis Sentenced to 57 Months in Federal Prison
HTML https://warriorpublications.wor
dpress...
[center]Use Natural Climate Solutions To Protect Nature |
Extinction Rebellion[/center]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/EXGfBHxvE_c[/center]
Friday Gas Strike
HTML https://www.facebook.com/events/21614...
Twitter @BlackBearNews1
Support via Paypal:
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Category People & Blogs
#Post#: 14569--------------------------------------------------
A “firehose of falsehood”
By: Surly1 Date: November 27, 2019, 6:38 am
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A “firehose of falsehood” indistinguishable from Trump’s daily
Twitter feed--
The most important document you may ever read.
The largely-unread Senate Intelligence report on Russian
interference should chill Americans.
HTML https://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/the-most-important-document-you-may-ever-read
[img
width=750]
HTML https://cdn.images2.rollcall.com/image/b5c8c9ed786b58e4fd2a9330538821aa66353771393256dbb6e6430e0b9fd920/author/2019/10/senate_intel030_032118.jpg[/img]
Russia is far from done with destabilizing our democracy, Murphy
writes. The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Richard M.
Burr, right, and Mark Warner, made that clear in its latest
report on 2016 election interference. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
file photo)
[html]<p>OPINION — On the day that special counsel Robert
Mueller’s report on election interference came out, cable
news anchors strained to race through its 448 pages and describe
the findings, all in the same breath. Computer sleuths hacked
the document’s setting to let users search for
“Trump,” “president,”
“collusion” and “Russia.” Talking-head
lawyers feverishly opined that Volume I contained less
incriminating information than Volume II.</p> <p>But around
the country, voters mostly gave an “Is that all there
is?” shoulder shrug and went back to their corners. Many
members of Congress admitted they didn’t even bother to
read it.</p> <p>Nearly six months later, and to almost no
fanfare last week while Congress was in recess, the Senate
Intelligence Committee released the <a shape="rect"
href="
HTML https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf">second<br
/>of two installments of its own bipartisan investigation</a> in
to
roughly the same topic. The slim, 85-page report reads like a
Russian spy novel crossed with a sequel to Orwell’s most
dystopian version of the future — right down to an
interview with a paid Russian troll who said his experience in
2016, pitting American voters against each other with social
media platforms of their own making, was like being “a
character in the book ‘1984’ by George Orwell
— a place where you have to write that white is black and
black is white.”</p> <h2>Telling it like it
is</h2> <p>Unlike Mueller, who seemed to take great pains
not to point fingers and softened his recommendations, the
Intelligence Committee, led by Chairman <a shape="rect"
title="Click to view member info in a new window"
href="
HTML https://www.rollcall.com/members?293&utm_source=memberLink?utm_source=memberLink"<br
/>target="_blank">Richard Burr</a> and Vice Chairman <a
shape="rect" title="Click to view member info in a new window"
href="
HTML https://www.rollcall.com/members?2693&utm_source=memberLink?utm_source=memberLink"<br
/>target="_blank">Mark Warner</a>, put its warnings in the
starkest possible terms. First, the Russians deliberately
attacked American voters with an active measures campaign in
2016 to benefit Donald Trump and destroy <a shape="rect"
title="Click to view member info in a new window"
href="
HTML https://www.rollcall.com/members?7201&utm_source=memberLink?utm_source=memberLink"<br
/>target="_blank">Hillary Clinton</a>. On the morning after
Election Day, a former troll told the committee, exhausted
hackers in St. Petersburg, Russia, uncorked tiny of champagne.
They looked into each other’s eyes. “We uttered
almost in unison: ‘We made America
great.’”</p> <p>Because of Russia’s
success, the committee also warned that China, North Korea, Iran
and other malicious actors are activiely studying what Americans
fell for (nearly everything) in order to use even more
sophisticated techniques in 2020 — including at this very
moment. And finally, the committee made clear that Americans
themselves need to both wake up and smarten up. Only by being
more sophisticated and intelligent social media users will
voters truly protect themselves and our elections in the years
to come.</p> <p>The tactics and strategies that the Kremlin
directed included every major social media platform you can
think of — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — and a few
you’d never suspect, including Pinterest, LinkedIn and
4Chan. The hashtags alone tell the story— #MAGA
#TrumpTrain #Hillary4Prison #ZombieHillary #SickHillary. Along
with anti-Clinton stories, they also pushed out messages against
Trump’s primary rivals like Sen. <a shape="rect"
title="Click to view member info in a new window"
href="
HTML https://www.rollcall.com/members?44748&utm_source=memberLink?utm_source=memberLink"<br
/>target="_blank">Ted Cruz</a> and former Gov. Jeb Bush. Once in
the general election, they pumped up third-party candidates to
siphon support away from Clinton with posts including, “A
vote for Jill Stein is not a wasted
vote.”</p> <p>Offline, Russian agents also enticed
American citizens to teach self-defense courses in Florida, and
acquired Trump campaign gear, organized rallies and hired actors
to attend those rallies. They created a buzzing hive of online
trolls based in St. Petersburg, who received daily quotas for
targeting Americans online, including 50 Facebook posts per day.
A list of American holidays reminded them when to slow their
posts to avoid detection from online
providers.</p> <p>Americans gobbled it up. The Senate
Intelligence report details a troubling fact: in the three
months leading up to Election Day, Russian-planted false
information on Facebook outperformed real news.</p> <p>Using
techniques the KGB tried on Soviet citizens during the Cold War,
the committee described the hallmarks of the Russian
disinformation campaign in 2016, including messages to erode
Americans’ trust in investigative and political
journalists; an emphasis on speed to win the first impression of
readers, which is always the most resilient; topics designed to
exploit racial divisions; and a volume so enormous that
overwhelmed audiences can no longer discern what’s real
from what’s not. Finally, almost all of the information
was deceptive, or as one committee witness called it, a
“firehose of falsehood.”</p> <h2>Far from
over</h2> <p>Read that list carefully and you’ll
notice it could also describe much of Trump’s daily
Twitter feed, a conclusion the committee did not touch, but one
that’s hard to miss. Another key feature of both the
Russian efforts and the president’s is that all are
unconstrained by ideology. The committee reported that a single
computer in Russia pushed out hundreds of both pro- and
anti-Colin Kaepernick posts virtually
simultaneously.</p> <p>Why rile up Americans on both sides
of an emotional racial controversy? It’s “like
arming both sides of a civil war” before you have to deal
with it yourself, a witness told Senate investigators.
Ultimately, as <a shape="rect"
href="
HTML http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/african-americans-top-targets-russian-intelligence-campaigns-2016-election-senate-intelligence-committee-finds">CQ<br
/>Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski reported last week</a>, the
goal was to suppress African American voters, who were
overwhelmingly for Clinton, and keep at least a small portion
from bothering to go to the polls at all. </p> <p>If you
think that the Russians stopped working after that champagne
toast to making America great, think again. The report describes
the ongoing countermeasures actually increased on the day after
the election, when Russia “stepped on the
gas.”</p> <p>The most chilling takeaway, beyond how
ready Americans seem to believe the very worst about each other,
is the sense that the essence of our democracy is under attack,
and we won’t always have the luxury to save or repair it.
Russia destabilized the fabric of American families and culture
in 2016 with a few thousand dollars of Facebook ads. (Google
“uncle + Republican + Thanksgiving” if you
don’t believe me.) If individual Americans keep falling
for their tricks to destroy our democracy, we eventually
won’t recognize what’s worth saving
anymore.</p> <p>If you read nothing else now that Congress
is back in session, take a moment to digest this report. It may
be the most important document you ever
read.</p> <div> <p><em>Patricia Murphy covers national
politics for The Daily Beast. Previously, she was the Capitol
Hill bureau chief for Politics Daily and founder and editor of
Citizen Jane Politics. Follow her on Twitter <a shape="rect"
href="
HTML https://twitter.com/1patriciamurphy">@1PatriciaMurphy</a>.</em></p> </div>[/html]
#Post#: 14573--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: November 27, 2019, 11:00 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]How 😈👹💵🎩 Oligarchs Could
Start A Second 🏴‍☠️ Civil
War![/center]
6,712 views•Nov 26, 2019
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/lPT7Sf0NFRw[/center]
Thom Hartmann Program
194K subscribers
Oligarchs could ignite a second American civil war?
🔴 Subscribe for more clips like this:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/user/thomhart...
What will become of the remains of our democracy if the
oligarchs turn it into a police state?
⭐ Join our Membership and Support the Channel:
HTML https://www.youtube.com/user/thomhart...
[center]🔥 WATCH NEXT: DIscover more about The American
Oligarchy -
HTML https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5gNz_FycX95_c9RyAHjamAq4PzYJSiPj[/center]
#Post#: 14695--------------------------------------------------
📢 Climate models were right all along
By: AGelbert Date: December 5, 2019, 4:40 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]
HTML https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/7Iwt1Obw1A9OF4rmgyl-UYRo4MEJDf68gFtbGNW6JHUtpykjdICNc8oASCFbrYsucF5Fg17XbLG86FfHFO8yE4EkX6gjGVlOvmRAD7s5dGscLlHcisQ_pzhkscbiV_-D4oBdJi6nkSe_a2el9qT1VJhzoNSsAEZvHHg=s0-d-e1-ft#https://gallery.mailchimp.com/d1f5797e59060083034310930/images/2f11cead-050f-4018-bfed-c12fb45691e5.png[/center]
Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click [i]here
HTML http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa<br
/>to subscribe.[/i]
December 5, 2019
[center]📢 Climate models were right all along, Financial
Times dives into Amazon crisis, & more
HTML https://mailchi.mp/0a37685e23a4/climate-models-were-right-all-along-financial-times-dives-into-amazon-crisis-more?e=0fd17c5b57[/center]
#Post#: 14759--------------------------------------------------
I Don’t Grieve Over His Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.
By: Surly1 Date: December 9, 2019, 9:42 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I Don’t Grieve Over His Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.
HTML https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/12/13/i-dont-grieve-over-his-cruelty-i-grieve-over-yours/?fbclid=IwAR2tTuN1FywnVrrLo59zG3sdAfu0X7YG0jzboVodGtm8Rk1rrxxuR83cmnw
I really don’t care about him.
I know you think I do, but my sadness really has nothing to do
with him.
I know who he is—and more accurately, I know what he is.
I know that he is just a mirror.
He has simply revealed clearly the disfigured ugliness of the
place I call home and the people I live here alongside—and that
is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a
singular loss, it is a daily grieving.
I grieve when I see elementary school teachers dressed up like a
border wall for Halloween.
I grieve when I see white a woman screaming obscenities at two
Muslims teenagers at a stop light.
I grieve when I see a Jewish professor’s office littered with
spray-painted swastikas.
I grieve when I watch a father of four being tackled by ICE
agents outside immigration offices.
I grieve when I witness white high school seniors making a “Heil
Hitler” arm gesture during class photos.
I grieve when I see the contempt from white friends, when young
black men die at traffic stops.
I grieve when I find the most vile sickness on my social media
feed, hurled toward people of color and women and transgender
people.
I grieve when I hear professed Christian pastors calling for the
killing of LGBTQ people.
I grieve when I see rambling, racist tirades on subway cars
filled with families with young children.
I grieve when I see supremacist candidates being elected and
re-elected.
I grieve when I overhear dehumanizing conversations from old,
white men, about Democratic women leaders, in crowded cafés.
I grieve when I sit across holiday tables, and witness bigoted
tirades that I’d have thought people I knew and loved were not
capable of.
And though all of these things are undoubtedly emboldened by him
and encouraged by him and celebrated by him—that is not the
source of my despair. It is the reality that all of this
vicious, toxic, filth that we are infected with today—is
something you are largely fine with. The rising hatred is not
alarming or discomforting enough to you, to move you to action
or to speak against it.
Oh sure, you might inwardly twinge with discomfort at one or two
of the most egregious offenses, but by and large you’re good
with it all.
With your silence as much as with your volume, you show me you
are more with him than you are against him, that you are more
like him than different from him—and that you and I are
increasingly morally incompatible.
So yes, he is a mirror, and I am seeing you my countrymen and
women through him.
That is why I grieve, friend.
That is why I don’t see America or my church or my neighborhood
or my family the same anymore, and I’m not sure I ever will
again.
The greatest tragedy to me, isn’t him. It isn’t that the person
supposedly leading our country lacks a single benevolent
impulse, that he is impervious to compassion, incapable of
nobility, and mortally allergic to simple kindness.
The greatest tragedy, is how many Americans he now represents.
And that he represents you.
#Post#: 14763--------------------------------------------------
Tragic
By: AGelbert Date: December 9, 2019, 1:48 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]I Don’t Grieve Over [color=maroon]His[/color] [img
width=50]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/styles/renewablerevolution/files/809_84688966.jpeg[/img]<br
/>Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/general-discussion/you-will-have-to-pick-a-side-there-is-no-longer-room-for-procrastination/msg14759/#msg14759[/center]
[center][img
width=250]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-041115022304.png[/img]
[/center]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/A9pHuVX-ZxE[/center]
#Post#: 15268--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: January 18, 2020, 3:17 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center][img
width=640]
HTML https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/oztYq5AbpB26Ma6wSysP0TG81oB4JfFRUar2JRIZG865ap6Q4b5cyLf9iyb2wUDtIXTgjcgYmiFWfRQU4sgizDoj5REMoGoO9nNxdCAdl3rI2F9XvUKtLcrmm6GtPnS9AnQ3T6CRq9TFK4fRbFE3wAuCnYvZBQV2zmQ=s0-d-e1-ft#https://gallery.mailchimp.com/33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413/images/0bb0ece7-9ce7-4ab4-9a36-6f3ca6a7db37.png[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/1googlenotice.png[/img][/center]
January 18, 2020
[center][img
width=150]
HTML https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/oefPeeQF-yvgawLXQxJ0d_axFrh1m0t_dJP7FTz1VhAjbj0Kx5r1pM4qP7ue4VHQHnlKTJu_blJTLqU6u21cIZipzsR1j_-Pm1QDQLKxSjW-JBHwX4ixfhrIgiQYDj2xn57UIhrMi6ZmfJNd=s0-d-e1-ft#https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/01/dropexxon-150x150.jpeg[/img]<br
/>Harvard Law School Students Disrupt Recruitment Event, Calling
On Major Law Firm To #DropExxon[/center]
By Eoin Higgins, Commondreams.org. Over 100 students from
Harvard Law School staged a public protest against a recruitment
dinner hosted by law firm Paul Weiss on Wednesday night, calling
for the company to cut ties with fossil fuel giant Exxon. In a
statement, the demonstrators said they were taking action
because of the severity of the climate crisis. "This is a
do-or-die moment in human history," said student Aaron
Regunberg, one of the action's leaders, in a statement. "We have
just a few years left to rein in corporate polluters and address
the climate crisis." -more-
HTML https://popularresistance.org/harvard-law-school-students-disrupt-recruitment-event-calling-on-major-law-firm-to-dropexxon/
[center][img
width=150]
HTML https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/g6krf9Cl-cLRY0s0ZmCQP0MwxGmYtHn70QehKzlQ_g84pC4YUOifmB0CnCUHFjvk2_ZHlmD6_oz949_Qf-IIJ8Mb5FRIMFB66xLyDbxLv8Rk7EgSvB8I_qAfjIjARLnzJkfCfm5IkTn6KbToEnpsacK7H99MPpMddw=s0-d-e1-ft#https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/01/shutterstock_1093941800-150x150.jpg[/img]<br
/>Nearly All Americans Want To Get Off Fossil Fuels[/center]
By Basav Sen, Otherwords. Late last year, The Washington Post
reported a remarkable poll finding: Nearly half of American
adults — 46 percent — believe the U.S. needs to “drastically
reduce” fossil fuel use in the near future to address the
climate crisis. Another 41 percent favor a more gradual
reduction. In short, almost 90 percent of us support
transitioning off fossil fuels — including over half of
Republicans, whose elected officials overwhelmingly support the
industry. -more-
HTML https://popularresistance.org/nearly-all-americans-want-to-get-off-fossil-fuels/
#Post#: 16683--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: June 2, 2021, 1:13 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[img]
HTML https://support.nature.org/tnc_redesign/images/tnc-logo.svg[/img]
[center]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-111018132401-16881856.gif<br
/> Heard on the Half Shell: Shellfish Growers Share Their
Voice[/center]
582 views•Apr 16, 2021 21K subscribers
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/wugVG_EwFhw[/center]
The Shellfish Growers Climate Coalition has grown from just
seven shellfish growers in partnership with The Nature
Conservancy in 2017 to more than 220 shellfish industry
representatives across 24 U.S. states and Canada today. We’re
engaging policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels
around climate action by sharing our own personal stories about
the impacts climate change has brought to our lives and
livelihoods. This Earth Day, we’re lifting our voices to help
our customers, colleagues, and Members of Congress understand
just what’s at stake if we don’t act now: the sustainability of
our businesses, the long-term viability of the shellfish
industry, and the future of our planet.
Keep up with The Nature Conservancy's latest efforts to protect
nature and preserve life on Twitter (
HTML http://bit.ly/eDzkmN)
and
Facebook (
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Text NATURE to 97779 to join The Nature Conservancy on text.
To sign-up for nature e-news visit:
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#Post#: 16764--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: July 13, 2021, 11:16 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[img
width=640]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-270521170028.png[/img]
Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click [i]here
HTML https://climatenexus.org/climate-change-news/
to subscribe.[/i]
[center]
HTML http://[/center]
July 13, 2021
[img
width=640]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-121217195108.png[/img]
[center]Europe’s Biomass Blunder Shows Why Trusting
🐘🦖 GOP’s Trillion Trees Climate 😉 Plan
Would Be A Bad Idea[/center]
The American Conservation Coalition’s campaign to greenwash
Republicans exists to generate ‘man bites dog’ type stories,
like hits in the Washington Post and Fox News on Monday, about
how maybe the GOP isn’t so bad on climate change, since they
spout catchphrases like “innovation” and claim to support
climate policies (that actually reward polluters), like the
Trillion Trees proposal.
While on the surface the GOP’s trillion trees sound like they
might be a great win for the environment and climate, we already
know what the reality of this sort of approach would mean: more
pollution. We know this is the case because it’s already
happening, thanks to a Sequoia-sized loophole in a European
Union policy similarly aimed at reducing emissions.
A recent CNN feature on Enviva’s North Carolina wood pellet
production facility (and a major feature by Danielle Purifoy,
writing for Scalawag Magazine, Southerly, and Environmental
Health News, last fall) make it clear that subsidizing the
timber industry is no climate solution.
It started in 2009, when the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive
“classified biomass as a renewable energy source — on par with
wind and solar power.” Instead of burning coal, they could burn
biomass, and supposedly reduce emissions by making use of waste
wood that would otherwise go unused. Unfortunately, though, the
policy doesn't require that it has to be waste wood, so now
companies are felling forests and sowing plantations across the
American Southeast to satisfy European energy demands.
(Seriously, the paralells to the slave trade are stark.) As a
result, those communities are facing dangerous levels of PM2.5
and other air pollutants, leading to a litany of health
complaints.
CNN spoke with people like Andrea Macklin about symptoms and
impacts from the biomass industry, finding issues ranging from a
loss of sleep due to the 24/7 noise from the plant, to a
majority of residents experiencing high blood pressure, with
Macklin’s heart condition forcing the 44-year-old out of work
and his wife and son’s asthma being exacerbated by the pollution
from Enviva’s plant. “Since the plant started operating,” CNN
reported, “his wife and son can’t spend more than five minutes
outside without coughing.”
Adding insult to literal injury? It’s not even actually reducing
the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The only
place where levels are dropping are in the record-keeping of the
European companies, because the biomass’s carbon emissions are
recorded based on where the trees were cut, not where the
biomass was actually burned. That classification was made to
avoid double-counting when doing scientific calculations and was
not intended to be the basis for public policy where all
emissions end up in our one shared atmosphere no matter where
they’re burned. The climate doesn’t care if the wood pellets
processed in Northampton County, North Carolina are burned in
Northampton, England. The carbon pollution is going back into
the same atmosphere.
While 🦕😈 🐘 deniers sometimes [img
width=90]
HTML https://stickershop.line-scdn.net/stickershop/v1/product/1451400/LINEStorePC/main.png[/img]<br
/>rail against U.S. climate action by pointing out that it will
just push industry out to countries with looser environmental
standards, increasing the total amount of pollution on the
planet, in this case, the U.S. is that polluter-permitting
country whose own citizens are suffering for the illusory
benefit of foreign carbon accounting balance sheets.
As usual, the specific people left to suffer with the downsides
of industry are those who already face a disproportionate burden
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-040718162656-14241872.gif.<br
/>CNN analyzed records on pollution and demographics, because no
t
only is Northampton, home to the Macklins and Enviva’s plant
(along with three additional major air pollution sources), is
predominately Black, but eight of Enviva’s nine plants are sited
“in communities that have higher percentage of Black residents
than their states as a whole.” All nine “are in census tracts
that have lower median household incomes than their states.”
Enviva says it takes environmental justice concerns “very
seriously” [img
width=40]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-250718202127.gif[/img]<br
/>and that they “work closely” with locals “to ensure our
operations bring both positive economic and environmental
impact,” before writing off the complaints as “generic” and
coming from “the same activists we’ve heard from before.”
Which is not to say that trees aren’t part of the answer. But
it’s not just trees, it’s forests. The entire 🌲🌳
forest ecosystem needs to be functional for carbon to be stored
long term. As Dogwood Alliance co-founder Danna Smith explained
to CNN,”the forestry industry and the wood pellet industry says
that trees are renewable, but we aren’t renewing
thousand-year-old ecosystems. They’re renewing forests for
commercial 💵[img
width=50]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418193910.gif[/img]<br
/>production. So you’ll see trees on the landscape that are mayb
e,
you know, 30 years old. That’s not an ecosystem — that’s a fiber
farm.” [img
width=200]
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Still, some conservatives will insist subsidizing the timber
industry and further polluting historically excluded communities
is an acceptable price to pay to make it look like the GOP is
acting on climate. They'll also claim those polluting industries
will bring wealth and prosperity to those who live nearby.
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As Smith points out, however, “if the wood products industry and
biomass were a way of growing strong rural economies in the
southeastern region, these rural communities should be some of
the wealthiest on the planet. We are in the world’s largest wood
producing region. But you don’t see any evidence in these rural
communities of thriving rural economies. The opposite is
actually true.”
Subsidizing the timber industry in the name of climate action
doesn’t help the climate and offers little-to-no real economic
benefits to the local communities it floods with air pollution.
Anyone buying into the GOP’s trillion trees greenwashing wood do
well to reconsider.
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