An open letter to Extinction Rebellion by Wretched of the Earth

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[Originally published on Red Pepper:
]

“The fight for climate justice is the fight of our lives, and we need to do it right.” By grassroots collective Wretched of The Earth.

May 3, 2019 · 11 min read

This letter was collaboratively written with dozens of aligned groups. As the weeks of action called by Extinction Rebellion were coming to an end, our groups came together to reflect on the narrative, strategies, tactics and demands of a reinvigorated climate movement in the UK. In this letter we articulate a foundational set of principles and demands that are rooted in justice and which we feel are crucial for the whole movement to consider as we continue constructing a response to the ‘climate emergency’.

Dear Extinction Rebellion,

The emergence of a mass movement like Extinction Rebellion (XR) is an encouraging sign that we have reached a moment of opportunity in which there is both a collective consciousness of the immense danger ahead of us and a collective will to fight it. A critical mass agrees with the open letter launching XR when it states “If we continue on our current path, the future for our species is bleak.”

At the same time, in order to construct a different future, or even to imagine it, we have to understand what this “path” is, and how we arrived at the world as we know it now. “The Truth” of the ecological crisis is that we did not get here by a sequence of small missteps, but were thrust here by powerful forces that drove the distribution of resources of the entire planet and the structure of our societies. The economic structures that dominate us were brought about by colonial projects whose sole purpose is the pursuit of domination and profit. For centuries, racism, sexism and classism have been necessary for this system to be upheld, and have shaped the conditions we find ourselves in.

Another truth is that for many, the bleakness is not something of “the future”. For those of us who are indigenous, working class, black, brown, queer, trans or disabled, the experience of structural violence became part of our birthright. Greta Thunberg calls world leaders to act by reminding them that “Our house is on fire”. For many of us, the house has been on fire for a long time: whenever the tide of ecological violence rises, our communities, especially in the Global South are always first hit. We are the first to face poor air quality, hunger, public health crises, drought, floods and displacement.

XR says that “The science is clear: It is understood we are facing an unprecedented global emergency. We are in a life or death situation of our own making. We must act now.”  You may not realize that when you focus on the science you often look past the fire and us – you look past our histories of struggle, dignity, victory and resilience. And you look past the vast intergenerational knowledge of unity with nature that our peoples have. Indigenous communities remind us that we are not separate from nature, and that protecting the environment is also protecting ourselves. In order to survive, communities in the Global South continue to lead the visioning and building of new worlds free of the violence of capitalism. We must both centre those experiences and recognise those knowledges here.

Our communities have been on fire for a long time and these flames are fanned by our exclusion and silencing. Without incorporating our experiences, any response to this disaster will fail to change the complex ways in which social, economic and political systems shape our lives – offering some an easy pass in life and making others pay the cost. In order to envision a future in which we will all be liberated from the root causes of the climate crisis – capitalism, extractivism, racism, sexism, classism, ableism and other systems of oppression –  the climate movement must reflect the complex realities of everyone’s lives in their narrative.

And this complexity needs to be reflected in the strategies too. Many of us live with the risk of arrest and criminalization. We have to carefully weigh the costs that can be inflicted on us and our communities by a state that is driven to target those who are racialised ahead of those who are white. The strategy of XR, with the primary tactic of being arrested, is a valid one – but it needs to be underlined by an ongoing analysis of privilege as well as the reality of police and state violence. XR participants should be able to use their privilege to risk arrest, whilst at the same time highlighting the racialised nature of policing. Though some of this analysis has started to happen, until it becomes central to XR’s organising it is not sufficient. To address climate change and its roots in inequity and domination, a diversity and plurality of tactics and communities will be needed to co-create the transformative change necessary.

We commend the energy and enthusiasm XR has brought to the environmental movement, and it brings us hope to see so many people willing to take action. But as we have outlined here, we feel there are key aspects of their approach that need to evolve. This letter calls on XR to do more in the spirit of their principles which say they “are working to build a movement that is participatory, decentralised, and inclusive”. We know that XR has already organised various listening exercises, and acknowledged some of the shortcomings in their approach, so we trust XR and its members will welcome our contribution.

As XR draws this period of actions to a close, we hope our letter presents some useful reflections for what can come next. The list of demands that we present below are not meant to be exhaustive, but to offer a starting point that supports the conversations that are urgently needed.

Wretched of the Earth, together with many other groups, hold the following demands as crucial for a climate justice rebellion:

  • Implement a transition, with justice at its core, to reduce UK carbon emissions to zero by 2030 as part of its fair share to keep warming below 1.5°C; this includes halting all fracking projects, free transport solutions and decent housing, regulating and democratising corporations, and restoring ecosystems.
  • Pass a Global Green New Deal to ensure finance and technology for the Global South through international cooperation. Climate justice must include reparations and redistribution; a greener economy in Britain will achieve very little if the government continues to hinder vulnerable countries from doing the same through crippling debt, unfair trade deals, and the export of its own deathly extractive industries. This Green New Deal would also include an end to the arms trade. Wars have been created to serve the interests of corporations – the largest arms deals have delivered oil; whilst the world’s largest militaries are the biggest users of petrol.
  • Hold transnational corporations accountable by creating a system that regulates them and stops them from practicing global destruction. This would include getting rid of many existing trade and investment agreements that enshrine the will of these transnational corporations.
  • Take the planet off the stock market by restructuring the financial sector to make it transparent, democratised, and sustainable while discentivising investment in extractive industries and subsidising renewable energy programmes, ecological justice and regeneration programmes.
  • End the hostile environment of walls and fences, detention centers and prisons that are used against racialised, migrant, and refugee communities. Instead, the UK should acknowledge it’s historic and current responsibilities for driving the displacement of peoples and communities and honour its obligation to them.
  • Guarantee flourishing communities both in the global north and the global south in which everyone has the right to free education, an adequate income whether in or out of work, universal healthcare including support for mental wellbeing, affordable transportation, affordable healthy food, dignified employment and housing, meaningful political participation, a transformative justice system, gender and sexuality freedoms, and, for disabled and older people, to live independently in the community.

The fight for climate justice is the fight of our lives, and we need to do it right. We share this reflection from a place of love and solidarity, by groups and networks working with frontline communities, united in the spirit of building a climate justice movement that does not make the poorest in the rich countries pay the price for tackling the climate crisis, and refuses to sacrifice the people of the global South to protect the citizens of the global North. It is crucial that we remain accountable to our communities, and all those who don’t have access to the centres of power. Without this accountability, the call for climate justice is empty.

The Wretched of the Earth

Argentina Solidarity Campaign

Black Lives Matter UK

BP or not BP

Bolivian Platform on Climate Change

Bristol Rising Tide

Campaign Against the Arms Trade CAAT

Coal Action Network

Concrete Action

Decolonising Environmentalism

Decolonising our minds

Disabled People Against the Cuts

Earth in Brackets

Edge Fund

End Deportations

Ende Gelände

GAIA – Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

Global Forest Coalition

Green Anticapitalist Front

Gentle Radical

Grow Heathrow/transition Heathrow

Hambach Forest occupation

Healing Justice London

Labour Against Racism and Fascism

Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants

London campaign against police and state violence

London Feminist Antifa

London Latinxs

Marikana Solidarity Campaign

Mental Health Resistance Network

Migrants Connections festival

Migrants Rights Network

Movimiento Jaguar Despierto

Ni Una Menos UK

Ota Benga Alliance for Peace

Our Future Now

People’s Climate Network

Peoples’ Advocacy Foundation for Justice and

Race on the Agenda (ROTA)

Redress, South Africa

Reclaim the Power

Science for the People

Platform

The Democracy Centre

The Leap

Third World Network

Tripod: Training for Creative Social Action

War on Want

Wretched of The Earth is a grassroots collective for Indigenous, black, brown and diaspora groups and individuals demanding climate justice and acting in solidarity with our communities, both here in the UK and in Global South. 

XR / Critical Mass demonstration in the City of Lancaster

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By Lawrence Freiesleben

The Time:  17.30 – or 5.30 p.m. if you prefer old time.

The Date:   Friday 26th April 2019

The Place:  Dalton Square, central point in the City of Lancaster.

The Aim:    To take temporary control of the City’s central one-way system.

At this point the Mass is not yet Critical. So far, all anyone might notice is a few eccentric cyclists and standers-about. For the present, sitting on the bench opposite a slight knot of people, knowing the plan and anxious to eat something long delayed from lunch, it’s inspiring to watch the numbers build.

By 17.45 a swelling crowd occupied much of the area around Queen Victoria’s Memorial and I don’t think that long-reigning monarch would have been amused – either by us or by where Empire inevitably leads.

It was time for me to change from observer to participant. Ditching a warm jacket (excellent North Shields charity purchase from some years back) for the home-sloganized, Extinction Rebellion T-Shirt, I joined the friendly throng and soon spotted a fellow member of the South Lakes XR Group, Liz Boothman.

Two other younger members, Bella Matarewicz and her sister Rosa, soon arrived to increase the enthusiastic assembly. Undaunted by being refused space for their bikes at Oxenholme railway station, they had come to join the equally important walking group, planning to march through the City’s pedestrianised areas. Meanwhile the cyclists would be orbiting the encircling one-way system as slowly as possible.

Organised by members of Morecambe and Lancaster XR groups in conjunction with the cyclist’s rights group Critical Mass, banners placards and signs were handed around – along with safety pins to attach them. After a general welcome, instructions about the routes, and a rousing send-off by Labour M.P. for Fleetwood and Lancaster, Cat Smith we were all ready. A call went out for any cyclists confident about breaking into the traffic to take the lead.

Halting the traffic and setting off, our clamouring company of cyclists were of all ages, from children to pensioners. A dedicated and enterprising boy of about thirteen scooted along and amongst us, zipping left and right to put flyers under the wipers of parked cars. Interested bystanders, and drinkers in wayside pubs, perhaps amused by our ragged procession, were keen to take leaflets, happy to investigate what we were about. What heartened me most about our repeated circumnavigation of the city’s centre was the amount of encouragement and support we received – even from drivers being held up. The fact of climate emergency is obviously getting through to everybody – with now the media joining in: “Climate Protestors are telling us the deadly Truth” ran the Financial Times last month. Only the government is still dragging its feet.

At points on our orbit there were several prolonged horn blasts which were not so friendly. These were soon counter-blasted by children and other riders with whistles and bicycle bells, as well as cyclists carrying those audible music devices on their bike racks . . . Sadly, it turns out (as anyone reading this probably knows) that these are just called ‘portable speakers’. I may be Luddite in my attitude to technology, but I still prefer gadgets to have an imaginative or catchy name.

None of my photos – many taken optimistically over my shoulder whilst cycling, turned out to be quite what I wanted. The images of a cheap camera are a poor substitute for memory and a sense of connection, but they serve well enough as record.

Dating back even to before my involvement with CND in the early 1980’s, I have long had a recurring dream about cloaked protestors on bicycles. The Climate Emergency behind this consciousness-raising demonstration may be just as dark as the threat of Thermonuclear War, but the event itself defied the black sense of despair or inevitability which the dream has always given – its sense of prophetic unease. This Critical Mass/XR event was contrastingly uplifting – and for a while on the southern section of our gyratory, the sun even briefly glimmered.

To Power

Published by:

By Matt Byrne

In 2015, I was working in Mariupol, Ukraine, setting up office and rolling out a humanitarian response to the ugly, harsh and continuing conflict in the Donbass. Daily our team would trek towards the ‘line of contact’ separating the two warring sides, passing kilometres of WWII style trenches, and heavily fortified checkpoints packed with Ukrainian soldiers, who would go give our vehicles a quick once over before letting us through. Invariably, we found that those still living on the frontline, in their bullet pocked and shell-mangled houses, were the elderly and people with disabilities. Those, who by their own admission, had nowhere else to go, this was their home.  At night, over a beer, we would listen to the shelling less than 15 kilometres away as the two sides delighted in keeping each other up all night. 

In my spare
time, my chosen reading material was This
Changes Everything
by Naomi Klein. As I looked up from the pages of the book,
out of my window to the industrial skyline of the city, ringed as it is by
steel and chemical works all across the horizon and the port to the Azov Sea to
the south, I noted the light film of black soot that covered my window sill if
I left it open for the day, the giant chimney stacks perpetually spewing smoke and
the soapy film that ran down the middle of the street every time it rained.
Needless to say, I didn’t get very far with the book. It was all too much for
me, the people of Mariupol were getting a raw deal, short-changed from all
sides. I already felt small, adding climate change to the mix, made me feel
powerless, useless.

Watching XR take
off and command global attention, seeing non-violent civil disobedience do
exactly what it is intended to do, is changing that sense of powerlessness
inside me. Hearing the flimsy response of the UK authorities that police are
being diverted from ‘violent crime’ in order to manage the blockades by the
rebels or reading academics who recommend ‘tea fetes’ as a more viable tactic
to obtain sympathetic public opinion is a testament to the work of the movement
thus far. In these feather-ruffled responses, I hear a call for business as
usual. But the courage of the rebels has been heard and noted with the various
declarations of a climate emergency in the UK, the Committee on Climate Change’s report for a net zero carbon free UK by 2050
that they are pushing to be signed into law now, and the global surge of
protest movements demanding change. These are revolutionary times we live in
and it appears that a global wake-up call from the streets has put the heat
under the decision makers.   

In 1968, Howard
Zinn, wrote ‘this is why civil disobedience is not just to be tolerated; if we
are to have a truly democratic society, it is a necessity. By its nature it reflects the intensity of feeling about
important issues as well as the extent of the feeling.’ He was writing about those
who risked and endured incarceration by objecting to the Vietnam War but his
words are as valid today as they were then, if not more so. The CCC pointed to
the level of intensity seen in the recent protests as part of its advocacy for
cutting carbon emissions to zero starting today.

Recently, I have
participated in on UN led sessions monitoring progress towards the 2030
Sustainable development goals. Climate change and the need for action has not
been neglected in these discussions. That said, as I observe the member states
and participating agencies wrangle over terminology and monitoring indicators,
I am struck by how this is also business as usual, very well intentioned
business but far from the revolutionary type required given the emergency
timeframe we are living in. The urgency is lacking.  So, back we go to Zinn, who concluded; “A new
politics of protest, designed to put pressure on our national leaders, more
effectively, more threateningly, more forcefully than ever before is needed”.
The streets rose up, the urgency appeared.

That said, I
also realise to be effective you need to have rebels on the so-called ‘inside’
and ‘outside.’ You need networks of influence that punctuate all levels of the
political and justice systems. You need networks that represent the full gamut
of those affected by climate change; youth, the global south, diversity,
ethnicity, the dispossessed. We also have to mobilise ourselves against
emergent threats such as fossil fuel dominated Climate Leadership Council which lobbies for legal immunity from cases taken
against them for climate and environmental damages caused by their actions.

Rolling town
hall meetings were an instrumental part of the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign
mobilizing the great surge in grass roots support for his candidacy. Coming
from Ireland, I have watched in admiration, the great societal leaps spurred
through the debates and decisions taken by a national level citizen’s assembly.
Public support can be mobilized and maintained through a campaign of holding local
level citizens assemblies and XR has chosen its tactics wisely by adopting
them.

I may be too
much of a dreamer but guerrilla tactics that provide a social service like
providing renewable energy to underserved public services (like hospitals or
clinics) in marginalized areas can also drive the message home to people that
there is a climate emergency and the system is failing us now, not at some
unspecified point in the distant future. The clandestine Gap organization in
Rome is exactly this, a vigilante group performing ‘illegal’ acts of repair to
the cities crumbling infrastructure. Partnership with renewable energy providers,
if they were willing to take the risk and it appears that a number of
businesses are, could be an interesting mechanism for responding to some of the
manifold grievances that are sure to be raised in the citizens assemblies that
link climate injustice to social neglect and marginalization.  

The people
living in Mariupol, still live with ongoing conflict, landmines, shelling,
dispossession, loss of income, loss of family members, restrictions on movement
and hostage to an unhealthy, toxic environment. They have innumerable daily
challenges to confront but with nowhere else to go it is still their home. This
is our home, we have nowhere else to go. We will not be victims, if we stand
together, we are strong, a better future awaits.

I am inspired and
forever grateful to those that took to the streets globally to demand exactly
that.

XR Machynlleth post-London healing debrief session

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By Beth Maiden, XR Machynlleth regenerative culture group

Almost everyone I talked to in the wake of April’s rebellion in London described taking part as ‘overwhelming’, even if they had a great time (which most had)! Actions like these are very intense and complex, and it’s hard work for most of us to participate. Hard work physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Suddenly, for days, a week, two, we are like a tiny pop-up nation, requiring systems for decision-making, communication, care and support, and more. Feelings run high as we co-create community, trying to respond collectively to a fluctuating, unpredictable environment that can change in an instant.

Then, just as suddenly, we are home, coming down from it all. Trying to make sense of what just happened, how it felt, what worked, what didn’t. What was joyful, what was painful. The whole roller-By Beth Maiden, XR Machynlleth regenerative culture groupcoaster of feelings we’ve just ridden.

We’re often so focused on the ‘action’ part of activism that we forget that driving it all is emotion. We act because we feel something. And when we are acting, we keep on feeling – highs, lows, joy, grief, anger, love, hope, elation, and of course the comedown after.

And so we need space to process. Space to share all that comes up for us – the common ground, and the different experiences. Space to celebrate. Space to release grief and pain. Space to gather back in all of the parts of ourselves that are so easily lost in these big overwhelming actions and in the fight of everyday life. Space to be witnessed as whole, imperfect, feeling beings. Space to witness each other.

Regenerative space.

A regenerative culture is one that is committed to creating those spaces, so that we can process and heal and ultimately, stay in the movement and not burn out.

Here in Machynlleth, members our Regen group hosted a healing/debrief session for local folks who had gone down to London.

I’m sharing a simple template of what we did for other groups to use/copy/adapt if wanted:

We weren’t totally sure what the session would be like – we just knew that we wanted to hold space for activists to get together and share process all they had seen and felt and experienced in London and since returning.

We booked a community room in a local church for 3 1/2 hours. We advertised the session as a debrief specifically for folks who had been to London. We encouraged people to bring along food to share, cushions, blankets. We also invited people to bring a small object that represented how they feel or felt about the action, to create a temporary community altar.

We had three of us to hold the space – two who had taken part, and one who had not (to hold the space while and allow for the other two to participate).

  • We had time to grab a cuppa while we arrived and came to sit in a big circle. There were about 20 of us from the local area. We agreed that this was a safe, confidential space.
  • For the first hour we simply went around the group. Each person took a few minutes to introduce themselves, talk about what they did in London, sharing thoughts and feelings while the group listened.
  • Then we ate together. This was really special – some folks hadn’t seen each other since the action, whilst in London everyone had felt very close. It felt really powerful and important for activists to be back together again, revisiting the experience with others who ‘get it’ about what it was like. We also lit candles on the altar.
  • After food, we worked in pairs, taking turns to share and offer active listening. One person would talk for one or two minutes, whilst the other would listen closely, without interrupting or strongly reacting. Using a timer to ensure we all got the same amount of talking/listening time, we asked three questions: How did I feel at the action? How am I feeling now? and What are you hoping for going forward, what seeds have been planted?
  • Then we joined pairs, to make ‘pods’ of four. Again using a timer (five minutes each), each group took turns to talk and listen. This time, the question was ‘What do I need?‘. This might be what I need right now (touch, words, silence…), or what I need more generally – from my community, from XR, from my self – to feel supported and remain a part of this movement.
  • Lastly, we had a closing circle to once again move round the group and share reflections on the action as a whole. Each person took a few minutes to share ideas on what was great about the action and its aftermath, and what could be done better, and we wrote these up on flip-chart paper for future planning.

Feedback after the session was that
it was healing, nourishing and really necessary.
As it was a
dedicated space for people who had shard a very specific experience,
people generally felt safe to share a wide range of emotions, they knew
others would listen and understand. And whilst not everyone understood
the purpose of the session at the beginning, we found that everyone had a
lot to say once things opened up! There were tears and a lot of laughs,
and the whole thing felt very profound. We intend to host these kinds
of sessions after every action, to keep offering space for the
regeneration that is so important to the sustainability of XR.

So Much For The Good News

Published by:

By Bill McGuire

There was actually some good news on the climate breakdown front last week, but don’t break out the champagne just yet. A new study, published in Nature Communications revealed that Arctic melting, as a result of accelerating global heating, will add around US$70 trillion – about five percent – to the climate breakdown bill. And why is this good news? I hear you ask. Well, apparently, the figure was expected to be higher – at around twice this. Of course, this is not good news at all. Just another piece of a jigsaw that, when completed, will disclose a picture of a planet trashed beyond redemption and a civilisation on its knees.

The
new study makes a fist of estimating the cost of the global
consequences of changes that occur across the Arctic region, even
supposing that nations stick to their Paris Climate Agreement
pledges, and it makes for depressing reading. The bill is the
equivalent of almost a year’s global GDP, but the economic burden
will not be borne by all countries equally. The poorer nations –
especially across Africa and in South Asia – will take a far greater
hit, driving increasing hardship and raising global inequality.

Harsh
though they are, be in no doubt that the research findings massively
underestimate the true cost of the impact of global heating at high
northern latitudes. This is because the study only takes account of
two factors: (1) the release of greenhouses gases as a consequence of
thawing land permafrost, and (2) the absorption of more of the sun’s
heat as white ice is replaced by dark land and sea. It does not
consider a clutch of other critical feedback mechanisms, each of
which presents a colossal threat in its own right; notably the
release of methane due to thawing submarine permafrost, modifications
to the Gulf Stream and associated currents caused by the melting of
the Greenland Ice Sheet, and changes in the ability of the great
Boreal forests of Canada and Eurasia to continue to suck up carbon.

Furthermore,
I suspect that even the authors of the new study, would agree that
the final figure would need to be taken with a very large pinch of
salt. As far as I am concerned, at least, lumping together models of
climate feedback mechanisms that are poorly constrained with economic
models that often bear little relationship to the real world (how
many predicted the 2008 crash?), results in numbers worth about as
much as ones picked randomly out of a hat.

In all honesty, the only thing the study actually tells us is that the impact of global heating on the Arctic will be catastrophic and extremely costly – but we know that already. Arriving at a figure that seeks to monetise a small part of the threat is meaningless and does nothing to help anyone. So, take the results on board, always bearing in mind that the true picture is far worse. Draw strength from this and keep the pressure on the decision makers to take action to tackle the climate emergency. Not next year, or a decade down the line, but now – today!

Bill
McGuire is Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at
UCL and author of Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers
Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanic Eruptions. He was a contributor to
the IPCC 2012 report on Climate Change & Extreme Events and
Disasters.

Speech from XR Berlin die-in,

Published by:

By John Ames
47 years ago, in 1972, an incredibly influential report was released by the group of scientists and professionals known as the Club of Rome. Working with MIT, they commissioned a group of modellers and systems analysts to describe the global system as deeply as possible. Together they built ​ World3​, and showed clear evidence of how the combinations of population growth and resource use would strain our planet. The natural end result would be huge ecological damage limiting the earth’s ability to support life – both animal and human.

It caused serious alarm, and many promises were made by the world. The obvious catastrophe laid out in the book was the foolishness of expecting infinite growth on a finite planet. We were warned to change our economic goals, and soon, to prevent environmental (and societal) collapse. Their projections suggested rising material wealth until the first quarter of the 21st century, after which the damage to the environment would become so severe as to severely impact our way of life. Their projections have been shown to be highly accurate. They did not need to know exactly what technologies would be invented to show roughly how capital and human numbers would expand, and the damage that would inevitably cause.

Around this time, Big Oil started two campaigns. One was to study the science of climate change, with internal communications and published journals showing they knew full well the dangers of huge greenhouse gas emissions. The second was to try to cast doubt on the science, and convince the public that it was not a real issue. Unfortunately, they were largely successful.
20 years later, and 27 year years ago, in 1992, the world’s leaders met for the Earth Summit in Brazil, and signed the Rio Convention. 190 coun​tries agreed to reduce their emissions and treat climate change with the seriousness it required. They agreed on the ​ precautionary principle​ , a principle stating that when some science is still needed to prove something beyond a doubt, but there was clear evidence of risk, the cautious option would always be chosen. This principle is invoked for keeping GMOs out of Europe, for instance. The economic (and political) sacrifices from cutting emissions proved to be too much for most countries though, and the following Kyoto protocol has fallen victim to the moral hazard of “whoever cuts first, loses; whoever cuts last, wins”, prompting foot dragging and withdrawals from many countries..

In 2004, they published an updated Limits to Growth… the 30 year update. World3 was further
refined, the previous projections compared to the observed trends, demonstrating clearly the general accuracy of their thesis. They highlighted possible future scenarios where we started strong emission cuts at different time points and severity. Starting directly and strongly at 2004 would have led to the best future scenario. For every year we waited, the future we were giving to our children, grandchildren, fellow citizens and nature itself became ever darker.

They emphasised that we must begin immediately. We still did not.

In 2015, world leaders met again, and following lengthy discussions and concessions, the Paris
Agreement was undersigned by 195 countries. The limits originally decided have since been clearly shown to be wholly inadequate for keeping warming below 2 degrees, even if they are faithfully implemented. So far, they have not been.

Four years later, we are still planning policy that goes in the wrong direction. New runways, coal
power stations and other counterproductive things. And now the UN and IPCC are both screaming warnings as loud as they can. That is why we are now rebelling. Finally.
There is no doubt in the science. There is no doubt in our broad understanding of the systems and mechanisms. The only surprise for scientists is how much quicker it is now progressing. We are seeing feedback loops we had never expected – As the global system gets worse, a result of that damage is to then speed up the future rate of damage. Therefore we are not seeing linear growth in temperature with rising CO2 concentrations, we are seeing an increasing rate of temperature rise and system damage.

Many systems have ​ tipping points in them, points where we lose control of the problem after a
certain point. After we cut down enough rainforest, the microclimate to sustain such forests will not exist any more, and we will turn our planet’s lungs into savannah. After we heat up the tundra enough, we will release huge quantities of methane, a gas around 50 times better at trapping the sun’s energy than CO2, causing even faster warming. These events would seriously undermine our chances of a happy ending.

What is the solution from those in power? They nibble at the edges of the problem. Rearranging the tablecloth and silverware while our house is on fire. Rearranging the deckchairs while the iceberg slowly emerges from the darkness.

These are not bad people. There are greedy people changing the dialogue for their short-term
survival. There are stupid people who believe the free market signals and human ingenuity can fix all problems, including super wicked ones like climate change. There are people who silenced their doubts and concerns with the reassuring lies and misinformation of vested interests. But there are no bad people.

The fact remains. The 10th biggest polluter in Germany is Ryanair, and air travel industry expands 6-8% globally per year. The rainforest in Brazil is being cut down at an alarming rate again. 95% of the things we buy are no longer in use 6 months after we buy them. GDP growth is still the greatest and only goal for every government in power.

Realistically, their behaviour is rational. Fighting against this will require sacrifices. We must consume less, and submit to less convenience. No politician wants to give that news to their voters. They only want to maximise the current “happiness”, ie GDP growth, now, and ignore anything that will happen beyond the next election. This “short termism” saps political will for meaningful change, and we have listened to their “beautiful words” for too long. How can we expect them to commit radical solutions without our clear support and understanding?

The Fridays for Future movement was originally written off as “Young and naive”. The media and politicians helpfully informed us that they don’t understand how the world really works. Alternatively, perhaps it is we that are “old and cynical”; we that lack vision and imagination, we that are not willing to fight for the world we and our children deserve. Seeing they needed support, scientists founded their own group, ScientistsforFuture, to show that there is no more doubt in academia. And also, supporting the same movement, is Extinction Rebellion; a group of concerned citizens, hoping we can follow in Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela’s footsteps. We believe we can finally force the issue with non-violent and creative demonstrations, using peaceful disobedience as our best weapon.

We need to acknowledge the global state of emergency for what it is. How many more “hottest
summer since records began”s do you need to be convinced? This is bigger than normal politics. This is not a matter of supporting left or right, the only important direction is forwards.
Only through working together with all the countries of the world do we have a chance. We cannot wait for other people to do this for us anymore, it is time we took control. We need the courage to really try to change our direction, with bold new economic organisation. We need the courage to be the global leaders in this, and to lead by example. And we need to rebel until our governments make that happen.

I will leave you with a slightly adapted speech from a timeless movie…
“We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is
going crazy, so we don’t go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are
living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living
rooms. Let me have my Netflix and my steak and my cheap Ryanair flights and I won’t say
anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!” (From “​Network”, 1976).

Endangered species laws – the epitome of double standards

Published by:

By Karl Ammann – Time Magazine ‘Hero of the Environment’

Well on the way to climate breakdown and the sixth mass extinction of species on our planet, you would be hard pressed to know there have been international laws in place since 1975 with the aim of ensuring that ‘international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival’. So how are the bureaucrats who should be enforcing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) doing on that front?

Amongst other failures on their watch:

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• Wild tiger numbers have halved to under 4,000 since the 1990s;
 
• The South China tiger has almost certainly become extinct in the wild;
 
• There has been a huge increase in Asian tiger farms despite a 2007 decision by CITES parties stating that tigers should not be bred for commercial purposes (with the suits in the CITES Secretariat having not once lifted a finger against China’s massively documented non-compliance with that decision);
 
• The number of African lions nearly halved from 1993 to 2014, with just 25,000 or so now left in the wild (and yet the CITES Secretariat, bowing to pressure from the rich and influential American trophy hunting industry, still doesn’t recommend they be given the top level of ‘protection’ under CITES); 
 
• The elephant population of Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve dropped from 100,000 in the 1970s to 13,000 in 2013;
 
• The illegal ivory trade increased by close to 300% between 1998 and 2011;
 
• The illegal rhino horn trade in 2014 reached its highest levels since the early 1990s;
 
• There was a 9,300% increase in rhino poaching in South Africa between 2007 and 2014; and
 
• The western black rhinoceros was declared officially extinct in 2011.

CITES itself is comparatively well drafted, the problem is with the suits who should be enforcing it. Administered by the UN, time and again we see them bowing to commercial interests and, without being xenophobic, window dressing to protect runaway Chinese consumption of the planet’s few remaining endangered species.

I’ve been trying to get the CITES Secretariat to properly implement and enforce their international, endangered species laws for decades. With English wildlife lawyer Richard Hargreaves helping me out in his spare time for free since 2011 we’re now ready to publish our first book, ‘Slave Apes’, exposing the rot and double standards within the Secretariat.

With my pictures and evidence from the front lines and Richard’s words and analysis we have everything we need to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst case of double standards imaginable when it comes to protecting endangered species. Put simply, this has left the pair of us unable to rule out FIFA level corruption amongst the very bureaucrats who should be overseeing the full implementation and enforcement of the world’s only international endangered species laws.

In short, in ‘Slave Apes’ we’re talking about the suits at CITES punishing third world Guinea for illegally exporting dozens of live, baby chimps from the wild to lives of squalor, horrendous conditions and remorseless commercial exploitation in Chinese zoos. That’s correct but the problem is we have all the evidence proving this trade was instigated at the Chinese end of the supply chain and that the CITES Secretariat have not just failed to lift a finger against China in that respect but actually protected them from punishment and having to place these chimps in sanctuaries as required under CITES.

Our first book could just as easily have covered the CITES Secretariat’s failings and protection of China when it comes to the massive growth in their tiger farming industry or, similarly, the massive growth in the trade in lion bones from South Africa to Asia (where they’re passed off as tiger, thereby increasing hunting pressure on the world’s few remaining wild tigers). It’s just that in ‘Slave Apes’ we have the strongest, most incontrovertible evidence against the CITES bureaucrats possible

Finally, although I’m not UK based, if you would be interested in lobbying the UK’s CITES officials to call for an end to the rot and double standards within the CITES Secretariat in Geneva I understand they’re based at Horizon House, Deanery Road, Bristol, BS1 5AH.

Keep up the great work!

‘And the whole of creation is waiting for us to become human’

(Translation of a graffiti inscription by poet ‘Johannes’, Lake Constance, Switzerland)

With the suits at CITES being administered by the UN, the one problem we have with ‘Slave Apes’ is finding a publisher brave enough to publish. So this is basically a call-out on the off-chance that anyone involved with XR can recommend a literary agent or, ideally, a publisher we may not have tried who may be interested in getting ‘Slave Apes’ published. If you know of anyone please contact me at karl@karlammann.ch

My weekend with Extinction Rebellion

Published by:

Image Credit: Creative Commons: Julia Hawkins

By Tyrone Scott

This passing bank holiday weekend, I felt it was
important to attend the protests launched by Extinction Rebellion in the
name of preserving our planet and species. As a member of the Young
Greens Executive Committee, I am passionate about the environment and
was keen to get involved. I left my house early Friday morning to travel
to Parliament Square, little did I know I would still be on Waterloo
Bridge singing my heart out at 4AM Sunday morning!

The power of love

I have been involved in many protests in my young
life, but I have rarely seen anything so well organised, so effective
and so purely wholesome as this. From the first moment I stepped onto
Parliament Square to the second I left Marble Arch the resounding
feeling I felt was love. Love for our planet. Love for my fellow
demonstrators. But most importantly, love for every human being on this
planet.

Whether that be the few counter-protesters or the
police trying to break us up, the important theme was that we showed
love to everyone who approached us. With this approach, you avoid the
pitfalls of isolating people who are not yet on board, and nothing is
achieved if a significant portion of society feels isolated, and
Extinction Rebellion identified and managed this to perfection.

Preventing shut down

I saw hundreds of arrests, from activists braver than
I, yet the chants “We love the police” and “Who’s police, Our police!”
continued to ring out until the moment I left the protest. What
Extinction Rebellion understands is that the police are not the problem
in this scenario, even if they are the facilitators for the will of the
establishment.

What else Extinction Rebellion expertly did was make
all zones alcohol and drug free. Whilst some people in attendance quite
rightly fancied an ice cold can of beer in the blazing heat, everyone
understood that we did not need to give the police, the right-wing press
or anybody else an excuse. An excuse to shut us down. An excuse to
demonise us. Or an excuse to not take us seriously.

The clear out

I spent Saturday daytime with the remaining activists
on Oxford Circus, many of whom were arrested as the police scrambled to
clear the junction. I watched in awe as the police used a vast array of
power tools to try and free the activists who had managed to completely
secure themselves to the concrete floor. The smell rising through the
air of burnt tarmac. Sparks flying off the ground as they saw through
the locks. Dozens of police surrounding each peaceful activist secured
to the floor. This felt absolutely surreal against the backdrop of
thousands of shoppers, giant brands and luxury cars. It was incredible.

Eventually, the police cleared the square however not
without igniting the wrath of the protesters with some unashamedly
non-environmentally friendly decisions. A large rubbish truck enters the
Oxford Circus junction and all of the sleeping bags, duvets, cardboard
boxes and everything else was unceremoniously discarded without a
moments thought as to what could be recycled. If you could choose one
crowd you would not want to watch that, it would be a large crowd of
environmental activists.

As the sun went down, I moved to Waterloo Bridge for
one of the most powerful evenings I have had the privilege to
experience. With knowledge the police were looking to reclaim the
bridge, hundreds of activists descended for an evening of music, talks
and togetherness. A candlelit vigil was held whilst talented musicians
played beautiful music on a wide range of interesting instruments
against a backdrop of dozens of Police.

As the skatepark was dismantled, fairy lights taken
down, trees torn up, we sang. As the fire brigade came to sturdy up the
truck, so the police can cut protesters down to carry them away, we
sang. No matter what negativity they tried to throw our way, to dampen
our spirits, we simply sang.

It was clear by the end of the night the police did
not expect this sheer determination and resilience from and it was
evident the bridge was not being cleared tonight. Victory, for now. And
yes, the bridge was cleared the following day, but not without a fight.

The morning after

Sunday brought more magic as hundreds marched from
Parliament Square through to Marble Arch. A funeral procession with
activists dressed in black, brass band in tow, led the rebellion forward
as we marched past Buckingham Palace right into Marble Arch where Greta
Thunberg delivered her rousing and inspirational speech. After days of
activism, much walking and losing my voice completely, I thought I would
take Sunday night to myself. Of course, my favourite band Massive
Attack played a impromptu show, of which I then missed, so we are not
going to talk about that.

Five Early Lessons From Extinction Rebellion

Published by:

By Chris Taylor

How the new movement for ecological justice is reimagining the world
by reimagining the art of protest, protection and healing.

By Chris Taylor

/ filmsforaction.org

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Apr 25, 2019

Photo: Ruth Davey/Look Again – Photography for the Wellbeing of People and Planet (www.look-again.org)

Like many in the UK I have jumped feet first into the Extinction
Rebellion movement. It has captured something in the zeitgeist,
bringing together people across cultures and generations in a movement
for fundamental global change. It’s not just about climate change. It’s
about a revolution of love, deep ecology and radical transformation.

There is a long way to go. Victory will be secured over years rather
than months. This is the struggle for the heart and soul of the human
species, not for a quick fix climate solution. But even at this early
stage we are starting to see trends and approaches that are making the
difference – and that show how world-changing movements will operate in
the coming global transition.

  1. This is a Self Organising System. XR is based on
    careful study of mass movements for civil disobedience and disruption.
    Local groups are free to plan and implement their own actions so long as
    they stay within the movement’s guiding principles. The sites occupied
    in London had the same freedom – to organise actions, events and
    activities as they saw fit.

The whole movement runs on self-organising
interlinked circles connected through virtual platforms including
Basecamp, Google docs and WhatsApp.

The focus on self-organisation releases
untold amounts of energy and creativity. It builds agency and ownership
and avoids the traps and delays of hierarchy.

  1. There is a very strong set of guiding principles.
    Rebels are able to navigate how to act because of ten core values.
    These include a shared vision, absolute non-violence, welcoming everyone
    and every part of everyone. Because these values are upfront and out
    there, they build a shared culture, which mirrors the world we are
    trying to create.
  2. XR’s organizational culture is “regenerative”.
    It aims to be nourishing and sustaining for all members. There were
    “welfare” tents at all London action sites offering space to relax,
    recuperate, meditate, practice yoga, as well as providing medical care
    as needed. This regenerative culture avoids burn-out and is attractive
    to the general population. The police were at a loss as to how to deal
    with such friendly protesters. Commuters grew to value the calm brought
    to the city, the festival atmosphere and the decrease in traffic.
  3. The movement is paying attention to its ultimate vision.
    XR publicly declares three concrete short term demands: governments
    should tell the truth about the climate emergency, they should go carbon
    net-neutral by 2025, and there should be a citizen’s assembly to
    explore and devise solutions.

But this is just the short term. Alongside
this is a much longer term transformational vision, which takes its map
from “the map of the human heart”. This is a vision of radical social
transformation and a rebalancing of humanity’s relationship with nature.
That’s the ultimate goal.

5. At its core this is a profoundly spiritual
movement (with a small “s”). It is jam packed with muslims, sufis,
christians, jews, quakers, buddhists and people of no faith, all
exploring thier common beliefs, beyond religion. What we have found is a
yearning for deeper meaning, for the magic and mystery of life, for a
felt connection to the entire eco-system of this Earth. XR is alive with
ceremony, contemplation and a careful, conscious action in honour of
life, love and abundance. We are becoming nature protecting itself,
experiencing its own beauty and evolving into its higher self.

How this will all play out is not easy to see. The movement in the UK
is taking a pause, to regroup, recuperate and shift to some serious
political horse-trading. What tactics will be needed to bring about both
short-term policy change and long-term global transformation, only time
will tell. But for sure, we’re off to a great start.

As one activist friend of mine, Nikki Levitan, put it:

“At the core of my experience this
last week I see that this is the first ever activism that is heart-led,
no blaming or shaming, just taking action from a place of love and
collective responsibility. 

A community of all generations who care and are able to self organise. 
It is amazing when humans step out into the world and really do
something and be the change, it unleashes so much creativity,
possibility and courage.”

Mao once said “The Revolution is not a dinner party”. XR is showing it might just start with a street party instead.

Earth Day, 2019: Some Of Us Have Seen What’s Coming

Published by:

By Cody Petterson
For the first time in 15 years, I sat down in my car the other day and broke down sobbing. On the side of a dirt road, surrounded by mountains. Waves of sadness, frustration, rage, and despair welling up.
I’d spent the day planting and watering seedlings, which I’ve done for half a decade now. We have 300 acres on the north slope of Volcan Mountain, between Julian and Warner Springs. The property got hit by the Pines Fire in 2002, which killed two-thirds of the conifers. I grew up hiking in Cuyamaca, before the fires, and I got it in my mind to restore the conifer forest on the property. It took months to figure out what was what, heading up to the mountain once a week, taking pictures, coming home and trying to identify all the species, reading late into the night about botany, and forestry, and silviculture. I collected thousands of cones. I learned how to get seeds out of them and to stratify, germinate, and pot the seeds. I started growing seedlings in the backyard. I put together a working group with US Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife, CALFIRE, and the US Natural Resource Conservation Service. We collected and sent 30 bushels of fresh cones up to the USFS nursery in Placerville, and I eventually got a thousand seedlings from those seeds.
I planted every which way I could, learning something new each time, year after year. The first year I planted in the open. The seedlings baked. Next in the shade. They baked. I learned to water every two or three weeks, which isn’t easy across 300 acres of steeply sloped terrain. The pocket gophers ate them from below. I caged the bottoms. Rabbits severed them at the base. I caged them above ground. Rodents climbed up and down into the cages and defoliated the needles. I caged the tops. The rodents ate the needles on all the branches that protruded from the cage, and the hardware cloth cages heated up in the sun and the metal killed all the branches and needles that were in contact with it. 
And all the time, the relentless heat and dryness killed any seedling left without watering for more than two or three weeks. Winter rains are good, but there’s no snow-melt anymore, and a winter rain doesn’t help a seedling survive in October when there hasn’t been a drop of rain in 8 months (the second half of 2017 was the driest on record here). In spite of thousands of hours of thought, and worry, and work, and care, I’ve lost probably 650 out of the 700 seedlings I’ve raised from seed and planted with my own hands over the last 5 years.
That day, after a long, dirty, hot day of planting, I walked to one of my favorite spots, a ring of granite boulders sheltered by a huge, gnarled Canyon Live Oak. There, lying shattered and rotting in the middle of the ring, was half the 60 foot tall tree. The other half was still standing, but covered in the telltale, tiny D-shaped holes of Gold-spotted Oak Borer (GSOB), a beetle that gets into the phloem, xylem, and cambium of our native oaks and kills them rapidly. GSOB arrived in San Diego on firewood from southeast Arizona fifteen years ago and has been slowly advancing north, laying waste to our native oaks. It’s killed maybe 80,000 so far. I wandered around to a dozen nearby trees, all big, ancient oaks. The trunks of every one were spotted with GSOB holes. I stood there stunned. The whole millenia-old forest was dying, as far as the eye could see. I wandered back to my truck, numb.
I sat down in the driver’s seat, staring out the window. At the oaks, dying in mass. At the stately, hundred-foot-tall Bigcone Douglas Fir, towering above the oak canopy. Each Bigcone drops maybe two hundred to a thousand cones, depending on size, every three to five years. Each cone has around 100 viable seeds in it. Maybe 40,000 seeds on average per tree, every few years. Times a few hundred trees. An average of somewhere around a million seeds a year fall on our stretch of mountain. And yet there’s not more than a dozen saplings growing naturally on the entire property, 300 acres. I sat there thinking about what that meant, year after year, a million seeds dropped and maybe one or two survive, and those only on the dampest, darkest parts of the mountain. It meant the days of the Bigcone are done.
I sat thinking about those thousands of oaks on all those slopes, and ridges, and hills. Dying. I thought of the Shot Hole Borer, working its way up through our canyons, killing all San Diego’s Coast Live Oak, and willow, and sycamore, and cottonwood. I thought of the Bigcone pushing their way up through the oak canopy. Last of their kind. I thought of all my seedlings. The hundreds I’ve planted over the years and the hundreds filling my patio and yard. I’ve lost too many to count, but I can somehow remember the moment I first saw each one had dried out, or been pulled under by gophers, or stripped bare by rodents, or gnawed by rabbits, or trampled by cattle from the neighboring reservation.
I’d thought about it all a thousand times. I’ve lain in bed so many nights trying to wrestle with it. I don’t know why, but that afternoon something in my mind buckled under the weight of it. I thought, ‘How do I tell my kids?’ and I started to cry. They’ve grown up with me storing seeds and acorns in the refrigerator, germinating seeds, potting seedlings, watering them, five hundred at any given time in the backyard, working in the greenhouses, unloading all my dusty tools and empty water bottles from the truck when I get back in the evening from the mountain. Their dad working in any spare moment on reforesting is all they’ve ever known. I thought of this photo we took a couple of years ago, sitting in front of all our hundreds of seedlings. So happy. How do I tell them that I don’t know what to do with the six hundred seedlings in the backyard? That if I keep them potted in the yard, they’ll get root-bound and slowly die, and if I try to outplant them on the mountain, they’ll die even faster? That there’s no place left in the world for these trees they’ve grown up with? And then the question that was probably there the whole time, waiting to surface: How do I tell myself? I think of all the love I’ve put into saving that forest. All the years. All the thousands of hours. All the thought, and worry, and hope, and faith. How do I tell myself that it’s all gonna die? I’ve spent so long among those trees. It’s not like trees in a park you visit. I don’t go to a different trail or campground or mountain every week. I go to the same mountain, every time. I know every corner of those three hundred acres. I can see the whole forest when I close my eyes. Those trees are like friends to me. I know their peculiarities, their personalities. I can identify some of those trees by their acorns alone. It’s honestly too much. To know they’re all doomed. And if my forest is dying, the same thing is happening everywhere on earth. My mind leapt back 20 years to when I was doing fieldwork up in Kenai, Alaska. I remembered driving past hundreds of miles of conifers dying from Spruce Bark Beetle, which had exploded without the cold winters to keep its population in check. I must have blocked it out for twenty years. But it was right there, just below the surface of my consciousness, foreshadowing.
The sadness, the fear, the despair comes over me in waves when I think about it. The whole biosphere, sixty-six million years of adaptation and speciation, is dying. I took personal responsibility for repairing, conserving, stewarding my half-mile square of it, and it finally hit me–what I’d been wrestling with unconsciously for a long time–that I can’t save it. No amount of wisdom, or sacrifice, or heroism is going to change the outcome. It’s been wearing on me for years, but when you’re raised on Star Wars and unconditional positive regard, you think that no matter how long the odds, you’re somehow gonna pull off the impossible. It’s been years of working, day-in, day-out, against odds that were unimaginably long. Only, they weren’t long. They were impossible.
And at the crescendo of sobbing and loss, the saddest thought I’ve ever had came to me: I wish I didn’t know. What else can you say, when faced with a catastrophe of such vastness, with the unravelling of the entire fabric of life on earth? I mean, we need to fight to save what we can, but the web of life as we know it is done. All the beautiful things we saw as kids on the Discovery Channel. The forests I grew up in. The mountain lions, and the horned owls, and the scat and the tracks in the washes. We’re so early in this curve, and the changes that are already baked in will be so profound. I don’t think humans are headed for extinction. We’ll survive, though many of us will suffer and many die. But all this life with which we’ve shared the planet, much of it won’t make it. I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t know those ancient trees dying up there on the mountain. I wish I’d never hiked through Cuyamaca before the fires. Wish I’d never looked beneath rocks for lizards in the canyons before the bulldozers came. Or heard the frogs singing.
Some of us have seen what’s coming. Some of us feel, deeply, the oneness of all life, feel its fabric fraying. On the first of April, 2019, just after 3 o’clock, some faith–some fantasy inside me–died, and I felt despair for the world I’ve known and loved. We will not save what was. The world, the systems, the interrelationships, the densely woven tapestry, the totality we were raised to love will collapse. My responsibility now is to my children–to all our children–and the world that will remain to them. To rescue as much as we can from that global conflagration, from the catastrophes of famine, and flood, and fire, and conflict, and exodus, and extinctions that await. To end our dependence on fossil fuels, immediately. To dramatically change our food production, our transportation, our land use. Our way of life. To defeat anyone and anything that opposes or hampers that work. If there were ever a truly holy war, this struggle–to save the whole of life from ourselves–is it. There can be no compromise. No increments. No quarter. There is nothing left, but to go forth–with the grief, and desperation, and granite-hard determination–and transform the world. Utterly. Immediately.

Dr. Cody Petterson is an anthropologist and environmental activist. He is president of the San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action and serves on the boards of the San Diego River Conservancy and the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego. He lives with his wife and two children in La Jolla, California, where he enjoys his passion for native habitat conservation and restoration.