The man, Bill McKibben, got 'the news' almost the same time as #BigOil did.
But he reacted quite differently.
Besides an historical overview of #ClimateChange and his #ClimateAction
he has a #DireWarning about the warming and a clear #CallToAction
"Bill McKibben on Climate Crisis: How we got here and what we can do now" [9:39 min]
by Brief But Spectacular
Quote by BBS:
"22 apr 2024
Over forty years ago, the publication of ‘The End of Nature’ popularized a topic that was then largely unfamiliar to the general public.
The book’s author, Bill McKibben, brought the subject of global warming to light and has advocated for climate solutions ever since. In this #EarthDay special on environmental protection, he talks about the oil industry's PR campaign, how renewable energies can not only help the planet but also curb power abuse, and why global warming is an urgent matter that can only be solved if all generations work together.
To take action today, go to ThirdAct.org "
I shared these two beautiful books in the #littlefreelibrary for #earthday . They both remind readers how important it is to care for and protect our beautiful planet !
🌍Bondi & Poppy help heal the planet ( April 18, 2023 #JujuPress )
🌍 Nature : Why we need to care for our planet (February 13, 2024 #albatrosbooks )
Happy Earth Day 2024!
I watched this adorable red squirrel scale right up the spiky stalk of a devil's club plant at a state park in Alaska. It perched with its berries for a minute, then came back down to a little pocket of safety among the ground-level plants.
Random #EarthDay tip: don't buy compostable forks and spoons. Go to your thrift store, and purchase a handful of real, metal forks and spoons (usually 50 cents or less for each). Pair those with washable napkins. Use them, wipe them off and wrap them in your napkin, take those all home and wash 'em.
Today is Earth Day. National Geographic tells the story of the first time the event was held, in 1970. It was the result of outrage at a devastating oil spill in Santa Barbara in Jan. 1969, which killed thousands of birds and stained beaches along California's coast.
Your Earth Day reminder that Trump was terrible for the planet, rolling back more than 100 regulations governing clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals
No wonder he’s received millions in donations from Big Oil.
Why are corporations allowed to continue reaping billions in profits while ravaging the biosphere and endangering the future of civilization?
Why do politicians give only lip-service, pretending to be strong on the climate while doing nothing to stop the irretrievable damage of the corporations? And why do voters keep returning those same politicians to office, over and over again?
Because the system is operating exactly as intended.
Our rulers make sure we'll get enough to eat (bread) if we work hard for it, and they provide trivial entertainment (circuses) to keep us distracted from what's really going on. We can barely see that, if at all, and anyway we're kept too busy to care very much.
The aim of the system is — and always has been — more money and more power for those at the top. To hell with the consequences.
We are not seeing, or being allowed to see, the system as a system.
It is offered as a series of unrelated events. That's how the media covers it.
Political power is a complicated beast but the most malleable element is speech. We aren't completely hampered in our ability to communicate, and we must learn to speak about this system as a connected thing.
It isn't sufficient to take action on climate if we also take inaction (non-action) or unaction (undoing action) on climate because we aren't helping anything by isolated ceremony, only by net change.
The notion of a carbon credit, for example, is a metaphor. The idea that it's OK to mess up the climate if you also do a dance elsewhere to unmess it. Then you've just done nothing. That might seem harmless to some, but we need to do more than nothing. We need to be applying the positive side of that WITHOUT the negative side because neutrality will not save us, only the aggregation of many positives will save us.
Every time someone does something they think cancels, they are saying they think it's possible to stand outside of the system, to have done their part and to be able to safely wait for others to do their part.
Like trying to save a burning building by saying it's OK to light a few matches if you also pour a few cans of water elsewhere in the building. Like you can pour water on the part of the fire that is your own apartment and then sit comfortably in your wet living room waiting for the people downstairs to put out their own apartments, as if somehow you on the twelfth floor need only to put out your own apartment and will be safe from the building falling.
We cover the news as if these actions occur in isolation, not as part of any coherent whole. We need to cover it like the war that it is, like the war that we are losing, so that we are not surprised when in fact we do lose, as if no one had told us.
New art thread for 2024 starts here! This is a mostly daily thread with a different artist featured in each post, primarily modern and contemporary stuff since that's my thing.
Earthworks by American artist Meg Webster, 1990s-2020s, whose indoor and outdoor installations incorporate natural materials like soil, moss, and native plants.