We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, April 22, 2012

In Poll, Many Link Weather Extremes to Climate Change

Click here to access article by Justin Gillis from The New York Times. (If you are not registered with this website, you can access the article here.)
Past survey work had suggested...that people tended to see the climate change problem as “distant in time and space — that this is an issue about polar bears or maybe Bangladesh, but not my community, not the United States, not my friends and family.”
If one only followed mainstream media, this would be a surprise because this trend, connecting extreme weather with global warming, is almost never reported. It's clear that recent extreme weather events in the US are having an impact.
“During that crazy heat wave in March, everyone in Chicago was out enjoying the weather, but in the back of their mind they were thinking, this is not right.”
Happy Earth Day! 

Speaking of Earth Day, judging by the lack of coverage of this day in US mainstream media today and in recent years, it's obvious that the political operatives of the One Percent have decided to downsize the event. Although Earth Day began here in the US in 1970, it apparently is not seen by US capitalists as a very good fit with the growth imperatives of capitalism. On the other hand, where I am situated near the Canadian border, I have seen and heard considerable evidence that the commemoration of this day is very much alive in Canada. For example, see this.