so
that you can
Save the
world, and
hurry up about it!
I was gone. Now I'm not.
Keep coming back, because things keep getting worse. I'm not
saying that maybe one person can
make a difference. But I'll try to make you try, and you'll try to make
others try and we'll look up and hey! Sustainability. Yeah!.
Realness:
There is no
greater enemy to the environment
than George W. Bush. He is the
absolute worst guy, he wins, hands down.
Therefore, YOU cannot be FOR: the environment, kittens or puppies, the
Bill of Rights, this country or any other;
if you are for the Bushmonster. He is
too
whacked-out a nut case, a-gunning for Armaggedon, which is awfully
scary
(particularly if you've seen the movie). Don't let the very bloody Iraqi war play tricks on your
tender brain.
Things are very bad. The oil companies are making record
profits, and you're paying about twice
as much to tow your SUV behind your Hummer. So just about
everybody in the whole wide world loses,
except for Bush and his scarily undead cronies.
The killings and casualties
committed in service to these porn corp profits, seem to mean
absolutely
nothing but more folding money to these boys. And since killing seems
so super easy for
the Bushwhacker--
so long as others are actually pulling the triggers, or shelling the
civillians, or dismantling the IDEs, or
simply getting
blown into the bite-size bits-- we are so not done. If he was so
interested in "democracy", as
he's lied
and said so often;
might we have a semblance of one right here (Thanks ever so,
Diebold!)?
So what do you do? You keep on steppin'. You inform
yourself and you do the best
you can. You get with others who agree with you and o r g a n i z
e. Same-o
same-o. Got it? Good.
Because people like you, if you're like me, are even more concerned
about Mother Earth than
the so-called 'white majority'. Don't believe me? Read this
then-- you'll see.
It's a study
by Paul Mohai called African
American concern for the environment - Dispelling Old Myths.
He says that if we dusky dudes and dudesses dared to recycle;
we'd win the racial environmentally
concerned race. Didn't know there was one? Me
neither. Ain't it grand winning when you didn't even
know you were playing? Oh yeah. We're a big big deal now. And here
they thought we didn't care...
until they asked us.
Take a cleansing breath now-- you're gonna need it. Bush
"doesn't believe in" global
warming. Or,
perhaps I should say that he thinks it might be happening; but he
thinks it's "natural", not manmade.
I know, I know. Cancer is natural too, but I bet he would get
chemo if he caught it... Anyway, since Siberia,
the
permafrost, and the polar ice caps are melting; now that the
hurricane
"season" has extended to uh, anytime,
and now that the whole entire earth can
experience the SUV and lawnmower exhaust that
is the American morning breath
(preferably with broadband), the sky is falling! We broke
the
sky!
Make you proud
to be an American? Then do something about it,
sweetheart! And with the
quickness, please.
When Bush reneged on
The
Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international accord setting limits
on greenhouse gas emissions; he set the standard for other nations to
say no. To be fair; since
we generate ONE THIRD of them, it's mad rude. But he
didn't stop there.
He is still trying to vivisect the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, for MORE oil. He has
lifted limits on off-road-vehicles
in sanctuaries, and has rolled
back rules that banned development on
60
million acres of national forest. In fact, he's privatizing lots
of forests and is now counting
golf ponds as
"protected wetlands" in his official reports. Yes, he's a
stinking liar. And no, he actually doesn't
have
any shame.
Hey, DID YOU KNOW that
Black
and Latino Children With Asthma Receive A Lesser Standard Of Care Than
White
Counterparts Who Didn't Get Consistent Care Either?
Sure you did. But now you can read about how some Harvard types
figured it out by just picking up the old
land line. Their study was done by this mouthful of an 'Agency
for
Healthcare Research and Quality, the American
Association of Health Plans Foundation', and the Maternal and Child
Health Bureau.
But a mouthful of air for some multi-ethnic asthmatic crumb
hustlers? Priceless.
Speaking of things Bush UNdid: He
tried to lift new limits on the amounts
of arsenic allowed in drinking
water (burp), and undid new cleanup regulations for
federal surface mines. I
could go on, but you must, instead.
Save
the Arctic Refuge. Defend
Our Wildlife. Learn
more about what you can do to counter
this unelected antiChrist.
And do all you can to protest his satanic warmongering.
After all-- I paraphrase what we used
to say back in the day--
war is extremely bad for the
environment
and all living creatures. Just
make sure you do SOMETHING,
mommy, make it stop!
The babies gotta
breathe, man! They gotta breathe, even when you have municipal
buses gently idling
under their bedroom windows, and sewage to process under their
playgrounds and swimming pools.
Hyperbole, you say?
Harlem's Riverbank
State Park, lovingly referred to as Fart Park, begs to differ,
mon ami. This is important ghetto stuff, and your attention to
our exactitude is mightily appreciated..
It's time now for a
truly
inspiring
interview by the inestimable
Dr. Robert Bullard,
with the
awesome Phylis Holmes,
which can be found at the Environmental
Justice Resource Center site under
the title The
South Camden
Warriors Battle
Environmental Racism.
Read it and follow the leaders.
The
Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta
University
was formed in 1994
to serve as a research, policy, and information clearinghouse
on issues related to
environmental justice,
race and the environment, civil
rights,
facility siting,
land use planning, brown fields, transportation equity,
suburban sprawl,
and Smart Growth. Yummmmm!
presented a national
conference and
community
dialogue in Harlem on:
*** Human Genetics,
Environment, and
Communities
of Color:
Ethical and Social
Implications ***
Keep an eye
on them at weact.
They really do
act. Why? They have
themselves a vision.
I am very impressed by
the Environmental
Defense Fund.
Once you register, they send you alerts
via email. These alerts vary from standing against the
Vieques bombings, to global warming.
And you, you armchair activist you,
can with a few clicks of your mouse,
both
fax AND email everyone concerned.
Talk about easy-peasy!
Please register here
and just click your little mouse like mad.
Size means nothing here, my friends. Your
one-ness is significant AND effective.
You sure will have told them, if
you do. Word of caution: They will bug the
livin' daylights outta you (for $$$), if you give them your phone
number...
They did so well, and this proves it! Environmental
Racism in Chester, Pennsylvania:
brought to you by the
very same
Chester
Residents
Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL) and
the
Campus Coalition Concerning Chester (C-4).
They have the history of their struggle
right
there on the page...
Go Ye, who would be environmentally
activist,
and Drink! Drink of their wisdom!
The brave and
Concerned
Citizens of Tillery
have a terrific site about their
community-based organization
working for environmental justice in their
poor, rural, and mostly colored
community in eastern North Carolina.
So, why can't you?
Looking to book?
The Environmental
Justice Database
is a quirky, cranky,and rather nicely
done yet
homely piece of bibliography.
Everybody can't be pretty,
Junior.
The Rain
forest Action Network is a cornucopia of information
about just that. You can set up
e-mail alerts about
actions regarding the incredibly shrinking
Rain Forests, and
so on.
The South
Bronx Environmental Health and Policy Study seems to have picked up
where the old Bronx Clean Air Coalition
left off. No worries. They say the main goal
of the South Bronx Environmental Health and Policy Study is to study
environmental
and health issues affecting their community, with particular emphasis
on the
relationships between air quality, transportation,
waste transfer activity, demographic characteristics, and public
health. Aside from the very textbook nature of the study for
minority neighborhoods across the country; again. Don't mess
wit' the Bronx!
Planet Peace
had these
words under its logo:
Earth
Animals Children Elders
Even though we don't quite fit any
of those categories,
we just can't stop loving that direction!
They said of themselves:
Planet Peace
is run by Indigenous community organizers
and activists dedicated to the
world-wide
distribution of information regarding Indigenous
and Environmental grassroots
initiatives
from around the globe.
Its our mission to convey, inform,
educate, and promote those principles
which are dedicated to the protection
and preservation of our
cultures, traditional customs and
ceremonies.
So we ask: Anybody
gotta problem with that!?!
I mean, I'm not
into clitoridectomies
or burkhas or other
forced heinous masculinist hoohaa masquerading as hallowed
tradition, but I
think we should still remember those things, along
with the ifs and whys that accompany those distinctly ewwwww! types of cultural
experience...
See? Go ahead and get a
little stank, especially when someone's trying to mess with a lady's
junk.
Anyway,
Planet Peace is gone gone gone, almost but not quite like a few
unwritten languages last year...
The Ogoni Fact
Sheet was
so compelling a site,
and thoughtfully done, and much more than
its name implies.
Thankfully, this "ratical" org has a decent fact sheet up to replace
it. Still, the original was just so swell.
It began:
"The
once beautiful
Ogoni countryside is no more
a
source of fresh
air and green vegetation.
All one sees and feels around is death."
The strongman Nigerian General Sani
Abacha, in partnership with the
belligerent and murderous Shell Oil, reads
like a sensational international espionage thriller-- except its all
true, and its still
happening.
The Ogoni People informed us:
Shell
Nigeria's
actions are indicative of the nature of
transnational
corporations. Their actions denote a hypocritical
approach to the value of
human
life and the environment-- actions routinely taken in Ogoni
would
be
unthinkeable
in the 'developed' countries of the North who buy most of Shell's oil.
There is now a site called Unrepresented
Nations and Peoples Organization or UNPO, which talks about the
Ogoni
and others, but the title of the org is maddening to me. Please
people. Represent!
I initially
wrote:
Dr. Alx Dark has put together this exhaustive
page
of links about Native
Americans & the Environment
for you, God and the
world to see.
Help yourself, and thank Dr. Dark
for his fine effort,
while you're
there. He's mighty busy.
UpDATE: In fact he's so busy, he handed the page over to the National
Library for Science and the Environment. Just
goes to show you.
The Honor
the Earth campaign is a consortium of three groups
organizing in support of Native
environmental
initiatives.
But then, they say it better than I have.
Dumping
in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environment
is a chapter from the book by the same
name, which
identifies the major social and
psychological
impacts associated with the
siting of noxious facilities and their
significance
in mobilizing black community residents.
Written by THE Dr. Robert D. Bullard. Go
for it.
Know about it, or I
won't be your friend.
The
excellent
Rachel's
Environment & Health Weekly
was written by the
learned
Peter Montague,
who meticulously
researched and footnoted this great thing,
and basically
everyone should have subscribed.
We didn't
know how he did it, and now
he doesn't anymore.
The former Earth
Action is now The
Natural Resources Defense Council.
They say about themselves:
Welcome to NRDC's Earth Action Center!
Here you'll find all the tools,
tips and information you need to help
protect the earth's extraordinary wealth
of natural treasures. And to make sure you stay up-to-date on urgent
issues needing
your immediate action, join their Earth Activist Network to
receive their free bi-weekly email alert.
Get that? Free!
That's a bargain at twice the price!
The Minority
Environmental Lawyers Association Inc. (MELA) is a
not-for-profit (these are special
lawyers!)
organization
dedicated to promoting
equity in the practice
and application of
environmental law.
MELA's membership
purports to
include African, Asian,
Latino, Native American, and presumably,
all of the
above.
But now it kinda looks like it's just one guy.
Well, that's one!
EnviroLink
Network is an online network
of up-to-date environmental resources
that a
smarty-pants like you could put to good use...
Chicano-Latino
Net out of UCLA provides a short list of links to
Chicano-Latino environmental struggles.
The
BELIZE RIVER VALLEY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
is an interesting site about Belize... Belize is
paradise, you know.
I know it (been there),
the people who put this site
together know it,
and you can know it too, even from where
you actually are.
I just can't stop
thinking about those wheezing, gulping, little youngsters with
asthma. Needless to say,
neither should you. Glide on over to the
Child Trends DataBank, and count the huddled masses yearning to
breathe at all, many
who also happen to be powerless, poor, and sick. And oh
yeah. They can't breathe.
Your
turn...
