#as greta thunberg said: there is no climate justice without human rights

[silicacid]

NEW: Satellite imagery reviewed by HRW shows that orchards, greenhouses and farmland in northern Gaza have been razed since the beginning of Israel’s ground invasion, compounding concerns of dire food insecurity and loss of livelihood.

Israel's military has said in recent weeks it has conducted military operations in the Beit Hanoun area, including in an undisclosed agricultural area, to clear tunnels and other military targets.

The laws of war prohibit attacks directed at civilians or civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks and attacks that are disproportionate in the harm they cause to civilians.  All parties to the conflict must take constant care to spare the civilian population.

In NE Gaza, north of Beit Hanoun, once-green agricultural land is now brown and desolate. Fields and orchards were first damaged during hostilities following Israel’s ground invasion in late Oct. Bulldozers carved new roads, clearing the way for Israeli military vehicles.

But since mid-November, after Israeli forces took control of the area, satellite imagery shows that orchards, fields and greenhouses have been systematically razed, leaving sand and dirt.

Farmers planted crops like citrus fruit, potatoes, dragon fruit and prickly pear in this area, some of which took years to grow, contributing to the livelihoods of Palestinians in Gaza. Some plots were razed in a day.

High resolution satellite imagery shows bulldozers were used to destroy fields and orchards. Tracks are visible, as well as mounds of earth on the edges of the former plots. Israeli forces have used armored bulldozers for years, including in the post Oct 7 offensive in Gaza.

As food systems collapse across Gaza, we are gravely concerned about the well-being of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza who face hunger, food insecurity and loss of livelihood amid the Israeli blockade. The World Food Programme has warned of “the immediate possibility of starvation.”

Satellite imagery indicates that the razing of agricultural land continued in northern Gaza during the military pause in fighting that began on Nov 24. The Israeli military was in direct control of the area during that time, and remains so now.

Israeli forces destroyed agricultural land in Gaza in the past. HRW documented razing of fields, greenhouses and orchards by Israeli forces, including in 2004 and in 2009.

On Nov 28, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said Gaza is suffering at least $1.6 million daily loss in farm production. In addition to destroyed farmland, many farmers are displaced. Lack of aid + destruction of bakeries also contribute to dire food shortages.

The current crisis has further exacerbated the impact of Israel’s more than 16-year closure, which has devastated Gaza’s economy and left 80% of the population before Oct 7 reliant on aid.

Whether by deliberate razing, damage due to hostilities or the inability to irrigate or work the land, farmland across northern Gaza – which also included crops like tomatoes, cabbage and strawberries – has been drastically reduced since the start of the ground invasion.

World leaders should call on Israel to protect civilians. They should urgently act to prevent food insecurity, loss of livelihood and starvation of Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza.

[shape]

The X and Instagram posts, which featured Thunberg holding a sign reading “Stand with Gaza,” made no direct mention of the Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis by Hamas or the 212 people of dozens of nationalities currently held captive in Gaza by the terrorist organization.

“Today we strike in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza. The world needs to speak up and call for an immediate ceasefire, justice and freedom for Palestinians and all civilians affected,” she wrote.

In her posts, Thunberg provides links to Palestinian groups and radical anti-Israel Jewish groups.

[...] International human rights lawyer and pro-Israel activist Arsen Ostrovsky tweeted in response:

“No, it doesn’t go ‘without saying,’ because you didn’t say it in the first place and have so now, only in response to the (deserved) outrage. Even now, you can’t bring yourself to mention Israel, instead choosing to side with Palestinians. You are an utter fraud.”

In response to Thunberg’s apparent support for Hamas, the Israeli Education Ministry decided to remove all references of the climate activist from textbooks, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported on Sunday.

In addition, Haifa’s National Maritime Museum closed an exhibition focusing on Thunberg’s sea voyage from Europe to New York, local media said.

[tat2luvgirl]

#Repost @blueravenartist (@get_repost) ・・・ CLIMATE CRISIS⠀ I was recently apprised of a study that showed that if the words, “climate crisis,” were used, Republicans responded 400 times more appropriately than the words, “climate change.” Thanks @saveourbluworld Forevermore, I will refer to this challenge as climate crisis, since that is what it is. Greta Thunberg understands. “It’s 2019. Can we all now please stop saying “climate change” and instead call it what it is: climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown, ecological crisis and ecological emergency?”⠀ I know overwhelmingly horrible things are happening right now. I realize what the Republicans, primarily Trump and his lapdog Mitch McConnell are doing to the planet, all the problems that need to be addressed. But I feel like a piece I read lately in TIME magazine about Robert Redford. “Collusion, obstruction of justice, impeachment or not, greedy tax breaks, medical care for all or none, refugees seeking compassion at our borders—as a citizen, I care deeply about all these things. But I also fail to see how any of it will matter without a planet to live on.” ⠀ At the moment, I’m weary of the fight. It’s so hard to keep fighting when the other side cheats so voraciously and makes it almost impossible to get anything done. Here’s my post of today. We have no right to do this to the children of tomorrow. But I think that for a while, I need to get back to art to preserve my sanity. I know we must keep fighting. But for today, I’m down for the count. ⠀ What keeps me hanging on are the words of people like AOC who said with all ferocity, “Don’t mess with our future. When it comes to climate, it’s all our lives at stake. The younger you are, the more consequences you’ll see. It’s life and death for us. And we will fight like it.” ⠀ Our only hope, yes, the only hope for humanity is to take control back from the greedy, corrupt GOP and from that ignorant thug who is wrecking our world and destroying our democracy. @blueravenartist⠀ https://www.instagram.com/p/BxJBDeGJq7c/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1wwk6xuhzuw1e

[victoriajohnson-posts-blog]

Let’s get real.

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“  Her life took a shocking turn on the afternoon of Feb. 14, when 17 students and teachers died in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. González was in the auditorium attending a class when the fire alarm went off. Students spilled onto the campus to find SWAT teams swarming and authorities screaming, “Code Red!” González and her classmates were rushed back into the auditorium, where they took cover on the floor between the folding seats. Holding the hands of friends on either side of her, González focused on keeping those around her calm as many began frantically searching the internet for any news that could explain what was unfolding on their campus.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” recalls González. “I didn’t want to go on my phone to check and see if anything was real because I was in a complete state of denial,” she tells me in her first-ever solo magazine interview. It wasn’t until days later that she would learn the full extent of the tragedy, when she read a story in the Miami Herald and saw the names of all the students and faculty members who had died.

Just three days after the massacre, González mustered remarkable resilience and courage when she transformed her anguish and heartbreak into unabashed activism. She delivered an impassioned speech at a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale, calling “B.S.” on President Trump, other politicians and the NRA for not tightening gun laws that could prevent “the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred.” Her speech was broadcast nationally, and her name began trending on Twitter that afternoon. She created the @Emma4Change handle to promote stricter gun laws, and along with other Parkland survivors she founded March for Our Lives, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization pushing for stricter gun laws and registering young voters.  “  https://variety.com/2018/politics/features/emma-gonzalez-parkland-interview-1202972485/

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   “My father was a teacher and ran a girls’ school in our village. I loved school. But everything changed when the Taliban took control of our town in Swat Valley. The extremists banned many things — like owning a television and playing music — and enforced harsh punishments for those who defied their orders. And they said girls could no longer go to school.

In January 2008 when I was just 11 years old, I said goodbye to my classmates, not knowing when — if ever — I would see them again. I spoke out publicly on behalf of girls and our right to learn. And this made me a target. In October 2012, on my way home from school, a masked gunman boarded my school bus and asked, “Who is Malala?” He shot me on the left side of my head.I woke up 10 days later in a hospital in Birmingham, England. The doctors and nurses told me about the attack — and that people around the world were praying for my recovery.   “  https://malala.org/malalas-story

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“   So what are animal rights activists – and should you maybe be one, too? Let’s dive deep into this subject and figure out what animal activism really means for people who love animals.What Are Animal Rights Activists?An animal rights activist is someone who believes in justice for all animals. They don’t condone animal testing, factory farming, and other systemic mistreatment of animals, nor do they believe in using harsh animal training methods or other pursuits that cause animals pain or discomfort. A key concept is in the name – rights. Animal rights activists recognize much higher rights for animals to exists and live than the current society in general does, and they work to change this.Most animal rights activists are either vegetarian or vegan, and many consider themselves environmental activists, as well. Their primary goal is to end speciesism and create a world in which humans and other animals can live with one another in peace and without one species dominating another.   “  https://sentientmedia.org/animal-rights-activists/

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      “   The current political climate has provided Martinez with an ample number of causes to protest and reasons to fight. The Earth Guardians represent a mindset not reflected or supported by the current executive branch, making their representation crucial for environmental well-being, as well as the future of tomorrow’s youths. While their actions will not replace those in executive positions, it requires the work of relentless non governmental organizations to demand and incite change. In recent months, Martinez has been vocal about a number of issues such as the fight in Standing Rock, North Dakota. Not only has Donald Trump pushed forward with plans to finish the pipeline while ruining sacred lands but he also made clear his intentions to rid of eco-driven legislation such as Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.   “   https://www.scu.edu/environmental-ethics/environmental-activists-heroes-and-martyrs/xiuhtezcatl-martinez.html

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“  Since September, blazes have killed at least 30 people, destroyed over 2,000 homes and burnt through 10 million hectares of land - an area almost the size of England.

The crisis has been exacerbated by record temperatures, a severe drought and climate change.

'Need to remain vigilant' On Monday, Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews said recent rain had proved "very helpful" to bushfire-affected communities.

But he added that storms had also hindered some fire- fighting efforts, and caused a landslide on a highway.

"Ultimately, we need to remain vigilant. It's 20 January - the fire season is far from over," Mr Andrews told reporters.

Mr Andrews said there was still a "massive fire edge" of more than 1.5 million hectares from blazes which had flared up in the state's east on New Year's Eve.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51170994

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“   In 2010, Mougin enlisted a French computer-aided design (CAD) company, Dassault Systèmes, to use the latest satellite tracking and computer modelling to test the idea of a trans-Atlantic tow: a 3D-scan of a real seven-million-tonne iceberg, and the previous year’s weather data and sea currents, produced a computer model of a theoretical tow from Newfoundland to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. “The model was using one very powerful oil rig towing tug, about 6,000 horsepower, far more powerful than the tugs available in the 1970s and 80s”, says Wadhams. Other technological upgrades in the intervening years included live satellite tracking, and an insulating fabric mesh or “geo-textile skirt” – all 3km of it – designed by Mougin to wrap around the iceberg to reduce the melt-rate. The same material is used on ski slopes in the Alps to stop snow from melting. After fitting the ‘skirt’, the tug would tow the iceberg using a large fishing trawl net.  “  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180918-the-outrageous-plan-to-haul-icebergs-to-africa

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“   US President Donald Trump has decried climate "prophets of doom" in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where sustainability is the main theme.He called for a rejection of "predictions of the apocalypse" and said America would defend its economy.Mr Trump did not directly name the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was in the audience.Later, she excoriated political leaders, saying the world "in case you hadn't noticed, is currently on fire".Environmental destruction is at the top of the agenda at the annual summit of the world's decision-makers, which takes place at a Swiss ski resort. In his keynote speech, Mr Trump said that it was a time for optimism, not pessimism, in a speech that touted his administration's economic achievements and America's energy boom.Speaking of climate activists, he said: "These alarmists always demand the same thing - absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives."   “  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51189430

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“   Ayakha Melithafa, 17

Ayakha lives in the village of Eerste River on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Her mother works as a farmer in the Western Cape, where droughts and severe water shortages have threatened her livelihood. These changes prompted Ayakha to act. As part of the African Climate Alliance and the Project 90 by 2030 initiative, Ayakha is mobilizing support for low-carbon development and a just energy transition in her country. In 2019, Ayakha and 15 other children around the world submitted a petition to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to hold five of the world’s leading economic powers accountable for inaction on the climate crisis.   “  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/the-teenage-change-makers-at-davos-2020/

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“   Fionn Ferreira, 18

Fionn grew up on a remote island in West Cork, a seaside region in southern Ireland. Fionn spent his childhood creating science projects and paddling around the coasts of Ireland with his kayak. Through his passion for the outdoors, he witnessed the effects of microplastic pollution on the environment. When Fionn was in high school, he invented a new method of extracting microplastics from the water using his own version of ferrofluid, a liquid developed by NASA. Fionn introduced the concept at the 2019 Google Science Fair, where he won the competition for his methodology to remove microplastics from water.  “  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/the-teenage-change-makers-at-davos-2020/

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“  Salvador Gómez-Colón, 17

Salvador Gómez-Colón When Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Salvador was told his community faced the prospect of no power or electricity for at least a year. In response, he created the “Light and Hope for Puerto Rico” campaign to distribute solar-powered lamps, hand-powered washing machines and other supplies to more than 3,100 families on the island. Salvador continues to support the implementation of smart energy systems in Puerto Rico and has launched the “Light and Hope for the Bahamas” humanitarian initiative. Salvador was named one of TIME Magazine’s 30 Most Influential Teens of 2017 and received the President’s Environmental Youth Award from the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Diana Award for social humanitarian work in 2019.  “  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/the-teenage-change-makers-at-davos-2020/

[biofunmy]

How The 2010s Crystalized Women’s Anger

Amanda Edwards / FilmMagic

NEW DELHI, India — As a woman in my twenties who grew up in India — a country where abuse of women has been described as the biggest human rights violation on Earth — the SlutWalks of 2011 were, frankly, bewildering.

Every day of our lives, women like me were taught to go over a mental checklist of ways to avoid getting raped. The list had become second nature, so deeply, seamlessly internalized that the doorbell only had to ring, and my mother and I, hanging out in our home, watching TV, or maybe making dinner, would first reach for a scarf to throw over our bodies before we answered the door. At my high school, where uniforms were mandatory, girls were asked to kneel on the ground, so the teachers could check if our skirts were long enough. If they didn’t touch the ground, they were too short, and a particularly terrifying teacher would rip open the hem of our skirts, those frayed edges marking us for the rest of the school day. There were a million ways to dress like a slut if you were a girl (there were no such codes for boys) — our white shirts could be “too transparent” if the cotton had worn thin from frequent washing or if we wore colored bras inside instead of white or “skin”-colored ones.

When I was a 25-year-old reporter, I went to ask a group of young girls who lived in a slum in Govandi, Mumbai, what their checklist looked like. What did paranoia look like in a place where thin corrugated sheets of steel were all that stood between the girls and their neighbors, adult men, leering boys?

Fourteen-year-old Nafisa told me she made sure she texted her friend Neelu before she left home. Neelu carried red chili powder with her everywhere she went in case she needed to throw it in the eyes of a potential attacker. Annu made sure her water bottle was always full so that she had something heavy to hit a potential molester with. Pinki had stopped wearing glass bangles once she turned 11 — because her mother told her that if someone grabbed her wrists, they would break and injure her, slowing her down as she ran from her attackers. Neena had stopped wearing her hair down because it attracted too much attention. At 15, most of them avoided going outdoors unless it was absolutely necessary, and when they did, they were usually accompanied by an older male from the family. A lot of the older girls carried small knives in their bags but were unsure if they’d be able to use them when the time came.

Some girls who wore hijabs said they did not feel any safer: “They want to find out what is underneath,” Nafisa said.

If adulthood was the steady accumulation of survival skills — a realization of one’s own power and its limitations — womanhood, for as long as I’d known it, appeared to be about developing a sixth sense that warned you when you were in a specific kind of danger from a man. But the news we read every day, of women abducted, burnt, raped, killed, appeared to be filled with women whose sixth sense had let them down.

Dibyangshu Sarkar / Getty Images

A SlutWalk in Kolkata in 2012.

The comment that sparked the first SlutWalk, leading to gatherings across 200 cities and 40 countries, didn’t even seem particularly surprising to me. A police officer in Toronto had said to a group of students: “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” It was the kind of thing that ministers, judges, police officers, holy men, and celebrities constantly repeated across the world.

But as the protests began to go viral, we dissected the SlutWalks avidly, over Facebook posts and IRL, in quiet, thrilled tones with other women. When Indian women held their own version of the SlutWalk — the Besharmi Morcha, or the March of Shamelessness — we cheered them on. But privately, I wondered if the entire project of reclaiming a pejorative word was counterintuitive. Did we really need to normalize the word “slut,” or the behavior associated with it, when there was so much else at stake — especially in a country where women struggled for basic rights?

And then there was the question of inclusivity, posed in the open letter from black women to SlutWalk organizers: Who can afford to reclaim the word “slut”? Who are the women whose bodies are always already considered sexualized and without agency by the patriarchy, and did the marches have space for sex workers? Trans women? Dalit women? Were the SlutWalks about provocation or about language? Were they only for the rights of privileged white women? Could we ever change the power imbalance that routinely blamed women for inviting sexual assault just by walking down a street?

In 2012, the conversation turned dark and urgent in India, when the gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi sent tens of thousands of women marching on the streets. Overnight, our fear had birthed an inchoate rage — against the culture of shame, against the constant policing of our bodies and clothes and words and movement. We wanted more than just the right to be safe, we wanted the right to roam the streets and hang out in public and take risks and have fun like any man, without fear of assault. We demanded justice; we also demanded joy. And for a moment, it seemed as though something might really change.

The next year, the world changed so much that it became unrecognizable to me. I was sexually assaulted, not by a stranger on a dark street corner, but by a person I had known and trusted for many years. I testified in court against him and felt as though I had set my entire life on fire. I lost my job, moved cities, moved back in with my mother. Scores of people and professional opportunities disappeared from my life. (The accused denies any wrongdoing.)

From the depths of my nightmare, SlutWalk, even with its problems, represented a spectacle of sex-positivity. It felt like a world of color and hope that I would never inhabit again. People from a range of genders and ages were still gathering in Spain, South Africa, India, and Pakistan, marching in the streets wearing school uniforms, office clothes, lace and leather, nuns’ habits, fishnets, and denim — flashing skin, drumming, dancing, holding babies and signs, and sharing stories of rape and assault and trauma and songs and jokes.

Meanwhile, I was called a slut all the time, by people close to the man who abused me, his lawyers, others who had never met me but were convinced I had lied — by strangers on the internet. I became less interested in reclaiming words and dissecting them. I was tired and suicidal, and I wanted to focus on being something more than, other than, separate from what happened to me and my body. The SlutWalks were described as the most successful feminist action of the last two decades. What good was any of it going to do?

It wasn’t until 2017, when women first began to speak publicly and loudly about Harvey Weinstein and the things they said he had done, that the fog of the past few years started to clear: For some of us, the SlutWalks had been our first moment of articulating collective rage.

For women, particularly those who were in our twenties or younger when this decade began, our only point of reference for women’s rage had been photographs from the anti-rape movements of the ’60s and ’70s, or marches called “Take Back the Night” — women occupying city streets at hours when decent women were supposed to be safe at home. Some of us knew about feminist theory, the first wave and the second and the third, still more of us knew that no matter where we were, our rights were precarious. Many of us now had opportunities our grandmothers could only dream of, but we were marching for the same old shit. Our bodies were still our first battlegrounds.

The next billion people — including women — who are learning about the power of collective action on the internet are from places like India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. These women have grown up in worlds where public spaces are fraught with danger and private spaces are frequently regarded with shame. As a teenage girl in Pakistan learns a new language of sexual freedom and identity online, she is also learning to navigate the murky waters of digital abuse that a woman lawmaker in the US is punished for. The cautionary tales of trolling, doxing, being targeted with rape threats, having intimate photographs posted online for all to gawk at, being morphed onto naked bodies on a random porn site all exist. But so do the possibilities of forming solidarities, joining protests beyond geographical confines, allowing more women than ever before to have a voice — and to listen in. The measure of successful feminist action, I learned this decade, has never been only about changing laws, governments, or workplace policies. Anger itself is clarifying, because it changes us, the people who participate in it, by giving us ways of seeing: seeing ourselves as part of a collective, seeing through patterns of abuse, seeing as in witnessing each other’s lives and stories.

In this decade, we have seen women’s rage move front and center — it is the subject of books and films and television shows. Beyoncé feels it, so does Greta Thunberg — a 16-year-old climate activist who only recently was told by the president of the US to seek anger management.

But, in workplaces, in courtrooms, at universities, on red carpets and during election campaigns, women are still expected to articulate that anger in the most bloodless way possible, in order to seem rational, likable, electable, and believable.

Hindustan Times / Getty Images

Students protest in Mumbai on Dec. 3, 2019.

Carefully contained anger has a role to play in history. Over the years, we’ve watched Anita Hill testifying against Clarence Thomas to an all-male, all-white jury that dismissed her account of being harassed at work. We read the letter that Chanel Miller read out to Brock Turner — a man who sexually assaulted her, but served only three months in prison. We witnessed Christine Blasey Ford’s restrained terror when she was forced to face the man who she said sexually assaulted her. We listened to Nadia Murad, as she described with every shred of dignity she could muster the ethnic cleansing, genocide, and rape of Yazidis — and then again, when Yazidi women were made to confront their rapists on the news.

It is telling that the backlash against the #MeToo movement, in the form of defamation and libel and aggressive defense lawyers, has sought to drag women back to the courtroom: a space they did not trust with the trauma of their abuse in the first place, a place where they are treated as though they cannot be credible witnesses to their own truths.

Yet women’s rage is still unruly: It frustrates all attempts to contain it, shocks, confuses, and provokes. And its unruliness is productive. What else can explain the fact that women are still gathering and marching together across the world? That a day after Donald Trump — a man who was recorded on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women — was confirmed as president of the USA, women held the largest protest in American history? This year, women declared a feminist emergency across 250 cities and towns in Spain, after years of gang rape acquittals, domestic violence, and murders, despite being called “psychopathic feminazis.” In Argentina, the murder of teenage girls, abortion rights, and widespread harassment sparked #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less Woman, Not One More Death) — mass strikes in 2015 which spread across Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and El Salvador, and most recently Chile, where this year, a street protest has turned into a feminist anthem performed across Istanbul and Latin America. In South Korea, over 40,000 women protested an epidemic of spy cameras in dressing rooms, unleashing the largest women-only strike in the country’s history. And in India, women came together to form a 385-mile-long human wall against hundreds of years of patriarchy that illegally restricts their entry into a Hindu temple.

It’s 2019, and everything is both terrible and fine. If you feel tired, inhale, exhale, drink some water, and take a break. But remember, even this form of self-care is a luxury for 785 million people on this planet who lack access to clean water, and hours spent looking for water locks women across the world in a cycle of poverty and abuse. In China, polluted air is being linked to an increased risk of miscarriages; in India, Pakistan, Sydney, and California, a deep breath can be hazardous.

Meanwhile, that thing we all need more of — time — is marching on, and so must we. ●

Sahred From Source link World News

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[courtneytincher]

Why Miami Was The Perfect Place For These Teens To Organize A Climate-Change Summit

Most people would expect 17-year-olds to be enjoying their summer to the max. For Zero Hour's founder and co-executive director Jamie Margolin, operations director Elsa Mengistu, and partnerships director Arielle Martinez Cohen, this involves taking on the herculean task of organizing a three-day climate change summit in Miami, FL, focused on providing education and activist training to a community that could be underwater in just a few decades."The focus point of the summit is to engage a community like Miami, where the sea level is rising. This place won’t exist several decades from now," Elsa told Refinery29. "That's a travesty. And though people talk about this, there is not a lot of action."This Is Zero Hour: The Youth Climate Summit will be held from July 12 to 14 at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Miami Airport & Convention Center. Jamie said registration for the event, which is free, is still open. The teens are expecting a few hundred people to show up and participate in a weekend full of workshops, networking events, and events designed for both experienced activists and those who are just joining the fight against climate change.Speakers include Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg, who at 16 has revolutionized the climate justice movement; 11-year-old Mari Copeny, better known as Little Miss Flint, who has been fighting for clean water in Flint, MI, for nearly five years; and Alethea Phillips, whose family helped organize the Standing Rock movement in North Dakota.Zero Hour credits Elsa as the mastermind behind the summit. The 17-year-old came up with the idea and worked on organizing the conference during her senior year of high school. "She is the reason this is happening and why it's possible," Jamie said. The team worked across time zones, sometimes until the early hours of the morning, to organize this event. The idea that a teenager would help organize an entire conference as a senior — while juggling exams, worrying about college, and being a normal high school kid — can seem extraordinary. But that's how Zero Hour, which Jamie founded in 2017 at the age of 15, rolls as an organization."I had a vision for a climate march for a very long time, especially after the Women's March. At this time, there was no climate strike movement, there was no mass mobilization for youth," Jamie said. The teen hoped that someone else would take on the challenge of organizing a youth movement focused on climate justice. But it didn't happen. In 2017, Jamie was outraged by spread of wildfires in Canada, which lead to smoke covering Seattle and the Northwest region. Jamie described witnessing the chaos as "apocalyptic." Then, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Jamie had a special connection to the island, which is the first Spanish-speaking place she had ever visited — even before her mother's native Colombia — which made her appreciate her Latinx roots even more. The teen decided it was time: "I said, 'Fuck it, we have to do a climate march.'"So they organized a climate march. That's how Zero Hour was born and since then, it has grown into an organization with a network of local chapters all around the globe. She added: "The team grew and it was no longer just me with an idea. It was a bunch of kids working, saying this organization is ours. It’s a relief to not have to do something alone."Photo: Courtesy of Zero Hour.Social media has played a crucial role in how Zero Hour organizers have connected with each other, despite being in different parts of the country and the world. "I read an article Jamie had on CNN calling elected officials out. At that time, I had been organizing March for Our Lives and a bunch of other movements," Arielle said. "Climate was something I was passionate about, but I didn't know where to get started. ... So, I DMd Jamie on Instagram."The climate crisis is perhaps the greatest threat humanity is currently facing and young people have been acutely aware of what it could mean for their futures. A report released by the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change last fall stressed the globe will be facing a multi-faceted crisis of disastrous magnitudes by 2040. The panel urged that the only way to minimize the damage by then is to transform the world economy at a scale and pace that has "no documented historic precedent." Another report, commissioned and released by the U.S. government soon after, found that public health and the national economy will be put at unprecedented risk by climate change in the next century.It's no shocker, then, that teenagers and young people have been at the forefront of demanding political leaders take action before it's too late. The Green New Deal, an ambitious reform that seeks to tackle climate change and income inequality in a decade, became part of the mainstream discourse in great part due to the work of young activists. Climate youth organizations have led the call for a climate debate during the Democratic presidential primary.The intensity of their activism — just like that of the Parkland students and the Dreamers who've fought for immigration reform — consistently elicits a specific "Yaaass, teens will save us!" type of response. But Jamie, Elsa, and Arielle are tired of adults' support ending there. "The most annoying thing ever that I get is politicians who say they’re supportive, but they are not really taking action. You would expect, like, Sen. Ted Cruz to be a climate denier," Jamie said. "But a lot of centrist Democrats, you'll talk to them and they'll be like, 'Climate! I believe in it! Give me a cookie because I believe in climate change!'"Jamie added: "That is not enough. Simply believing that the house is on fire, while the house is burning around you — I'm not going to applaud you. But the worst thing I get is when people say: 'Oh my God, you kids are gonna save the world!' There is no time for us to grow up and save the world later. It's now or never. And what kind of burden is that to put on high-schoolers? ... Get off your butt and help us. Young people’s power depends on our ability to influence the people in power. Why are they not taking action now?"Photo: Courtesy of Zero Hour.With or without adults, the Zero Hour teens will push forward. About 20 organizers, many of whom are girls of color, have spent the week ahead of the summit staying together at an Airbnb in Miami. "It's a little society we’re running," Jamie said. The summit, she added, is designed to give back power to the communities that are the most impacted by the threat of climate change. "It’s not another conference," she added. "It’s something revolutionary."Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Mom Of Toddler Who Died After ICE Detention Testifies Before CongressYouth Will Fix The Climate-Change Crisis Or Die Trying, Says ActivistAs President, Kamala Harris Says She Would Close The Nationwide Rape-Kit Backlog

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Most people would expect 17-year-olds to be enjoying their summer to the max. For Zero Hour's founder and co-executive director Jamie Margolin, operations director Elsa Mengistu, and partnerships director Arielle Martinez Cohen, this involves taking on the herculean task of organizing a three-day climate change summit in Miami, FL, focused on providing education and activist training to a community that could be underwater in just a few decades."The focus point of the summit is to engage a community like Miami, where the sea level is rising. This place won’t exist several decades from now," Elsa told Refinery29. "That's a travesty. And though people talk about this, there is not a lot of action."This Is Zero Hour: The Youth Climate Summit will be held from July 12 to 14 at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Miami Airport & Convention Center. Jamie said registration for the event, which is free, is still open. The teens are expecting a few hundred people to show up and participate in a weekend full of workshops, networking events, and events designed for both experienced activists and those who are just joining the fight against climate change.Speakers include Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg, who at 16 has revolutionized the climate justice movement; 11-year-old Mari Copeny, better known as Little Miss Flint, who has been fighting for clean water in Flint, MI, for nearly five years; and Alethea Phillips, whose family helped organize the Standing Rock movement in North Dakota.Zero Hour credits Elsa as the mastermind behind the summit. The 17-year-old came up with the idea and worked on organizing the conference during her senior year of high school. "She is the reason this is happening and why it's possible," Jamie said. The team worked across time zones, sometimes until the early hours of the morning, to organize this event. The idea that a teenager would help organize an entire conference as a senior — while juggling exams, worrying about college, and being a normal high school kid — can seem extraordinary. But that's how Zero Hour, which Jamie founded in 2017 at the age of 15, rolls as an organization."I had a vision for a climate march for a very long time, especially after the Women's March. At this time, there was no climate strike movement, there was no mass mobilization for youth," Jamie said. The teen hoped that someone else would take on the challenge of organizing a youth movement focused on climate justice. But it didn't happen. In 2017, Jamie was outraged by spread of wildfires in Canada, which lead to smoke covering Seattle and the Northwest region. Jamie described witnessing the chaos as "apocalyptic." Then, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Jamie had a special connection to the island, which is the first Spanish-speaking place she had ever visited — even before her mother's native Colombia — which made her appreciate her Latinx roots even more. The teen decided it was time: "I said, 'Fuck it, we have to do a climate march.'"So they organized a climate march. That's how Zero Hour was born and since then, it has grown into an organization with a network of local chapters all around the globe. She added: "The team grew and it was no longer just me with an idea. It was a bunch of kids working, saying this organization is ours. It’s a relief to not have to do something alone."Photo: Courtesy of Zero Hour.Social media has played a crucial role in how Zero Hour organizers have connected with each other, despite being in different parts of the country and the world. "I read an article Jamie had on CNN calling elected officials out. At that time, I had been organizing March for Our Lives and a bunch of other movements," Arielle said. "Climate was something I was passionate about, but I didn't know where to get started. ... So, I DMd Jamie on Instagram."The climate crisis is perhaps the greatest threat humanity is currently facing and young people have been acutely aware of what it could mean for their futures. A report released by the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change last fall stressed the globe will be facing a multi-faceted crisis of disastrous magnitudes by 2040. The panel urged that the only way to minimize the damage by then is to transform the world economy at a scale and pace that has "no documented historic precedent." Another report, commissioned and released by the U.S. government soon after, found that public health and the national economy will be put at unprecedented risk by climate change in the next century.It's no shocker, then, that teenagers and young people have been at the forefront of demanding political leaders take action before it's too late. The Green New Deal, an ambitious reform that seeks to tackle climate change and income inequality in a decade, became part of the mainstream discourse in great part due to the work of young activists. Climate youth organizations have led the call for a climate debate during the Democratic presidential primary.The intensity of their activism — just like that of the Parkland students and the Dreamers who've fought for immigration reform — consistently elicits a specific "Yaaass, teens will save us!" type of response. But Jamie, Elsa, and Arielle are tired of adults' support ending there. "The most annoying thing ever that I get is politicians who say they’re supportive, but they are not really taking action. You would expect, like, Sen. Ted Cruz to be a climate denier," Jamie said. "But a lot of centrist Democrats, you'll talk to them and they'll be like, 'Climate! I believe in it! Give me a cookie because I believe in climate change!'"Jamie added: "That is not enough. Simply believing that the house is on fire, while the house is burning around you — I'm not going to applaud you. But the worst thing I get is when people say: 'Oh my God, you kids are gonna save the world!' There is no time for us to grow up and save the world later. It's now or never. And what kind of burden is that to put on high-schoolers? ... Get off your butt and help us. Young people’s power depends on our ability to influence the people in power. Why are they not taking action now?"Photo: Courtesy of Zero Hour.With or without adults, the Zero Hour teens will push forward. About 20 organizers, many of whom are girls of color, have spent the week ahead of the summit staying together at an Airbnb in Miami. "It's a little society we’re running," Jamie said. The summit, she added, is designed to give back power to the communities that are the most impacted by the threat of climate change. "It’s not another conference," she added. "It’s something revolutionary."Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Mom Of Toddler Who Died After ICE Detention Testifies Before CongressYouth Will Fix The Climate-Change Crisis Or Die Trying, Says ActivistAs President, Kamala Harris Says She Would Close The Nationwide Rape-Kit Backlog

July 11, 2019 at 08:45PM via IFTTT