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insideanairport · 5 years ago

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Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples”

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As a first-generation migrant living between the Western walls of the academy and white walls of the gallery, it is vital for us to understand historical facts and stories from an indigenous perspective which prioritizes indigenous self-determination. As a Middle Eastern artist working in the West, reading this book is essential. There is an intersection between different decolonial methodologies. Previously, I have been introduced to Harsha Walia’s work on Border Imperialism which is written in the context of North America. There are also a lot of differences between the notions of decoloniality based on geography and community. Understanding these differences can help us work toward a mutual goal. According to Aníbal Quijano, decoloniality is a response to the relation of direct, political, social and cultural domination established by Europeans. The decolonizing approach might slightly vary from the vantage point of multiple perspectives, for example; (1) indigenous peoples (2) first-world racialized minorities (3) People in third-world post-colonial or neo-colonial societies. If we don’t consider the literature, lived-experince, and epistemology from all different positionalities, our decolonial methodology might be a bit one-sided or narrow, especially when our center is in the West.

In the secularized Christian West, racism (with its tentacle stereotypes) operates in many different ways while targeting the natives (indigenous peoples) compared to other people of color. This process has been intensified in the post-Trump-election era of far-right and reactionary nationalism in the West. We are living in the midst of environmental challenges around the world specifically in South America where indigenous activists are taking a stand against the neo-colonial regimes and Western interventions. While white Swedish student Greta Thunberg is getting all the media attention as the forefront of the global fight against climate change, numerous indigenous activist such as Paulo Paulino Guajajara (Lobo) and Edwin Chota have been brutally murdered simply for defending the environment and their way of life. On the sideline of Euro centered media publicity on Thunberg, there are many other indigenous activists who have been fighting the real fight and risking their lives for generations.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s decolonial methodology is centered around the politics of sovereignty and self-determination for indigenous peoples. She mentions that for indigenous peoples it is important to resist “being thrown in” with every other minority group by making claims based on prior rights.

Walter Mignolo included this book in his graduate seminar. For Mignolo, it is always revealing to see in the discussion who is feeling empowered by the book and who is feeling threatened and bothered. (1) Writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Edward Said, Fanon, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Foucault have shaped Smith’s theoretical approach to research. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Glen Sean Coulthard are among other researchers and activists who have been influenced by this iconic book.

Similar to other postcolonial writers, Smith’s work is also preoccupied with the question of knowledge (epistemology) and power. Her Maori perspective makes these questions much more complicated and challenging. She reminds us that indigenous peoples have been, in many ways, ”oppressed by theory”. The scientific (or pseudoscientific) research of the colonizers puts them in a peculiar position in relation to the indigenous peoples. The anthropological studies conducted on indigenous peoples have been not only contradictory to their cultural knowledge, but it has also been quite violent. The Western research methods and their long-term damages are still fresh in indigenous peoples’ consciousness. Therefore, Western notions of ”writing history” and conducting scientific research have been very much against the indigenous livelihood and knowledge. She writes on the notion of history and modernity:

”It is because of this relationship with power that we have been excluded, marginalized and ‘Othered’. In this sense history is not important for indigenous peoples because a thousand accounts of the ‘truth’ will not alter the ‘fact’ that indigenous peoples are still marginal and do not possess the power to transform history into justice.”

She continues by asking;

”Why then has revisiting history been a significant part of decolonization?’ The answer, I suggest, lies in the intersection of indigenous approaches to the past, of the modernist history project itself and of the resistance strategies which have been employed. Our colonial experience traps us in the project of modernity. There can be no ‘postmodern’ for us until we have settled some business of the modern. This does not mean that we do not understand or employ multiple discourses, or act in incredibly contradictory ways, or exercise power ourselves in multiple ways. It means that there is unfinished business, that we are still being colonized (and know it), and that we are still searching for justice.

Critique of Western History

Even today, 20 years after the publication of the book, we see the same issues in the literature and research conducted “on” indigenous culture, history and peoples. For example, you can read any random article or essay on colonialization and find the difference in tone and positionality. Take, for example, “smallpox” as a biological weapon during the indigenous genocide in North America. When we read the History Chanel, the usually white writer’s position towards this issue is easily detectable compared with indigenous activists or researchers writing on the same topic. (2) The outsider researcher is arguing about the effectiveness of government programs in fighting the natives during the 18th Century. The insider researcher, for example, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and her book: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is choosing to talk about the first occurrence of smallpox in 1620 by the English trade ships. A simple comparison between these two modes of historiography and research can help us a lot to understand the decolonizing methodology. Dunbar-Ortiz gives us a context in which a huge amount of native lives was lost due to English trading ships off the coast to the Pequot. King James attributed the epidemic to God’s “great goodness and bounty toward us.”

“In each place, after figures such as Columbus and Cook had long departed, there came a vast array of military personnel, imperial administrators, priests, explorers, missionaries, colonial officials, artists, entrepreneurs and settlers, who cut a devastating swathe, and left a permanent wound, on the societies and communities who occupied the lands named and claimed under imperialism .”

The critique of Western history argues that history is a modernist project which has developed alongside imperial beliefs about the Other. Implicit in the notion of development is the notion of progress. This assumes that societies move forward in stages of development much as an infant grows into a fully developed adult human being. The earliest phase of human development is regarded as primitive, simple and emotional. As societies develop they become less primitive, more civilized, more rational, and their social structures become more complex and bureaucratic.

In a recently published series of essays edited by Jo-Ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, “Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork As Methodology”, the editors have collected insider research focusing on what Archibald called Indigenous Storywork. (3) The term highlight multiple ways in which indigenous peoples using storytelling as a method of documenting generational events, form of teaching and learning, and as an expression of indigenous culture and identity. (4)

Enlightenment: Racist Progress at The Expense of The Colonized

Indigenous knowledge didn't consider as 'real knowledge' by colonizers. This struggle continues today both inside the academy as well as in real life outside the walls of the institution. If you are one of those students in liberal universities in the West, you are probably familiar with at least one of liberal positives (progressive) theories of the enlightenment project. Take for example the neo-colonial liberal theories of Steven Pinker. Aside from the recent news about Pinker’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein even after his sex trafficking conviction, Pinker has been an advocate of Western scientific progress and return to concepts such as human nature and enlightenment. (5) In his recent book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, we can basically replace the word Human with Westerners or white men in order to be accurate. His binary theories completely dismiss the fact that European progress was based on the genocide, slavery, and suffering of millions of colonial subjects, which to a lesser degree still continues today. For many indigenous peoples today, the word “research” basically means “being a problem”.

Literacy, as one example, was used as a criterion for assessing the development of a society and its progress to a stage where history can be said to begin. Even places such as India, China and Japan, however, which were very literate cultures prior to their ‘discovery’ by the West, were invoked through other categories which defined them as uncivilized. Their literacy, in other words, did not count as a record of legitimate knowledge.

We are all familiar with the Western origin of Humanism, manifest destiny, age of reason and doctrine of discovery. There is a direct connection between these concepts and the simultaneous exploitation of the people and the production of concepts such as racism, nation-state, and the Orient. Both Christianity and Western science played a vital role in this framework and indigenous peoples were left with either extermination or assimilation. (6) The Europeans privatized the land that indigenous peoples once owned. The colonization was accompanied with ideological drive to paint the commoners who resisted as violent, stupid and lazy. (7)

"Underlying these categories is the rigidly binomial opposition of “ours” and “theirs,” with the former always encroaching upon the latter (even to the point of making “theirs” exclusively a function of “ours”). This opposition was reinforced not only by anthropology, linguistics, and history but also, of course, by the Darwinian theses on survival and natural selection, and—no less decisive—by the rhetoric of high cultural humanism. What gave writers like Renan and Arnold the right to generalities about race was the official character of their formed cultural literacy. “Our” values were (let us say) liberal, humane, correct; they were supported by the tradition of belles-lettres, informed scholarship, rational inquiry; as Europeans (and white men) “we” shared in them every time their virtues were extolled.” -Edward Said - Orientalism

Western-Centered ‘Collaborative Research’

We did not practice the ‘arts’ of civilization. By lacking such virtues, we disqualified ourselves, not just from civilization but from humanity itself.

What researchers may call methodology, for example, Maori researchers in New Zealand call Kaupapa Maori research or Maori-centred research. This form of naming is about bringing to the centre and privileging indigenous values, attitudes and practices rather than disguising them within Westernized labels such as ‘collaborative research’.

Smith often mentions that writing research is more important than writing theory. Research produces results that are more immediate and useful for farmers, economists, industries and sick people. (1) From Kant to Badiou, white theoreticians have been utilizing Western anthropological material as fuel for their theories. There is a lot of fancy vocabulary that generates things such as “collaborative research”, or “research with the aim of reconciliation”. In reality, these methodologies are NOT beneficial for the indigenous peoples. However, they continue to be used because they are well-known and they generate a lot of scholarship and capital for white state-ideal subjects.

At the same time research historically has not been neutral in its objectification of the Other. Smith reminds us that from indigenous perspective objectivation of research is also a process of dehumanization. She identifies the contributions of second-wave feminism more beneficial to the indigenous cause compared to the Marxist methodologies introduced in the first half of the twentieth century. The reason for this distinction is the challenges that feminism has introduced to the presumably neutral position of Western philosophy, academic practice and research.

Decolonize This Place

Rather than see ourselves as existing in the margins as minorities, resistance initiatives have assumed that Aotearoa, New Zealand is ‘our place’, all of it, and that there is little difference, except in the mind, between, for example, a Te Kohanga Reo where Maori are the majority but the state is there, and a university, where Maori are the minority and the state is there.

The latter part of the book tracks the transition from Maori as the ”researched” to Maori as the ”researcher”. Smith acknowledges that the academic institutions’ eco-system is toxic for non-white folks. Crystal Fraser, a Gwichyà Gwich'in Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta, among many other indigenous peoples agrees. Fraser, belives that Western Academic institutions are not made for indigenous peoples and there are numerous barriers on the way. Regarding research, Smith uses the term ”insider” research to highlight the work conducted by indigenous community members who are part of the culture and understand the aim of the research as self-determination. Similar to Said, she is skeptical about the role of Western ”experts” especially in relation to imperialism and power relations.

While indigenous voices have been silenced for many decades by Western researchers, the role of the insider researcher is very important. Addressing the indigenous communities, Smith writes that many of the issues in indigenous communities are in fact internalized stress factors that are not voiced. Therefore, insider research must be ethical, respectful and reflexive. It also needs to be humble, because the researcher belongs to the same community but with a different set of roles, relationships, status, and position.

On a more personal note, I want to briefly review the state-funded higher education that I received in the United States and Finland. They are both white-majority countries, yet they might seem far apart in every sense. In both of my art schools, there was an obvious gap in terms of understanding of indigenous subjects and worldviews, as well as an absence of curriculum on postcolonial topics. There were no Indigenous students, staff, and teachers at either school which I study for over 6 years.

There are many contemporary examples that show the intersectionality of migrant struggle with the indigenous struggle over self-determination and sovereignty. A perfect example of this solidarity is the Numerus Haka dances in honor of the victims of the white-terror attacks in Christchurch.

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Bib.

1. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples (Second Edition). London: Zed Books, 2012. 2. Kiger, Patrick J. Did Colonists Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans as Biological Warfare? history. [Online] 11 15, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets?fbclid=IwAR3AdkyYDlMmLOt2YYU_VBIUaIqZINNx4HIatBoHIxQd1C9T5DWouj8CBN0. 3. Archibald, Jo-Ann, Jenny Bol Jun, Lee-Morgan and Jason, de Santolo. Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology. s.l. : Zed Books, 2019. 4. Archibald, Jo-Ann. Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. s.l. : UBC Press, 2007. 5. Flaherty, Colleen. Pinker, Epstein, Soldier, Spy. insidehighered. [Online] July 17, 2019. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinkers-aid-jeffrey-epsteins-legal-defense-renews-criticism-increasingly. 6. CAMACHO, DANIEL JOSÉ. UNLEARNING THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY. SOJOURNERS. [Online] 10 8, 2018. https://sojo.net/articles/unlearning-doctrine-discovery?fbclid=IwAR1VIL-7ohHW3MKsIzTB62UPkSyhlqnQe-CLeMf5D0Nev-RUiw8Xez4ewwE. 7. Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History). s.l. : Beacon Press; Reprint edition, 2015.

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kuchenprince · 7 years ago

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Latin Hetalia: Uruguay / Sebastián Artigas

It’s not my OC

Uruguay it’s a fanmade character part of the Latin Hetalia community.

República Oriental del Uruguay

Oriental Republic of Uruguay (General info)

“Libertad o Muerte” (“Freedom or Death”)

Capital (and largest city): Montevideo

Language: Spanish (official), Portuguese

Ethnic groups:

88% White 8% Mestizo 4% Black

Population: 3,427,000 (2016 estimate)

Total Area: 176,215 km2 (1.5% Water)

Borders:

Argentina (west) Brazil (north and east) Río de la Plata (south) Atlantic Ocean (southeast)

Independence:

Declared: 25 August 1825

Constitution: 18 July 1830

Very quick History ~

Before European colonization the area was a territory of the Charrúa (a small indigenous tribe driven to the south by the Guarani of Paraguay).

In that time, european nations were all fighting each other to have colonies. In 1512, Portugal dircovered him and while he was like “Oh, good, a new land”, Spain came in 1516. In 1669–71, the Portuguese built a fort of Colonia do Santíssimo Sacramento, ignoring Tratado de Tordesillas/The Treaty of Tordesillas (treaty that divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Crown of Castile), and Spain, trying to stop Portugal who already had the 80% of the country, dislodged them and founded Montevideo in the early 18th century as a military stronghold in the Viceroyalty del Río de la Plata, that had it’s capital in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Spain started to have problems in his own continent, so Argentina and Uruguay were left alone, trying to survive together, and suddenly came England to take contol, but they fought togheter to kick out him.

When the independence movement started in Argentina (1810), in Uruguay appeared José Gervasio Artigas, who is considered as the Hero of Uruguay and launched a successful revolution against the Spanish authorities. He wanted to make one country with those that were part of the viceroyalty, under the motto of “Los más infelices sean los más privilegiados” (“The most unhappy are the most privileged”) and started to make positive changes in the country (division of lands, education, etc).

But in 1816 Portuguese troops invaded Uruguay and took Montevideo. Then, The Brazilian Empire became independent of Portugal in 1822, and taking advantage of that, the Thirty-Three Orientals, led by Juan Antonio Lavalleja, declared independence on 25 August 1825 supported by Argentina). This led to the 500-day-long Cisplatine War where neither side gained the upper hand and in 1828 the Treaty of Montevideo, giving birth to Uruguay as an independent state, where the first constitution was adopted on 18 July 1830.

The era from independence until 1904 was marked by a lot of military conflicts and civil wars between the Blanco and Colorado Politic Parties and in 1973, amid increasing economic and political turmoil, the armed forces, asked by the President, closed the Congress and established a civilian-military regime.

Finally, the armed forces announced a plan for the return to civilian rule, and national elections were held in 1984, where started to implement economic reforms and consolidated democracy following the country’s years under military rule.

Uruguay (Character info)

Human Name: Sebastián Artigas

Apparence age: 20 years old

Birthday: 25th August

Original design by Rowein (DeviantArt ; Tumblr)

Height: 1,75m / 5,7ft

Race: White / Caucasian

Hair Color: Very light brown (almost dirty blonde)

Eye Color: Dirty yellowish-green (not confirmed)

Wearings

Because he likes fashion, he hasn’t a specific attire, but he likes to use his Gaucho clothing in a modern way: Brown or black “Bombachas” (loose-fitting trousers), belted with a white and blue stripped cloth, a white shirt and long Gaucho black leather boots.

Also, his formal military uniform is a dark navy blue color jacket with red cuffs and golden with a black belt, trousers with the same color as the jacket, cap hat with the country’s emblem in golden and white gloves.

Plus; he is surronded by sparks (like the ones on Estonia), and uses blue framed glasses.

Personality

It’s mostly calm and quiet. He is very intelligent, well educated and culted. That’s because he is the most alphabetized country in Latin America, and publishes a lot of books.

Because of being very diplomatic, he is often the mediator or president of international organizations like ALCA.

It’s mostly open-minded, he is more likely to hear than talk, and is a good listener, but that doesn’t mean that he can share the same opinions as the others (he can be really conservative with some subjects, specially food).

He is very direct and honest, sometimes hurts people with what he says, and if he’s getting angry, he calmly swears a little too much. He doesn’t trust people easly, and sometimes acts a little mean. But he doesn’t like to be left out or ignored because of his trauma with Spain.

He is not very hard working. He likes the easy life. And when something bad happens, he mostly acts childishly, blaming his situation at others. But when doesn’t get nobody’s attention, he begins to work hard.

He likes to follow european countries and their educational, economic and politic system; but at the same time, loves his own culture (Gaucho traditions!) and despite that is a pretty small country, is very patriotic (specially when it comes about football/soccer)

Info from:

Wikipedia ; Hetalia Wikia

#aph uruguay #latin hetalia #Sebastian Artigas

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tamarbikes-blog · 6 years ago

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Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego - TAMARBIKES December 2018

The TAMARBIKES Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego adventure was even more so this year. The tour ended, as scheduled, smack on the Longest day of the year, December 21st, the first day of summer here, in the southern hemisphere, however, Patagonia and tierra del Fuego, reminded us, how harsh the elements can be here no matter what time of year. A reminder that if you really want to ride these remote beautiful parts of the world in safety you better be doing it with professionals, support and local contacts to help you through the challenges.

The People

On the TAMARBIKES adventures the magic usually happens on the second or third day. People warm up to each other, find their place in the group and in the riding, and have already had a night cap of 2 together. This time things came much earlier. A great bunch from USA, Canada, GB, Chile, with guides from Israel and Germany all came together to create a balanced funny and great riding groups. Besides having 2 couples on tour, which always makes for a better mood of the tour, we had a serious adventurer that came down solo on a BMW R100GS from the US had done a major part of south America and decided to join our group after arriving in Chile. We also had a Pillion join solo, a first for us but a gamble that panned out very well, as this local Chilean helped light up the already great atmosphere and fitted right in with the gang.

The Territory

Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego are shared geographical areas in the most southern part of South America and, actually, are the most southern parts of inhabited land in the world. Tierra del Fuego although an archipelago of island separated by the notorious Magellan straits, it is still part of the south American plate so considered part of the continent. These 2 territories are shared by 2 countries Chile and Argentina.

Patagonia is severed down the middle by the Andes mountain range which also, for the most part, marks the border between Chile and Argentina. On the TAMARBIKES Patagonia adventure we Criss Cross between these 2 countries no less than 6 times making the most of both these very different terrains. As we are riding the western part of the continent the more dominant of the 2 oceans for much of the ride is the Pacific Ocean. Clouds come in from the west making the western valleys and slopes of the Andes (The Chilean side) lush, green, rich in fauna and flora, some indigenous to these parts. It also makes for great agriculture and our tour begins in Osorno a hub of agriculture and meat and dairy farms.

This area is also a part of the pacific fire ring so beside this amazing green back drop you also get snow caped volcanoes decorating the landscape for extra beauty and a stronger effect.

Last but not least, Snow falls on the tops of the Andes 365 days a year. This constant fall of layer upon layer for millions of years creates the largest glacier field outside of the poles. Another amazing natural phenomenon to add to the appeal and attraction of this harsh land.

Population

Patagonia was inhabited in the past by local tribes, but these did not survive the invasion of the Spanish and Portuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today it is very scarcely populated with small villages towns and maybe 2 or 3 medium sized cities which could develop on the Chilean side after the Carretera Austral, the famous road opened by Pinochet, was opened in the 70s of the 20thcentury. The Argentinian side is called the Pampas the endless wilderness of flat dry low grass lands with vast sheep farms Estancias and hundreds of miles of the famous Argentinian highway 40. On Tierra del Fuego it’s the Argentinian side that is better populated including the ‘crown jewel’ the city of Ushuaia the most southern city on earth perched on the Begal Channel. This city is also a major exit point for excursions to Antarctica.

The ride

This 4300 Km Adventure takes us from the heart of civilization in the north Osorno and Bariloche right down to the End of the World – ‘Fin-del-Mundo’ – as the locals call it. Roads begin as excellent asphalt but quickly turn to relatively good gravel while riding the Carretera austral, which is only partly paved. Once we are out on highway 40 there are parts that are still unpaved there it is loose gravel which ca be challenging at times. Once south of El Calafate we are mostly on paved road with the exception of the Torres del Paine park. The challenge becomes when the winds pickup and boy do they blow. With gusts of 90Km/h it calls for technique and pois to ride through these winds. We stopped and took a very long 4 hour lunch break on our second day on Tierra del Fuego to let the winds calm down before we continued to Ushuaia.

The Experience

Arriving at the gates of Ushuaia after 12 days of harsh long riding is a moment to live for. The sense of achievement together with a group you now call your friends is second to little hi points of tours around the world. People dream of this moment plan it a life time just to be able to tick it off their respective bucket lists. But this high point does not belittle the rest of the ride or any of the world known attractions on the way; The Perito Moreno glacier is certainly up there, as well as the Torres del Paine national park one of the best in the world, just to name a few. The TAMARBIKES team strives to give the most rich, enjoyable and safe way possible while employing professionals using welcoming and warm accommodations handing you a pleasant surprise day after day.

As usual we promise each ride of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego will be “A ride of a Life”.

For more about this tour go to our Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego Adventure tour page .

#tamarpat1218 tamarbikes arideofalife newzealand adventure bmwgs motolife makelifearide offroad tamarbikes r1200gs bmwgsfans advmoto motoad

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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

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This essay is adapted from the transcript of a radio program produced for Swedish Radio and broadcast in June. This is the first time the text has been published in its entirety.

Chapter 1: UN speech and New York

The first thing I see when I enter the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City is Roxy. My dog. The two of us are projected onto a large screen which apparently is part of an international art exhibition. When I see her brown labrador eyes it almost feels as if she was right here with me. Suddenly I’m reminded of how much I miss her.

Today is Sept. 23, 2019, and it’s now been 7 weeks since I boarded the train in Stockholm and began my journey. I have no clue of how and when I’m going to get back home. 3 weeks have passed since the boat Malizia sailed into New York City’s harbour and left the peaceful, constrained life on the ocean. After 14 days at sea we sailed past the Statue of Liberty, stepped ashore in Manhattan and took the red subway line uptown towards Central Park. My sea legs were shaking and all the impressions from people, scents, and noises became almost impossible to take in.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergThunberg arrives in New York City after a 15-day journey crossing the Atlantic on Aug. 28, 2019.

The time in New York has been surreal. If the media attention was big in Europe, it’s nothing compared to how it is here. A year ago the thought of seeing pictures of my dog inside the UN would have been unthinkable. Now it’s nothing strange at all. I see myself everywhere. Just the night before one of my speeches had been projected onto the facade of the UN building. But luckily I completely lack an interest in such things. If you would care about this kind of attention, then you’d probably develop a self-image that is far from sane.

It’s very hard to move inside the giant labyrinth of this building. Presidents, prime ministers, kings, and princesses, all come up to me to chat. People recognize me and suddenly see their opportunity to get a selfie which later they can post on their Instagram – with the caption #savetheplanet. Perhaps it makes them forget the shame of their generation letting all future generations down. I guess maybe it helps them to sleep at night.

In the greenroom, sitting with the other speakers, I try to read through my speech, but I constantly get interrupted by people who want to do small talk and take selfies. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres steps in. We chat for a bit, just like I’ve learnt that you’re supposed to do. I fill up my red water bottle and sit down again. Then it’s Chancellor Angela Merkel’s turn to come up, congratulate, take a picture and ask whether it’s ok for her to post it on social media. A queue starts forming. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, waits in line but doesn’t quite make it before it’s time for the event to start.

The annual UN General Assembly week in New York City is always a big global event, but this year it was a bit extra special since the secretary general had decided that the focus would be exclusively on the climate. The expectations are huge. It has been promoted as a ‘now-or-never’ moment.

Almost all of the world’s leaders are sitting in the audience, but it’s only those with specific so-called “solutions” who have received an invitation to address the General Assembly.

The event begins with a very ambitious digital sound- and lightshow. The volume is way too high. I’m standing by the backdrop covering my ears.

”We do not accept these odds.”

That is what the speech was about, if you read it in full. And it of course alludes to our remaining carbon budget. But the only message that seems to have resonated is ”how dare you?”.

I’ve never been angry in public. I’ve barely even been angry at home. But this time I’ve decided that I have to make the most out of the speech. To address the United Nations General Assembly is something you probably only get to do once in your lifetime. So this is it. I need to say things I will be able to stand by for the rest of my life, so that I won’t look back in 60-70 years from now and regret that I didn’t say enough, that I held back. So I choose to let my emotions take control.

On the subway home I see that many in the car around me are watching the speech on their phones. Some come forward to congratulate me. Someone suggests that we should celebrate. But I don’t understand what their congratulations are for, and I understand even less what we’re supposed to be celebrating.

Yet another meeting is over. And all that is left are empty words.

Chapter 2: Washington D.C.

Who is the adult in the room? That question has been asked over and over again during the last year. But this question reaches a whole new level when I end up standing in front of the food court in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Fast food chains. Hamburgers, candy and ice cream stores. Dunkin Donuts. Baskin Robbins. Here you find the most powerful policymakers in the world sitting in their suits, while drinking pink milkshake, eating junk food and candy.

In the week leading up to the UN General Assembly meeting I spend a few days in the nation’s capital. I use the opportunity to do the kind of things you can do when in Washington D.C. Like visit museums, protest outside the White House, speak in the United States Congress, and stuff like that. But most of the time I meet with politicians.

It gets a bit repetitive after a while. But in a way it almost feels like coming home, since politicians are pretty much the same no matter where you are in the world.

I urge them to listen to the science and act now before it’s too late. They say that they think it’s so amazing that I’m so active and committed, and that when I grow up I too can become a politician and make a real difference in the world. I then explain that when I’ve grown up and finished my education it will be too late to act if we are to stay below the 1.5°C – or even 2°C – target. After that I talk through some of the figures and numbers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5°C report. Then they laugh nervously and start talking about something else.

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‪Every election is a climate election.‬ ‪Vote for climate- and environmental justice. Vote for a living planet.‬ ‪Vote for your children.‬ ‪#SuperTuesday #Election2020 ‬

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A group of maybe 20 young climate activists gather inside the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office. Our group mostly consists of representatives from indigenous peoples in North- and South America. From First Nation tribes and the Amazon rainforest.

On the wall hangs a big portrait of Abraham Lincoln. The atmosphere during the meeting is awkward at best. It is as if two entirely different worlds collide. Worlds separated by hundreds of years of injustices, structural and systematic racism, oppression and genocide.

At last a young activist asks to speak. Her name is Tokata Iron Eyes and she lives in Pine Ridge, an Indian reservation in South Dakota, one of the poorest and most socially vulnerable communities in the entire United States.

“How do you think it feels for us to sit here in this room with that man looking down from that painting?” she says and points to Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker Pelosi apologies if anyone has been offended but explains that he was a great man who has meant so much for their country.

“He wanted my people dead”, Tokata says. She’s referring to the executions of Dakota Indians ordered by Lincoln in 1862. “To sit here in this room with that painting… It’s just so difficult” she says.

I try to picture things from her perspective. We fight for climate justice, but how can any justice be achieved when the social and racial injustices have never been officially acknowledged in the public eye in so many parts of the world?

That same day I’m called to testify in the U.S. Congress. But it just feels wrong. What am I supposed to do or say there? I want the people in power to listen to the science, not to me. But after a lot of hesitation and consideration I figured out a way. I asked whether I could borrow a computer. I print out a copy of the IPCC’s 1.5°C report. I was ready to submit my testimony.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae1mUb5EZn0]

Afterwards I take the metro to Tenleytown and walk the 45 minute stroll to the house we’ve borrowed. The walk stretches through some of the most beautiful neighbourhoods you can possibly imagine. Every house is like a miniature castle straight out of a fairytale. Outside one of the biggest houses there’s a woman standing with her daughter, who is around the age of five. “It’s you!” the mother says when she sees me. “Can I take a picture of you together with my daughter?”

“Of course!” I answer.

When I walk away she turns facing the girl. “Greta is a climate activist, she explains. Maybe you’ll also become an activist when you grow up.” The mother says it in a way that makes climate activist appear as the most noble, cool thing in the world.

Like a mix between a ballerina, a president, and an astronaut.

Chapter 3: The science

My message is – and has always been – listen to the science, listen to the scientists.

“Which scientists?” you could of course argue. Within all scientific fields there’s a constant and never-ending debate. That’s what science is about. And climate crisis deniers and delayers love this angle. To spread doubt about whether there’s actually consensus on the scientific grounds of the climate crisis.

That argument can be used in almost all other issues, but it’s no longer possible to use here. The time for that has passed. The consensus is overwhelming. The debate around the global adoption and acceptance of the Paris Agreement and the IPCC reports is over. So what do those two things actually mean?

In Paris, the world’s governments committed themselves to keeping the global temperature rise to “well below 2°C”. But in the latest update from the IPCC – the SR1.5 report – scientists underline that 2°C is not a safe level. We have today already passed about 1.2°C of global heating, and in their report they instead stress the importance of limiting the warming to below 1.5°C. And that is to give us the best possible chance to avoid passing so-called tipping points, and start irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

So where do we start? Well I’d suggest that we do precisely what all the world’s governments have committed to do in the Paris Agreement. Which is to follow the current best available science.

And that, among other places, we find on page 108, chapter 2 in the IPCC’s SR1.5 report. Right there it says that on Jan. 1 2018 we had 420 Gt CO2 left to emit globally to have a 66% chance of staying below the 1.5° target. We emit about 42 Gt CO2 every year, including land use such as forestry and agriculture. So today we’re soon already down to lower than 300 Gt of CO2 left to emit.

That is the equivalent of less than 7.5 years of today’s ‘business as usual’ emissions until that budget completely runs out. This is the carbon budget which gives us the best odds to achieve the 1.5° target. Yes, you heard it right, less than 7.5 years.

Do you remember the London Olympics? ‘Gangnam Style’ or the first Hunger Games movie? Those things all happened about seven or eight years ago. That’s the amount of time we are talking about.

But even these figures are very watered down. They include almost no tipping points or feedback loops, nor the global aspect of equity in the Paris Agreement, nor already locked-in warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Most IPCC scenarios also assume that future generations will be able to suck hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere with technologies that don’t exist on the scale required, and that very likely never will in time.

I will try to explain more about what these aspects mean later on. But if you read between the lines you realise that we are facing the need to make changes which are unprecedented in human history.

One reason why the climate and ecological crisis is so hard to communicate is that there’s no magical date when everything is beyond saving. You cannot predict how many people’s lives will be lost, or exactly how our societies will be affected. There are of course countless estimations and calculations which predict what could happen—one more catastrophic than the other—but they almost exclusively focus on a very limited area and almost never take into account the whole picture. We therefore must learn to read between the lines. Just like in any other emergency.

But these are at least the basics. Even if these figures are way too generous they are still the most reliable roadmap available today. They are what we should be referring to.

And the fact that the responsibility to communicate them falls on me and other children should be seen for exactly what it is – a failure beyond all imagination.

Chapter 4: Roadtrip

Three days after my speech in the UN I leave New York City. The last few days everything got a bit too much with all the people and the attention. It feels like a huge relief to move out of the house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and say goodbye to our host for the last month.

I’ve taken a sabbatical year from school to be able to travel to Santiago de Chile, where the UN’s yearly climate conference, the COP 25, is going to be held. I have no idea how to get there, all I know is that, in order to reach Santiago in time, I’ve got to get to Los Angeles by November 1st. So now awaits 5 weeks of constant traveling. My dad and I leave Manhattan behind us and drive north in an electric car that we’ve borrowed from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We travel through spectacular landscapes, past mountains, ravines, glaciers, prairies, deserts, swamps. We see the autumn coloured leaves of New England, the forests of Quebec, the lakes in Minnesota, buffalo herds in Wyoming, the redwood trees in Oregon, red rock formations in Arizona and the cotton fields of Alabama.

We switch between the radio stations. The choices are almost only Christian pop and country music. Most of the time it’s just the two of us, but sometimes we are accompanied by journalists or people we know.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergTravelling through Wyoming in Oct. 2019.

Every Friday I continue to strike wherever I find myself to be at that moment. Denver, Iowa City, Charlotte, Rapid City, Edmonton, Vancouver, Los Angeles. Everywhere lots of people show up, people of all ages. But nothing beats Montreal where half a million people came out on the streets.

In South Dakota we are stopped by a policeman. He looks just like a caricature from an American movie, with mirrored shades, cowboy hat and all. He asks us where we are going. I say Santiago. Then he asks if we’ve got any large amounts of “dollars, weapons or dead bodies in the car?” We answer no, and continue across the Missouri river, over the prairies, the Badlands and the Rocky Mountains.

While the car is charging we walk around the alleys of small towns, shopping malls, suburbs, petrol stations, farms, industrial and residential areas. Wherever I go, people come up to talk and take selfies.

We wake up at 7 a.m. and drive until we get tired in the evening. We buy food wherever there’s food to buy, but it’s not that easy when you’re on the road and you’re vegan. It ends up being mostly canned food, beans, french fries, bananas and bread.

During the nights we either sleep in motels or with people who open up their homes. Activists, scientists, authors, doctors, journalists, hippies, diplomats, movie stars, lawyers. We travel through 37 states in total. Every state has got a slogan on the cars’ license plates, but I make up my own. Like for instance:

North Carolina: Where not even the vegetarian salad bars have vegetarian options.

Alabama: Where the sunsets are pretty and the Christmas decorations are early.

Through the car window I can see the neverending coal trains in Nebraska and Montana, the oil wells in Colorado and California, abandoned factories in Indiana and Pennsylvania, 16-lane highways, endless parking lots and shopping malls, shopping malls, shopping malls. Through the tiny vents of big livestock trucks I look into the eyes of cows and pigs on their way to slaughterhouses.

I’m stunned by the economic differences and social injustices which in many ways are an affront to all forms of human decency. I’m outraged by the oppression targeting especially indigenous, Black and Hispanic communities.

Every twenty minutes or so we pass fields where seemingly endless amounts of brand new RVs, motorboats, quad bikes and tractors are lined up for sale. Along the highways you see giant billboards with anti-abortion, anti-evolution and anti-science campaigns.

At night time the sky is lit by countless oil refineries sparkling in the dark, from north to south, from coast to coast.

Apart from a few wind power plants and solar panels there are no signs whatsoever of any sustainable transition, despite this being the richest country in the world. The debate is far behind Europe. We’re discussing free public transport and circular economy – here they don’t even have public health care or pavements for pedestrians to walk on.

In a petrol station in Texas I count to over 40 different kinds of coffee. I try to add up the number of different sorts of soft drinks as well, but I lose count around 200.

An older man in a cowboy hat comes up to me.

“I’m a big fan,” he says, before he walks across the parking lot, steps inside his giant pickup truck and drives on down the highway.

Chapter 5: The beetle

The only place that anyone has ever discouraged me from visiting is Alberta, Canada. The state of Alberta is one of the western world’s largest oil producers and its main claim to fame is probably being home to the tar sands. The tar sands are an area bigger than the whole of England where oil companies have spent the last 60 years extracting oil straight from the soil. A process with a enormous ecological footprint.

Alberta has a very powerful and highly criticized oil lobby that is well known for its harsh methods to silence anyone they consider a threat to their industry. And I’m definitely considered a threat to them. On several occasions I need to call for police protection when the level of threats and the sheer harassments become too serious.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergThunberg visits Jasper National Park, Oct. 2019.

On the morning of Oct.21 I’m traveling through the spectacular Canadian landscapes with a film crew from the BBC, heading for the Jasper National Park. Magnificent pine forests stretching out as far as the eye can see. It reminds me of home. Except for the fact that many trees here aren’t green, their needles are either brown or have been lost entirely. It looks very strange. I assume they must be American larch trees, since those trees lose their needles in the autumn.

“No, unfortunately those aren’t Larch trees,” says the biologist Brenda Shepherd as she walks me round the national park. She shakes her head as she approaches one of the brown, pine trees and points to a hole through the bark. Though the hole seeps something that looks like solidified resin.

“Here you can see how the tree has tried to defend itself,” she says. “But it’s useless, it will soon be dead.”

How many trees in this area would you say are affected? I ask.

“About 50%.”

I can’t seem to get my head around what she just said. “50%?”

“Somewhere around there,” she says.

The term ”tipping point” can be hard to understand but this the most clear and obvious example that I that I have come across myself. The mountain pine beetle exists across the North American continent. Every winter the temperature here drops to very low levels. Much colder than in Sweden, for instance. And since only a very small percentage of this species survives in that temperature for a certain number of days, this has never been a problem in the past. But in the last few decades this area has seen a significant level of heating. Canada – as well as other countries close to the poles – has seen a rate of warming about twice as fast as the rest of the world.

So, the temperature rises and all of a sudden we find ourselves on the other side of an invisible border. Suddenly almost the entire population of this beetle survives the winter. And we have passed a tipping point. A point of no return which releases several so-called feedback loops: self-reinforcing, often irreversible, chain reactions. And since the local ecosystem completely lacks the ability to adjust to the new reality, the consequences become extremely visible.

Tree after tree is attacked by the mountain pine beetle and dies shortly thereafter.

Needles to say, the effects on the local environment are disastrous.

But, unfortunately, what happens in the Canadian Rockies doesn’t stay in the Canadian Rockies. These mechanisms are global.

Chapter 6: Tipping points

The day after my encounter with the mountain pine beetle, we have an appointment with the glaciologist John Pomeroy. His team of researchers from the University of Saskatchewan has offered to bring me up onto the Athabasca glacier.

Along the walk leading up to the glacier there are signs placed out by the side of the pathway. Every sign marks a certain year. John stops and points at one that says 1982. “That means that this is where the glacier began in that year.”

It looks quite strange as there is no sight of any nearby glacier whatsoever.

“It was around that time I started working here,” he continues. “Since then I have watched with my own eyes how the glacier has disappeared, meter by meter.”

Due to global heating the Athabasca glacier has, in the last 125 years, retreated 1.5 km and lost half its volume. According to the latest estimates, it’s currently withdrawing 5 metres every year.

Courtesy of Greta ThunbergThunberg filming with the BBC in Glacier National Park, October 2019.

I was instructed to wear every piece of warm clothing that I have, since Katabatic winds – winds that form over glaciers – can be ruthless. And they weren’t exaggerating. Once we step onto the ice it gets almost impossible to move forward, let alone to stand up straight. There’s a heavy snowfall passing by, reminding us that the full force of the long Canadian winter is about to arrive any day now.

We struggle on in our borrowed boots, using ski poles to support our balance and weight. When we reach a place John considers good enough, he stops, takes off his backpack and starts unpacking his gear. He takes measurements while explaining the procedures step by step.

Then he starts chipping into the ice. He breaks off a piece and gives it to me.

“If you look carefully, you see it’s full of small black dots. That’s soot,” he says.

Where does the soot come from?, I ask.

“It’s from the wildfires that burn here every year. The woods lose a lot of their resilience to the fires as there are so many dead trees all over the forest that become like firewood.”

I realise he’s referring to the trees I saw yesterday.

“When there’s this much soot then the entire glacier turns grey,” he continues. “And since a dark surface absorbs more heat than a white one, it means the glacier will melt even faster. It’s a feedback loop. A part of a chain reaction.”

I ask whether this glacier can be saved or not. He shakes his head.

“No, this one has already passed its tipping point and there’s nothing we can do. We estimate that it – along with countless other glaciers – will be gone completely within this century. The world’s glaciers are called the third polar ice cap. Imagine all the people that depend on these glaciers as their source of drinking water. And as if that wasn’t enough, we have now gotten used to – and built our infrastructure around a very high water flow, since the melting process obviously has been way higher than it normally is. That will make it even harder for us to adjust when it starts to run dry.”

How many people are relying on the glaciers in this area for their drinking water, I ask.

“The entire western North America,” he replies. “But the same process is happening all over the world. The Andes, The Alps. And above all in Asia, where up to 2 billion people depend on the natural melting process of the glaciers in Himalaya for their very survival.”

So, in short: the temperature increases, the damaging mountain pine beetle survives the winter and dramatically increases in population. The trees die and turn into wildfire fuel which intensifies the wildfires even further. The soot from those fires makes the surface of the glaciers turn darker and the melting process speeds up even faster.

This is a textbook example of a reinforcing chain reaction, which in itself is just a small part of a much larger holistic pattern connected to our emissions of greenhouse gases.

There are countless other tipping points and chain reactions. Some have not yet happened. And some are very much a reality already today. Such as the release of methane due to thawing permafrost or other phenomena linked to deforestation, dying coral reefs, weakening or changing ocean currents, algae growing on the Antarctic ice, increasing ocean temperatures, changes in monsoon patterns and so on.

Another overlooked factor is the already built in additional warming hidden by life threatening air pollution, this means that once we stop burning fossil fuels we can expect to see an already locked in warming, perhaps as high as 0,5-1,1°C.

It’s all part of an infinite chain of events that constantly trigger and create new events. And new events. And new events. There just doesn’t seem to be an end.

Chapter 7: Paradise

The wall is completely covered by posters. Each one contains a photo of an animal. Dogs, cats, bunnies. On each and every one there is a big headline that spells out the word MISSING. A handful has FOUND handwritten across the picture, but the vast majority remain MISSING.

The wall belongs to the local primary school in the town of Paradise, California. On Nov. 8, 2018 Paradise was almost completely destroyed by a devastating wildfire. The pictures on the school wall represent all the pets that went missing in the fire. This wall became a place where the owners collectively displayed their last hope of finding their pets alive. But, needless to say, most of the animals remain MISSING.

The fire in Paradise destroyed almost 19,000 buildings. 85 people lost their lives, if you exclude other causes of death after the fire. Before the fire 27, 000 people lived in Paradise. Today that number is down to around 2000. The town became a symbol of how climate breakdown is affecting us in the global north already today.

California has always had a natural fire season, just like Australia, Brazil and many other places. But over recent years that season has grown considerably longer and the fires have become more frequent and devastating. Higher temperatures, less rainfall and stronger winds are some of the changing factors that together make up for a deadly combination when it comes to wildfires.

Walking around in Paradise is almost like being in a ghost town. I’m here with the BBC to talk to one of the survivors of the 2018 fire. He guides us around the area that used to be his neighborhood. He points at empty spaces and tells us what used to be there. Houses and gardens in the lush, green outskirts of town.

“That was a car,” he says and points to a lump of metal, lying on a burnt out driveway. The temperature in the fire sometimes got so high that cars started to melt. Suddenly he stops.

“This used to be my house.” He looks at an open field as if there still was a house standing there. It’s almost as if he’s hallucinating, since all that is left is a mailbox and the remains of power lines and sewage pipes, sticking out of the red soil.

The fact that the climate crisis is already affecting people today is hardly something new. Even though it would sometimes seem like it, judging by the ongoing discourse.

We often hear that we need to act for the sake of our children. That the future living conditions will get significantly worsened unless we act now. And that is of course true. But it seems like we keep forgetting that large numbers of people around the world are dying already today. And when I say that I’m not primarily talking about in places like California.

The ones who are and will be hit the hardest are the same as in most other crises. The poorest and the most vulnerable. Those who are already suffering from other injustices. Namely, people in developing countries, and above all women and children. Since they are the ones with the least resources, living in the most vulnerable parts of the global society.

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School strike week 63. Los Angeles. #climatestrike #schoolstrike4climate #fridaysforfuture

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The UN predicts that by the year 2050 there will be up to 1 billion climate refugees in the world. I wonder, what will it take for us to start facing these issues and begin to ask the uncomfortable questions?

In Sweden we live our lives as if we had 4.2 planet earths. Our annual carbon footprint is approximately 11 tonnes of CO2 per person, if we include consumption. That can be compared to India’s 1.7 tonnes per capita. Or Kenyas 0.3 tonnes.

On average the CO2 emissions from one single Swede annually is the equivalent of 110 people from Mali in West Africa. So if there is any truth to the claim – popular in Western societies – that quote ”there are too many people in the world” then wouldn’t that only refer to ourselves, living extremely high carbon lifestyles in the global north? And not the vast majority of the global population who are already living within the planetary boundaries.

But my experience from all such arguments is that they are only used to seek further excuses to go on living the unsustainable life that we consider to be our right.

The climate and sustainability crisis is not a fair crisis. The ones who’ll be hit hardest from its consequences are often the ones who have done the least to cause the problem in the first place.

The global aspect of equity and climate justice make up the very heart of the Paris Agreement. Developed countries have signed up to lead the way.

And this is so that people in developing countries can have a chance to raise their living standards and to build some of the infrastructure that we in the industrialized world already have. Such as roads, hospitals, schools, electricity, sewage systems and clean drinking water.

After our visit to Paradise we get back in the car and head towards the coast. We have been offered a stay for the night in a small house in a vineyard. But suddenly the phone rings and we find out that the entire vineyard has burnt to the ground in the wildfires currently raging through the California wine districts.

We drive on towards San Francisco. As the evening falls the night sky turns red and you can feel the smoke from the fires in your nose.

Chapter 8: Media

“Wait, let me just record the interview.”

The journalist grabs his iPhone out of the pocket of his way-too-thin coat. It is a cloudy, freezing day on Mynttorget in the old town of central Stockholm. But just like any other Friday a few dozen others and I have gathered here to stand outside and protest in front of the Swedish parliament. It does get a bit chilly standing there for 7 hours straight in a few windy degrees below zero.

He presses record and holds up the phone towards me.

“So, why are you striking?” he asks.

I’m striking for us to take the climate crisis seriously and treat it like a crisis.

“Yes, but what do you want the politicians to do?”

I want them to listen to and act on the science, do what they have promised to do in the Paris Agreement and treat the crisis like a crisis.

I can tell that I haven’t given him the answers he wanted.

“Yes, but what specifically?”

When I then start talking about carbon budgets he gives up and interrupts. He knows very well he won’t be able to use anything of what I’m now saying in his article. People want something simple and concrete, and they want me to be naive, angry, childish and emotional. That is the story that sells and creates the most clicks.

“But uh,” he continues, “how are we going to solve this climate issue?”

Just the fact that this question is asked to me – a teenager – over and over is absurd. But not as absurd as the fact that the climate- and ecological emergency is being reduced to a “problem” that needs to be “fixed”. That it is seen as an “important topic” among other “important topics”.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEThunberg speaks to press during a climate strike before the COP25 summit, in Madrid, December 2019.

Of course I don’t know how we are going to solve the climate crisis. The fact is that no one knows. There is no magic invention or political plan that will solve everything. Because how do you solve a crisis? How do you solve a war? How do you solve a pandemic without a vaccine?

The only way is to treat the climate crisis like you would treat any other crisis. To come together, gather all the experts, put other things aside and adapt to the new reality. To act as quickly and strongly as the situation allows.

If for instance there’s no vaccine available for a disease you invest all possible resources into developing one as soon as possible, while at the same time taking all other possible measures as well. In a crisis you act even if you don’t know exactly how you are going to solve the problem. In a crisis there’s no time to wait for specific answers and details. Because the answers have to be found along the way. In a crisis you need to put all cards on the table and think long term and holistically. The climate crisis doesn’t have a vaccine. We have to admit that we don’t know how we are going to solve it. Because if we would have known then it wouldn’t have been a crisis in the first place.

There are many who claim that people understand but repress the full meaning of the climate crisis, because the message is too depressing and difficult to handle. That would mean that we continue to do what we do, despite being fully aware of the devastating consequences of our actions. But that I refuse to believe, since this would mean that we humans are evil.

My experience however is that people understand much less about the climate crisis than you’d think. If there’s anything I’ve learnt from traveling around the world it is that the level of knowledge and awareness is close to nonexistent.

I’ve met many of the most powerful people in the world. And even among them pretty much everyone lacks even some of the most basic knowledge. So if people are not aware, who is guilty for the message not getting through?

The reporter on Mynttorget is running out of time, he knows his phone’s battery won’t last much longer in the cold.

“But who really is Greta?” he asks. “I think people want to know Greta.”

I’m not important, I answer. This has got nothing to do with me. I’m completely uninteresting. I’m not doing this because I want to become famous or popular or get followers on social media.

“I’m doing this simply because no one else is doing anything.”

Chapter 9: Crossing the Atlantic

It’s six o’clock in the morning on Nov. 13, 2019. The TV monitors in the hotel lobby in Hampton, Virginia are showing weather warnings on repeat. Giant storm patterns are raging along the entire North American east coast, from Florida to Nova Scotia.

We step inside the car with the tiny luggage we’ve got left. It’s pitch black outside and the car is still freezing. Rob Liddell, a documentarian with the BBC, and sailor Nikki Henderson are sitting in the back. Nikki scrolls through the latest weather updates on her phone. Rob has got the camera on his shoulder and is looking at us through the lens.

It’s dead silent inside the car. The only thing you hear is Nikki sighing and moaning over and over again. After what feels like an eternity she shakes her head, puts the phone down and goes “wow guys, we’re in for a rough ride”.

“But we’re still going, right?” my dad asks, a bit worried.

“Of course,” she says.

Rob tries to ask me questions to get some kind of interview going, but I’m not really in the right mood.

One hour later we cast off from the dock. We clear the harbor entrance heading for Chesapeake Bay and wave goodbye to all the people and TV crews who have gathered on the surrounding docks. There’s a strong wind coming from Northwest. On deck the freezing temperatures of last night have turned all puddles into thick layers of ice. It’s snowing. We set sail and head for the open sea. Towards the lighthouse. Towards the ocean. Towards Europe. Towards Portugal. Towards Stockholm Central Station.

Eva O’Leary for TIMEThunberg departs the U.S. on the catamaran La Vagabonde as she sets sail towards Portugal in Hampton, Virginia, on November 13, 2019.

You do not sail across the North Atlantic ocean in November. At the end of September the storms come, and then the season closes until spring. Of course I had not planned for it to be like this. But the UN COP25 summit, where I was headed, was suddenly moved from Santiago to Madrid, meaning I had traveled halfway across the globe in the wrong direction. I had to find a solution.

I consider every possible option. Zeppelin airships, solar powered airplane and even sailing across the Pacific Ocean and then taking the Trans Siberian railway home. The most likely outcome however is to stay somewhere in North America for the winter.

Hundreds of people get in touch and want to help, but very few actually have something concrete to offer. The French and Spanish governments reach out and assure that they are going to help me find a way. However it is very unclear how they will do that.

Two Nordic airlines email and offer to arrange a flight using “50% sustainable fuel and then use the remaining 50% on another flight so that in total it becomes 100% fossil free”. As if biofuels were sustainable.

If I wouldn’t have been who I am I would probably have hitched a ride on a cargo ship, since they – unlike airplanes and cruise ships – don’t depend on paying passengers.

But everything I do and say gets altered and turned upside down which leads to mockery, conspiracy theories and organised hate campaigns. Which in turn leads to death threats toward me and my family. And that build up of hate and threat is much riskier than all the storms in the world.

Then suddenly one night in a hotel room in Savannah, Georgia, the phone beeps. It is Riley and Eleyna, a couple of young Australian YouTubers who are reaching out. They’re living on their catamaran with their one year-old son Lenny and are sailing around in the world, with no planned route. They offer to take us to Europe.

On the boat, we steer south so that in a certain amount of time we will have put ourselves in a strategically safe position away from a storm, so that we later can safely get to another position to avoid the next big storm. And then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. The low pressure systems sweeping over the North Atlantic right now are enormous. During the days we have gusts reaching up to 60 knots, and some nights the electric storms are so immense that you can see sparks in the water. We store all electronic devices in the oven to avoid them getting destroyed by lightning.

We are completely in the hands of the meteorologists helping us, sending weather updates and recommendations a few times a day. We’re very lucky to also have Nikki, a professional sailor, onboard. One hundred nautical miles in the wrong position can be the difference between life and death this time of year with this boat. You simply have to blindly trust data and the experts.

Me, my dad, Nikki, Elayna, Riley and Lenny are alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We are at the mercy of nature and have to act accordingly. We need to be able to take care of ourselves if something goes wrong.

If you are one week away from the nearest harbour you do not take any unnecessary risks. You don’t for instance start a fire on deck if you feel cold, you don’t throw away limited provisions of food or necessary equipment out in the ocean. You keep a constant watchful eye on the horizon and you don’t allow yourself to get struck by hubris. Onboard we are guided by common sense, the same common sense that should exist everywhere.

We are a civilisation isolated in the middle of the universe. Space is our ocean and the planet is our boat. Our one and only boat.

Chapter 10: Greenwashing

So what should we do to avoid a climate disaster beyond human control?

That is the question of our time. It is being asked by people all across the political spectrum from all over the world.

But what if the question to a great extent has been phrased the wrong way? What if it should rather be “what should we stop doing to avoid a climate disaster”?

This year – 2020 – the emission curve must be bent steeply downwards if we are to still have even a small chance of achieving the goals world leaders have agreed to. And then it’s of course not going to be enough with a temporary and coincidental reduction of greenhouse gas emissions where the purpose has been to stop a pandemic.

A common misconception about the climate crisis is that people think we need to reduce our emissions. But the fact is that if we are to keep the promise of the Paris Agreement, a reduction won’t be enough. We then need to reach a full stop of emissions within a couple of decades, and then quickly move on to negative figures.

There are generally three ways of reducing emissions – apart from the most obvious, to replace current fossil energy with renewables, such as solar and wind.

Number one is technical solutions. Techniques where you capture and store CO2 at the emitting source or directly out of the air. The problem here however is that the emissions need to drastically reduce now, and these techniques won’t exist at even close to scale in the foreseeable future. These plants are still prototypes. Believe me, I’ve myself visited two of the leading facilities in the world.

The second alternative is to use nature’s own ability to absorb and store carbon, which today often gets mistaken for only planting trees. Despite the fact that the most efficient way most often is to just leave the forests and natural habitats be in the first place.

A forest area the size of a football field is being cut down every second, according to Global Forest Watch. That is every second of every hour of every day. No tree planting in the world could compensate for that. And even if we miraculously decided to shut down the entire forestry industry and use all the available space in the world to plant trees, that still would only compensate for a few years’ emissions at current rates.

The third option is the only method that is available at scale already today. And that is to simply stop doing certain things. But it is also the alternative which people seem to find the most unrealistic. Just the thought of us being in a crisis that we cannot buy, build or invest our way out of seems to create some kind of collective mental short circuit.

Then there’s of course a fourth way of doing it. And this is the procedure that undoubtedly has been the most successful one so far, when it comes to reducing emissions. And it is so-called “creative accounting”. To simply refrain from reporting the emissions, or move them somewhere else. To systematically sweep things under the carpet, lie, and blame someone else.

My own country Sweden is a textbook example. In our case this strategy means that over half our emissions simply don’t exist on paper.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEGreta Thunberg addresses supporters and journalists upon her arrival in Santo Amaro Recreation dock on December 03, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Year after year people in power are allowed to appear in the media unchallenged and claim that Sweden’s emissions of greenhouse gases have decreased 20-30% since 1990. But the truth is that they haven’t decreased at all, if you include consumption and international aviation and shipping. And obviously the statistics will look much better if you simply choose not to count everything.

But this is not unique to Sweden. The same approach is being used by pretty much everyone in the richer part of the world. Whether it being the EU, individual countries, states, cities or companies.

We have simply moved our factories to different parts of the world where the labour is cheaper – and by doing so we also moved a significant part of our emissions overseas. And of course this is a very convenient solution for the global north, but since the biosphere doesn’t care about neither borders nor empty words, it doesn’t work as well in reality.

But the real problem is that when it comes to the climate- and ecological emergency the people in power can today say basically whatever they want. They are practically guaranteed to not receive any follow up questions.

The issue of nuclear power is still for example allowed to dominate the entire climate debate, even though science has concluded that it can – at best – only be a very risky, expensive and small part of a much larger holistic solution.

You can claim that we can achieve impossible results through so-called green investments, without having to explain how it will be done, or what the term “green” even means. Words like green, sustainable, ’net zero’, ‘environmentally friendly’, organic, ‘climate neutral’ and ‘fossil free’ are today so misused and watered down that they have pretty much lost all their meaning. They can imply everything from deforestation to aviation, meat- and car industries.

And basically because the general level of public awareness is so low you can still get away with anything. No one is held accountable. It’s like a game. Whoever is best at packaging and selling their message wins. And since the truth is uncomfortable, unpopular and unprofitable, the truth doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Moral, truth, long term- and holistic thinking seem to mean nothing to us. The emperors are naked. Every single one. It turns out our whole society is just one big nudist party.

Chapter 11: Corona pandemic

Last year when I visited Davos I slept in a tent in 18° below zero. This year the organisers said that for security reasons I had to stay in a hotel.

The night before the conference starts I catch the flu. So it was quite a relief that I wasn’t sleeping in a tent. I have to cancel most scheduled events, which is something I actually don’t mind at all, since I find social gatherings and meetings that don’t lead anywhere mostly just being a waste of time.

So my stay is quite relaxing, but today I’m supposed to drag myself out the door for a meeting with the president of Switzerland. After that I’m going to go public with my plans about traveling to China. I’ve just received the official invitation to address the World Economic Forum conference which will most likely be held in Shenzhen, China sometime in the beginning of June. Visiting China is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and now it’s finally about to happen, that is, if the Chinese government will let me inside the country.

But just as I’m about to walk out the door the Swiss president cancels, as she had to immediately go back to Zürich to attend an emergency meeting. Apparently developments around the new virus discovered in China are causing grave concern.

That was my first introduction to the coronavirus crisis. I immediately put my plans of visiting China on hold. It seemed to become less and less possible to travel there sometime this spring. Instead I start planning to follow up on some other invitations, to take the Trans Siberian railway via Vladivostok to South Korea and Japan. But as the situation escalates I of course have to abandon these plans as well.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEThunberg arrives in Madrid for the last U.N. climate summit before a crucial deadline in 2020

So I use the upcoming weeks to travel around in Europe, continuing to work on the documentary together with the BBC. We visit Jokkmokk, London, Yorkshire, Zürich and the European parliament. I strike in Hamburg, Bristol and Brussels. It’s the beginning of March 2020 and the world is just about to be turned completely upside down. This weekend there are supposed to be big climate strikes in France. But right here a tipping point is passed. What was unquestionable the week before has now suddenly become unthinkable.

In the Fridays For Future movement we decide to cancel everything, without hesitation. People are dying. Many are losing their family members, loved ones as well as their economic stability. The consequences of this pandemic are catastrophic. A crisis is a crisis, and in a crisis we all have to take a few steps back and act for the greater good of each other and our society. In a crisis you adapt and change your behaviour. And indeed, this is what the world does, at record speed.

So what was it that made these global structural changes possible in just a matter of hours?

Was it hope and inspiration that made us act so quickly during the corona pandemic? Something that most communication experts and news editors have claimed to be the only way forward to create change. Or was it perhaps something else?

There’s nothing positive about the corona crisis from a climate perspective. The changes made in our daily lives due to COVID-19 have extremely little similarity with the action needed for the climate.

The corona tragedy of course has no long term positive effects on the climate, apart from one thing only: namely the insight into how you should perceive and treat an emergency. Because during the corona crisis we suddenly act with necessary force.

International emergency meetings take place on a daily basis. Astronomical financial bailouts magically appear out of nowhere. Canceled events and tough restrictions make people change their behaviour and approach overnight.

The media completely transitions, puts other things on hold and almost exclusively reports about COVID-19, with daily press conferences and live coverage 24/7. All parts of society come together and politicians put their different views aside and cooperate for the greater good of everyone. Well – maybe not everyone and everywhere.

But broadly speaking, people in power from politics, business and finance are suddenly saying that they will do whatever it takes since “you can not put a price on a human life”.

Those words and this treatment of the crisis opens up a whole new dimension. Because you see, every year at least 7 million people die from illnesses related to air pollution, according to the WHO. Those are apparently people whose lives we can put a price on. Since they die from the wrong causes, and in the wrong parts of the world.

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School strike week 77. Jokkmokk! #climatejustice #fridaysforfuture #climatestrike #schoolstrike4climate #indigenousrights

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During the corona pandemic policy makers repeat that we have to “listen to the science and the experts”. Well, according to the world’s leading scientists and experts on biodiversity, the pandemic is likely to be followed by deadlier and more destructive diseases unless we halt the ceaseless destruction of natural habitats.

But these are not the scientists and experts they are referring to. Because long term sustainability doesn’t fit inside today’s economic and political systems.

Chapter 12: Hope

In the aftermath of the corona crisis there are many who claim that we need to use this as an opportunity. That when we restart the economy we must adopt a so-called “green recovery plan”. And of course it’s incredibly important that we invest our assets in sustainable projects, renewable energy, technical solutions and research. But we must not for one second believe that it will be even close to what is actually required. Or for that matter that the so called targets set out today would be ambitious enough.

If all countries were to actually go through with the emission reductions they have set as goals, we would still be heading for a catastrophic global temperature rise of at least 3-4 degrees. The people in power today have thus practically already given up on the possibility of handing over a decent future for coming generations. Given up without even trying.

It sounds terrible, I know. But in reality it is actually even worse. Because even if they want to act in line with what is needed – which actually sometimes is the case – they can’t. And that is because we are stuck in already written contracts and business agreements.

It’s just simple math.

The United Nations Production Gap Report shows that the world’s planned fossil fuel production alone by the year 2030 accounts for 120% more than what would be consistent with the 1.5°C target. It just doesn’t add up.

So if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe we have to make it possible to tear up contracts and abandon existing deals and agreements, on a scale we can’t even begin to imagine today.

And that alone requires a whole new way of thinking. Since those type of actions are not politically, economically or legally possible today. The climate- and ecological crisis can not be solved within today’s political and economic systems. That is no longer an opinion. That’s a fact.

I understand that all of this sounds uncomfortable and depressing. And I fully get why you as a politician or news editor choose to look away. But you must also realise that for us who actually have to live with the consequences for the rest of our lives, that’s a luxury that we can’t afford.

Recently a new scientific report was published by scientists from Uppsala University and the Tyndall Centre in the UK. It shows that if rich countries like Sweden and the UK are to fulfill their commitments to the Paris Agreement’s well-below 2°C target they need to reduce their total national emissions of CO2 by 12-15% every year, starting now.

Of course there’s no “green recovery plan” or “deal” in the world that alone would be able to achieve such emission cuts. And that’s why the whole “green deal” debate ironically risks doing more harm than good, as it sends a signal that the changes needed are possible within today’s societies. As if we could somehow solve a crisis without treating it like a crisis. A lot may have happened in the last two years, but the changes and level of awareness required are still nowhere in sight.

Things may look dark and hopeless, but I’m telling you there is hope. And that hope comes from the people, from democracy, from you. From the people who more and more themselves are starting to realize the absurdity of the situation. The hope does not come from politics, business or finance. And that’s not because politicians or businesspeople are evil. But because what is needed right now simply seems to be too uncomfortable, unpopular and unprofitable.

Public opinion is what runs the free world, and the public opinion necessary is today nonexisting, the level of knowledge is too low.

But there are signs of change, of awakening. Just take the metoo movement, blacklivesmatter or the schoolstrike movement for instance. It’s all interconnected. We have passed a social tipping point, we can no longer look away from what our society has been ignoring for so long. Whether it is sustainability, equality, or justice.

From a sustainability point of view all political and economic systems have failed. But humanity has not yet failed. The climate and ecological emergency is not primarily a political crisis. It is an existential crisis, completely based on scientific facts.

The evidence is there. The numbers are there. We cannot get away from that fact. Nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot compromise with the laws of physics. And either we accept and understand the reality as it is, or we don’t. Either we go on as a civilisation or we don’t.

Doing our best is no longer good enough. We must now do the seemingly impossible. And that is up to you and me. Because no one else will do it for us.

Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIMEYoung supporters of Greta Thunberg await her arrival in Santo Amaro Recreation dock on December 03, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

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Maybe Not Your Dad’s Cannabis – Weed Strains ( guide that is best Online)

Until you are a true-blue aficionado or a person who frequents marijuana groups, you will undoubtedly be stumped whenever presented with the numerous weed strains available on the market.

You will find presently lots and lots of weed strains to pick from. Amongst thebombastically names that are weirdHog’s breathing or Super Skunk, anybody?); the fantastic, almost-miraculous medical claims; in addition to shady connotations by some, it may be very hard to navigate the maze to locate reliable information.

That’s why we came up with this specific guide. It is the source that is ultimate allow you to better understand the various weed strains on the market. You’ll explore the after subjects in this specific article:

Principal forms of strains

Choosing the strains that are right your

Many strains that are popular

Many strains that are potent

Tall CBD strains

Post on the most famous tools that are strain-finding online

LET’S DESCRIBE VARIOUS TERMS FIRST

Before proceeding further, we have to familiarize ourselves with a few terms. Getting our minds around these will why don’t we have an even more significant conversation once we go along. You are able to refer returning to these definitions once you encounter them in the sections below.

Cannabis – a form of flowering plant initially considered to be native to Central Asia while the Indian sub-continent. Has a range that is wide ofand medicinal applications because well as recreational uses because of its psychoactive results.

Cannabinoids chemical that is– diverse present in cannabis that bind to cannabinoid receptors (found in the mind and through the entire human body), changing the neurotransmitter releases regarding the brain and leading to psychoactive impacts or benefits that are medical frequently both.

THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) – a form of cannabinoid. The main psychoactive substance in cannabis, in charge of the marijuana that is high become fabled for.

CBD (cannabidiol) – the cannabinoid that is non-psychoactive thought to be responsible for the benefits that are medical from cannabis without the high.

Terpenes – https://cbdoilmarkets.net a class that is diverse of compounds generated by a number of flowers, specially conifers. Fragrant natural oils that provide cannabis strains their particular distinctive diversity that is aromatic.

THE CANNABIS FAMILY

“Weed” is among the many slang terms used to mention to the flower that is dried buds, leaves as well as other derivatives through the cannabis plant. These are used for leisure or medicinal purposes, with respect to the sort of strain.

You can find three officially recognized main types of Cannabis: Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis.

For the true purpose of this article, we shall mainly be focusing on Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica along side their various iterations that are hybrid. Cannabis ruderalis is perhaps not commonly useful for stress cultivation due to the fairly low THC content and it is even considered ineffective for commercial purposes ( ag e.g., fibre, rope, etc.) because of its shorter stature. We’ll touch on ruderalis briefly before moving on.

Cannabis ruderalis

Cannabis ruderalis is indigenous into the Central/Eastern European region and Russia. Its widely considered the sturdiest and most resilient cannabis Species as it can survive the harsher environment and climate of those areas.

Usually overlooked and sometimes rudely known as “ditch weed” because they have been commonly found roadside inside their regions that are native ruderalis is the littlest associated with three cannabis types. The plant seldom stands significantly more than 2 legs high. It really is brief and stocky with thick and sturdy stems supporting tiny, chunky buds.

Intrinsically low in THC content, it offers some redeeming qualities:

features A cbd content that is relatively high

Has the flowering time that is shortest

has a distinctive “auto-flower” ability, meaning it immediately plants whenever it reaches an age that is certain

PRINCIPAL FORMS OF STRAINS

Weed strains available available on the market are categorized under three primary Categories: Cannabis sativa, Cannabis hybrid and indica varieties derived from both types.

Cannabis sativa

This variety originated from the temperate equatorial climates of Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia. Scraggly and wiry, its considered the tallest among the list of cannabis types. It may develop to a average height of 8 to 12 foot and has also been noted to achieve because high as 20 foot under optimum conditions.

Sativa can be identified by its thin, light green leaves and very long, fluffy plants. These normally have red or orange hues whenever grown in a hot locale or are somewhat purple whenever developed in a cooler environment. Due to its affinity for heat, it’s the favored selection of outside growers.

On the list of pure strains, sativas are often considered the go-to “pick-me-up” number of the lot due to the uplifting, energetic, and creative impacts. Fans of the stress are specially partial to its inherently sweet and fruity aroma, particularly if set alongside the more pungent indica variety.

It’s also utilized for medicinal purposes to assist in dealing with conditions such as despair, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), fatigue, and mood problems.

Nevertheless, sativas use the longest time to harvest with a flowering period of around 12 to 14 days.

Cannabis indica

A native of the Hindu Kush hill area that extends from main Afghanistan into the north Pakistan edge, this variety stands at a tremendously workable height of 3 to 6 foot. It has the resin ratio that is heaviest among all the types as it must deal with the harsh mountain conditions.

Irrespective of being reduced as compared to sativa, Cannabis indica can also be denser and bushier with fatter dark leaves that are green. Its plants are dense and heavy with purplish hues. Flowering time is 8 to 9 months underneath the right conditions.

Indica is noted to improve appetite, and has now relaxing and sedative impacts, which makes it perfect to make use of whenever lounging or simply just before maneuvering to sleep.

Indicas frequently produce a pungent skunky smell whenever utilized but they are shown to be good for individuals suffering insomnia or those pain that is needing relief.

Between its apparently higher-yielding ability, rich cannabinoid properties, convenient height, shorter flowering time, and resilient features, this variety happens to be a favorite that is absolute of growers all over.

Hybrid strains

Theoretically combining the very best of both globes, hybrid strains would be the Products of blending Cannabis indica and sativa strains for desired use results, manufacturing improvements, or qualities that are even aesthetic marketing consideration.

Hybrids are manufactured with nearly endless combinations that are possible and there are now a lot more than a thousand strains that are hybrid the marketplace. Many others are being developed these days.

Regardless of the vast wide range of options avaiable, all hybrid strains may be lumped into three groups: sativa-dominant, indica-dominant, and 50/50 hybrids. Resulting strains are generally called by their growers that are respective to reflect the plant’s properties. Included in these are taste profile, color, aroma, and its particular moms and dad origins.

Hybrid strains are usually bred to intensify or emphasize certain faculties for leisure or purposes that are medicinal. Ergo, you may have An strain that is extremely high-THC/low-CBD by leisure users on one end regarding the range and a tremendously product that is high-CBD/low-THC for medicinal purposes on the other side end with endless opportunities in between.

Besides the cannabinoid content and effects that are intended other properties such as for example aroma, plant development prices, appearance, and flowering time could be manipulated in line with the ratio regarding the selected moms and dad strains. Designing and engineering certain strains to fulfill specific desired criteria may be especially useful in addressing custom requires particularly for medical applications.

Now, armed with this particular given information, how can you select which stress is appropriate for your requirements?

HOW TO PICK THE STRAIN

Listed here are the most criteria that are common which people base their choice on whenever choosing particular strains due to their very own needs that are particular.

Taste

One of many pleasures of consuming cannabis could be the relaxing initial sensory burst of the scent and flavor associated with the weed it self. You will find as much unique cannabis tastes as there are identified strains.

Some might even argue that we now have actually more tastes as strains can vary in taste according to cultivation. Various growers can find yourself with somewhat flavors that are different to variations in growing conditions such as for example environment, fertilizers, soil kind, farming methods, or daylight size. These can all have a significant impact on the growth of a critical cannabis mixture called terpenes.

Terpenes are aromatic oily substances that reside when you look at the cannabis that are same glands that produce the cannabinoids THC and CBD called trichomes. This pungent oil is responsible for the smell and flavor distinctive to every cannabis stress. Terpenes are in charge of scents in other flowers and fruits.

(regardless of impacting taste, terpenes additionally communicate with other plant substances such as for example cannabinoids, making a alleged “entourage impact.” Scientists during the University of British Columbia recently confirmed that terpenes work with tandem with THC to improve the effectiveness of cannabis strains to supply these psychoactive impacts.1)

A lot more than 100 various terpenes and terpenoids are identified, developing a palate that is diverse of tastes, every stress features its own unique terpene profile. A number of the more notable cannabis tastes are Berry, Citrus, Grape, Pine, Lavender, Mango, Pineapple, Lemon, Coffee, Mint, Peach, Pine, Tobacco, and Vanilla.

Impacts

You might additionally select strains based on the desired impacts. This impliesthe psychological and/or psychological high that you frequently encounter when eating cannabis.

Experiencing slow? Just a little power that is appalachian help perk you up. Experiencing bashful at a gathering? Some Sour Breath shall help transform you to the life and soul of this celebration. Having difficulty resting? Let Granddaddy Purple lull you right into a blissful slumber.

With regards to pure strains, experienced leisure users will discover it fairly easy to find out which kind to go after in a situation that is certain. Fundamentally, should you want to have a power boost and acquire your imaginative juices moving, select Cannabis sativa strains; they’re considered the “uppers” of the cannabis world.

Having said that, in the event that you would like to relax following a stressful time, opt for Cannabis indica strains. Note, but, that more powerful indica strains have a tendency to place you in the“couch-lock that is so-called – couch-locked users can feel not able to go just as if they will have really melted to the settee. Here is the condition which has resulted in the“stoner that is prototypical” image.

Hybrid strains, nonetheless, certainly are a bit more difficult. They are able to result from a vast selection of feasible parent strains, and there’s also accepted variants when you look at the growing conditions and practices employed by breeders. Hence, hybrid strains could have varying examples of effectiveness that change from one individual to another.

You possibly can make the best choice by consulting the strain-finding that is various tools available on the internet (we’ll get to those later in this essay), reading the average person reviews for the strains you love, and checking out of the responses of users who possess tried them.

From then on, i would suggest making a quick directory of the strains you believe you’ll like – and feel free to go right ahead and decide to try some in order to make your very own judgment. You need to be careful you just simply take indicas at evening as much as feasible, and free your schedule beforehand up, for those who enter into that couch-lock position.

Signs

One other way to select strains would be to match particular strains with the symptoms you’d choose to relieve.

People global live with medical symptoms within their day-to-day everyday lives. Insomnia, headaches, chronic and pain that is acute not enough appetite, weakness, infection, muscle mass spasms, seizures, nausea, anxiety, anxiety, and depression are only a few of the symptoms that are common which cannabis happens to be proven to assist offer relief.

Many reports are becoming done once we are just now realizing the enormous potential of cannabis with regards to medical applications.

One advantage that is major of cannabis to take care of medical signs is the fact that it is all-natural, unlike many clinically prescribed drugs, that can come with various unfavorable side effects.

Conditions/Ailments

The wide selection of historical testimonial great things about cannabis along with a strong clamor from constituents whom swear by its effectiveness paved the method for legalization of medical cannabis in select US states.(3)

As a result, many with clinically ailments that are diagnosed conditions is now able to freely choose corresponding cannabis strains.

Here’s a list of just some of the known illnesses and conditions specific cannabis strains have already been recognized to assistance with on specific amounts.

ADD/ADHD

Alzheimer’s

Anorexia

Joint Disease

Asthma

Manic Depression

Cachexia

Cancer Tumors

Crohn’s condition

Epilepsy

Fibromyalgia

Gastrointestinal Condition

Glaucoma

HIV/AIDS

High Blood Pressure

Migraines

Several Sclerosis

Muscular Dystrophy

PTSD

Parkinson’s

Phantom Limb Soreness

Spinal-cord Damage

Tinnitus

Tourette’s Syndrome

Certainly not is it an extensive list. Many studies that are ongoing nevertheless being conducted to deliver concrete evidence regarding the effectiveness of cannabis within the remedy for the ailments that are above-listed.

We genuinely believe that our company is just now pressing the surface of the tremendous potential of cannabis for medical purposes. Given that medical cannabis is gradually getting more acceptable to a bigger portion of society, further research shall be pursued by government along with independently funded organizations to probe other applications that are possible.

MOST WELL KNOWN STRAINS

Perhaps you are wondering concerning the many popular strains and how they are rated. The largest cannabis website in for this exercise, we turn to Leafly.com the planet. The website has a great deal of helpful material about all plain things linked to cannabis and permits their massive individual base to publish specific reviews and reviews associated with various strains.

Reviewers result from diverse backgrounds: researchers, growers, educators, medical marijuana patients, workers in offices, regular Joes, male and female, old and young, cannabis lovers one and all sorts of. Their purposes differ from medical relief to leisure used to both.

Consumer remarks are typical extremely honest, insightful, and really seems like a large amount of enjoyable. Just don’t be extremely specific about sentence structure and whatnot; the Subject matter might have one thing related to that.

Without further ado, let me reveal a countdown of the very cannabis that are popular strains in line with the users from Leafly.com.

Bubba Kush

This is actually the Jon Snow associated with the cannabis world. If this strain emerged within the belated ’90s, the grower it absolutely was named after ended up being not sure about its parentage. He just claimed it came from an OG Kush hybrid that pollinated an unknown indica strain.

We may perhaps perhaps not know precisely where it is from, but users surely understand where they go after they grab this bud. (in addition, props to those that got the GoT guide.)

White Widow

A popular into the coffee stores of Amsterdam because it arrived on the scene within the ’90s, this internationally well known offspring associated with the Brazilian sativa and Southern Indian indica will certainly be one of the favorites that are instant you receive a style of the stimulating and effects that are euphoric.

Gorilla Glue no. 4

Whether you arrived for the relief that is medical psychoactive results, or both, once you will get a flavor of the powerful gluey hybrid, you’ll definitely find it tough to shake this monkey off your straight back.

Jack Herer

This award-winning sativa-dominant strain could have you bust away your content regarding the Emperor doesn’t have garments (whoever writer is it strain’s namesake). It may force one to clean through to your reading once its prominent aftereffects of clear-headed and energy that is creative in.

Granddaddy Purple

Its powerful psychoactive results apart, this California basic is generally counted on for the benefits that are medical relieving pain, anxiety, sleeplessness, not enough appetite, and muscle mass spasms, and others.

OG Kush

Treasured by recreational users for the euphoric and pleased impacts, this progenitor of several other popular western Coast varieties is also credited by medical cannabis users for increasing migraines, ADD/ADHD, stress condition, along with other health problems.

Green Crack

Look after dark name’s negative connotation, and you’ll enjoy particularly this fruity and citrusy variety’s effects that are uplifting well as the medical advantages in aiding patients struggling with fatigue, depression or stress.

Girl Scout Cookies

This strain is actually no child’s play despite the name. Numerous users have actually had the opportunity to see their very own personal Happyland, whether for leisureor reasons that are medical after they feel the wonderful results of this award-winning strain.

Sour Diesel

Its stimulating results and lasting relief have actually made this popular stress an all-time favorite among medical users whom look for some respite from discomfort, stress or depression and from leisure users whom chase its dreamy, cerebral and energizing boost.

Blue Dream

It is not really shut! The runaway champion, by a mile, as the utmost popular strain may be the Californian-bred, sativa-dominant stress Blue Dream. It really is a favorite of novices and seasoned users alike due to the capacity todeliver symptom that is fast without having the heavy sedative results of other strains. Its mellow, cerebral and euphoric build-up make it a popular among leisure users in addition to clients longing for rest from discomfort, depression, sickness as well as other conditions.

MOST POWERFUL STRAINS

Except for Girl Scout Cookies and Gorilla Glue #4, the essential popular strains mentioned previously are definitely not regarded as the essential potent.

Once we state “potent,” we’re referring to THC effectiveness. While tests also show that CBD may counteract the psychoactive ramifications of THC yet others highlight the entourage effect of terpenes in attaining a more high that is robust this scientific studies are nevertheless within the stages that are early. When it comes to many part, effectiveness is nevertheless equated by having a strain’s THC content.

So unlike popularity, calculating effectiveness must be more goal. We count on the expertise of trusted cannabis websites, such as for instance leafly.com and herb.co, who possess appear using their lists that are own. Hightimes.com also conducts Cannabis Cups where they rank the absolute most powerful strains on a local degree.

There was still no accepted procedure or standard for cannabis assessment, and assessment procedures differ from lab to lab, so examine these numbers a snapshot in the place of a total value.

So that the list below is sort of “Usual Suspects” list when you’re searching for high-potency cannabis instead of a definitive ranking. Remember, also exactly the same strains detailed right here can vary greatly in THC strength if they show up from different growers or areas.

For many who consistency that is value we’ve additionally detailed how many times that the stress happens to be contained in the ratings because of the sources we mentioned earlier in the day. When they appear into the positions of respected internet sites and figure prominently in 2 away from 3 regional honors, as an example, then you can certainly be Confident that they shall be much more or less consistent.

Allow me to share probably the most powerful strains according to your survey.

HIGH CBD STRAINS

Cannabis has been proven to aid in the treating a wide range of disorders since ancient times. Present studies and research just serve to validate exactly what our forefathers have actually understood all along.

Non-recreational users would you like to take complete benefit of the medicinal great things about cannabis without fundamentally coping with the psychoactive impacts could go after the high CBD strains.

CBD is famous to counter the psychoactive outcomes of THC. So that it is sensiblethat a higher percentage of it compared to THC shall offer you usage of the medical benefits without having the high related to THC-rich strains.

CBD has gained more attention in modern times. This has become commonly accepted in a lot of elements of the entire world being a appropriate medical health supplement for conditions such as for instance anxiety, anxiety, and pain that is chronic.

We cover high CBD strains in detail an additional article. Go right ahead and go to the web page should you want to learn more relating to this topic. Within the meantime, we’ve given below the most truly effective 5 high CBD strains now available.

ACDC

Boasting A cbd:thc ratio that is healthy of, this rocker was making sweet music by giving relief to patients that are countless from pain, anxiety, epilepsy, numerous sclerosis, and chemotherapy side-effects without always getting them intoxicated.

Cannatonic

This piney, natural hybrid has a CBD:THC ratio of around 1:1 and can deliver a mellow but short-lived high that is simultaneously uplifting and relaxing. Bred intentionally being a strain that is medical it really is desired to simply help reduce pain, muscle spasms, anxiety, migraine and different other signs.

Harlequin

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NEM KURUTMA HİZMETLERİ

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toomanysinks · 6 years ago

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India’s entrepreneurial future

Few countries have more entrepreneurial potential than India. It’s home not just to the wave of IT offshoring firms of the 1990s and early 2000s, but also to some of the most interesting unicorn tech startups in the world, including Freshworks, Paytm, Oyo and of course Flipkart, which sold to Walmart last year for $16 billion.

India though is also at something of an economic crossroads. Unlike China, which as we discussed yesterday faces a conflict between open entrepreneurship and strict party control in its next stage of development, India must build up its indigenous startups while also opening up to the global economy.

That economic balancing act will be tough. As James Crabtree, a long-time writer of the Financial Times based in Mumbai, argues in his book The Billionaire Raj, India faces a triple threat of “inequality and the new super-rich, crony capitalism, and the travails of the industrial economy” as it seeks to move the country into middle-income status.

Crabtree, who built up access among India’s traditional business elite over many years, sees a nation that is starving for more government capacity. India has transitioned in a few short decades from a moribund economy languishing under a sclerotic and byzantine bureaucratic model (sometimes referred to as the “license raj”) into an increasingly open and competitive market for goods and services.

Yet, success outside of a scant few industries — namely IT services — has been undergirded by political access and the trading of favors. Crabtree chronicles a whole crop of entrepreneurs from across the country in industries as far afield as mining to liquor to aircraft to show the constant intermixing of Indian business and Indian politics.

That crony capitalism is at the heart of what he dubs today’s “billionaire raj” — a government that isn’t for the ultra-rich so much as it lacks any capacity whatsoever to stand up to its worst excesses and corruption. The book is one part travelogue, one part analysis, and one part biographical bookshelf that together paint a complicated portrait of India’s growth ambitions and challenges to scale.

Given where India’s fortunes have been made the past few decades, the book mostly ignores the tech industry, save for fleeting mentions scattered about. But I asked Crabtree in an interview last week where he saw the country headed, and how technology might underpin that.

“People thought that India was going to become the next hot market for Silicon Valley tech money after China, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case,” he explained. Unlike China, which created friction in market entry for foreign tech companies, India has been reasonably open. “The biggest search engine in India is Google, the biggest social network is Facebook,” he noted. “They don’t make much money in India, but they have spectacular user growth.”

“When I lived in Mumbai, there was a big tech investment wave in the after wave of the Alibaba IPO,” he explained. “There were these great hopes that India would follow the sort of hockey stick growth” seen in China. Yet, the country’s demographics don’t back that up. “India has a tiny middle class — 10-20 million” using a reasonable definition of the term “middle class.” That group is simply not large enough to support the valuation dreams underpinning some of India’s most-discussed unicorns. “Growing users is really easy, but growing revenues is just much more challenging,” he said.

The challenge ahead for India is that a form of economic nationalism is increasingly popular in Delhi. We have covered a bit of this change around data localization / sovereignty, but it is certainly much wider than those policies. “I think there is a slow but steady trend toward closure that is partly to do with India’s domestic politics” and partly due to international climate, Crabtree explained. The thinking is that, “China has produced Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu [… but] India hasn’t produced any major global stars yet.”

Fueling that rift is a sense that foreign tech giants “don’t pay much in the way of tax, they are not Indian companies” and that they “haven’t behaved particularly well.” Crabtree was referring specifically to Facebook’s Free Basics program, which became deeply controversial in the country, although those feelings are not limited to just Facebook.

India has a massive election coming up in just a few weeks, which will decide whether current Indian prime minister Narendra Modi stays in power. Beyond just policy, Crabtree sees a major challenge for all foreign tech companies, but particularly those operating social networks. “The stakes are very high for how social media manages the stresses and strains of a competitive and potentially nasty Indian political campaign,” he said. “If they are blamed for something that went wrong… this would be immensely damaging.”

India has the potential to be the single largest democratic free market economy in the world. But it needs to simultaneously cut down on its corruption, create jobs for millions of new entrants to the labor economy every year, stand up a new generation of digital-first behemoths, all the while balancing the needs of an incredibly diverse and cacophonous democracy buffeted by global markets and tastes. That’s ultimately a tall order, but if India wants to migrate from a “billionaire raj” to an “entrepreneur raj,” it will have to do all of that — at once.

Talking about borders: Talent-friendly immigration driving tech north of the border

Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Yesterday, we talked about the growing difficulty of the H-1B visa application and approval process in the US, and how it threatens America’s long-term entrepreneurial edge. In a prime example of the connection between immigration policy and technology leadership — the FT put out a deep-dive analysis on the rapidly growing Toronto tech and startup scene, with much of the expansion attributable to Canada’s talent-friendly immigration policies.

Canada applies the “give grads a visa with their diploma” approach many have preached for in the US, providing multi-year work visas to foreign students upon graduation. And while the US continues to make the individual application process more difficult, Canada has streamlined its process. Applications for highly-skilled workers, as well as their families, are processed within just a couple weeks.

While there are clearly several intertwined factors behind the growth of Toronto as a tech hub, talent is certainly one of them, with the city having added nearly 100,000 jobs in a five-year period. Toronto offers a case-in-point precedent of how cities can use immigration to gain a technological edge, and why the United States’ misdirected crackdown is undermining its own.

Intel cancels agreement with China chipmaker in fight for next generation chip dominance

Photo via Intel Corporation

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Intel continues to shift its strategy as it tries to improve its position for next-generation chip leadership. At the MWC conference in Barcelona, Intel announced that it was terminating a multi-year partnership with one of China’s premier state-backed mobile chipmakers, Unisoc. As part of the original agreement announced roughly a year ago‚ Intel would share its new 5G modem chips with Unisoc to help Intel increase its lagging market share in China, while providing Unisoc technological know-how needed for it to compete with more-advanced competitor offerings.

Like many breakups, the two sides are saying the decision was mutual and not a result of the political tension between the US and Chinese governments. However, the Nikkei Asian Review reports that insiders say the US’ recent harsh tone with Chinese tech and semiconductor companies definitely played a role in the decision.

As we discussed yesterday, Intel has a lot of catching up to do after years of complacency and will now have to find a different avenue to make up ground in the Chinese market. Unisoc is also certainly feeling the pain of the lost knowledge transfer, as market share can disappear quickly in a highly competitive industry where IP is often the secret sauce. The cancellation of what seemed to be a mutually beneficial deal reinforces the fact that the fight for next-generation semiconductor dominance is just as much political as it is financial, if not more so.

Other news from around the world

Facebook’s censors are struggling at work

Casey Newton at The Verge offered us a deep-dive into the horrific working conditions and post-traumatic stress of working as a censor for Facebook and its contractors. While artificial intelligence and advances around computer vision may allow more of this to be automated in the future, Newton brings up a key question: what are we doing right now to help the working-class workers who keep social networks safe for users?

Could corporate VC unlock the Japanese startup market?

Pavel Alpeyev at Bloomberg has a deep-dive highlighting the rapid expansion of Japanese corporate venture capital. The trend is permeating the country’s largest companies across all industries, with the number of Japanese corporate venture arms increasing by more than 8x since 2015. The Japanese market has traditionally been viewed as an unfriendly environment for startups, but the growing availability of capital and support from Japan’s all-powerful incumbent corporations makes building a company seem more feasible. ~ Written by Arman Tabatabai

Mobile usage gender gap reinforces the social obligation for big tech

Leading mobile companies from around the world have been aggressively competing for ownership of emerging market populations. In a recent analysis, Yomi Kazeem at Quartz Africa highlighted the tremendous gender gap that exists in emerging market mobile usage — with female use up to 30% lower in some cases — which represents a significant untapped user base that Quartz estimates could generate $140 billion in revenue over the next five years. We plan on revisiting the topic of how incumbent tech will unlock growth in the future as we dive into Payal Arora’s book The Next Billion Users: Digital Life Beyond the West. ~ Written by Arman Tabatabai

Obsessions

We have a bit of a theme around emerging markets, macroeconomics, and the next set of users to join the internet.

More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”

Thanks

To every member of Extra Crunch: thank you. You allow us to get off the ad-laden media churn conveyor belt and spend quality time on amazing ideas, people, and companies. If I can ever be of assistance, hit reply, or send an email to [email protected].

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/26/indias-entrepreneurial-future/

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fmservers · 6 years ago

Text

India’s entrepreneurial future

Talking about borders: Talent-friendly immigration driving tech north of the border

Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Intel cancels agreement with China chipmaker in fight for next generation chip dominance

Photo via Intel Corporation

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Other news from around the world

Facebook’s censors are struggling at work

Could corporate VC unlock the Japanese startup market?

Mobile usage gender gap reinforces the social obligation for big tech

Obsessions

We have a bit of a theme around emerging markets, macroeconomics, and the next set of users to join the internet.

More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”

Thanks

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

Via Danny Crichton https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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ezatluba · 6 years ago

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How Native American tribes are bringing back the bison from brink of extinction

The Age of Extinction

The continent’s largest land mammal plays crucial role in spiritual lives of the tribes

Jeremy Hance

12 Dec 2018

On 5,000 hectares of unploughed prairie in north-eastern Montana, hundreds of wild bison roam once again. But this herd is not in a national park or a protected sanctuary – they are on tribal lands. Belonging to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes of Fort Peck Reservation, the 340 bison is the largest conservation herd in the ongoing bison restoration efforts by North America’s Indigenous people.

The bison – or as Native Americans call them, buffalo – are not just “sustenance,” according to Leroy Little Bear, a professor at the University of Lethbridge and a leader in the bison restoration efforts with the Blood Tribe. The continent’s largest land mammal plays a major role in the spiritual and cultural lives of numerous Native American tribes, an “integrated relationship,” he said.

“If you are Christian and you don’t see any crosses out there, or you don’t have your corner church … there’s no external connection, [no] symbolic iconic notion that strengthens and nurtures those beliefs,” said Little Bear. “So it goes with the buffalo.”

Return of the bison: herd makes surprising comeback on Dutch coast

Only a couple of hundred years ago, 20 million to 30 million bison lived in vast thundering herds across North America. They were leftover relics of the Pleistocene and one of the few large mammals to survive the Ice Age extinction.

But less than 400 years after Columbus’ direful voyage, white settlers pushed their way west into Native American territory in so-called manifest destiny. And the US government made the fateful decision to cripple the Native Americans through whatever means necessary. One of these was the bison: the government viewed slaughtering the great herds en-masse as a way to starve and devastate Native American tribes.

Within just decades, the bison went from numbering tens of millions to within a hair’s breadth of extinction. “Fort Peck was the first to stand up and say we want to help. We want to restore these important bison back to their historic Great Plains home,” said Jonathan Proctor, Rockies and Plains program director with NGO Defenders of Wildlife, who has worked with the tribes for years to bring the bison back.

To do so, the tribe looked to Yellowstone’s bison herd. After the slaughter of the 19th century, 23 bison survived in a remote valley in Yellowstone. Today, the herd is 4,000 strong and is seen as a vital population because it has never been domesticated or interbred with cattle, maintaining genetic purity. While so-called pure genetics of the bison are often important to scientists and conservationists, Kelly Stoner – who heads the bison program at the Wildlife Conservation Society – said the issue is more complicated among tribal groups.

“You’ll find that amongst Native Americans … the predominant attitude is ‘if it looks like a buffalo and smells like a buffalo, it’s a buffalo’. The deep, personal relationship between Native Americans and buffalo exists, and is relevant and important, whether or not a particular animal has 8% cattle genes or not,” she explained.

Bringing back bison – and more tales of animal hope

Still, in 2007, Fort Peck Reservation eyed Yellowstone’s herd as a potential source to build a cultural herd. Fort Peck, and many other tribes, already had a commercial herd – used for economic purposes – but now they wanted to build a second herd with conservation in mind.

But getting bison from Yellowstone national park would prove far harder than Fort Peck initially thought. Although pure bred, Yellowstone bison carry the disease brucellosis. The Yellowstone bison originally contracted the disease from cattle in the early 20th century and now ranchers and state officials fear a return. Although scientists have never recorded brucellosis jumping from bison to cattle, it is theoretically possible according to lab research.

Crisis in our national parks: how tourists are loving nature to death

“It’s really difficult [to pass]. It’s passed through the placenta,” explained Proctor. “You’d have to have cattle mix with bison in the spring when the bison would potentially abort their calf because of brucellosis and the cattle would have to lick [the aborted placenta]. It’s not likely.”

Still, cattle ranchers so fear the disease that they have pushed for hundreds, sometimes even more than a thousand, bison to be slaughtered every year in Yellowstone national park to keep the animals from roaming outside the park boundaries and potentially mixing with cattle. Yellowstone elk also carry the disease, but are spared slaughter since they are seen as less of a risk.

The brucellosis panic almost stopped Fort Peck from ever getting Yellowstone bison. Over six years, the tribes had to battle anti-bison legislation from the Montana congress and legal battles. The case went all the way to Montana supreme court, which the tribes won unanimously.

“The biggest roadblock is the politics in Montana,” said Robert Magnan, director of the Fort Peck tribes’ fish and game department and the buffalo program. “They don’t understand what we’re trying to do out here.”

The first Yellowstone bison finally arrived in 2012: around 60 animals in all. “There was a huge celebration; many, many people from the community came out,” said Proctor. “It was just thrilling to see.”

Two years after their arrival, Magnan said that the bison had already begun to rejuvenate the land.

“We’ve seen the ecosystem revive. Grassland birds have returned, native grasses are thriving. We welcome and look forward to the buffalos’ continued benefits to our tribal lands.”

Since then, several more deliveries have been made and the Fort Peck herd – at 340 – is among the top 10 conservation herds in the US.

But the work has only begun. In 2014, two years after the bison came to Fort Peck, 13 tribal nations – representing eight reservations both in the US and Canada – signed a ‘Buffalo Treaty’. The treaty outlined the importance of bringing back free-roaming bison to both the US and Canada. “We used to always have an empty chair for the buffalo, for the spirit of the buffalo [at the dialogues], in our talking circles,” said Little Bear, who facilitated the dialogues. “It’s hard to explain but the buffalo was basically asking us, ‘you know, I’ve been gone for 150 years, why do you want me to come back?’”

By the end of the dialogues, the tribes agreed why. “The concern was the young people hear only stories, they hear the songs, they see the ceremonies, but they don’t see the buffalo out there,” added Little Bear.

Return of the bison: new American national symbol tells story of strife

The treaty is already making good. Last year, Blackfeet Reservation, also in Montana, received 89 genetically pure bison from Elk Island in Canada. Although the Blackfeet’s Iinnii Initiative – their name for buffalo – is the youngest, it’s also the most ambitious.

The tribe is negotiating with state officials to allow these bison, which are free of brucellosis, to range freely into Glacier national park and even, hopefully, one day as north as Waterton Lakes national park and Blood Tribe Reservation Canada – which would make it the first international bison herd in over a century.

Little Bear said they are also working with the Y2Y Initiative, which aims to create a massive wildlife corridor from Yellowstone to the Yukon for wildlife such as bears and wolves.

“We talked to the Y2Y people and said ‘hey, what about buffalo?’ And [they said], ‘we never thought about it but we can include buffalo.’” This year, wild bison returned to Banff national park after being gone over 100 years. Little Bear said the tribe’s Buffalo Treaty acted as a “catalyst” for the re-wilding in Canada’s first park.

“Tribes of the northern plains are the lead in wild bison restoration right now,” Proctor said. In 50 years’ time, the conservation community hopes to have at least 10 bison herds that number 1,000 animals – the minimum, he said, needed for the bison to fulfil their ecological role (currently only Yellowstone has a herd of more than 1,000 animals).

On top of that, Proctor hopes there will be a few herds of more than 10,000 animals, a herd size which hasn’t been seen since the mass extermination in the 19th century.

“Well never see bison roaming the entire Great Plains again,” said Proctor. “We’ll never see 20 million to 30 million bison again. No one is trying to go back in time. We’re trying to go forward. We’re trying to restore this important animal where we can, where people want them, and to the level where they will help restore the natural balance.”

For any of this to happen, Native American tribes will be key. They have the land and the desire to bring back the continent’s largest land mammal. And it’s not just bison, Proctor said. They have been instrumental in conserving wolves, grizzly bears, swift foxes and black-footed ferrets among other species.

Magnan said Fort Peck’s “dream” is to have 2,500 buffalo in their conservation herd running on more than 40,000 hectares. Already the tribe has passed a resolution to purchase more land.

“It’s amazing … with limited budgets and widespread poverty, [Native American tribes] are the leader in wildlife restoration when compared to the state wildlife agency,” he said. “In reality, it was not the buffalo that left us, it was us that left the buffalo. So we have to do something.”

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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The online retailer Yandy quickly pulled a Halloween costume from its website on September 20 after critics said it made light of rape. Clearly inspired by the dystopian novel and TV series The Handmaid’s Tale, Yandy’s “Brave Red Maiden” costume resembles the outfits women forced into concubinage wear in writer Margaret Atwood’s fictional hellscape. There’s just one notable difference: Yandy reinterpreted the floor-length robe that handmaids wear as a body-hugging mini-dress, eroticizing a garment many fans of the book and TV show associate with the sexual abuse of women.

“It has become obvious that our ‘Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume’ is being seen as a symbol of women’s oppression, rather than an expression of women’s empowerment,” the company said in a statement. “This is unfortunate, as it was not our intention on any level.”

Likely to avoid a copyright infringement suit, Yandy’s controversial red number does not directly reference The Handmaid’s Tale, but it looks enough like the outfits women wear on the series to leave no doubt about its inspiration. While the retailer quickly pulled the offensive knock-off, Yandy’s critics argue that the company has routinely ignored the plight of a real-life group of women often subject to abuse: Native Americans.

They say Yandy, and outfitters like Party City and Spirit Halloween, sell costumes that sexually objectify indigenous women. In fact, Yandy has an entire collection of ensembles described as “sexy Indian” or “sexy Pocahontas” looks. Also known as “Pocahottie” costumes, these getups are a stereotypical and provocative take on Native dress. With fringe and feathers, the frocks are hiked up to the thighs, low-cut, or belly bearing.

Hol up…so ur telling me bc this Handmaiden costume is sexist and women aren’t having it so the costume gets taken down, BUT costumes exploiting & stereotyping American Indian women that go missing frequently &in some cases also murdered.. are still ok? Sounds about white. pic.twitter.com/3N5rAcY5py

— wozek (@ghostcalf) September 21, 2018

The ensembles not only disregard the struggles of indigenous women historically but also the fact that today, Native American women experience high rates of sexual assault, often perpetrated by non-Native men. Outraged that Yandy pulled a costume linked to the oppression of fictional white women while ignoring Native women’s very real oppression, more than 8,000 people have signed a Change.org petition asking Yandy to remove its “sexy Indian” collection.

The hashtag #CancelYandy is circulating on Twitter, and a small group of protesters recently demonstrated outside Yandy’s corporate office in Phoenix. These efforts aren’t new. Native American scholars, organizations, and individuals have described these costumes as harmful for years.

Like sports mascots, they say, these costumes make caricatures of indigenous peoples. They portray them as mythological princesses and maidens rather than contemporary Americans facing overlapping forms of oppression — environmental racism, police violence, and sexual exploitation. Yet, “Pocahottie” styles continue to be sold.

An online search for Native American costumes reveals that hundreds of retailers sell these ensembles. Often labeled “Indian maiden” or “Indian princess” costumes, they also sometimes bear the names of women like Pocahontas or Sacagawea or of tribes like the Cherokee. They come in straight sizes and plus sizes; they’re available for men, kids, toddlers, and babies. Frankly, they’re everywhere.

Native Americans like Zoe Dejecacion are well aware of this fact. In September, the San Diego makeup artist started the Change.org petition to get Yandy to remove its inventory of Native-style costumes. She told me that the brand stands out because it immediately pulled its Brave Red Maiden costumes after complaints that they were insensitive, while ignoring earlier concerns about its “sexy Indian” collection.

Last year, Yandy executives told Cosmopolitan that the company had made $150,000 on its Native American line, one of its most popular. It has no plans to scrap the costumes unless “it gets to the point where there is, I guess, significant demonstrations or it gets to a point of contentiousness that maybe is along the lines of the Black Lives Matter movement,” Jeff Watton, now Yandy’s co-CEO, told Cosmo.

Yandy did not respond to requests for comment from Vox about the current petition to pull the costumes, but Dejecacion said she considers the retailer’s response, or lack thereof, “a slap in the face.”

“We [Native Americans] are not worth more than $150,000 to them,” she said. “The fictional costumes have been pulled, but these costumes that are meant to show real, living people are still being sold. These costumes paint Native American history like it’s part of a fairy tale. But we’re real people. We’re still here.”

Starting the Change.org petition is one way for Dejecacion to show the retailer that indigenous peoples have a voice and won’t tolerate costumes that erase their reality. She points to the story of Pocahontas to make her argument. Glamorized by Disney and sexualized by a slew of retailers, Pocahontas was a child when she first encountered the English, who later kidnapped and raped her, according to the Mattaponi tribe’s oral history.

And Sacagawea, another mythologized Native woman, was also kidnapped and sexually exploited. Her French “husband,” Toussaint Charbonneau, reportedly purchased Sacagawea when she was a young teen and regarded her as his slave. (He bought other indigenous girls, too.) The grim true stories of Pocahontas and Sacagawea are disregarded by costumes that frame them as sexy or mythical “Indian princesses.”

“The fictional costumes have been pulled, but these costumes that are meant to show real, living people are still being sold”

“These costumes are taking our real stories, twisting them, and sexualizing them, and furthering the dehumanization of Native women,” Dejecacion said.

Dani Miller of St. Paul, Minnesota, started the hashtag #CancelYandy because she had similar concerns. Of Dakota ancestry, she said that Halloween and Thanksgiving are particularly trying times for indigenous peoples due to how they’re represented during these occasions, but she acknowledged that Native Americans are dehumanized year-round — be it as mascots, at parties with racist themes, or in society generally.

Miller said the costumes intersect with the colonialism, imperialism, and erasure indigenous peoples face on a global level. She calls Yandy’s decision to yank the Brave Red Maiden costumes while keeping its “sexy Indian” collection in place “hypocrisy.”

“We need a paradigm shift in general,” she said. “We need people to stop normalizing these costumes. They create an exotic ‘other’ for people who are not white. People are making a choice; they are participating in upholding colonialism by purchasing these costumes. They’re reinforcing the fetishization of indigenous women without our consent. It sets up a slippery slope to be dehumanized and invisible-ized.”

Miller also takes issue with the idea that the opposition to Native American costumes and mascots stems from a new trend toward political correctness. She references books like 2015’s The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America or 1992’s The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions that examined pressing issues in the lives of indigenous women years before the #MeToo movement. Additionally, blogs like Native Appropriations and books like #Notyourprincess: Voices of Native American Women have countered stereotypical representations of Native people in popular culture.

“This has been a movement,” Miller said. “It’s not going away.”

Fifteen years have passed since Emmy Scott saw one of her white high school classmates walk down the hall in buckskin and fringe, but she still remembers how the encounter made her feel.

“It was one of those spirit days, and it was supposed to be like cowboy day,” she said. “I went to a majority white school but lived on the reservation. I saw this girl dressed in one of those costumes. It made me upset to my stomach, but I wasn’t confident enough to either confront her or bring it up to the administration.”

Now a law student at Michigan State University, Scott has grown more outspoken. As a college student in North Dakota, she said she took part in a lawsuit about the state’s embrace of Native mascots. More recently, Scott has taken to Facebook to tell her law school classmates to skip the “Indian maiden” costumes, although she faced opposition after making the request, she said. She’s also tweeted about the Yandy controversy.

“The costumes themselves — they’re the ultimate deprivation of agency,” she said. “What you’re trying to do is achieve a Native look while removing the Native voice.”

The anguish she felt after seeing a white classmate dressed in such a costume isn’t unique to her. Scholarly research on stereotypical depictions of indigenous peoples, such as sports mascots and Pocahontas costumes, found that they lowered the self-esteem of Native American children. These portrayals remind them of the narrow lens through which others see them, adversely affecting their self-image. This is especially troubling given that Native American youth have high rates of suicide compared to juveniles from other groups.

Scott said Native sports mascots and costumes contribute to these alarming trends by denying indigenous peoples their humanity. Mascots essentially equate Native Americans with animals, she said, while hypersexual Halloween costumes silence indigenous women, framing them as fictionalized characters.

“We’re living people,” she said. “We may be your neighbors. We may go to school with you, and you don’t even associate that we’re human beings. That’s the issue. It’s a form of othering that’s kind of insidious.”

Scott, who is of Ho-Chunk, Spokane, and Arikara heritage, said that people who sell and buy Native-style costumes ignore the religious significance of the ensembles. She dances at pow wows and receives each piece of regalia she wears for the events during religious ceremonies. The designs and colors she wears have been customized, and the eagle feathers she’s given are considered so sacred that they’re not allowed to touch the ground.

Yet mass retailers sell the feathers as if they have no spiritual significance, she said. Meanwhile, Native American students have had to fight to wear eagle feathers at graduation ceremonies, and indigenous peoples have had to overcome barriers imposed by the US government to practice their religions.

“We’re not in a place where we’re able to fully wear our religious items in school, and, yet, non-Natives can wear them for fun,” Scott said. “The underlying messages [of the costumes] are, ‘You’re a bunch of savages, and everything you have is up for grabs. You don’t own your land. You can’t own your body. You have no rights.”

Since Native Americans have painstakingly explained why the ensembles are “more than just costumes” and affect their everyday lives, Scott contends that consumers should know that it’s wrong to dress up as another race for Halloween or any other occasion. In addition to Native American costumes, ensembles that appropriate Mexican and Romani dress have faced criticism in recent years. Blackface controversies tend to surface on Halloween as well.

But over the past decade, poster campaigns such as “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” have tried to educate the public about why racial drag is wrong. Given the efforts of activists to teach the public about cultural appropriation, Scott said retailers can no longer claim ignorance of the issue as an excuse.

“They know it’s wrong. They understand that it’s harmful,” she said. “But because it makes them money, they don’t care.”

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Original Source -> These costumes objectify Native American women. Retailers won’t stop selling them.

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m-robinson014 · 6 years ago

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All About Costa Rica- A Traveler’s Guide

Costa Rica, or the Republic of Costa Rica, is located in Central America and home to 5 million people. It consists of seven administrative provinces, including Alajuela, Cartago, Guanacaste, Heredia, Limon, Puntarenas, and San Jose. These provinces are the most important and biggest cities in the country. San Jose, which became the capital in 1823, is the main political and economic hub of the country and home to 400,000 Costa Ricans, known as “Ticos.” The province of Heredia is home to the National Institute of Biodiversity in Costa Rice, while Guanacaste is known for its beautiful white-sand beaches along the Pacific coast and its preservation of traditional Costa Rican music. Furthermore, Limon has one of the most diverse populations and has two main ports through which the majority of Costa Rica’s exports are shipped. You will find that street names are not commonly used in Costa Rica. Addresses are given in terms of distance from a specific local landmark.

Costa Rica is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. The country is approximately 19,700 square miles, which is slightly smaller than West Virginia. In fact, the United States is 181 times larger than Costa Rica. Although Costa Rica occupies less than 0.3% of the planet’s surface, it is home to 5% of the world’s biodiversity. Costa Rica boasts more than 800 miles of coastline and nearly 615 animal species per 10,000 square miles. Approximately 25% of the country’s land is a protected and home to these species, totaling 26 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. Costa Rica also has five major mountain ranges, including the Coridillera Central, Guanacaste, Talamanca, and Tilaran. The Tilaran Mountain Range is home to the Arenal Volcano, one of Costa Rica’s most active volcanoes. Furthermore, the Cordillera Talamanca Mountain Range boasts the tallest mountain in Costa Rica, Cerro Chirripo at 12,530 feet.

Costa Rica is located near the equator. Because of this, Costa Rica does not observe daylights savings since the days and nights are both 12 hours in length year around. Therefore, although the country is on Central Started Time, it is 1 hour behind CST in the United States 6 months of the year. At night, it is pitch black by 6pm. There are two distinct seasons in Costa Rica, including the dry season and the green season, which hosts more rain. Nevertheless, there is a mild temperature all twelve months with temperatures ranging from low 70s to mid 90s.

Costa Rica is largely of European descent with a culture primarily comprised of the indigenous tribes along with Spanish colonial influence. The indigenous tribes, such as the Bribri, Buruca, and Maleku, currently make up an estimated 1.7% of the country’s total population. The country’s culture also includes a mix of Latin American, Jamaican, and Chinese. The official language is Spanish, with over 70% of Costa Rica’s population speaking the language; however, English is spoken by 10% of the population. Indigenous languages, such as Bribri, Maleku, Cabecar, and Guaymi are spoken by less than 1% of the population.

Roman Catholicism is the official, traditional, and dominant religion in Costa Rica. A recent study conducted by the University of Costa Rica found that 71% of the population identifies as Roman Catholic, with approximately 45% practicing and 26% nonpracticing. Furthermore, 14% identify as Evangelical Protestants, 11% as no religion, and 4% as other. Most Costa Ricans display their Catholic faith at weddings, funerals, baptisms, or during hold week. Often times, people also have a religious medallion or a picture of a saint in their cars or homes. Although the Costa Rican Constitution establishes Catholicism as the state religion, it has also established laws and policies contributing towards the overall free practice of religion since 1949.

Costa Rica is a free, democratic republic comprised of three main, independent branches, including the executive, legislative, and judiciary. The Costa Rican State also has a Supreme Elections Tribunal with the same rank and independence. The presidents and vice presidents are elected every four years by direct vote of all citizens over the age of 18. This political system has been in place since the current Constitution was adopted in 1949.

In 1848, First Lady Pacifica Fernandez inspired the Costa Rican flag that is observed today. It is formed by five horizontal stripes, including two blue, two white, and one red. The blue represents idealism, the white represents peace, and the red represent the blood of martyrs who suffered for the country. The flag also as the national coat of arms located in the center. All in all, the flag acts as a significant symbol of the love Costa Ricans have for their country. Since 1948, the country has not had a national army.

Costa Rica is similar to the United States in that it consists of an upper, middle, and lower class. Many of the upper-class families are descendants from Spanish conquistadors. Coffee gave rise to a rural middle class. In fact, the middle class makes up almost 30% of the Costa Rican population. With the opening of the University of Costa Rica in 1940, new opportunities were provided for young people in the open class system. However, Costa Rica still has significant poverty, affecting 20% of the population. Levels of interaction among the social classes remain high; nevertheless, clothes, cars, and houses are markers of status. Despite social class, most Costa Ricans have access to free health care, education, and social services.

Gender roles in Costa Rica have changed throughout generations and social groups. Traditionally, women are responsible to preparing food, cleaning, and caring for children. Men and young boys perform the agricultural work, while women harvest coffee, cotton, and vegetables. Many of those in the upper and middle class hire servants to help with housework and childcare. With the common “Macho” practices, men hold the upper hand. Traditionally, men also dominate business and politics; nevertheless, recently, there has been an increase in women’s involvement in politics, business, the arts, and professions. There have also been laws passed to prohibit gender discrimination and establish a women’s rights office.

With Costa Ricans, a handshake is the most common form of greeting. A firm handshake is preferred between men, while women greet each other by patting or touch the left forearm instead of shaking hands. Female friends may also exchange a light kiss on the cheek. Costa Ricans, regardless of social standing conduct themselves with utmost humility. They frown upon boasting of any kind, and public displays of anger or impatience. People in the major cities dress more formally than those on the countryside. Nevertheless, shorts are only worn on the beach areas and tennis shoes are only worn for sports. Leather dress shoes are the norm. Women often wear dresses or skirts, but pants have become more common.

Afro-Carribbean music like calypso, reggae, and rumba are popular in the coastal regions of Costa Rica. Another important element of Costa Rican music is the marimba, which is the most popular instrument in Central American folk music. Costa Rica has six main newspaper nationwide. La Naciona was started in 1946 to represent the business elite. It also publishes numerous magazines, including Perfil, Rumbo, and Ancora. Other popular papers like La Prensa Libre and La Republica share the conservative tendencies as well, while Semanario Universidad is popular for being the official paper of the University of Costa Rica and Tico Times for being the nation’s primary English newspaper.

Radio is extremely popular in Costa Rica and is especially important for those Ticos who live outside of the capital city. In 2002 about 130 radio stations existed. La Patada is one of the most popular radio programs in Costa Rica. It generally provides a light-hearted perspective on the news mixed with humor and political criticism. Another show, La Opinion, offers serious news commentary and is broadcast on Radio Reloj. Furthermore, another popular radio station, Faro del Caribe, has been broadcasting since the 1940s and includes programs targeted for the instruction and entertainment of children, mothers, and young people through Bible study, radio theater, advice, and music. Of the many radio stations in Costa Rica, Radio Reloj has the most listeners Costa Rican television transmission began in the 1950s and today there are a dozen commercial stations and one government-run station. The most viewed stations are Channel 4 Multimedia, Channels 6 and 9 Repretel, Channel 7 Teletica, and Channel 2 Univisión. The Picado family owns the cable network, Cable Tica, and Channel 7. Angel Gonzalez, who is based in Florida, partially backs Channels 4 and 9. The other channels are privately owned, with the exception of the national television network which is publicly owned and SINART (Channel 13), a government-controlled cultural channel. Cablecolor, the local cable service, broadcasts the U.S. government's daily program as well as CNN's 24-hour news service. Over 90 percent of Costa Rican households have at least one television set.

The staple diet in Costa Rica is rice and beans, which combine to make “gallo pinto,” which is recognized as a national dish. Tortillias, along with the rice and beans, are often times all consumed up to three times a day at every meal. It is common to find them served with foods such as eggs, cheese, plantains, chicken, beef, or pork, depending on if it is breakfast, lunch, or dinner. In addition, chayote stew or salad may be served at lunch or dinner. Coffee, alcohol, and native fruit juices are popular beverages. Lunch is traditionally the biggest meal of the day, and it is not uncommon for everyone to come home and eat together, including adults from work and children from school. Family dinners and meals are held at a high value and significance in the Costa Rican culture.

In the past, Costa Rica has depended on coffee and bananas for the majority of its export earnings. However, recently, the banana export has increased and moved to the #1 export, with tourism being the second. Nevertheless, coffee, along with sugar, nuts, and flowers, are among the country’s chief exports. The economy also relies on the manufacturing of baseballs, agricultural chemicals, and processed foods. The country’s national currency is the colon, named after Christopher Columbus in 1935; however U.S. dollars are widely accepted as well. The colon comes in both paper and coin form.

Costa Rica is more of a high-context culture. Some characteristics are implicit communication and nonverbal cues. High-context cultures like Costa Rica also have slow building relationships depending on trust. An individual’s identity is often rooted in their family and work. Furthermore, space is communal and shared, and everything has its own time with no schedules, slow change, and a focus on nature. Costa Rica is also synchronic time oriented. Their future is interconnected with their past as present, as culture and heritage is held at a high level of importance. Furthermore, time is not thought of to be precise or limited, but rather as a tool or guideline. There is a slower pace and less of a rush. There is neutral communication and culture. Emotions are not as open and passionate. Nevertheless, acts can be seen as inconsistent or spontaneous especially time. All in all, just remember the pure-life, simple motto of Costa Rica, “PURA VIDA!” It is more than just a saying, it is a way of life.

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newestbalance · 7 years ago

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The Firebrand Leftist Far Ahead in Mexico’s Presidential Polls

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Andrés Manuel López Obrador nodded at the sea of red T-shirts and flag-waving devotees jammed into a plaza in Guadalajara.

Never before had such a crowd welcomed him here. In his previous campaigns for the president’s office, residents of Guadalajara, the wealthy capital of the state of Jalisco, shunned him, considering his leftist platform too radical.

But this time, only days before one of Mexico’s most important elections in decades, the cheers reflected a nationwide shift — and the ability of Mr. López Obrador to ride it.

“We have had three transformations in the history of our country: our independence, the reform and the revolution,” he told the crowd. “We are going to pull off the fourth.”

As corruption and violence gnaw at Mexico’s patience, voters have turned to a familiar face in Mr. López Obrador, a three-time candidate for president who once shut down Mexico City for months after a narrow loss, refusing to accept defeat.

Brandishing a deep connection with the poor, built over more than a decade of visits to every corner of this country of 120 million, he has managed a staggering lead ahead of Sunday’s vote.

If the poll numbers bear out on Election Day, Mr. López Obrador — who has promised to sell the presidential plane and convert the opulent presidential palace into a public park — could win by a landslide, putting a leftist leader in charge of Latin America’s second-largest country for the first time in decades.

He is currently 20 to 30 percentage points ahead of his closest rival, a stunning reversal for a politician whose future was far from clear just a few years ago. But a broad disgust with Mexico’s political establishment has brought him back into the graces of the electorate.

Now, he may confront an American president whose broadsides against Mexico have plunged relations between the two nations to their lowest point in recent history.

But for all the brash, confrontational stances he has taken, Mr. López Obrador has been surprisingly moderate on the topic of President Trump, adopting a pragmatic approach that sounds a lot like the Mexican establishment figures he hopes to topple.

“We are going to maintain a good relationship” with the United States, Mr. López Obrador said in an interview. “Or rather, we will aim to have a good bilateral relationship because it is indispensable.”

In fact, Mr. López Obrador has earned more than a few comparisons to Mr. Trump.

Both men lash out at their critics and perceived enemies. Both are suspicious of the press and checks on their power. A sense of nationalism and nostalgia for a lost past are central to their platforms and appeal.

But where Mr. Trump tacks right, Mr. López Obrador goes left. And while Mr. Trump has made Mexico a favorite target, Mr. López Obrador describes the North American Free Trade Agreement as a vital part of Mexico’s livelihood.

“I mean, the Brazilians, the French can fight with the U.S., but Mexico, for geopolitical reasons, we simply cannot,” he added. “We have to come to an agreement.”

For much of his career, Mr. López Obrador has focused on two central issues, poverty and corruption, national scourges he views as inseparable. For the masses in Mexico, the twin pillars of his platform hold a powerful appeal.

He vows to increase pensions for older citizens, and educational grants for the young. He promises to reduce the top salaries in government, including his own, and lift the wages of the lowest-paid public workers instead. He says he will fight corruption and use the billions of dollars a year in savings to pay for social programs.

Many doubt he can eliminate graft or come up with the windfall he has promised. But after spending the past 18 years vacillating between Mexico’s two dominant parties, voters appear increasingly willing to try something else.

Mr. López Obrador’s positions are largely unchanged from his time as a young organizer for indigenous communities in his home state, Tabasco.

What has changed is the political climate of Mexico.

Stubborn poverty rates and vast inequality, coupled with corruption scandals and a rise in violence, have pushed voters toward Mr. López Obrador, who last held elected office in 2005 as mayor of Mexico City.

Beyond that, young people, who are expected to make up about 40 percent of the vote in this election, have widely embraced Mr. López Obrador, who, at 64, happens to be the oldest candidate in the race.

“It’s sort of like a pox on all their houses,” said Roberta S. Jacobson, the former American ambassador to Mexico. “He was the only one who could successfully paint himself as an outsider — and there are a lot of people in Mexico who feel that they are outside.”

Indeed, Mr. López Obrador’s electoral prospects owe as much to the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, as to his populist language and promises to take on the powerful.

Presidents in Mexico are allowed just one six-year term, and Mr. Peña Nieto’s tenure was marked by corruption. After it was revealed that his wife had bought a luxury home at a steep discount from a government contractor, a federal investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing.

After his administration’s plodding response to the disappearance of 43 students was challenged by outside experts, they were essentially kicked out of the country. After evidence of illegal spying on journalists and human rights activists surfaced, a government investigation went nowhere.

Mr. López Obrador is now reaping the rewards of Mr. Peña Nieto’s missteps.

Notably, the election debate has had little to do with Mr. Trump, who has taken aim at many aspects of life in Mexico, especially trade and migration.

But all the main candidates in Mexico have been united in their opposition to Mr. Trump’s threats. The primary drivers of this election are domestic issues — corruption, violence, poverty — that play right into Mr. López Obrador’s hands.

As for a personal relationship with Mr. Trump, even some of Mr. López Obrador’s closest aides said they were unsure how Mr. López Obrador might react to the insults that the current president of Mexico has taken on the chin.

Mr. López Obrador, for his part, says Mr. Trump is simply playing to his base.

“Trump is a politician, more than what people assume, he acts politically, and it worked for him, his anti-immigrant policy and anti-Mexican rhetoric, the wall,” he said. “He tapped into a nationalist sentiment in certain sectors of American society.”

Mr. López Obrador has instead focused internally, frightening many Mexicans with his vow to take on the “mafia of power,” his shorthand for the business and political elite.

He says he can save more than $20 billion a year by attacking corruption, a figure he wields in speeches but whose provenance is unclear.

To critics, his crusade is representative of the dangers a López Obrador presidency might bring. Some fear he oversimplifies the problem of graft and the task of eradicating it — as well as the price tag for his grand ambitions.

These same critics note that when he ran Mexico City, despite his broad popularity, he was unable to rid it of corruption.

Mr. López Obrador is keenly aware of the ways Mexicans, who have long suffered at the hands of the wealthy and powerful, can be drawn into his orbit.

In both style and message, he conveys simplicity. He lives in a modest two-story townhouse, flies coach to his campaign events and owns just a handful of suits.

But behind the humility of his approach is a complex and unflinching ambition to reshape Mexico. For some, arguably including Mr. López Obrador himself, he is something of a messiah, the chosen leader to cure his nation’s ills.

“He genuinely thinks he is the best outcome for Mexico,” said Kathleen Bruhn, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara who has studied Mr. López Obrador’s career. “But I don’t think that is incompatible with him wanting to accumulate a lot of power.”

“People talk about his rhetoric and how he will be like Hugo Chávez,” the polarizing and domineering former president of Venezuela, Ms. Bruhn added. But “there is a streak of pragmatism that I hope comes out.”

For others, his imperious temperament and sense of destiny are recipes for disaster.

Mr. López Obrador often divides the world in two: the good versus the elite, who have robbed the country of equality and justice.

His division between good and bad extends to critics and institutions that he feels do not serve his agenda. Many worry that his assumed moral authority will put him at odds with the same institutions he should protect.

He has fought with the Mexican news media, accusing it of corruption and bias. And while the news media here has long survived on government money, which heavily influences coverage, his anger is a sign to many of a worrisome characteristic: an inability to take criticism.

Much like Mr. Trump, he often attacks critics personally, and is a master of name-calling.

Members of the rich elite are referred to as fifis, the equivalent of bourgeois. But civil rights and pro-democracy groups are also sometimes dismissed by Mr. López Obrador, despite being among the few counterbalances to the rampant impunity in Mexico.

Many of the nation’s most prominent anti-corruption advocates are fearful of a López Obrador presidency, worried that their nascent movement will be all but frozen out of the discussion.

When Mr. López Obrador was mayor of Mexico City, organizers planned a march to protest the rising number of kidnappings, a tragic outcome of the nation’s war on drugs.

He initially refused to meet with the organizers, derisively referring to their initiatives as projects of the wealthy.

María Elena Moreira, who now runs the nonprofit group Common Cause and helped organize the march, said she worried that Mr. López Obrador would marginalize outside efforts to improve Mexico’s democracy.

“You have to understand how to institutionalize this change, not tie all of it to just one person’s mission,” she added.

Mr. López Obrador has essentially been campaigning full-time for more than a decade, and his party, Morena, is built entirely around him. Now, it is on the cusp of upending politics in Mexico, leaving longtime parties on the brink of ruin.

Few thought that a leftist leader could take the helm of Mexico. It remains by the standards of Latin America a very conservative, Catholic nation.

But Mr. López Obrador has managed to stitch together a broad movement that includes unions, far-right conservatives, religious groups, traditional leftists and some of the same tarnished officials he spends his days railing against.

In some respects, what Mr. López Obrador has built resembles the current president’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI — a party willing to incorporate just about everyone within its walls in the pursuit of power. Some members of the PRI have already defected to Mr. López Obrador’s party, fearful of the drubbing to come.

He has also tapped a television executive from a station widely reliant on government money — precisely the kind he attacks as compromised — to serve as his secretary of education if he wins.

While some view his closeness with the unions and the far-right as contradictory, others view the alliances as evidence of his pragmatic side.

As mayor of Mexico City, he maintained tight limits on spending and worked with the private sector, including the telecom magnate Carlos Slim. He built a highway to ease congestion, a project that largely benefited the middle class, not his typical base.

If elected president, he has promised to practice fiscal austerity. To reassure the business community, he has promised not to nationalize businesses.

When he left office, Mr. López Obrador enjoyed close to an 80 percent approval rating. The presidency did not seem out of the question. But the conservative National Action Party, which held the presidency, managed to paint him as a radical and a threat to democracy.

In a hard-fought battle, Mr. López Obrador lost by less than 1 percent in the 2006 election, and almost immediately took to the streets to protest what he claimed was widespread fraud. His supporters took over the central plaza downtown and blocked one of the main traffic arteries through the city, Reforma Avenue.

He then held an inauguration ceremony for himself and named a shadow cabinet to govern the nation, declaring himself the rightful president.

The move seemed to validate some of the harshest criticisms of him, alienating some of his supporters. Eventually, he packed up and moved on, and many commentators wrote him off.

He lost again in 2012, by a significantly larger margin. But Mr. López Obrador continued to build his coalition and prepare for another run.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Once Deemed Too Radical for Mexico, He Now May Be President. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

The post The Firebrand Leftist Far Ahead in Mexico’s Presidential Polls appeared first on World The News.

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dragnews · 7 years ago