Gar Lipow said on Pen-L: > Yes you are right - first that we should not give up > regardless of the odds - expecially since we don't really > know them. And secondly that there are always degrees of > catastrophe.
Rocky Anderson said this too: > My view is, as long as we are breathing air, as long as we > are able to stand up and go out and fight, however we can, > we got a responsibility to do it, responsibility to > ourselves, responsibility to our nation, responsibility to > later generations. He said this on April 1 during a 45 minute interview conducted by Vietnam Vet and activist Don Anderson. Don asked Rocky which topic Rocky found most important, and Rocky, after establishing his credentials and his general principles, started out with climate change. I made a transcript of this interview from 13:42 until 19:00. I didn't find a link to this interview on the voterocky.org web site, it is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/themaryandsallieshow/2012/04/02/the-mary-and-sallie-show-sundays-at-six ROCKY: One area in particular I['d like to] talk about that is climate protection. The need for our country to lead out on energy independence, a clean energy economy, and combating climate change and providing international leadership, because if we don't there is going to be catastrophic consequences world wide and many of these consequences certainly are going to be felt in our country by our children and later generations. We are already seeing a lot of those consequences now, but now the important thing is, now is the only time we can act to have any real impact because if we wait much longer it's going to be irreversible. DON: I have friends up in Alaska, they are native Americans, and they live right on the shore, and they are losing their land. They just had to, fortunately congress allowed them to move their tribal lands into BLM forest area, higher ground so that they can maintain their traditions their families and villiage there. I know that is happening in some of the island nations that might only be two or three feet above sea level, they are already seeing the effects of water in their yards and having to live basically on decks up above the water and in their boats. They are not getting the help they need from the United Nations and the other nations around the world. ROCKY: That is just the tip of the iceberg, to use perhaps an apt metaphor. It is happening in Tuvalu, and we are going to see it more and more along coastal areas, and eventially there are going to be hundreds of millions environmental refugees who displaced from their lands, we are going to see droughts, we are going to see torrential rainfalls wiping out places, we are going to see the destruction, we are already seeing the destruction but it is going to get to the point where because of the melting of glaciers there is not going to be the year-round water resources that people rely upon coming from these glaciers. So the impacts are going to be unbelievable. Something life which we have never seen during human history. People [will] look back and say, wait a minute they knew about this and they didn't do anything about it? And the United States being the biggest polluter didn't step forward taking the necessary measures to provide that international leadership? So we need that, but we also need the kind of leadership that will say no longer do we allow ourselves or anyone else to engage in wars of aggression. We tried people and convicted them during the Nurenberg tribunal for wars of aggression, yet we are doing these exact things right now, and again with disastrous long-term impact, and it is all contrary to our own nation's security let alone the security of literally billions of people around the world. DON: They don't have the resources which we have in the States to even consider combating what they are up against. ROCKY: It all comes down to leadership, Don. We cannot rely on just any one person, or on congress, it really takes people organizing at the grassroots. Every major social movement where we saw progress in this country came about because people at the grassroots organized, they were tenacious about it, they didn't sit back and wait for others to take action, they took on the responsibility, they felt an accountability. As a result, we saw an end to slavery in this coutnry, we saw women's suffrage -- the woman's right to vote, we saw the civil rights movement succeed, we saw the labor movement succeed -- and they were up against a lot of money! These people who were so cynical and resigned and said, oh we don't have any faith in the electoral system any more, we are just not going to vote, we are not going to take part in it any more, they are a huge part of the problem because they have already thrown in the towel. My view is, as long as we are breathing air, as long as we are able to stand up and go out and fight, however we can, we got a responsibility to do it, responsibility to ourselves, responsibility to our nation, responsibility to later generations. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
