Inauguration 2017 Special Coverage w/ Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader & More
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Special coverage in the Trump Era
From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."
Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line
Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By Jane Mayer
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...
"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.
Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."
Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington
The Economics of Happiness -- shorter version
Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.
What's New?
December 12, 2010
Cancun: GenderCC press statement, Dec. 11, 2010
"As COP 16 comes to a close, we go home ignoring Ixchel and all other goddesses of reason and undoing the tapestry that could have protected us from either an extremely hot or cold future.“Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good” has been an oft-repeated statement yet the outcome of COP 16 is not even good enough.
True, that a Green Climate Fund has been established. There was also an agreement on the Adaptation Framework. But the expectations were so low in the first place and even then gaps remain so wide.
The presence of an outcome of COP 16 can somehow be attributed to the leadership of UNFCCC Secretary General Christina Figueres and COP 16 President Patricia Espinosa, along with the constant pressures especially from civil society organizations. However, it must be noted that the more powerful of the parties consistently refuse a transformative paradigm and substance in moving the talks forward.
Somehow there is reason to be happy about the women and gender references in the final text of the Long-Term Cooperative Action. These can be found for instance in the preamble, shared vision and adaptation. However, it must also be remembered that the presence of references have not enjoyed a sense of permanence in the whole process, except for boxing women under the umbrella of ‘vulnerable groups’. In other words, there is hardly progress in the way women and gender have been championed and integrated by parties.
Moreover, women and gender are sorely missing in the key topics of COP 16. Gender-balance is not even considered in the board of the Green Climate Fund nor in the allocation and spending of the fund. It will also take a long way before gender is integrated in mitigation.
Indeed the outcome of Cancun is a first step, especially when viewed from the frustrations brought by Copenhagen. But then we wonder, haven’t we always been on our first step since the agreements in Kyoto in 1997?
Unless parties become truly sincere towards an ambitious, binding and just deal, it will remain difficult and even impossible for women and men to have a fair chance of meaningfully engaging in the process and surviving the climate crisis.