[E-rundbrief] Info 1971 - Earth Day Turns 50
Matthias Reichl
info at begegnungszentrum.at
Fr Apr 24 11:29:21 CEST 2020
E-Rundbrief Info 1971 - Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, Democracy Now!
(USA): As Earth Day Turns 50, Imagine a Just, Green, Pandemic-Free Future.
Bad Ischl, 24.4.2020
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at
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As Earth Day Turns 50, Imagine a Just, Green, Pandemic-Free Future
Column
April 23, 2020
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/23/as_earth_day_turns_50_imagine
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Humanity marks Earth Day’s 50th anniversary on a worldwide lockdown,
as nature’s fury asserts itself through one of the smallest known
particles of life, the novel coronavirus. Many argue viruses aren’t
alive, relying on host organisms to replicate. Whether living or dead,
the SARS-CoV-2 virus is driving us inexorably to a “new normal,”
forcing us to adjust to its looming presence, at least until
treatments and a vaccine become available. There are thousands of
coronaviruses, though; defeat one, and another that jumps from bat or
bird to human can smite us just as easily. As humans penetrate
habitats of other species, decimating forests and other wildlands,
zoonotic transmission–the transfer of a virus from animal to human —
increases. The onrushing climate catastrophe promises unrelenting
extreme weather events, more severe and frequent. This “new normal”
demands that we radically realign our relationship with Nature, and
that we do it now. Waiting fifty years is not an option.
Rebuilding will require containment of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global
solidarity will be essential. “Stay at home, save a life,” is the
prescription. But staying at home is a privilege. The life-saving
practice of social distancing is out of reach to hundreds of millions
of people.
Take India, for example, the world’s second most populous country.
“Millions of workers and migrant workers are under a lockdown, which
is supposed to enforce social distancing, but it only enforces
physical compression,” Arundhati Roy, renowned writer and dissident,
said on the Democracy Now! news hour recently. “People are crammed
together. People are separated from their families. In many places,
they have no food. They have no access to money even. They’ve sold
their phones. You have the sense that you’re sitting on some kind of
explosive substance.”
Key steps toward containment are testing, tracing, and isolation. Test
kits that yield rapid results must be developed, mass produced, and
distributed globally, then administered without cost. Those who may
have been exposed must be traced, adhering to strict privacy and human
rights standards. Finally, safe, humane isolation options must be
provided for those infected, until they are well enough to rejoin
their community.
Look no farther than the administration of President Donald Trump to
see how wrong it all can go. Trump first denied the pandemic, then
called it a hoax, then rolled out testing inexcusably slowly,
compelling a jumble of federal, state, county and municipal
jurisdictions to compete for tests and equipment while asserting U.S.
supremacy during his hate-filled propagandistic pandemic anti-press
briefings. He calls himself a “war-time president,” but failed to get
healthcare providers the gear to wage battle. His delays and lies have
caused the deaths of so many thousands of people.
Outbreaks occur from coast to coast, from meat packing plants, where
workers have no choice but to show up for work in hazardous,
potentially lethal conditions, to prisons and immigrant detention
centers, where prisoners are denied early release, or even access to
adequate soap, water, protective gear and safe distancing from others.
In the global south, the pandemic and climate disruption are a
double-edged sword. “In Africa, people are saying, ‘If we don’t get
killed by COVID-19, we’ll get killed by hunger,’” Kumi Naidoo, who
formerly headed both Amnesty International and Greenpeace, said on
Democracy Now! “Humanity must take a hard look at ourselves about
whether we want to build back after corona exactly what we had, or
build back a more equitable, more just and a more sustainable world.”
Arundhati Roy echoed those sentiments in a recent essay, writing,
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and
imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a
gateway between one world and the next.”
Donald Trump has pledged U.S. taxpayer money to prop up failing fossil
fuel industries like coal and oil. In response, author Naomi Klein
tweeted, “Dems need to counter w/ a sweeping plan to cover the full
salaries of fossil fuel workers while they retrain for the clean
economy. Time to wind down this abusive industry that has always
relied on massive public subsidies.”
On the first Earth Day, in 1970, over 20 million people in the United
States — fully ten percent of the nation’s population at the time —
rallied for an end to pollution, for an ecologically sustainable
economy, for a greener future. “Our goal is not just an environment of
clean air and water and scenic beauty,” Earth Day co-founder Sen.
Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin said that day. “The objective is an
environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human
beings and all other living creatures.”
Fifty years later, with the planet’s climate on a human-caused
precipice, the numbers demanding change are far greater, the
organizing is global, but the time is short.
--
Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, 4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
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