WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS: Apparently when we have a win in the battle with energy corporations over their continuing damage to the environment, “we” may make it up to them with million dollar judgments from the public coffers. Did you know that? How and who allowed this to happen?
The U.N. recently released a ground-breaking report titled “Paying Polluters; The Catastrophic Consequences of Investor-State Dispute Settlement for Climate and Environment Action and Human Rights” (ISDS). The article is by Melanie Foley in the Nov./Dec 2023 Public Citizen News, and includes the words of Special Rapporteur Professor David R. Boyd to the U.N. General Assembly:
“Please consider how crazy this system is. States that are trying to tackle the climate and environmental crisis and safeguard human rights of their people are being forced to pay billions of dollars in compensation to the very corporations that have caused this crisis. Instead of making polluters pay, states are paying polluters.”
I suppose this could be one of my jaded “HO HUM” sharings. I went, and found via Google:
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Thank you, PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK – This week serendipitous workings connected me with the June 2023 issue at the free bin at the Library. The entire issue is on “GUN VIOLENCE,” heralded on the cover as “A Christian case for repealing the 2nd Amendment. Enough already! From Despair to hope.” [I’ll drink to that!]
An observation worth quoting: “While you may choose to be silent when it comes to gun violence out of concern for who you may anger, your silence is also sending a message to those who are most impacted by gun violence (women, children, youth, LGBTQ+, and people of color) that their trauma and suffering don’t matter.”
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OOPS! Just misunderstood Time’s”Person of the Year.” I thought for sure it was an A.I. construction but my daughter, more familiar with the music culture, identified her as Taylor Swift, as does the cover. But I doubted the labeling, you see. Upon further thought, I wonder if that is really Taylor, or a costly look-alike? It’s true Time’s CEO of the year is the AI leader Sam Altman. ….Now that I think about it, Altman doesn’t look real alive, either.
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REMARKABLE: There are more mobile phones in the world than people. (Per Time, Dec. 25, 2023, p. 27–Oops, it’s an advertisement. Does that matter?)
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This August 14th, in a decision that the Republican state attorney general of Montana Austin Knudsen has appealed, a judge ruled that the state of Montana must consider the effects of climate change when deciding whether to begin or renew fossil-fuel projects. Held v. State of Montana is a first-of-its-kind case, but–“given a rising generation of young activists who know the power of speaking their minds”–is unlikely to be the last. (The 16 plaintiffs, ages 5 to 22, had taken the state of Montana to court for violating their right to a clean environment, which is enshrined in the state’s constitution.) –Ninis Twumasi
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QUOTE OF THE DAY – It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not: Oscar Wilde
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