Planet Citizen Action
2024
In Defense of Democracy and Freedom
The Debate Continues, Turbulence in Politics Is the Word of the Day
Democracy Awakening, Notes on the State of America (2023) by Heather Cox Richardson
At a time when the very foundations of democracy seem under threat, the lessons of the past offer a roadmap for navigating a moment of political crisis. In Democracy Awakening, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the tumultuous journey of American democracy
News of Loss of Political Rights and Civil Liberties
Global freedom declined for a 17th consecutive year in 2022 as 35 countries suffered deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties, according to a new report released today by Freedom House. A total of 34 countries made improvements during the year, however, meaning the gap between the numbers of countries that improved and declined was the narrowest it has ever been since the negative pattern began. The report suggests that the struggle for democracy may be approaching a turning point, and offers recommendations on how democratic governments and societies should work together to roll back authoritarian gains.
The new report—Freedom in the World 2023: Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy—is the 50th edition of Freedom House’s annual global assessment of political rights and civil liberties.
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In the U.S. and Worldwide
- Earth Is in Your Hands 🌎
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December 2023
A Dubai Climate Summit Surprise
With Multiple Caveats
CNBC
The latest proposal published by the UAE early on Wednesday. Dec. 13, calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”
Economist
The COP28 deal might be historic, but there are many caveats...'
Reuters
Representatives from nearly 200 countries agreed at the COP28 climate summit on Wednesday to begin reducing global consumption of fossil fuels to avert the worst of climate change, signalling the eventual end of the oil age.
The deal struck in Dubai after two weeks of hard-fought negotiations was meant to send a powerful message to investors and policy-makers that the world is united in its desire to break with fossil fuels, something scientists say is the last best hope to stave off climate catastrophe.
COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber called the deal "historic" but added that its true success would be in its implementation.
"We are what we do, not what we say," he told the crowded plenary at the summit. "We must take the steps necessary to turn this agreement into tangible actions."
Several countries cheered the deal for accomplishing something that until now eluded decades of climate talks.
"It is the first time that the world unites around such a clear text on the need to transition away from fossil fuels," Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide said.
More than 100 countries had lobbied hard for strong language in the COP28 agreement to "phase out" oil, gas and coal use, but came up against powerful opposition from the Saudi Arabia-led oil producer group OPEC, which said the world can cut emissions without shunning specific fuels.
That battle pushed the summit a full day into overtime on Wednesday, and had some observers worried the negotiations would end at an impasse...
Financial Times
COP28 is better than feared, but less than needed
Call to move away from fossil fuels lacks deadlines to phase them out...
NY Times
Two Words That Could Change the World
An unlikely breakthrough on fossil fuels at COP28
They are just two little words. They appear on just one page of an 11,000 word document.
But the inclusion of the phrase “fossil fuels” in the final agreement from COP28 marks a potentially trajectory-altering moment in the fight against climate change. The global pact calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”
For almost 30 years, negotiators representing nations from around the world had struggled and failed to reach an obvious consensus: that the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas should be wound down to avoid further catastrophic global warming.
But overnight, representatives from more than 170 countries arrived at a surprising deal, in Dubai of all places.
The text is not as clear as many leaders, activists and scientists had hoped. It includes caveats and wiggle room, and is nonbinding. Nevertheless, the inclusion of explicit language calling for a move away from coal, oil and gas is being hailed as a major breakthrough...
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The US delegation that officially traveled to Dubai included a number of Republicans. Their points of view were expressed in a wide-ranging E&E article ... Many House Republicans — who said repeatedly they were only going to COP28 to tout U.S. leadership on domestic emissions reductions, not explore how their country can join the international fight against climate change more broadly — used face time with Kerry to, among other things, blast proposed EPA regulations to crack down on tailpipe emissions and incentivize a switch to electric vehicles. In interviews with reporters, other GOP members derided the Biden administration’s “rush to green” agenda...
John Kerry, US special representative on the climate acknowledged the difficulty of negotiations:
“I think everybody here should be pleased that in a world of Ukraine and the Middle East war and all the other challenges of a planet that is foundering, this is a moment where multilateralism has actually come together and people have taken individual interests and attempted to define the common good. That is hard. That is the hardest thing in diplomacy, the hardest thing in politics.”
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December 12
Carbon Brief reports as the COP28 draws to a close...
- - "Rule 16" looms... (postponements, no action, roll overs to COP29)
Tracking negotiating texts at COP28 climate summit
COP28 climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Negotiation are the core legal process at the summit
The nations deal-making process is difficult to observe... and as the international climate conference comes to a conclusion remember there are promises that need now to become on-the-ground / in-the-air realities...
Carbon Brief:
"The (climate conferences) process often fades into the background, hidden from sight in closed-door negotiating rooms and late-night sessions, where diplomats – and then ministers – hash out their disagreements.
"However, COP28 will culminate in a set of legal decisions, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its associated Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.
"This set of legal texts lies at the heart of COP28 – and every other UN climate summit.
GreenPolicy360: Focus on the agreements, pledges/promises, results and .... keeping in mind that each nation subsequently has to return to their individual country to turn their climate summit agreements, pledges/promises into *Results
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Climate Problems, Climate Solutions
- Our Generational Challenge
Visit
GreenLinks for Green Networking
- GreenPolicy360 | PlanetCitizen eOS , Your eco Operating System Planet Citizens
Visit the Beginnings of Earth System Science Missions
- Along with Planet Citizen, US Representative George E. Brown:
- Envisioning, Legislating, Managing a First Generation of US/NASA, Earth Science & Environmental Protection, Programs, Research, and Whole Earth Imaging
- A Chronicle of the First Three Decades of Environmental Action, Policies/Laws/Regulation / Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists @Work
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- Measuring, Monitoring, Managing Earth's Dynamic/Changing Systems
- Earth Imaging, Earth Science Research from Space, Data for Today & the Future
🌎 “To understand and protect our home planet" (from the original Mission Statement of NASA]
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The First 'Earth Day', a Story of Beginnings
Steven Schmidt: Thinking back to beginnings and to Hannah Arendt... she was preeminently the theorist of beginnings. All her books are tales of the unexpected (whether concerned with the novel horrors of totalitarianism or the new dawn of revolution), and reflections on the human capacity to start something new pervade her thinking. #Human Condition
Hannah Arendt was teaching in the Grad Faculty of the New School in NYC when I was fortunate to be there. Her work, ideas, have stayed w me throughout my life, and inspired ... Memorably, she was writing the first page of her last book in the Life of the Mind trilogy when she passed away....
* https://press.uchicago.edu/dam/ucp/books/pdf/course_intro/978-0-226-58660-1-introduction.pdf
Celebrating Earth Day | 2023
- "Memories on the Road to the First Earth Day"
SJS/GreenPolicy360: Sparked by young activists, the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 presented beginnings of a wave, a powerful expression of green ideals and ideas emerging in a serious and historic event. Today Earth Day continues on as a movement and a political cause. Now we are a diverse mix across the globe with many nationalities, voices, faiths, religions, colors and ages. We witness the young out in front with energy. We continue on year after year, decade after decade. Across our home planet, we are #PlanetCitizens. We are a work-in-progress.
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ThirdAct.org at the 2023 Bioneers Conference
Re: Truth-Telling
“Almost no single revelation will cause significant change by itself,” Ellsberg said in a recent Washington Post video, explaining how the truth needs allies in persistence. “But in combination with other information—other truth-telling—courage is contagious.” -- Daniel Ellsberg
How Daniel Ellsberg Opened the Door to One of the Most Consequential Climate Stories of Our Time
The whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers was undaunted by the challenge of finding out what the oil industry knew about carbon emissions and global warming
Eco-ethics
Strategic Demands
"In Memory of a Man Named Daniel"
Steve Schmidt / GreenPolicy360 Founder: In each of our lives we must make choices, daily life choices, easy choices. Then there are the times of hard, difficult, far-reaching choices, monumental, even frightening moments when we make conscious, and conscientious, choices we sense will continue far beyond our day-to-day reality.
These can be ethical challenges that will profoundly change our life and the lives of others -- and we sense there will be no turning back.
Such a moment came in the life of Daniel Ellsberg one dark night as waves crashed on the beach outside his Malibu home.
I remember that night Dan Ellsberg was making a life-changing decision and write about his action and resolve here. In later decades, as a type of planet citizen, Dan would go on to inspire other brave souls to speak up and do the right thing.
Planet citizens in action carry on...
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Interreligious Dialogue
Time to Care for Our Home
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October 2022
Time for Planet Citizen Action and a "CEOS", a Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
GreenPolicy360 welcomes the arrival of a global science mission, a "Global Stocktake", a collection of earth science data to be made available to the community of nations, to planet citizen activists and scientists, educational institutions, non-profits, NGOs, young and old to become tools for legal enforcement of national climate plans & pledges
September 2022
GreenPolicy360's Campaign to 'Turn National Climate Promises & Pledges into Reality'
- Our Climate Plans Enforcement Initiative continues as the next Global Climate Conference approaches, November's Conference of the Parties (COP27)
- Drawing from the database of Earth Science resulting from decades of space-based missions designed to provide us with actionable 'Earth-system and Climate-related data'
- Measuring and Monitoring to better manage Earth's Living, Dynamic and Changing Systems, Local, National and Global
Methods to Enforce Climate Plan Pledges
GreenPolicy360: Climate Plans Enforcement Initiative
Pressuring Nations to Step Up, Cooperate, and Act Now
Environmental Laws, Regs, Rules... Lawsuits & Legal Actions
Glasgow (2021) & Paris (2015) Summits: Int'l Climate Plan Pledges & Promises (INDCs-NDCs)
"Earth Observing System": Decades of Earth Science/Climate Science Data Accessible for Planet Citizen Action
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August 2022
Steven J Schmidt - GreenPolicy360 / SJS: The thing is the future doesn't vote. Future generations don't influence, ante up dollars or deal out megadollars to politicos... the #PoliticoPay and #MoneyinPolitics game is a U.S. high stakes game played today. Quid pro quo, it is a pay-to-play politics as Richard Jacobs accurately describes in his book, a 'Democracy of Dollars'.
Fact is, future generations will face the results of today's Money in Politics barter.
And yes, of course we have options, choices that can change the future.
Remembering Hannah Arendt writing of contemplation --- leading and guiding essential action...
'Vita Contemplativa' & 'Vita Activa'
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‘Climate Advocates Say It’s Not Too Late
March 2022 / NYT
A growing chorus of young people is focusing on climate solutions. “‘It’s too late’ means ‘I don’t have to do anything, and the responsibility is off me.’”
Alaina Wood is well aware that, planetarily speaking, things aren’t looking so great. She’s read the dire climate reports, tracked cataclysmic weather events and gone through more than a few dark nights of the soul.
She is also part of a growing cadre of people, many of them young, who are fighting climate doomism, the notion that it’s too late to turn things around. They believe that focusing solely on terrible climate news can sow dread and paralysis, foster inaction, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy...
“People are almost tired of hearing how bad it is; the narrative needs to move onto solutions,” said Ms. Wood, 25, a sustainability scientist who communicates much of her climate messaging on TikTok, the most popular social media platform among young Americans. “The science says things are bad. But it’s only going to get worse the longer it takes to act.”
Some climate advocates refer to the stance taken by Ms. Wood and her allies as “OK Doomer,” a riff on “OK Boomer,” the Gen Z rebuttal to condescension from older folks.
If awareness about the climate crisis has never been greater, so, too, has been a mounting sense of dread about its unfolding effects, particularly among the young. Two-thirds of Americans thought the government was doing too little to fight climate change, according to a 2020 Pew study, while a survey last year of 10,000 teens and young adults in 10 countries found that three quarters were frightened of the future.
PlanetCitizen.org | PlanetCitizens.org
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Bookmark the Climate Headlines, Follow the Environmental Writers
Society of Environmental Journalists - http://www.sej.org/headlines/list
- "We tell the world's most important stories"
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"Pledge for Nature" at the UN Biodiversity Summit
Leaders from 64 countries sign the Pledge For Nature to take action.
The Call to Action include measures to:
Slow down deforestation; eliminate unregulated and unsustainable fishing practices; and stop plastic being dumped into the ocean by 2050.
Conserve land; eliminate subsidies that harm the environment; transition to sustainable food production.
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"Thin Blue", Protecting 'The Commons', Enabling Life on Earth
"Tiny Blue Green", Oxygen in the Atmosphere, Food Source of the Seas
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GreenPolicy360's Environmental Studies Online
Visit Planet Citizens
- Earth Day flag
Planet Citizen Vision of Living Earth
"The Earth is my patient, and like any good medical doctor, I am compelled to advocate for her... Today, I see myself as a doctor advocating for... my patient, the Earth."
Listen carefully to the trees... watch closely...
“When we have learned how to listen to trees,
then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts
achieve an incomparable joy.” -- Hermann Hesse
Planet Citizens
Strategies of Resilience & Survival
Dealing with the 'Heat Island Effect'
Via #GoogleEarth
- Earth Science to Protect a Sustainable Earth
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New Definitions of National Security
- Personal action... Direct action...
- Green Network, GreenLinks action
Planet Citizen, Planet Scientist Activism
- "Have hope, Act to Make a Positive Difference"
- Shifting from a Scientist to Activist
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Planet Citizens / Scientists, Preserving & Protecting the Home Planet Earth
GreenPolicy360 and StrategicDemands:
Eco Definition via Merriam-Webster Dictionary
For the now-ubiquitous prefix eco-, we can thank the great German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, who in 1866 coined the term oekologie from the Greek oikos, meaning “home, place to live.” Haeckel was thinking primarily of the “homes” of animals, but by the time the word translated into English in 1875 (initially spelled “oecology”), its meaning had broadened to embrace plant habitats as well. The related term ecosystem was proposed by the British botanist Arthur Tansley, 60 years after one of his own professors first translated Haeckel’s oekologie. It may have been ecosystem, which treats eco- as a prefix to a standard English word, that gave English speakers permission to do the same in coining a host of other terms...
Eco-ethics @GreenPolicy360
Earth Right Now / EarthPOV / Earth Observations
Climate Action: Our Ethical Responsibility
- 198 Ways to Act, Count 'em
File:Methods of Nonviolent Action.pdf
Global Climate Strike, Student Action
Students Worldwide Striking to Demand Climate Action Change
Kids in 123 countries strike to protect the climate
“This movement had to happen, we didn’t have a choice.”
An estimated 1.4 million young people in 123 countries skipped school Friday to demand stronger climate policies in what may be one of the largest environmental protests in history.
Going Global: Student #ClimateStrike
Student Climate Strike-March 15, 2019
- Think Like Rebecca, Creating Positive Change
It's Your Time to Be Out in Front
- Change Is All Around
Step Up, Get with the Action, Planet Citizen Action
- Make a Difference, Be a Change Maker
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