Category: Politics

Interview, Podcast, Politics

Episode 83: 2021 Election

Laura

Hi, it’s the week of October 25, 2021 and everything is wild! The elections that are happening locally for the City of Buffalo, Erie County, Western New York, and therefore New York State are shaping up to be intense. It’s exhausting and exciting at the same time. And here is a new podcast episode about it all!

I am proud to say that the Keeping Things Alive Podcast has turned into one of the longest things/projects that I have ever stuck with in my life (that and avoiding sugar since 2014 — omg sugar impacts my brain and body so much!). It’s gotten to the point where I have an annual voting episode, and here it is again! Time flies.

Just in time for the start of early voting which started this past Saturday October 23rd and runs until this Sunday October 31st, this episode is another “ballot review” episode that I put together with John Washington for this year’s election in Buffalo, NY. This is the third year in a row that we have done a review of what government positions will be on the Buffalo, NY ballot. John is a community organizer and political educator out of Buffalo, NY. He’s been on the podcast many times before and I promise that I will re-publish those episodes in the coming months – I am in the process of a re-boot for this website and the podcast, too (stay tuned for new things happening to this site and podcast in 2022!).

The purpose of this ballot review episode is help listeners become aware of what government positions are on the ballot (in the City of Buffalo, which also includes some Erie County seats and voter propositions that apply beyond City of Buffalo residents), and how they may affect an average person’s life. We change it up this year and discuss particular candidates and how we feel about them.

I know that many people fear change, but considering the devastating physical changes that are happening to our planet and all people living on it (mostly due to thoughtless industrialization and greed), the type of change and leadership that India Walton brings to the table is needed in the City of Buffalo and everywhere, like yesterday. I also support Kimberly Beaty to be the Erie County Sheriff. This podcast has covered the human rights violations that continue to take place within the Erie County Holding Center and jail system for years – again, time for actual, accountable leadership and change.

Here is a link to John Washington’s 2021 Ballot Review, streaming on SoundCloud (you can also get it on your favorite podcast player app, Spotify, Google Play, and more). Enjoy!

Here is the website of the Erie County Board of Elections.

Here is the website of the New York Working Family’s Party.

Politics, Post

New Year and President Check-In

Laura

In case you haven’t heard, it’s 2021 (what?!), there is a raging global pandemic, white supremacists invaded the U.S. Capitol, Redditors have disrupted Wall Street by buying GameStop stock, America has a new President, and the U.S. has rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement. I haven’t posted much besides podcast shownotes in a while because I’ve been suffering from a complex case of writer’s block for months (maybe years?).

I am grateful that Trump is out of the White House limelight. He is a narcissistic tyrant who has used masterful hypnotic techniques to manipulate his economically anxious, white supremacist base for years. He also grew significant support from his economically savvy, white supremacist supporters who never went to his rallies, but live in towns, cities, churches, offices, and board rooms across America.

Pop quiz: can you name the common ground that connects all Trump supporters, no matter how different they appear on their face? My answer is white supremacy, the ethos that white people (and what they do, say, and create) are inherently better than people of all other races, which leads to all kinds of dehumanization and harmful systems of oppression. White supremacy is deeply embedded in America’s history, systems, sports, Netflix options, education, hospitals, job searches, public transportation, food systems, the locations of industrial plants — everything. If you are white like I am (and especially if you are white living in a mostly white suburb or rural area), you don’t see white supremacy as much, but it’s always present. There is so much dismantling to do, and it starts with honest acknowledgement of the problem.

While in office, the Trump Administration, bolstered by an overall belief in white supremacy, unapologetically kept children in cages separated from their parents, gutted environmental protection laws, made it easier to drill for fossil fuels, intentionally sowed lies that made the Covid-19 pandemic worse, incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and caused chaos for millions (billions) of people. I am grateful that he did not have another four years to commit more regulatory, physical, and cultural violence, and I visualize what true accountability for his actions will look like every single day.

This podcast episode by Brené Brown about words, actions, dehumanization, and accountability has really helped me sort through my feelings about the January 6th riot at the Capitol, white supremacy, and how to be in this moment.

There is much healing to do, and one piece of that healing is honestly addressing climate injustice, and that starts with re-joining the Paris Climate Agreement, which already happened on Biden’s first day in office. This is critical because in December 2015, nearly every nation on Earth met in Paris and agreed to meaningfully address climate change under the premise that the United States, one of the top three greenhouse gas polluters in the world, was committed to the Agreement, too. That premise was destroyed when Trump backed out of the Paris Climate Agreement in January 2017, his first full week of office.

Fast forward four years to January 20, 2021 — on the same day that Biden took his Oath of Office, he signed an Executive Order stating that the U.S. has re-joined the Paris Climate Agreement. Phew. Here is the Executive Order in its entirety:

ACCEPTANCE ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the Paris Agreement, done at Paris on December 12, 2015, do hereby accept the said Agreement and every article and clause thereof on behalf of the United States of America.

Done at Washington this 20th day of January, 2021.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

This one-sentence Executive Order will have an untold impact on our collective future because the Paris Climate Agreement is the basis for International cooperation around climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Nearly four years have passed since the U.S. participated in official Paris Climate Agreement implementation work — there are many relationships to repair and details to work through. John Kerry is Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change with a focus on international climate work and the Paris Agreement, while Gina McCarthy is tapped to be the White House National Climate Adviser and focus on climate action within U.S. borders.

I am optimistic that there will be multiple people addressing climate change at the national and international levels — it is this type of multi-layered strategy that we desperately need if we have any hope of addressing the wicked problem of climate change. Business as usual (i.e. operating under systems of white supremacy and capitalism) will continue to kill us, and I am ready to witness and participate in the massive shifts we need to keep things alive now, and for generations to come.

Interview, Podcast, Politics, Post

Episode 76: Season 5 Wrap

Laura

Season 5 has come to a close! Episode 76: Season 5 Wrap, starts with Laura going through the season episode-by-episode and reflecting on what happened (recorded on Jan. 6, 2021). After that, at the 27:10 mark, Laura shares a conversation with John Washington (recorded over Zoom on Dec. 30, 2020) where they reflect on 2020 U.S. Election results, Biden’s Cabinet picks so far, & the Covid-19 pandemic.

Note: this episode contains a conversation about the Covid-19 Pandemic and is NOT medical advice. If you want/need medical advice, look elsewhere (maybe start with your doctor and/or www.cdc.gov).

Here are links to the shownotes with more information on what was discussed during Episode 76: Season 5 Wrap:

Books, Climate Change, Politics, Post, Sustainability

Sunday Check-in

Laura

It’s Sunday morning and the crisp fall weather is creeping into my apartment through my open window. This is the time of year in Buffalo, NY where I keep the windows open as long as I can stand it, because I know that winter is coming and I will be spending way too much time closed into buildings for the next 6+ months.

It’s incredible to think about the fact that I have been back living in Western New York for 4 years now. I just returned from a 10-day trip to Austin, Texas, which was my home for my first 8 years after college. A friend once told me that the longer you live in a place, the more it becomes a part of you. I feel that with both Austin and Buffalo, which is both wonderful and difficult.

So much has been happening on the climate, environmental, and eco justice fronts, especially with Greta Thunberg and the youth-led climate strikes that have been swelling up all over the world. It feels like a larger group of people are finally waking up and saying enough is enough. It’s beautiful to see and I try my best to be a part of this movement where I can.

I used to wonder “how horrible do things have to get before people start saying enough is enough?” It appears that the combination of the melting of the Arctic, death of coral reefs, mass extinction of animals, an overwhelming public health and refugee crisis, apocalyptic hurricanes, ravaging drought, blazing wildfires, and other forms of doom are finally getting peoples’ time and attention.

I am so grateful to young people for stepping up and speaking out years before I ever had the understanding or courage to do so myself. As for the adults that are joining in for the first time, I am grateful but also confused about what took them so long. And then there are still so many people (of all ages) who continue their lives as though it is business as usual. This type of denial is delusional — the facts are in our faces.

I want to welcome everyone to this eco justice fight because we literally need everyone to change their individual lives and the systems that influence them, but it’s been hard to know what to say or how to coordinate. While all of this climate strike energy has been growing, I’ve been struggling with the grief that comes with the realization that the Earth is dying, and because we are all connected to it and each other, we are, too.

To feed my grief side, this is what I’m reading and relating to:

To feed my solutions side, this is where I go for inspiration on how to live:

Happy Sunday 🙂

 

 

Climate Change, Interview, Podcast, Politics, Sustainability

Episode 58: Climate Jobs & Justice

Laura

I am so tired of having to do workshops around environmental racism and classism and environmental justice and seeing how cancer has devastated each and every person who comes to these workshops, whether it’s directly in their family or someone that they know.

Episode 58 of the Keeping Things Alive Podcast features Laura’s conversation about the Climate Community & Protection Act with Geovaira Hernández. Geo is the Climate Justice Organizer for PUSH Buffalo, and spent the first half of 2019 working directly for NYRenews to pass the CCPA during the 2019 New York Legislative Session (note: a different version of the CCPA did pass, and now it is called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which you can hear more about in Episode 59).

In this episode, Laura and Geo talk about environmental justice, environmental racism, and why passing climate justice legislation is so important for people and the planet.

Here are the shownotes, with links to more information on what is discussed during Laura’s conversation with Geo:

Climate Change, Politics, Post

Climate Justice Activism on the World Stage

Laura

Greta Thunberg, spoke to the leaders of 190 countries attending the United Nations COP24 conference on climate change in Poland last week. Here is the text of her speech:

My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 15 years old.

I am from Sweden.

I speak on behalf of Climate Justice Now.

Many people say that Sweden is just a small country and it doesn’t matter what we do.

But I’ve learned you are never too small to make a difference.

And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to. But to do that, we have to speak clearly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.

You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.

You are not mature enough to tell it like is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.

Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.

Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.

The year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday. If I have children maybe they will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask me about you. Maybe they will ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act.

You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.

Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.

We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, maybe we should change the system itself.

We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again.

We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time.

We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.

Thank you.

CNN reported that Thurnberg “all but shamed the 190 countries represented at the United Nations COP24 conference in Poland last week.”

Here is a link to the video of her speech from Democracy Now!.

Politics, Post, Sustainability

My West Valley Demonstration Project SEIS Comments

Laura

I (Laura) took the above photo on the morning of April 22, 2018, from the road that you can take to drive right by the West Valley Demonstration Project in Cattaraugus County, New York. Those tanks are holding radioactive liquid nuclear waste in place while the state and federal governments decide what to do with them (not to mention the buried nuclear waste that also exists in places on the site). There are no waste facilities that have the capacity to accept this waste anywhere in the U.S., and transportation is dangerous anyway. Cleaning up this nuclear waste is an expensive, challenging problem that must be solved. The last public comment period on how to clean up the site ends on May 25, 2018.

So I decided to submit public comments on behalf of myself as a Citizen of the United States of America. Here they are:

 

May 22, 2018

Mr. Martin Krentz
West Valley Demonstration Project
U.S. Department of Energy
10282 Rock Springs Rd. AC-DOE
West Valley, NY 14171-9799
[email protected]

Re: Public Comment on the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the West Valley Site

Dear Mr. Krentz:

I am a 33-year-old female environmental attorney living in the City of Buffalo, New York. I grew up in Eden, New York; moved to Hamburg, New York in middle school; studied Natural Resources (with a concentration in policy) at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; moved to Austin, Texas after graduation to be an AmeriCorps kindergarten literacy tutor for one year; studied at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin for three years; and practiced environmental law in Austin for four years. In 2015, I moved back to Western New York for family reasons, rented an apartment in the City of Buffalo, and earned a living through remote environmental consulting work (i.e. writing National Environmental Policy Act documents for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects in Norfolk, Virginia; the Willamette River Valley, Oregon; and Coos Bay, Oregon). I currently work as the Grant Writer for People United for Sustainable Housing, Inc. (PUSH Buffalo). I am making these comments on behalf of myself as a Citizen of the United States of America.

Although the paragraph above summarizes my professional experience, in my spare time, I enjoy reading, writing, learning, and talking to people about the intersection of environmental justice, economic justice, and social justice, as well as educating people about the slightly obscure environmental law, policy, and science realm that I have been inhabiting for the past 14 years. I produce and host The Keeping Things Alive Podcast, which features my conversations with activists, business owners, healers, and anyone I cross paths with who is “keeping things alive in work and play” (here is a link to the episodes streaming online).

Last winter, I did a four-part collection of interviews on nuclear waste, with a particular focus on Western New York. As I learned more by listening to my guests, the West Valley Nuclear Facility quickly surfaced in my mind as the critical water quality, public health, and economic issue for the Western New York Region, as well as the entire Great Lakes Watershed/Bioregion, to get right. Here is a link to an article that links to all four Keeping Things Alive Podcast nuclear waste interviews.

I request that the following three Keeping Things Alive Podcast interviews get entered into the 2018 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the West Valley Site Administrative Record because they provide relevant information to the cleanup decisions that are currently being considered by the U.S. Department of Energy and N.Y.S. Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA):

  1. Lynda Schneekloth
  2. Diane D’Arrigo
  3. Joanne Hameister

My comments are not going to be long or law-heavy because this issue is straightforward: a nuclear waste dumpsite sits on unstable ground adjacent to tributaries that flow into Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, which contain 20% of the world’s available freshwater. If we want the City of Buffalo and upstate New York to remain resilient and come back from losing half of our population between 1950 and 2010 while industry left a toxic mess for someone else to deal with, the West Valley Nuclear Demonstration Project must be cleaned up in full.

As many other comments have stated (and are backed up with scientific studies), the West Valley site sits on unstable shale formations, which shift and collapse and move around, especially in response to large precipitation events. Precipitation events are becoming more intense and frequent as time marches on, and scientists predict that this trend will continue (check out the latest scientific reports on climate change impacts in upstate New York). An accident anywhere on the West Valley site has the potential to contaminate a tributary that flows into Lake Erie, right next to Erie County’s water supply intake. No one in the Lake Erie watershed (both in the United States and Canada) can afford a large-scale nuclear waste disaster on Lake Erie. Water is life.

The West Valley Demonstration Site must be fully cleaned up for economic and societal reasons as well. Although full cleanup is the most expensive option currently on the table, the cost of cleaning up a nuclear waste disaster in Lake Erie would be astronomical (not to mention difficult, emotional, and politically terrible). Food markets would be negatively affected. Agriculture would suffer. Tourism (boating, fishing, kayaking, concerts by the water, beaches, historical tours, etc.) would close down. Real estate development along the waterfront (or possibly the entire City of Buffalo) would come to a halt. All of the progressive social justice work being done by local nonprofits and foundations would be wiped out. People would get sick and die and be displaced because of radioactive water, land, and even air contamination. The West Valley Demonstration Site must be fully cleaned up.

Lastly, I want tell a story about my friend from high school – she and her fiancée want to buy a large piece of land in the New York Southerntier so they can live off of it as homesteaders. But she has decided not to purchase land anywhere near or downstream of the West Valley Demonstration Project because as she has become more educated on the site history and current risks, she does not accept the risks of growing and consuming radioactive plants, not to mention the constant threat of being on the front lines of a large-scale nuclear waste disaster. Cattaraugus County has lost a potential tax-paying landowner because of the West Valley Demonstration Project and its current risks.

In sum, I request that the U.S. Department of Energy and NYSERDA work together and pull together as many resources as possible to efficiently and comprehensively clean up the West Valley Nuclear Demonstration Project Site so it is no longer a threat to the inhabitants of the Great Lakes Watershed.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

Sincerely,
Laura M. Evans

 

 

If you read through my comments and want to submit your own by May 25, 2018, here is a link with all of the instructions.

 

Post, Mind and Body, Politics

Focus

Laura

One of my favorite websites is Brain Pickings, and today the creator, Maria Popova, showcased a beautiful poster by Wendy MacNaughton and Courtney E. Martin that resonates with me during these chaotic political times. As I struggle to figure out what role I play in the international progressive movement that is building and changing every day, I keep coming back to writing, interviewing, and creating whatever needs to be created at the moment (a meal, garden, email, gift, etc.).  I’ll let the poster speak for itself:

Climate Change, Politics, Post, Sustainability

Trump is Working to Eliminate Clean Water Rule

Laura

This just came out: Trump is rolling back protections under the Clean Water Rule, which I summarized here at FedGreen.

It makes sense for the Trump Business(es) to want to get rid of the Clean Water Rule – requiring federal permits for construction around smaller bodies of water makes development more expensive because the developer must pay for permitting and consultants and maybe even lawyers to make sure they are complying with the law.

And Trump is, among other things, a developer.

Books, Climate Change, Politics, Post

Science, Religion, & Law

Laura

I’ve been reading a very interesting (but terrifying) book off-and-on since I received it as a gift for Christmas. It’s called Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age by Mary Christina Wood.  The point is that modern environmental law is broken and is hurting us, so we need a new way of regulating natural resources that protects life on Earth (her idea is to switch back to to the Public Trust Doctrine).

I flipped to a page and landed on this quote regarding the latest partnership between science, religion, and law:

A striking environmental partnership has formed between scientists and the religious community . . . . [Furthermore] religion and law can find powerful synergy on behalf of ecological protection when secular leaders voice a legal mandate recognized also as a spiritual command by all major religions.  Remarkably, the world’s major religions appear to observe a sacred trusteeship that, in faith terms, mirrors the legal iteration of the public trust.  Perhaps this commonality should not be surprising, given that the public trust traces back to natural law that remains deeply infused with religious, spiritual, and moral tradition springing from the basic intuition of humankind.

I am excited to see a faith-based coalition for climate action form in my hometown of Buffalo, New York.  The Climate Justice Coalition has an Interfaith Climate Group where many different religions meet to talk about what actions they can take in the age of climate change.  When they were first starting the coalition, various faith representatives presented their views on humankind’s responsibility to take care of the Earth, and now the group is working on specific action steps to walk on that path: (1) using less resources at their places of worship, (2) living more simple lives, (3) lobbying for their values, and (4) investing/divesting.  It’s a great initiative and I believe that their efforts can and should be replicated elsewhere.