Motley Moose – Archive

All photos in this post are by Prince Balume and Achilles Balume, and are posted here with permission.

In 2006, DR Congo passed a new constitution, which is similar to our (US) constitution in many ways. The right to vote, to assemble, and to free speech are guaranteed. Beyond our constitution, it guarantees strong parity between men and women. The issue today, though, is that it imposes tenure limits on the President.  

By law, President Joseph Kabila must step down and allow an open election in 2016. He began as a military dictator who led the country through a transitional government, and was then democratically elected President. His re-election met with some criticism, and he’s since been maneuvering to extend his tenure — recently by trying to amend the tenure law outright, and then by introducing requirements that would delay the election.

People in DR Congo are still learning about the law and starting to believe in their rights. If Kabila stays in power, it will set back the progress the people have made toward a Democratic DR Congo. John Kerry and the US State Department have been trying to get him to step down at the end of his term.

Last month, Kabila’s supporters in Parliament passed a census requirement for the next election. That law would delay the 2016 election indefinitely. The people of DR Congo organized a coordinated demonstration to protest the census requirement. The government cracked down on the protesters. Some were killed and others are not yet accounted for.

The great success was that Parliament eventually relented and removed the census requirement. It was a real step toward implementing democracy. It dearly cost people who demonstrated, though — some who paid with their lives.  

Crossposted from here…

Guest lodge at Virunga National Park.

Virunga National Park is the jewel of the African rainforest. It is perhaps the most biologically and geographically diverse area on the planet. Its borders contain a vast array of species and lakes, as well as tropical forest, savannahs, and volcanoes. A UNESCO World Heritage Center, this park has come to represent the African forest that supports the planet.

And it’s in trouble.

Aside from the continuing African World War that is being fought inside its borders, a corrupt charcoal trade that is toppling its trees, and rampant poaching that’s endangered its unique species, Virunga National Park has another rival: SOCO International. This park — that is intended to be some of the most protected land on the planet — sits on top of a store of oil. And yes, SOCO set its sites on drilling there. They are exploring as we speak.

If you care about climate, you care about Congo.

It has been disheartening lately to read about the penny-wise pound-foolish despoiling of our earth for short term profits and jobs that will disappear in a few years. West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin … the list goes on. Maybe we need an Earth Day wake-up call to remind us of what is important.

                   

                                          Padden Creek at Fairhaven Park

Among the icons associated with the Pacific Northwest are evergreen trees, rain, streams, and salmon. These PNW icons have existed in symbiotic relations with one another for probably millions of years. A change in one can affect the others. But apparently this fact was unknown or at least unappreciated by the early American settlers of this region. They over-logged the trees which allowed the abundant rain to wash mud and whole hillsides into the streams which became uninhabitable for the salmon that had used these streams for eons to maintain their life cycles. They also dammed up spawning rivers to provide electricity to run their sawmills and salmon canneries. The irony is that they destroyed the very things that made them wealthy.  

The following pictures are from Gothic Basin yesterday. It’s a rough hike, in fact, a lot of it isn’t what most people would even call trail. It’s more like a rock garden. It’s steep and there are deathly sharp drops in a few places — drops that get pretty close to the trail. That said, there was an endless supply of ladies aged 60+ out there blowing everyone else’s doors off. You just have to be as tough as they are.

Or maybe it’s the view. This is a look across a canyon on the trail up to the basin.  

I joined a Progressive Reform Synagogue about a year and a half ago. I first wrote about an experience I had there in this diary. Last year I wasn’t too active beyond taking my daughter to Hebrew and Sunday School, a few Friday Night Services here and there and the High Holy Days. I really had no idea how involved the Social Justice and Food Justice committees were in educating and organizing the congregation. I only just became involved a couple weeks before NetrootsNation2013 when I received an email from the Rabbi about my protesting the Keystone Pipeline, would I like to join a meeting about incorporating Climate Change into a Friday Night Service? Um, yes.

I was one of a panel of three in which we were asked to bring awareness about Climate Change to our congregation in the context of the upcoming Tisha B’Av and to describe our personal connection to Climate Change. I learned about the association between Tisha B’Av and Climate Change initially from our Rabbi and then through reading the work of Rabbi Arthur Waskow. I am often amazed at the depth of knowledge and feeling that some people are capable of conveying, and these two Rabbi’s are no exception.

I experienced a lot of anxiety about writing this presentation, I felt lost, like an outsider trying to talk about something of which she really doesn’t understand. My original draft had nothing original in it. So I took a break and read some diaries on Daily Kos, and I found my inspiration.

Some things deserve the honor of our tears and our sadness.

was written in a comment in response to a writer’s grief. What I followed that sentence up with is block quoted below and was presented to the congregation.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Taiwan is one of the main success stories of East Asia; from a country of mostly impoverished farmers, it has become a First World country with living standards comparable to America.

This is something which I actually asked of a Taiwanese friend. Compared to America, how is Taiwan’s standard of life? Said person answered that Taiwan’s pretty similar to the United States. The buildings look the same, the country is pretty much the same as America.

More below.

When the going gets tough, the tough say “too difficult!!” and throw their hands up in despair claiming “no one cares about the environment or candidates who are passionate about the environment”??!!??

I don’t buy it … and President Obama doesn’t buy it either.

Yesterday this arrived in my Inbox from Organizing for America:

Jan —

Right now, way too many lawmakers in Washington flat-out refuse to face the facts when it comes to climate change.

We’re never going to make real progress on this issue unless members of Congress get serious. Instead, some of them have made a habit of publicly mocking it.

We thought it was time to call them out for denying what’s basic science.

Watch this embarrassing video of climate deniers in Congress — and say you’re ready to help hold them accountable:

The science matters in this.

That’s the message way too many people in Washington need to hear right now.

In 2011, there were 240 members of Congress who voted to say that climate change is a hoax.

Most of them are still around today, and they’re getting away with it — some of them are actually proud of it. They think the whole debate is pretty funny.

If we want to make progress on climate change, we need everyone in Congress on board for a solution. It’s our job to show them there’s a price to pay for being a climate denier.

Take a look at this video and join the fight:

http://my.barackobama.com/Climate-Change

Get ready — more on this coming soon.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Carson

Executive Director

Organizing for Action

@JonCarsonOFA

Today’s post is emitting a high-pitched squealing noise that sounds suspiciously like an alarm. But the sound it is making is a little too much like your neighbor’s car alarm that goes off at 10:00pm every night and that you have learned to ignore.

Crossposted from the Forward on Climate blogathon at Daily Kos. There is a schedule of diaries and info about the blogathon at the end of the DK diary.

This week, we’ve had an impressive crop of diaries about the Keystone XL project — an pipeline that hooks us more deeply into one of the more damaging fossil fuel extractions we’ve ever seen. Selling oil from the tar sands promises to make Canada a player in the fossil fuel game…

Margaret Atwood, a Canadian, who recently observed that Canadians with The Tar Sands are Hobbits with The Ring. All of the riches in the world belong to he who holds that power. What Canada decides to do with the tar sands will affect energy policy for most of the next century.

With that against all of us — we who want to slow the rate we are pulling carbon out of the ground and putting it into the sky — there are few things we can control directly about Canada’s decision to mine the tar sands. What we can do is address the horse apples. Slowing the process enough could grind it to a halt. Slowing the process will have an impact.

For today’s horse apple, let’s have a few words about what happens when we try to regulate novel energy technology.