Champion of science and environmental action Greta Thunberg came to South Dakota last night! She exhorted a crowd of nearly 200 in Pine Ridge to use people power to save the planet:
“We should not see each other as groups of us and them and them. But as a whole us because we are depending on each other and in so many different ways we are depending on nature.”
Thunberg reminds the crowd that her home country, Sweden and the United States are democracies. She says that means people make the decisions and create change.
“We need to fight and we need to show them what really happens to us and that this is a matter of life or death for many people” [Chynna Lockett, “Great Thunberg and Tokata Iron Eyes Talk Keystone XL and Climate Change,” SDPB, 2019.10.07].
Lakota activist and fellow sixteen-year-old Tokata Iron Eyes invited Thunberg to visit South Dakota. Iron Eyes and Thunberg are leading a march to draw attention to climate change in Rapid City this morning, starting at Memorial Park at 11:30 a.m., then heading for the mayor’s office:
Speakers at the rally will include Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner, Lakota People’s Law Project lead counsel Chase Iron Eyes, NDN Collective Executive Director Nick Tilsen, and NDN Collective organizer Cante Heart.
The rally and march are sponsored by the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Last Real Indians, the Lakota People’s Law Project and NDN Collective.
The Lakota People’s Law Project says Thunberg is concerned about the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline through South Dakota, as well as plans to double oil flowing through the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota [“Teen Activist Visits Rapid City Monday for Climate Rally,” Rapid City Journal, 2019.10.06].
It’s good to have some international support come to our fair state to speak out against the Keystone XL land grab… and it’s good to know Governor Noem can’t try arresting Thunberg and her supporters with Noem’s unconstitutional and court-enjoined anti-protest laws.
Make America Greta Again!
Hope South Dakotans make the effort to see and support this fireball who ignites right wing haters just by being.
There is so much potential for destruction of the environment happening in South Dakota right now, most of it the result of greed and corruption. In the 1970s South Dakota was considered a sacrifice area by some in corporations and government. People united together to fight it, and held it off for a time. It looks like a similar scenario now as we approach the 2020s.
Is she applying a carbon offset for her air travel here? It would be of interest that she used fossil fuels to travel and speak about the need to move away from fossil fuels. But it would be more interesting if she traveled by electric vehicle to South Dakota only powered by renewables….that would make quite the statement.
If climate change is a problem, then use the tools that are available to solve the problem. That includes more renewable energy and nuclear energy to displace the fossil fuels from the transportation sector.
#SolveTheProblem
“If climate change is a problem”, wow doc, and we pay you to teach science. Sad
Jerry, while Cory points out that Greta might not be arrested due to the injunction against Noem’s new anti-protest laws I have to wonder if McTaggart feels she ought to be arrested because he fears she might not be “applying a carbon offset for her air travel here,” which could create a health hazard?
I note that the RC Journal today reports that advocates of criminalization have succeeded in filling SD jails with more prisoners per capita than any other state and nearly twice as many as the feds. After incorporating such beliefs into our State’s public policies, one would think that the health hazards in SD must now be nearly non-existent.
But then there is this:
https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2018/08/29/studies-reveal-health-hazards-big-sioux-river-rapid-creek-south-dakota-waterways/1134418002/
It makes one wonder about the effectiveness of building more jails and arresting more people.
By the way, news reports seem to indicate that Greta has avoided flights and travels by electric cars, so there may be no need to jail her in SD after all.
https://www.newsweek.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-lends-electric-car-greta-thunberg-1461476
Yes jerry, if climate change were really a problem, we would be pursuing all methods for solution of that problem. All hands on deck!
Where did I say that she should be jailed for voicing her opinion? I think you are on your typical kick on eliminating (not reducing or changing) laws on the use of marijuana.
McTaggart, perhaps I misunderstood. Do you believe it would be a health hazard to fail to apply “a carbon offset for . . . air travel?” I thought that was your point, but I could be wrong.
And where did I suggest that you said “that she should be jailed for voicing her opinion?” I actually wrote that “I wonder if McTaggart feels she ought to be arrested because he fears she might not be ‘applying a carbon offset for her air travel here,’ which could create a health hazard?”
Not only does that not reference “expressing her opinion,” it also describes my own curiosity about what your viewpoint might be rather than any declaration purporting to describe your viewpoint. The latter is for you and you alone.
And in multiple comments you have described your viewpoint as supporting the criminalization of people involved in any way with a substance that may be harmful in one of its uses. As with the uranium dust issue I continue to wonder how far such analysis extends to other substances or activities that have the potential to create a health hazard, such as failing to provide a carbon offset for whatever carbon footprint one might leave behind (which I had assumed your comment meant you would find to be a health hazard.
No, I was not saying it was a health hazard. In fact, you probably get more radiation in a year from flying than you will from uranium processing. And the radiation from airplane travel is not a health hazard. If we are not going to restrict the burning of coal due to its distribution of radionuclides, air travel has nothing to worry about.
If you are protesting fossil fuels, standard operating procedure is to apply a carbon offset for the carbon that you actually emit in going back and forth to the protest and while protesting. However, carbon offsets and carbon taxes still allow the carbon to be emitted. This is why I prefer not emitting carbon in the first place.
If you favor cleaner air and better health outcomes as a society, then we should reduce smoking (that includes both tobacco and marijuana) whenever possible.
If you want to reduce smoking each year via alternatives to criminalization, I am all for it. But the goal of that approach is really less marijuana smoking, not more. Fewer people afflicted by the impacts of smoking means more health dollars can be spent on other things, including providing more healthcare for more people.
My family and I spent a day at Standing Rock in October of 2015 the day after Jesse Jackson was there, the day that the violence and fires erupted. It was a crazy scene .. if I recall correctly, the Black Panthers were all too willing to have a big bloody conflict up there, and in speaking with people Jesse Jackson was there to prepare the water protectors for the violence that was to come. I do not want violence for the Lakota or anyone else, and my intent is to find a nonviolent way forward.
Kudos again to Ms. Thunberg and also to Ms. Iron Eyes for their courageous determination to save us from ourselves. Do we have any information on how the RC walk went? Attendance? Media coverage?
I admire those 2 young women and all the rest who are working so hard to save our home.
Cory, what is the NDN Collective?
https://the-immoral-minority.com/iowa-chemistry-teacher-placed-on-administrative-leave-after-making-sniper-rifel-comment-directed-at-climate-change-activist-greta-thunberg/
Sounds like an Alex Jones/ johnny Fraud devotee.
psyche mikey – Thing is, she seems already dead inside. Her parents are just AWEFUL. The WORST. Completely devoid of temperance in their approach. She must have gotten a special Chinese vaccine.
Unfortunately, while it riles up the neoliberal base who will swoon in the mirror, falling all over themselves, drooling, strangely attracted to this 16 year old, breaking their arms patting themselves on the back, making big puffy virtue signals for the Lakota, support for the Lakota will dwindle among Libertarians because she is being trotted out here like such a show pony.
Poor girl .. Hitler Jungend Part dos. Or is it tres?
So johnny Fraud and Alex Jones decide it is okay for a teacher to casually threaten a child with extirpation because she allegedly had a bad upbringing? Smooth move, Ex-Lax.
You’re all nutz.
Alex Jones and mike from iowa both play pretty fast and loose with their words. It illustrates the point – free speech doesn’t exist in the speaker. It exists in the listener, who can find all sorts of bad advice to follow if she wants.
Given the apathy that infects most teens, it is nice to see some kids taking some interest and getting some results in addressing issues such as this. If you care about the issue, you don’t care that much who leads some or another aspect of the issue. The fact is the scientists have been leading on this issue for decades, and they still lead it. But kids are going to be living with the results of our failure to solve the problem, so they have every right to begin to address it, too.
If a few 16-year-old girls frightens away the support of Dale’s form of Libertarians, I’d say they are pretty ignorant, cowardly and self-centered. Dale pretends to support the Lakota in one breath, and them cut down in the next. Get over yourself, Dale. This ain’t about you or your political ideology.
Dear Johnny Fraud, I almost never post anything without being sure I can back it up with mainstream outlets, not right wing nut job conspiracy theorists.
I have free speech rights to call you and Grudzilla all the names I can think of that I believe apply to you and Grudzilla. I have no need to back the names up. You two do it for me, in spades.