Putting Out the Planetary Fire

NY Renews, a broad climate justice coalition, formally launched their Climate, Jobs, and Justice Package on Wednesday, November 15. Justin Wood of the NY Lawyers for the Public Interest discusses some of the key climate proposals and budget requests. With Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Magazine.

Beyond Plastics and IPEN (the International Pollutants Elimination Network) released “Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception,” a critical examination of the technology’s long history of failure and the threats it poses to the environment, human health, and environmental justice. The report precedes the upcoming United Nations international plastics treaty talks, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, fr...

The Community Gardens Protection Act, the Birds and Bees Protection Act, and the Class C-Streams Protection Act bring together a cross-cutting force of much-needed protections for pollinators, green spaces, and recreational waterways and streams. Ashley Ingram of Earthjustice discusses why it is important that Governor Hochul sign these three bills into law. With Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Maga...

The Compendium of Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure (the Compendium) was recently released, documenting continuing and increasing impacts on health and environment. The report shows fundamental problems with the entire life cycle of fracking and its infrastructure, which includes pipelines, LNG terminals, frack sand mining operations, and gas stoves inside homes...

Over 200 groups sent a letter urging Governor Hochul to include the Climate Change Superfund Act in her upcoming state Budget. The bill, which passed the Senate last session, would raise $3 billion annually from fees on Big Oil companies to pay for the damages caused by them emitting more than one billion tons of greenhouse gases in the state. At the state capitol in Albany, we hear from Pete Look...

One hundred twenty organizations statewide, including roughly 25 Albany groups and elected officials, wrote Governor Hochul today to urge her to include legislation in her upcoming state budget championed by the Sheridan Hollow Alliance for Renewable Energy (SHARE) to make the Capitol and other state buildings in downtown Albany run on renewable energy. The groups said this action would be consist...

Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha is a DSA-backed candidate recently elected to represent the 103rd Assembly District in the Dutchess-Ulster County area. In response to a proposed rate hike by the Central Hudson Utility, she is organizing a series of town hall meetings on energy democracy covering the broader topic of Energy Democracy and our statewide challenges with private utilities, energy affo...

Linda LeTendre of Saratoga was one of about 150 climate activists arrested Monday Sept. 18 for blocking the entrances to the Federal Reserve in NYC. Climate groups want the federal government and banks to stop investing in fossil fuels.

On Sunday September 17, an estimated 75,000 people marched in the streets of New York City in the largest climate event in the US since the onset of COVID. The march called for President Biden to take much stronger action against fossil fuels, including fulfilling his campaign pledge to stop issuing permits for fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and for him to formally declare a climate emerg...

Organizers estimated that 75,000 people participated in the End Fossil Fuels march in NYC on September 17 leading up to the United Nations Climate Summit. Protestors expressed displeasure about how slow world leaders, starting with President Biden, are moving to try to prevent climate collapse. We hear from Santosh Nandabalan of Food and Water Watch; Barry Pendegrass of the Religious Action Center...

Fifteen years after American International Group Inc. (AIG) nearly failed due to reckless financial practices, forcing the federal government to respond with a $182 billion bailout, climate protesters on September 14 rallied at the company’s headquarters in Manhattan to call on them end its risky underwriting and investments in fossil fuels. We hear first from speakers at the rally, including Rick...

Two dozen climate protestors were arrested on Thursday morning after hundreds of activists shut down the headquarters of Citibank, which has provided $333 billion in funding to fossil fuel projects since the Paris climate agreement took effect. We start off with several minutes of the sounds from the protests, followed by comments by protestors Ted Glick, Laura Wolfson, Eco of the Green Worker All...

Nearly a hundred climate activists rallied at the Museum Of Modern Art in NYC on September 15 to call for the removal of board chair Marie-Josée Kravis because of her and her husband’s Henry Kravis’s ties to the fossil fuel industry. The protest comes before the major September 17 march to End Fossil Fuels in NYC prior to the UN climate summit. Henry Kravis, whose net worth is around $7.8bn, is a...

On Thursday September 7 during the women's semifinal at the US Open with Coco Gauff, 3 climate protestors with Extinction Rebellion stood up to say End Fossil Fuels, halting the match for nearly an hour. Shayok Mukhopadhyay of Extinction Rebellion NYC Discusses why his glued his feet to the ground for the protest and about the importance of the protests in NYC leading up to the Sept. 17 rally...

Tens of thousands are expected in NYC on Sept. 17 for a rally and march to End Fossil Fuels being held in conjunction with the United Nations' special meeting on climate. Probably the largest climate rally in the US since COVID. A key focus is to urge President Biden to take stronger action to halt fossil fuels. Bob Cohen of Citizen Action is helping to organize buses from the Capital District...

Michael Klare is Professor Emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College. He recently wrote an article on Collapse 2.0 What a 2005 Bestseller Tells Us About Climate Change and Human Survival. He talks with Mark Dunlea of Hudson Mohawk Magazine about the existential challenges posed by climate change.  tomdispatch.com/collapse-2-0/

Jon Bowermaster interviewed Mark Dunlea on Green Radio Hour on Radio Kingston about his climate handbook Putting Out the Planetary Fire. How this summer's extreme weather highlights the need for system change not climate change, which means ending the dominant role of capitalism and Saying No to Fossil Fuels.

Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution. He is a data scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an associate project scientist at UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. He recently wrote that “Biden had the last opportunity of any president to keep the world under 1.5C of heating. Inste...

On Monday, August 14, the EcoAction Committee of the Green Party held a webinar on climate and agriculture. This segment focuses on the remarks of Liz Henderson of NOFA (Northeast Organic Farm Association), who discusses the need to build healthy soils and reforms needed in the pending Farm Bill. Agriculture is often overlooked as a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Globally agricult...

A new report from the State Comptroller’s office found that generators of renewable power including solar and wind, would need to triple production to reach the law’s 2030 goal of 70 percent green electricity consumption. This underscores the need for the NY Power Authority to start building more wind and solar farms. The comptroller’s report notes that prior efforts to increase renewable energy h...

On Thursday, July 27, environmental groups delivered 27,570 petition signatures to EPA's DC office, calling for a ban on toxic vinyl chloride, the carcinogenic chemical used to make PVC plastic that was intentionally spilled and burned in East Palestine after the train derailment disaster in February 2023. We hear first from Heather McTeer Toney of Beyond Petrochemicals followed by Daniel Wins...

Beyond Plastics recently held a webinar on Plastics & The Future Of Our Planet: A Conversation With Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert. We hear first from Judith Enck, founder of Beyond Plastics and a former regional EPA administrator, followed by Betsy and then Bill. Bill McKibben is the co-founder of 350.org and The Third Act and wrote the pivotal book The End of Nature. Betsy Kolbert is an...

Patti and Doug Wood Green State Radio Interviewed Mark Dunlea on his new book, Putting Out the Planetary Fire, an organizing guide for climate educators, students, and activists. This week Green Street radio segment includes part of the interview, mainly on the larger national and international view. The full interview starts with an overview of the recent failure of the NYS legislature to once ag...

On Julian Assange’s birthday, July 3rd, banner drops are being organized worldwide to demand his release after 11 years of confinement. The US wants to prosecute him for his role at WikiLeaks in working with Chelsea Manning to release videos showing American soldiers killing civilians in Iraq. Pippa Bartolotti of Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace and the United National Anti-War coalition talks with M...

The NYS legislature left for the year without either house taking a vote on either the Packaging Reduction & Recycling Act or the expanded bottle bill. Alexis Goldsmith, National Organizing Director of Beyond Plastics, discusses why lawmakers are not standing up to the chemical and fossil fuel industries and the makes of packaging (Coke, Amazon). With Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Magazine.