1-11-21
CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #5 by Dick Bennett
The Leap
“The Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another” (full text at end of Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough or https://leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap-manifesto/).
On 12-10-20 PBS NOVA promoted the US government’s renewal of its moon control program with its new generation of larger rockets enabling a greatly expanded leap into space: “Rise of the Rockets.” The first rocket will circle the moon. The second will land a rocketeer to establish a permanent claim. Each shot will cost billions. Each will expand the US empire, recently terrestrially exposed in The United States of War by David Vine. But there has been no national debate over that expenditure for that purpose. There has been no comparison of that goal with another Leap, this one a leap for humanity, all species, and the planet.
In May 2015, people from many walks of life and representing diverse institutions and movements met in Toronto to “connect the crises” and “chart a holistic vision for the future.” An example of the connections urgently needing resistance were “the economic interests pushing hardest for war” that are “the very same forces most responsible for warming the planet,” the very same “corrosive values system that places profit above the well-being of people and the planet,” the very same forces and values that have “seized control of the White House” (No Is Not Enough 232).
The Conference concluded with the signing of “The Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another.” Its indictment of Canada applies even more forcefully to the USA and its “record on climate change [that is] a crime against humanity’s future.” The crimes have produced a global emergency, in response to which The Manifesto declares sixteen principles for “decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming. That means small steps will no longer get us where we need to go” (269).
The US can spend a trillion dollars to dominate outer space, but comparatively nothing “to prevent catastrophic global warming.”
Action: The US LEAP MANIFESTO resembles the GREEN NEW DEAL Resolutions. Demand President-elect Biden declare a national emergency and create an Office of Climate Mobilization. (See essay by Varshini Prakash, “For a Green New Decade,” The Nation (1-11/18-21). Read the Congressional GND Resolution: House Resolution 52, July 9, 2019, 116th Congress 1st Session.