From the Steering Committee of World Can’t Wait
World Can’t Wait’s hearts and thoughts go out to those who have suffered great loss and hardship in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Some of our activists and organizers are among those to face these hardships. Amidst all that they are thinking of what they can do to stand up for humanity.
We know the strength and ferociousness of Sandy was due in no small part to climate change. Here we are less than four days out from the presidential election where climate change was never mentioned by either candidate. This is criminal!
We know that many people, especially among the masses of poor and working people on the East Coast, are suffering most at this time. Not only are they suffering the hardship of no electricity, clean water, and food but they are being criminalized as they always are, with police patrolling their neighborhoods to make sure they are not “looting” and continuing to Stop-and-Frisk Black and Latino men. People are being shamed for having not gone to shelters, when many of them remember how minorities and poor in those situations were treated during Katrina.
Most importantly, we know that there are millions across our planet who have suffered immensely due to monstrous weather patterns created by climate change. People of this country must come to grips, first, with understanding that climate change is very real, and second, that our government bears much of the responsibility for contributing to it. The U.S. is now the second leading current producer of c02 emissions (China is number one). Under Obama we have seen an increase in gas and oil pipelines, not to mention a environmentally destructive practice of mining called fracking.
For his part, Romney and his fanatical anti-scientific right wing backers are not only a climate-change denier, but embrace the right of U.S. capitalism to tear up the world without restraint or regulation.
As an organization that calls on people of conscience to put humanity and the planet first, we ask you to go out on Tuesday and talk with people. Ask them what they think about climate change not being mentioned in the debate. Tell them that there is another way besides casting vote to stop the crimes of their government and that it is through mass visible resistance and that that World Can’t Wait is a vehicle for just that. Humanity AND THE PLANET COME FIRST!
Send your stories and observations to debrasweet@worldcantwait.net.