Hello fellow political stone-cutters,
Happy Friday everyone! We’re well into 2022 and the political, social, and economic fights for the future of our communities and country are heating up. Over the next 10 months until the election (and beyond of course) we will be fighting hard to make a better society and a better world, one that represents all of us, not just a few powerful donors. Organizing to make a better world can be hard and demoralizing, however, and as Alan Moore once wrote, “A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.” We couldn’t agree more! As we continue the struggle for a more just world, we cannot just focus on the shared failures of our leaders and disappointment and trauma it brings. While it’s valuable to be reminded of all that binds us together each Tuesday, we can’t just focus on what is broken. So, starting this week, the United People’s Movement is bringing you Feel Good Fridays (#FGF) to help highlight and savor some of the victories, big or small, that people are achieving in the struggle for a fairer and more just society. We hope that these stories will give you a little boost as you head into the weekend, and remind everyone that success and progress are not only possible, but the seeds are already being planted, we just have to nurture and grow them! For our inaugural feel good Friday story, we have a wonderful environmental victory shared with us by fellow UPM/DSOT member Tierra Curry, PhD at the Biological Diversity center. From their exciting press release last week: “The D.C. District Court today invalidated the Department of the Interior's decision to offer 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing, marking a pivotal victory in the fight to defend Gulf communities and the planet from the worsening climate crisis. The court held that Interior failed to accurately disclose and consider the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the lease sale, violating a bedrock environmental law…. The lawsuit noted that the 2017 environmental analysis that the Biden administration relied on to hold the sale is fatally flawed. The sale also contradicted the administration’s pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030. The court decision holds Interior accountable for grossly underestimating the climate impacts and risks to Gulf communities before deciding to hold the largest oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history. This ruling ensures that waters and coasts will be protected from additional harmful drilling and eventual spills in the Gulf, where the fossil fuel industry is already sitting on 8 million acres of leases on public waters. By vacating Interior’s decision to hold this illegal lease sale, the court has ensured that no harm will result from it. Whatever Interior decides to do, it must start with a blank slate and consider the full environmental costs.” If you’d like to read more about this story you can check out the full press release and news coverage at the links below: https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/court-massive-offshore-oil-lease-sale-in-gulf-based-on-faulty-legal-analysis-2022-01-27/ https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/judge-cancels-oil-gas-leases-gulf-of-mexico-climate/index.html This is excellent news, and not just for the immediate environmental victory. The court’s decision helps set the precedent that our government needs to follow through on its pledges to protect our environmental integrity, and reduce our GHG emissions in the face of the growing climate crisis. The DC Circuit Court has stood with the >80% of Americans who want to see the natural world protected. We should celebrate this victory, use it to buoy our spirits, and then redouble our efforts from this new base-camp, to build-off today’s successes and create tomorrow’s more representative future! Have a great weekend and see you on Tuesday! Jacob Kravetz and Barrie Friedland #UPM #DSOT #FGF "When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before." - Jacob Riis
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