At the end of November, national leaders will meet in Paris, France for the United Nation’s COP 21 to try to put together a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Treaty which expires in 2020. With atmospheric CO2 levels continuing to rise, this may be too little too late. And there is concern that the Paris Treaty will be non-binding and will be threatened by binding treaties such as the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) which will drive more fossil fuel extraction and prevent actions to address the climate crisis. It is up to our communities to take action now and we speak with two people who are doing that. Courtney White who has published a new book, “Two Percent Solutions for the Planet: 50 Low-Cost, Low-Tech, Nature-Based Practices for Combatting Hunger, Drought and Climate Change” speaks about ways that communities can work together now to lower carbon footprints and sequester carbon. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, youth director of the Earth Guardians, works locally and globally fighting pollution and fossil fuel extraction. He is helping to organize a global youth climate strike on November 30.
Listen here:
Solving the Climate Crisis is in Our Hands with Courtney White and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
Relevant articles and websites:
Two Percent Solutions for the Planet (Summary)
Two Percent Solutions for the Planet (Book)
Guests:
Courtney White is a former archaeologist and Sierra Club activist, Courtney dropped out of the `conflict industry’ in 1997 to co-found The Quivira Coalition. Today, his work with Quivira concentrates on building economic and ecological resilience on working landscapes, with a special emphasis on carbon ranching and the new agrarian movement. Courtney’s writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Farming, Acres Magazine, Rangelands, and the Natural Resources Journal. His essay “The Working Wilderness: a Call for a Land Health Movement” was published by Wendell Berry in 2005, in his collection of essays titled The Way of Ignorance. In 2008, Island Press published Courtney’s first book Revolution on the Range: the Rise of a New Ranch in the American West. In 2010, Courtney was awarded the Michael Currier Award for Environmental Service by the New Mexico Community Foundation.
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (his first name pronounced ‘Shoe-Tez-Caht’) is a 15-year-old indigenous environmental activist, hip-hop artist and public speaker from Boulder, Colorado. He has spoken at over 100 events around the world. He is also the youth director of Earth Guardians, an International youth based environmental non-profit organization that is committed to protecting the water, air, earth, and atmosphere. At the early age of six, Xiuhtezcatl began speaking to crowds at conferences and demonstrations from the Rio+20 United Nations Summit in Rio de Janeiro to the United Nations in New York. Locally he has worked on successful campaigns to get pesticides out of parks, regulate coal ash and help achieve bans and moratoria on fracking in Colorado cities. He has traveled across the nation and to many parts of the world educating his generation about the state of the planet they are inheriting and inspiring them into action to protect their future. His work has been featured on PBS, Showtime, National Geographic, Rolling Stones, Upworthy and HBO. In 2013, Xiuhtezcatl received the 2013 United States Community Service Award from President Obama, and was the youngest of 24 national change-makers chosen to serve on the President’s youth council. He is the 2015 recipient of the Peace First Prize and the Nickelodeon Halo Award. Bill Mckibben of 350.org calls Xiuhtezcatl “an impressive spokesman for a viewpoint the world needs to hear.”
