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Paris

Despite Bans Global Climate Marches To See Unprecedented Numbers

By Staff of Climate Action Network - 21 November, 2015 - Paris, France: On November 28 and 29, hundreds of thousands of people around the world will take to the streets in more than 2000 events in 150 countries to turn up the heat on leaders heading to the Paris Climate Summit. Frontline community representatives, unionists, faith leaders, and families will call on politicians to forge an ambitious new global climate agreement this December that speeds up the just transition from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy and protects vulnerable people from worsening climate impacts. The people’s call for leadership will be harder and harder to ignore.

At Paris Climate Conference Now Marches Are Banned

By Naomi Klein for The Guardian - Whose security gets protected by any means necessary? Whose security is casually sacrificed, despite the means to do so much better? Those are the questions at the heart of the climate crisis, and the answers are the reason climate summits so often end in acrimony and tears. The French government’s decision to ban protests, marches and other “outdoor activities” during the Paris climate summit is disturbing on many levels. The one that preoccupies me most has to do with the way it reflects the fundamental inequity of the climate crisis itself – and that core question of whose security is ultimately valued in our lopsided world.

‘An Act Of War’ And Other Unfortunate Phrases

By Richard Jackson of Terrorism Blog. Watching the terrible events unfolding during and after the Paris terrorist attacks, I have a helpless sense of deja vu. It reminds me of the movie, Groundhog Day, only much more deadly and depressing. It feels like we have been here so many times before: the same anguished images, the same suffering, the same questions and sense of disbelief. Most depressingly, listening to the rhetoric coming from Western leaders, I can’t see any way we can avoid experiencing the same day again – whether in a few months or years time. As I explained in my book Writing the War on Terrorism (2005, Manchester University Press) about the language of counterterrorism, when the 11 September 2001 attacks occurred, President Bush said that they were “an act of war”. This was a key rhetorical move and it led the US to launch the global war on terrorism which has caused so much suffering, violence and counter-violence.

Paris Attacks: It’s Time For A More Radical Reaction

By Claire Veale for ROAR Magazine - The deadly attacks in Paris on the night of Friday, November 13, were quickly met by a global rush of solidarity with France and the French people. From world leaders expressing their sympathies, to raising the French flag on buildings across the globe, and more visibly, on Facebook profiles, everyone stood unequivocally united with France. The sentiment of solidarity behind this mass concern is heart-warming, however it must come hand in hand with a demand for a serious debate on matters of terrorism, violence and war. Rage and sadness should not hinder our ability to think.

The Paris Attacks And The White Lives Matter Movement

By Ajamu Baraka for Black Agenda Report - I received a message from one of my friends in Lebanon who asked with feigned curiosity why the U.S. media only gave a passing reference to the bombing in Beirut before turning to non-stop coverage of the attacks in Paris. Of course, like many of us she already knew the answer – that in the consciousness of the White West there is a premium on the value of White life. Acknowledging this fact is neither new nor should it be particularly controversial. Its obviousness is apparent to anyone who is honest. We saw it in the response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks where the world (meaning the White West) engaged in a gratuitous expression of moral outrage against terrorism.

Climate Games Response To Paris Attacks

By Staff of Climate Games - We have been contacted by many asking how the attacks of Friday 13 November in Paris might affect the Climate Games and other forms of non violent civil disobedience in Paris. First of all, we want to clearly state our solidarity with all victims of all forms of terror. Machine guns and explosives hurt the same whether in Paris or Beirut, Ankara or Yola, Damascus or Kobane, Baghdad or elsewhere. The hurt feels the same whether it comes from the gun of a jihadist or a police officer, the missiles of a fighter plane or a drone.

France Cancels Major Climate March, Groups Say They Won’t Be Silenced

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - The Prefecture of Police of Paris has reportedly canceled a march planned for November 29 that organizers expected to draw at least 200,000 people, citing security concerns. Activists noted that other actions planned worldwide will still move forward. Nicolas Haeringer, French campaigner for climate advocacy group 350.org, said in response, "The government can prohibit these demonstrations, but our voices will not be silenced.

Air Force Whistleblowers: Mismanaged Drone Program Fuels Terrorism

By Ed Pilkington and Ewen MacAskill for The Guardian - The letter, addressed to Obama, defense secretary Ashton Carter and CIA chief John Brennan, links the signatories’ anxieties directly to last Friday’s terror attacks in Paris. They imply that the abuse of the drone program is causally connected to the outrages. “We cannot sit silently by and witness tragedies like the attacks in Paris, knowing the devastating effects the drone program has overseas and at home,” they wrote. The joint statement – from the group who have experience of operating drones over Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflict zones...

Climate Movement, Don’t Back Down At Paris #COP21

By Tim Dechristopher for Tim Dechristopher - This morning the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, suggested that demonstrations outside the COP 21 climate negotiations in Paris should be scaled back from marches of hundreds of thousands to a safe “kettled” rally of 5,000. The French Prime Minister has already announced that many of the “side events,” where the public gets to have a voice, are being cancelled. Many journalists are already being excluded from the negotiations out of capacity concerns. Obviously this repression of the public is coming in the wake of the Paris attacks that killed 129 people. But that is not the only dynamic at play.

The Climate Talks In Paris Will Fail: Why?

By Robert J. Burrowes for Counter Current News - As expectations build for a global consensus to emerge from the United Nations climate conference in Paris, starting on 30 November 2015, that could agree to taking action to limit any rise in global temperature to 2 degrees celsius, I would like to explain why these expectations are misplaced. And what we can do about it. The essence of the problem is that most people and organisations are asking elites to take action on their behalf rather than taking action themselves.

We Are All Everyone: Lessons Of The Paris Attacks

By Rich Rubenstein for Rich Rubenstein Blog - In the aftermath of the Islamic State’s cruel and vicious attacks in Paris, one is tempted to declare, “Nous sommes tous Paris” (“We are all Paris”). Before November 14, however, virtually no one in the West was heard to declare, “We are all Beirut” – or Baghdad, Ankara, or Moscow – notwithstanding that civilians living in all these places were killed en masse by IS militants. Nor have we ever identified ourselves in slogans or Facebook profiles with the innocent Shia, Yazidis, Assyrian Christians, and other non-Westerners executed as apostates by fighters of the Islamic State.

Newsletter: Youth Recognize Their Power & Build It

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Youth are rising up. They have been showing leadership on multiple fronts of struggle. They see a broken system dysfunctional government that is corrupted by money. It is unable to respond to the crisis of climate change; the reality of systemic racism; students graduating with massive debt in a poor job market and so many other issues. Politicians aren’t the only voices with power. We have power, too. And we have more power when we act together. Young people don’t live single-issue lives. We live at the intersection of the most pressing problems today. Our movements are connected and our purpose is huge. Martin Luther King described the civil rights movement as a time when the “people moved their leaders, not the leaders who moved the people.” If enough of us push together toward a new vision, the world will begin to move. That is a message we should all take to heart. We should continue to exercise our power, continue to fight injustices and as we do so, our power will grow.

Paris: Western Nations Bring This Onto Themselves

By Patrick L. Smith for Salon. What has just occurred in Paris is an affront to all of us. But to invoke universal values is to sustain the error of understanding, of recognition, of acknowledgement, that lies at the heart of all this incessant hatred, attack and counterattack. We—and hardly least the French and the Americans—have articulated such values well and often enough since the late 18th century. But there is little ground to claim that they have determined how we have acted in the Middle East and treated its people for roughly the same period of time. What has not followed is too familiar. No one, once again, asks the simple question, “Why?” This line of inquiry is so obvious, and so obviously of use in devising an effective response—know your enemy and his motivations, as any military strategist will tell you—that our avoidance of it amounts to a pathology at this point.

Out Of Cop21: Corporate Influence Is Undermining Climate Progress

By Staff for Tree Alerts - In a desperate bid to remain relevant in a world on the clean energy transition, the world’s largest polluters are peddling misleading fossil fuel demand scenarios, according to a new report from Carbon Tracker. Fossil companies have put on a dog and pony show recently about being part of the solution to climate change recently, but a report from InfluenceMap shows they have no real intention to walk the talk towards one. Polluting firms with fake non-solutions to the climate crisis are no doubt happy to have their brands associated with climate action through COP21 sponsorship, but there is a growing awareness that corporate influence is undermining climate policy progress, and Corporate Accountability International is calling for fossils to be kicked out of the UNFCCC negotiations.

#ClimateGames: We Are Nature Defending Itself

By Staff for Climate Games - The Climate Action Games are Where adventure meets-actual changes.Anyone can play this real-time, real-world game and turn Paris and the world into a giant, live action playing field for climate justice. We-have everything to play for - but time is running out. It's December 2015. You have a heart filled with courage and a mobile phone plan for creative mischief. Your team is ready to merge street and online disobedience. The COP21 UN climate summit is just opening in Paris. Manifestations of 'the Mesh' - dictating austerity-Politicians, fossil fuel corporations, industry lobbyists, peddlers of false solutions and greenwashers - are converging to solve the climate catastrophe. Or So They tell us. Your objective is to join the global movements swarming to shift the game contre profit and in favor of life.

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