While 20% of the Amazon rainforest is burning, and the earth is losing acreage at a football field and a half a day, and if we lose another 5% of the forest, it won’t recover, our very model of a modern stable genius, has decided to exempt Alaska’s Tongass National Forest from 20 year-old logging restrictions!

Tongass National Forest is a temperate rainforest. At 16.7 million acres, it is the worlds largest remaining temperate rainforest. Like all rainforests, it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and returns oxygen. Because of their size these two rainforests are important for staving off climate change that is causing global average temperatures to rise, extreme weather events, and rising ocean levels.

Logging means road building to get equipment and people into the forest and timber out. The Clinton administration imposed a “roadless” rule on national lands that allowed logging, energy, and mining along existing roads but would not allow new roads to be built for the purpose exploiting the lands. You know, logging, mining, and drilling for oil and natural gas. By allowing logging, he’ll allow roads to built which will allow other industries access to the lands to exploit them. By exploit, of course, I mean destroy them and further allow climate change.

It defies all reason, logic, and sense to fight against preventing climate change. First, the science is perfectly clear. Don’t let the Repubes gaslight you on this issue. The science is settled. As Bill Nye said, any attempt at both sideism should mean that a graphic representation of a hundred scientists should be compared to the one on the other side. And second, what if the anti-climate change forces are wrong. What if people are causing the climate to change in drastic ways AND it is preventable. The consequences of not acting like it is true are catastrophic to human beings and much of the life on the planet. So, why fight it this hard?

Isn’t it strange that two authoritarian leaders get elected and set about destroying the two most significant rainforests left in the world? It is enough to make you believe in conspiracy, but why conspire to destroy the world? Why conspire to cause the deaths of billions?

Tell Your MoC

Call your MoC — that is both your representative and senators — and tell them to stop this madness. There is no legislation pending before either House of Congress on this issue that I know of. That means, someone has to write the legislation and push it through the chamber. Tell your MoC to be the legislator who writes the bill! To be a fucking hero.

While you’ve got them on the phone you could add the following:

1. Tell your senators to support HR 9, The Climate Action Now Act. It requires the US to remain part of the Paris Climate Accord. We haven’t actually withdrawn. The Ol’ Pussy Grabber has said that we will withdraw, but we can’t legally withdraw before 2020. The Five Calls write up on the legislation complete with script.
2. Tell your MoC to support the Green New Deal Resolution. Don’t be gaslight on this one, either! The Resolution simply urges the US to shift its power grid to 100% renewable energy by 2030. It has other targets for reducing carbon emissions, too, and it makes the point that green energy is a money maker creating millions of new jobs, NOT the economy killer that the regressive right makes it out to be. Here’s the Five Calls discussion including script.
3. If your senators sit on an EPA-related committee, tell them to accept the help of the former EPA chiefs. Way back in April 2019, seven former heads of the EPA — you can bet that Scott Pruitt wasn’t counted among that number — sent a letter to every Congress person who sat on a committee related to the EPA offering their help in oversight of the agency. So far, only House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has taken them up on it. Here’s the Five Calls explanation of the issue.

Tips for Calling

When you call your representative’s office, please remember the following:

• Ask for the aide working on climate-related issues.
• Be polite! No matter whose office you’re calling. No matter what their positions are. No matter how inflamed you are about impeachment — and you should be very passionate — be polite.
• Remember that the people you are talking to are people! So, be nice.
• Call during business hours of the area code their office is in. Typically, that is 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
• Have a script or notes to follow so you don’t forget anything.
• Maybe call with friends. You know like a party.

Contacting Your MoC

Find out how to contact your MoC using these links!

• Common Cause will give you the names, party affiliation, direct phone number, website link, and social media platforms of all of your federal, state, and local elected officials.
• Call My Congress: Uses your zip code to locate your Congressional Representative and your Senators. And, it returns phone numbers, tweeter handle, party affiliation, voting record, and link to C-Span appearances!
• 5 Calls: I am sad to report that Call Your Rep is no longer supported, but you can sign-up for 5 Calls which is a service that will help you contact your Congressional representatives and keep you abreast of on going issues that are important to you! Now, that is a good deal.
• The Capital Hill Switch Board: (202) 224-3121.
• MassacreMitch and #MoscowMitch: (202) 224-2541. Call him throughout the recess!
• Nancy Pelosi: Her DC office, (202) 225-4965; her California office, (415) 556-4862 — both should only be called during business hours local time.

Join Indivisible

Follow the link to Indivisible to find a group near you, their campaigns, events in your neighborhood, and download their handy-dandy booklet!

We the People March

On Saturday 21 September, there will be a massive We the People March in Washington, D.C. to support our democracy in the face of growing authoritarianism and outright fascism of both the Ol’ Pussy Grabber, #MoscowMitch, and the GOP.

There are other marches organized around the country, too. Either find one near you, or organize it yourself!