Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Protests in Washington emphasize relationship of the evils of warming and war

No War, No Warming Campaign Stages Civil Disobediance on Capitol Hill. By Michael E. Ruane, The Washington Post, October 23, 2007. "Trish Comstock, 77, and Jane Califf, 67, sat side by side on the sidewalk outside the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill yesterday, their hands cuffed behind them with plastic wrist ties. They were among 59 people arrested by Capitol police yesterday during antiwar and global warming protests that temporarily blocked the entrances to the office building and disrupted morning traffic for about an hour on Independence Avenue just south of the Capitol. But they stood out among the 200 or so mostly youthful demonstrators who swirled in and around the office building on foot or on bicycles, some locking arms in the middle of Independence to impede traffic. Both women said they hail from Bloomfield, N.J. Comstock said she was a retired college writing teacher and Califf, a retired education professor. 'I have a granddaughter,' Comstock said as she sat waiting to be taken to a police van. 'And I don't want her coming into a world like this. It's just very painful for me.' Califf said: 'I'm very frightened about the climate crises that we're facing. I think we have to get away from fossil fuels and gas and oil and to clean energy... I stopped teaching because what's the point of having perfect lesson plans... and you have no world to teach in.' Yesterday's protest was the latest of four rallies in the District since Friday aimed at an array of issues that included government immigration policy, international economic policy, the war in Iraq and climate change. They coincided with meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund... Comstock, Califf and about 20 others blocked an entrance to the building at First and C streets SE. Police warned them via a bullhorn to move and then began handcuffing those who didn't. 'No war! No warming!' yelled Joshua Trost, 33, of Wauconda, Ill., as he was handcuffed and brought from the entrance by police." For information about the No War, No Warming actions of October 21-23 go to www.NoWarNoWarming.org. Editor's Note: Jane Califf is currently arranging for donations raised at her retirement reception, on October 29th, to go to the Climate Crisis Coalition. Her husband, Ted Glick, a cofounder of CCC who has been fasting since September 4 to call attention to the climate crisis and the urgent need for legislative action on Capitol Hill, was also arrested on Monday. Their son Daniel Califf-Glick works on the CCC website. CCC is most grateful to the Califf-Glick family for all that they are doing! Donations to CCC can be made here.

Robert McAfee
Climate Change Messenger
2610 W Hackett Rd, Hackett, AR 72937
[479]638-0035 [479]462-8834
Answering the Call -- theclimateproject.org
Program based on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Al Gore

. . . unless we advance beyond thinking only in terms of conservation and alternate sources and begin to think in terms of a carbon pie, we will have no chance to stop the rise in atmospheric CO2. Wallace S. Broecker


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Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)