Eighteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg called COP26 a “failure” when she addressed the Fridays for Future rally in Glasgow, which drew around 25,000 demonstrators. Her address comes after Thunberg dismissed climate leaders a month prior to the UN climate summit for political inaction. “The COP has turned into a PR event where leaders are giving beautiful speeches and announcing fancy commitments and targets, while behind the curtains the governments of the Global North countries are still refusing to take any drastic climate action,” said Thunberg on Friday. “This is not a conference. This is now a Global North greenwash festival.”
TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, as we bring you Climate Countdown. I’m Amy Goodman. Yes, we are covering the Glasgow summit from the United States, from Glasgow itself and from places around the world for those who couldn’t make it to Glasgow.
We turn now to 18-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. She spoke on Friday at the rally in Glasgow organized by Fridays for Future, an international movement of students which grew out of her climate strike outside the Swedish parliament that began in 2018.
GRETA THUNBERG: It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place. And more and more people are starting to realize this. Many are starting to ask themselves, “What will it take for the people in power to wake up?”
But let’s be clear: They are already awake. They know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to maintain business as usual. The leaders are not doing nothing; they are actively creating loopholes and shaping frameworks to benefit themselves and to continue profiting from this destructive system. This is an active choice by the leaders to continue to let the exploitation of people and nature and the destruction of present and future living conditions to take place.
The COP has turned into a PR event where leaders are giving beautiful speeches and announcing fancy commitments and targets, while behind the curtains the governments of the Global North countries are still refusing to take any drastic climate action. It seems like their main goal is to continue to fight for the status quo.
And COP26 has been named the most exclusionary COP ever. This is not a conference. This is now a Global North greenwash festival, a two-week-long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah. The most affected people in the most affected areas still remain unheard, and the voices of future generations are drowning in their greenwash and empty words and promises. But the facts do not lie, and we know that our emperors are naked.
To stay below the targets set in the Paris Agreement, and thereby minimizing the risks of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, we need immediate, drastic, annual emission cuts unlike anything the world has ever seen. And as we don’t have the technological solutions that alone will do anything even close to that, that means we will have to fundamentally change our society. And this is the uncomfortable result of our leaders’ repeated failure to address this crisis.
At the current emissions rates, our remaining CO2 budgets to give us the best chances of staying below 1.5 degrees Celsius will be gone within the end of this decade. And the climate and ecological crisis, of course, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is directly tied to other crises and injustices that date back to colonialism and beyond, crises based on the idea that some people are worth more than others, and therefore had the right to steal others — to exploit others and to steal their land and resources. And it is very naive of us to think that we could solve this crisis without addressing the root cause of it.
But this is not going to be spoken about inside the COP. It’s just too uncomfortable. It’s much easier for them to simply ignore the historical debt that the countries of the Global North have towards the most affected people and areas. And the question we must now ask ourselves is: What is it that we are fighting for? Are we fighting to save ourselves and the living planet, or are we fighting to maintain business as usual?
AMY GOODMAN: That is Greta Thunberg speaking at a Fridays for Future rally in Glasgow, where the U.N. climate summit is taking place.
1 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_4841.jpgThe seven Pilot Station hunters wait for a charter plane at the Bering Air terminal in Nome, Alaska on Nov. 6, 2021. The group removed their masks for the photo. [Left to right] Andrew Makaily III, Neil Makaily, Robert Myers, Andrew Makaily IV, Ronnie Paul, Rex Nick, Dimitri NickAnna Rose MacArthur
2 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_4836.jpgThe hunters pulled their two boats onto the shore at the fish camp where they stayed for seven nights.Courtesy of Rex Nick
3 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1903.jpgThe hunters hauled firewood and a generator from a near by fish camp.Courtesy of Rex Nick
4 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1873.jpgThe seven hunters stayed at a fish camp about 20 miles east of Emmonak for seven nights after the Yukon River unexpectedly froze.Courtesy of Rex Nick
5 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1892.jpgOn day three at the camp, Oct. 31, Alaska State Troopers flew over, and dropped food, supplies, medication, and Halloween candy for the hunters.On day three at the camp, Oct. 31, the troopers flew over, and dropped food, supplies, medication, and Halloween candy for the hunters.
6 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1889.jpgOn day three at the camp, Oct. 31, Alaska State Troopers flew over, and dropped food, supplies, medication, and Halloween candy for the hunters.Courtesy Rex Nick
7 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1895.jpgThe hunters set a net near the camp but did not catch any fish.Courtesy Rex Nick
8 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1967.jpgThe U.S. Coast Guard rescued the seven hunters from the fish camp located about 20 miles east of Emmonak on Nov. 4, 2021.Courtesy Rex Nick
9 of 9 — untitled folder 2/IMG_1968.jpgThe U.S. Coast Guard landed in Nome, Alaska with the seven hunters on Nov. 4, 2021.Courtesy Rex Nick
Seven subsistence hunters from Pilot Station spent seven nights stranded at a fish camp on the lower Yukon River after the river unexpectedly froze, blocking their way home. On the eighth night, the U.S. Coast Guard airlifted them out and flew them north to Nome.
The next morning, at the hotel where the group had stayed the night, two of the hunters walked to the lobby. Signs said masks were required, and a hotel worker asked them to put theirs on. The men respond that they’d been stranded on the Yukon for a week and didn’t have any. They’d left the fish camp with the clothes on their backs and what they could fit in their pockets, which meant their phones and GPS. They were wearing the same clothes they’d worn for a week and a half.
“Same socks, same shorts,” Rex Nick, one of the hunters said, laughing and stretching out his legs, covered in torn, black Carhartt bibs.
“It was really good to take a shower,” Robert Myers, another hunter said. “I feel clean, but my clothes are dirty.”
The men had left Pilot Station 12 days ago to boat down to the coast to hunt seal and beluga whale. Nick originally wanted the hunting trip to be over a weekend for students in the village.
“Some of the kids don’t get a chance to go out hunting, or some of their parents might not have a boat or a father figure type,” Nick said.
The group delayed the trip for weeks waiting for a break in the weather. Finally, it cleared. That was Oct. 25. Because it was a Monday they didn’t take students out of school, but one hunter brought his 14-year-old son. There were two brothers and two father-son pairs in the group. The rest are friends.
“Nobody is starving,” Nick said. “But it’s good to have that extra food for the winter ahead.”
Nick is 43 years old. Myers is 38. They’ve made this trip many times in their lives, often multiple times a year. The seven hunters loaded into two boats and made the three-hour trip to the coast. The plan was to go down Monday, hunt Tuesday, and return Wednesday. They went down and took three seal and two beluga. Then on Wednesday, Oct. 27, when they were set to return home, they awoke to a frozen river.
“The ice was so thick flowing down the river. It was forming so fast. It was freezing so fast. Just amazing. I’d never seen anything like that,” Nick said.
From all their years on the river, they never expected it to freeze so early or quickly. There had been no ice when they left home. Using an ax, oars, and their body weight, they hacked the boats free and used the weight of the skiffs to push open a path upriver to Alakanuk. A trip that would’ve taken an hour and a half in open water took five hours. In Alakanuk, they stayed the night.
The next morning, Oct. 28, ice was flowing downriver, but other boats were moving between the sheets. The hunters decided to head home. Everything was fine, until they reached a narrow part of the river near Emmonak. The ice jammed, turned jagged, and began crashing into the boats.
“That’s the first time I really got scared,” Nick said, “when I thought the ice was going to either damage my boat and sink my boat, or flip my boat over. I’ve never been scared like that by ice before.”
Nick is second in-command of Pilot Station Search and Rescue. He knew that it was too dangerous to keep going. The group decided to stop and found a friend’s nearby fish camp. Troopers located it about 20 miles east of Emmonak. They would remain there for the next seven nights.
“God bless the family that had that fish camp,” Nick said. The camp had containers of frozen rain water, a wood stove, firewood, and food. “Oatmeal, coffee, some noodles, dry eggs, things like that,” Nick said.
The group also had their seal and beluga meat and food from their camping trip. Another friend had a fish camp just a five-minute walk away. It had a cell phone booster and a generator. They used it to contact their families.
The group also had a VHF radio and a Garmin inReach satellite device. The first day at the camp, they texted nearby friends about their situation, but no one could come overland or by river to help. The trails were not yet fully frozen. Their friends contacted Alaska State Troopers.
On day three at the camp, Oct. 31, the troopers flew over, and dropped food, supplies, and medication needed by one of the hunters. And to Nick’s relief, original fine-cut Copenhagen snuff. With tobacco, he said, he eats less. There was another treat.
“We got some Halloween candy. They left a note on there [saying], ‘Happy Halloween,’” Nick said.
The group stayed together in one of the fish camps in a single room about 12 by 20 feet, sleeping in sleeping bags from their camping trip. Staying together conserved firewood and concentrated heat. Also, Nick said, “There’s safety in numbers.”
Each day they rationed their food, water, and firewood, only burning wood before going to sleep and a bit when waking up. During the day, they created their own entertainment.
“We took out our 22s and started killing mice. We probably killed about 50 mice,” Nick said.
One day a hunter killed a beaver, which they boiled into soup. Another day they found a fox in a snare that had been set by the owner of the fish camp and killed it. Once, they set a net in the river but didn’t catch anything. Time moved slowly.
On the fifth day at the camp, Nov. 2, a pilot attempted to land twice. In a video Nick took on his phone, the small red and white plane swoops close to the beach. Nick urges it on, “Come on. You can do it. Land. Come on,” he says in the recording.
When the wheels look a few feet above the snowy riverbank, it veers back up and flies away. A trooper spokesperson said that 20 knot crosswinds prevented a landing.
Emmonak Search and Rescue coordinated another food drop for that day. This one contained ground beef and other welcomed, hearty food.
By now, the hunters had become frustrated with the rescue response. State troopers were coordinating the effort, but Nick said that they would not hear from them for whole days at a time.
Trooper spokesperson Austin McDaniel said that, “The Alaska State Troopers maintained consistent and frequent contact with the group directly via a satellite communications device and through their communication with third parties that the group was communicating directly with.”
McDaniel also said, “We had our search and rescue coordinator, who was a lieutenant here in Anchorage, working on this day in and day out. We had a trooper out in Emmonak working on trying to find solutions to get these folks out of there every single day.”
The hunters said that they had heard planes flying every day they were at the camp. Flight logs show planes landing each day in nearby Emmonak except for one day that the hunters were stranded.
Nick had expected a quicker rescue. He said that the longer someone is stranded, the more likely that person will be in danger. He’s helped look for many people with his village’s search and rescue group.
“The very first day we find out somebody is missing, we’re working on trying to get him home. We’re out there looking day or night, storm or clear skies,” he said.
He questioned if because the group had supplies to survive the elements if that slowed the response. Trooper spokesperson McDaniel said no. “The amount or quantity of supplies played no role in the efforts made by troopers to respond to extract the group,” McDaniel said.
Nick also questioned if because the group was all Alaska Native that slowed the response.
“Well, that’s absolutely not the case,” trooper spokesperson McDaniel said. “We perform search and rescue missions across the state, and there’s never any consideration given to the race, gender, any of those. None of those questions ever come up when we’re planning a response to a search and rescue operation.”
Regardless, Nick said that being stranded for a week took a toll. On the group and on their wives, children, friends, and community, who were all worried.
“All these years you help people so much, and when it comes down to needing help, it’s like it’s not there. Just beat you up inside. It just hurts,” Nick said, his voice cracking.
One of the hunters missed his cousin’s funeral. Nick missed his daughter’s 12th birthday. He said that the worst part of the ordeal was the worry it placed on his wife.
On the eighth day at the camp, Nov. 4, the hunters were about to burn the last of the firewood when they saw a U.S. Coast Guard plane overhead. It dropped food, and a handwritten note that said to bring the radio with them when the H60 picked them up and to enjoy the pizza. The bag contained seven slices. The note ended with a big smiley face.
They turned on the VFW. The pilot told them to stay on channel 16. A helicopter was coming. Hours later, past 8 p.m. on the eighth night at the camp, they heard the chopper.
“It was getting louder and louder, and we’re like, ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ Then all of a sudden, we see lights,” Myers said.
The helicopter circled and landed. The hunters climbed aboard. They left behind their boats, supplies, and seal and beluga meat. They said that everything is well stored, and they’ll return in spring to gather their belongings. The Coast Guard flew them north to Nome.
The hunters said that everyone in the group was healthy, but that the Coast Guard told them they’d be taken to the hospital to be checked out. A Coast Guard spokesperson said that it’s not required for paramedics to accompany rescue missions.
When they landed in Nome, Nick said that a trooper picked them up and then asked them where they wanted to go. They never went to the hospital.
“We were freaked out when they asked us where we wanted to go. We thought they had a place for us. We didn’t know what to say. They asked if we had family or friends. We don’t know nobody here,” Nick said.
A trooper spokesperson didn’t respond to a question by publication asking why the officer didn’t have a plan to house the men.
The trooper took them to a hotel, where the hunters paid $450 plus tax for two rooms for the night. The next day, a trooper spokesperson told KYUK that the troopers would cover the hunters’ lodging and airfare home.
Troopers and the Coast Guard said that they rescued the hunters as soon as their resources and the weather allowed. The helicopter had to fly from the Coast Guard base in Kodiak.
On Nov. 6, after spending two nights in Nome, a plane flew the group to Pilot Station. They landed around 1:15 p.m. It had been 13 days since they left home.
The hunters thank everyone who helped them, especially the owners of the fish camps where they stayed.
KYUK reporter Olivia Ebertz contributed reporting to this story.
The 23-year-old male was transported to Sanford Worthington Medical Center.Written By:Julie Buntjer|11:14 am, Oct. 21, 2021
Photo illustration, Metro Creative Graphics, Inc.
WORTHINGTON — A 23-year-old Worthington man suffered non-life threatening injuries after he accidentally shot himself on Tuesday.
According to Nobles County Sheriff Ryan Kruger, the sheriff’s office was dispatched to the 30000 block of 310th Street south of Worthington at 6:23 p.m. Tuesday to a report of a hunting accident.
The hunter suffered a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
Deputies rendered first aid and the man was transported to the Sanford Worthington Medical Center by ambulance.
The incidents come within days of a driver being fatally hit by a ricocheting bullet as he drove on a dual carriageway, relaunching calls for changes to hunting laws
Two more hunting accidents have been reported in France this week, days after the death of a driver by a ricocheting bullet prompted a debate over hunting rulesPic:franz12 / ShutterstockByHannah Thompson
Two more hunting accidents have been reported in France with a hunter seriously injured after being shot in the chest and a retired couple’s car being hit by a stray bullet as they drove near a hunt site.
The incidents were reported days after a 67-year-old man died after being hit by a ricocheting bullet from a hunter as he drove on a dual carriageway.
A 29-year-old hunter is in a critical condition in hospital after being accidentally shot…
A kayaker paddles down an interstate in Pennsylvania after flooding from Hurricane Ida earlier this year. Several dozen people died, some in cars and basement apartments, during extreme flash flooding.Branden Eastwood/AFP via Getty Images
There’s one number heard more than any other from the podiums at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland: 1.5 degrees Celsius.
That’s the global climate change goal world leaders agreed to strive for. By limiting the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2100, the hope is to stave off severe climate disruptions that could exacerbate hunger, conflict and drought worldwide.
The 1.5 degree target has long been championed by developing nations, where millions of people are among the most vulnerable to climate change. At the 2015 Paris climate negotiations, they pushed industrialized countries to improve on the 2 degree…
A herd of white tail deer graze on a knoll near the New York State Thruway February 9 near Buffalo, New York. The brave deer are foraging for food in broad daylight as they scrape through the ice and snow, under power lines leading from hydro plants in Niagara Falls.(photo credit: JT/MMR/VIA REUTERS)Advertisementhttps://trinitymedia.ai/player/trinity-player.php?pageURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2Fhealth-and-wellness%2Fcoronavirus%2Fwhite-tailed-deer-found-to-be-huge-reservoir-of-coronavirus-infection-684365&unitId=2900003088&userId=43dabe08-2b1a-4c7c-bafe-85ac9a956566&isLegacyBrowser=false&version=20211108_b787ba076cec471db66da4f407fd2c61ec857015&useCFCDN=0&themeId=58&themeData=eyJjb2xvck1haW4iOiIjMzMzIiwibGF5b3V0IjoiY2xvc2VkLW1vZGUifQ%3D%3DNew research from the US has shown that white-tailed deer are being infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causesCOVID-19in humans. Antibodies were found in 40% of deer that were tested from January to March 2021 across Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York state. A second unpublished study has detected the virus in 80% of deer sampled in Iowa between November 2020 and January 2021.Such high levels of infection led the researchers to…
Canadian mink breeders are not ruling out legal action as they slam the B.C. government’s decision to shutter the mink fur farming sector.
On Friday, provincial Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham unveiled a process to permanently phase out the farming of mink, due to concerns over COVID-19. The process is expected to be completed by April 2025.
There are nine mink farms in B.C. with a total of 318,000 mink. Animals on three of those farms have been infected with COVID-19.
Yan “Bo” Fong of Pocatello was charged late last year with three felony counts of unlawful sale of a game animal and three felony counts of unlawful possession, shipping or transportation of a game animal or fur bearing animal. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges on Nov. 24 and was released on $15,000 bond.
Yan “Bo” Fong will plead guilty to one felony count of unlawful sale of a game animal and one felony count of unlawful possession, shipping or transportation of a game animal or fur bearing animal under a plea agreement with Montana Department of Justice prosecutors.Photo Courtesy of…
The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) on Friday said one of its members was violently attacked the previous night by bird trappers in Avgorou and left needing urgent medical assistance.
A press release said the Italian volunteer discovered three set trapping nets with a loud decoy caller used to attract migratory birds, equipment used for illegal bird trapping, and immediately reported it to the Game and Fauna Service.
While waiting on site for the agents to arrive, “he was chased and cornered by an unmarked car and subsequently attacked by three balaclava clad trappers,” it continued.
“After repeated blows to the head and body, the volunteer fell to the ground and was kicked until he remained motionless”.
The man was immediately rushed to hospital where he received treatment for concussion as well as stitches on his forehead. He is now in a stable condition.
This is not the first time CABS activists have faced threats or violence; in late September, volunteers were attacked by a group of trappers and threatened with a shotgun.
“In repeated correspondence to the relevant ministries, we have already warned on several occasions that not only is illegal bird trapping increasing, but that tackling it as a civilian Non Governmental Organisation is becoming an increasingly dangerous task,” Alex Heyd, CABS General Director said. “It is also patently clear that the Game and Fauna Service does not have sufficient resources to tackle the situation effectively”.
“Still, we have received no reply. Since the dismantling of the police’ Anti-Poaching Unit, trapping is on the rise and so is the violence connected to it. Does it require someone to be killed in the name of trying to uphold the law before the message gets through to the government in Nicosia?”
CABS are offering a reward of 5,000 Euros for information leading to the identification of the assailants. Contact CABS Investigations Officer Andrea Rutigliano at +39 346 9484460 or Email CABS@komitee.de
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File photo: birds trapped in a mist net
