A couple days ago, Carol Van Strum sent along an article about New York Mayor Bloomberg’s decision not to evacuate the 12,000 prisoners of Riker’s Island; today is the sixth anniversary of another massive storm and a decision not to evacuate prisoners. The prisoners in city and parish jails of New Orleans were left to fend for themselves on Aug. 29, 2005. Democracy Now! spoke today with James Ridgeway, a reporter for Mother Jones magazine and founder and co-editor of Solitary Watch, a website that tracks solitary confinement and torture in American prisons.
Also at the Democracy Now! site is an interview with Vermont governor Peter Shumlin on the second bout of catastrophic flooding in that state this year — and how northern areas may see the devastating effects of climate change sooner rather than later.
Thanks, Michelle. Appreciate your first hand, real life account. Blessings.
Climate change, whatever the cause, whether by our hand or by cycle or both, is so obvious up here in the Arctic. With my 13 years of travelling the North, and also listening to Elders, I can without a doubt whatsoever that this has been going on for quite some time.
The sea ice is melting faster. Not to mention, melting where it should not. Salmon show up in the far north, deer show up. They should not. Inuit hunters/fishers cannot trust what they used to know about the ice action. Ie: They are falling through the ice. Arctic-shoreland communities are slowly melting into the ocean because the permafrost is not so perma anymore.
When I moved here rain would come in a flash for 20 minutes, maybe twice each summer. Now it rains all the time. (Well, it feels that way when it lasts for more than a day, repeatedly.) Snowfall has also been at an all time high. We’re supposed to be semi-arid. Yeah – not so much.