Patrick Walker (US writer) on the US Poor People’s Campaign (PPC), climate emergency and Trump impeachment over climate genocide (2018): “For U.S. climate justice activists like me, the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) is really the only game in town. That is to say, it’s the only U.S. political movement that, by effective coalition building and massive direct action, has the remotest hope of radically overhauling our obscenely corrupt U.S. political system—the one now obstructing virtually all effective climate action. And, by adding “ecological devastation” to Martin Luther King’s original triple evils of poverty, racism, and militarism, the PPC has—though not yet explicitly enough—made itself a de facto climate justice movement… Beyond the urgency of “saving human civilization itself” illustrated in the link above, volumes of evidence can now be mustered that humanity faces a climate emergency—one guaranteed, like most lesser human catastrophes, to take its first and worst toll on the dark-skinned and poor. Obviously, the longer effective climate action is delayed, the more devastating the death and suffering toll on the dark-skinned poor will be—well beyond the minimal level to justify the term planned genocide. In adding “ecological degradation” to the original PPC’s “triple evils,” I’m sure the new PPC’s leaders realized the urgency of humanity’s climate emergency. Especially as people committed to abolishing racism and poverty. So I think it’s safe, without further stressing climate action’s “fierce urgency of now,” to pass on to the strategic merits of impeaching Trump for planned climate genocide—above all, of the dark-skinned poor… But as a movement of moral witness, the PPC shouldn’t be concerned with legal niceties, but only with the best moral ground for impeaching Trump: his commitment to climate genocide. If there isn’t yet a law against that, there damn well ought to be” (Patrick Walker, “Climate Genocide: why the Poor People’s Campaign should demand Trump’s impeachment”, Counterpunch, 2 August 2018: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/02/climate-genocide-why-the-poor-peoples-campaign-should-demand-trumps-impeachment/ ).
Patrick Walker (progressive US writer) on “Republicans’ racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide” (2019): “The Sunrise Movement and their avid congressional supporter, surprisingly genuine maverick freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have expressed ardent advocacy for a Green New Deal. I haven’t heard anything from the Poor People’s Campaign specifically about a Green New Deal, but it seems a natural for them–as is a compelling interest in warding off racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. So, as potent newsmaking forces with aligned interests, all three need to heroically play the role of Captain Obvious and repeatedly denounce Republicans’ racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide for what it obviously is. Doing so will make the 2020 election a referendum between the party of the Green New Deal and the party of racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. And warn Democrats not supportive of the Green New Deal that the label of “genocide Democrats” may soon await them” (Patrick Walker, “Referendum 2020: a Green New Deal vs. racist, classist, climate genocide”, Counterpunch, 17 January 2017: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/17/referendum-2020-a-green-new-deal-vs-racist-classist-climate-genocide/ ) .
Patrick Walker (2019): “Russiagate versus Climate Genocide: how Democrats cover up Trump’s worst crime… Russiagate’s Beauty for Dems: Dissing Trump without Discussing Issues. The more important an issue is to humanity, the likelier it is Democrats don’t want to discuss it. Thus, it’s hardly surprising that Noam Chomsky felt obliged to point out the “moral depravity”of both major parties for discussing neither climate change nor the increasing risk of nuclear war during the recent midterm election campaigns. It’s likewise hardly surprising that the Republican Party, which Chomsky rightly terms “the most dangerous organization in human history,” likes to stay mum on the real nature of its wantonly destructive policies. But what’s truly amazing—until one habituates to the mammoth corruption of current U.S. politics—is how utterly unwilling today’s Democratic Party is to discuss issues that would paint Republicans in not merely in an unflattering, but in a criminally insane light” (Patrick Walker (2019): “Russiagate versus Climate Genocide: how Democrats cover up Trump’s worst crime”, Counterpunch, 3 January 2019: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/03/russiagate-vs-climate-genocide-how-democrats-cover-up-trumps-worst-crime/ ).
[Editor: Famed theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking of the 118-Nobel-Laureate University of Cambridge, and a member of board of sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2007): “We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” ( Will Dunham, “Nuclear, climate perils push Doomsday Clock ahead”, Reuters, 22 January 2007: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN17314370 ) ].