YOU CAN'T TELL THE PLAYERS WITHOUT A SCORECARD

What Can We Do to Support Climate Recovery?
 
Learn Ways to Cope with Eco-Anxiety

Absorbing headlines about climate change makes us all nervous (OK, petrified). That fear is nature’s way of energizing us to flee or fight. Unless we manage to get a seat on one of the Mars mission rockets, flight isn’t a viable option. But there is plenty we can do to combat global warming — and its effect on our psyches.

Take action. Every time we perform an act of environmental responsibility, we’re not only doing good in the world, we’re giving our anxieties a productive outlet, easing our sense of pent-up distress. That’s why each week American Resistance Sevilla sends out this newsletter to identify actions we can take to help fix the mess we’re in.

Build your support network. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the years ahead, but facing it together will make it easier to figure out what’s going on and find strategies for coping, adapting, and keeping our mental equilibrium. ClimateRecovery.org was developed to enable us to reach out to those in the Seville community who don’t identify with the American struggle but want to help on a planetary level.

Skip the news occasionally. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, especially by all the doom-and-gloom stories. Staying informed is great; being a news junkie is bad for our nerves.

Get out in nature, spend time with those you love. Remind yourself why you care about saving the Earth and its inhabitants.

Get Rid of Your Eco-Anxiety, Natural Resources Defense Counsel

By Karen McCann
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We feel better when we take positive action, such as marching together on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2019. Photo by Karen McCann
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STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! by Kathy Sherretts

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard
As more and different Democratic contenders entered the primary field over the last months, I mostly stepped back and waited—not because I'm not interested, but because I truly think that any one of these candidates would be a competent, reasonable president. Every single one of them has more public service experience, basic integrity, and intelligence than our current president, and any of them would be a welcome choice. 
I just don’t want the winnowing process to squander money that the Democratic party will need later on to counter the Trump machine, and I don’t want these rival candidates to cut each other to pieces to the point that in a year the voters don’t trust any of them.
That said, this interactive from the New York Times presents 21 candidates’ compare-and-contrast responses to a set of 18 basic questions. It may not resolve any deep issues, but it's fun to play with.
Also, lest we be too focused on the 2020 elections, remember that the 2019 elections feature important questions in several states.This Ballotpedia page compiles information on congressional special elections, state ballot initiatives, governors’ races, and more. See what is coming up in your home state!
--Kathy Sherretts

Video:
PBS: All of the Mueller report’s major findings in less than 30 minutes (28 min)

Working Paper:
IMF: Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large: An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates by David Coady, Ian Parry, Nghia-Piotr Le, Baoping Shang 
The largest subsidizers in 2015 were China ($1.4 trillion), United States ($649 billion), Russia ($551 billion), European Union ($289 billion), and India ($209 billion). About three quarters of global subsidies are due to domestic factors—energy pricing reform thus remains largely in countries’ own national interest—while coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies. Efficient fossil fuel pricing in 2015 would have lowered global carbon emissions by 28 percent.

Article:
The New Yorker: Inside a Texas Building Where the Government Is Holding Immigrant Children by Isaac Chotiner
Q & A with some of the lawyers interviewing immigrant children held in Border Patrol detention facilities. The conditions they found were shocking: flu and lice outbreaks were going untreated, and children were filthy, sleeping on cold floors, and taking care of each other because of the lack of attention from guards. “We met almost no children who came across unaccompanied. The United States is taking children away from their family unit and reclassifying them as unaccompanied children. But they were not unaccompanied children.”

Just for fun:
EastWest Market: Avoid the Shame.
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The New York Times reached out the Democratic presidential candidates to ask them the same set of questions on video. Twenty-one accepted the invitation.

Ready to do more?

 
Learn about the Green New Deal. If you missed our roundtable discussion, you can read the presenters' notes here. 
Read the Indivisible Guide 2.0, a new strategy for a new congress. 
Check out the weekly action plan from Progressive Action, Global Exchange (PAGE) which mobilizes progressives living overseas. 
Sign up for the Americans of Conscience Checklist, a weekly action list that also provides encouragement and good news. 
Learn more about solutions and actions at ClimateRecovery.org, a new group organized by members of American Resistance Sevilla and other community activists. 
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