Performance artist Peterson Toscano on LGBTQ and climate justice intersectionality October 29th

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While at the People’s Climate March in New York City on September 21st I had the pleasure of personally meeting performance artist Peterson Toscano, and hearing about his “The Queer Response to Climate Change” creation. He will be using storytelling, humor and skilled facilitation to perform “Climate Change: What’s faith got to do with it?” October 29th at 7 PM at All God’s Children MC Church 3100 Park Ave S as well as “Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender in the Bible” 30 October 2014 7:00 pm at Richfield United Methodist Church This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.As someone who has done spoken word comedy performances about global warming myself, I can attest that it is exciting and uplifting to bring together the diverse interests of faith community building, LGBTQ liberation and climate justice. Peterson recently wrote that he addressed these three important issues “always with the goal to hold out hope and to encourage us to dream and scheme about how we can envision and achieve a future world that is more just, clean, and stable for all.“ Peterson’s optimistic vision can only be held up by taking robust, coordinated action to address the climate crisis which I “voted” for by putting my body in the street for the People’s Climate March. While each climate march up to this point has been sponsored by a much small handful of organizations, this climate march was unprecedented as a diversity of over a hundred groups and organizations took part. A whole new meaning opened up for me when I saw a website about one of the groups in the march called “Queers for the Climate”. Continue Reading

Minneapolis and utilities establish unique “Clean Energy Partnership”

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On Oct. 6 a public hearing took place at City Hall to review tentative utility franchise agreements reached between the City of Minneapolis and utility companies Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy. The agreements, if approved by the Minneapolis City Council on Oct. 17, would set in motion a first-in-the-nation, public-private “Clean Energy Partnership.” Proponents said the partnership between the city and utility companies would aim to meet the city’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and make energy more affordable, reliable, efficient and renewable, as laid out in the city’s 2013 Clean Action Plan.Franchise agreements are negotiations to determine conditions in which private utility companies can use public property to provide services in the community. Fees are negotiated and paid by utility companies to the city, in exchange for the use of public right of way, such as streets and alleys.The previous franchise agreements between the City of Minneapolis and utilities were made 20 years ago, and are set to expire at the end of 2014; the agreements mostly covered public right of way issues. Continue Reading

Rep. Rick Nolan uses “turds” to describe past Minnesota water quality

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Yesterday’s 8th Congressional District candidates debate in Duluth between Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL) and challengers Stewart Mills (GOP) and Ray Skip Sandman (Green) touched on several topics, including social security reformation, gun regulation and oil pipeline expansion. But the highlight of the debate was easily when Rep. Nolan used the word “turds” to help prove a point as he described just how bad Minnesota’s water quality used to be.Rick Nolan: “I grew up in a time when the lakes and rivers were so polluted that they were catching on fire. The Mississippi River where we lived, why, you’d go down there in the spring and there’d be toilet paper, condoms and turds hanging on every branch. And that was the good stuff, that wasn’t the toxic stuff. And you had to haul drinking water into Duluth. Continue Reading

Johnson to Red River Valley: Mark Dayton’s administration is “trying to kill the Sandpiper”

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The Star Tribune’s Ricardo Lopez reports in GOP’s Johnson accuses Dayton of slighting outstate Minnesota that the struggling Republican gubernatorial candidate J used the recent decision by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to ask Enbridge to consider alternative routes for the Sandpiper pipeline as an example of Dayton’s supposed nelgect of Greater Minnesota. Continue Reading

The not-so-common Loon: New study warns of decline

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By 2080, Minnesota may be without its state bird during the summer months.The National Audubon Society released a study this month examining the impact of climate change on future bird ranges across North America, including the common Loon — and the findings are bleak. The study asserts that over half of all bird species found in Minnesota are threatened by climate change, with some extinctions possible.“When you have a disruptive shift of 50 percent or more of a climate suitable range for a bird species in 35 years, that’s what’s got us concerned,” said Matt Anderson, Executive Director of Audubon Minnesota.According to a press release issued by Anderson’s office, of the 588 bird species examined in the seven-year study, 314 species are at risk of habitat range reduction as a result of climate change. Of those 314, 126 species are at risk of severe declines by 2050, and another 188 species face severe decline by 2080.The study was conducted by Audubon scientists in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, using 40 years of data from Christmas bird counts and breeding bird surveys. Scientists examined 17 bioclimatic variables such as precipitation and high/low temperatures and their effects on bird life, to determine where these bird species would be able to survive, if climate trends continue through the rest of the century.(An Audubon map shows the Loon’s habitat range in 2000 against the projected range in 2080)Specifically examining the common loon, Minnesota summers are predicted to be too warm for the bird’s survival. “Basically it is getting too hot such that the future climates spaces do not match the current climate temperatures,” said Audubon chief scientist Dr. Gary Langham.Cornell Lab of Ornithology director John Fitzpatrick, who was not involved in the Audubon study, advised that these assertions should be interpreted cautiously. Continue Reading

Don’t offer farmers and citizens to multinationals, stop TTIP and CETA

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From France, which gave us the Rights of Man, we hear the call for the Rights of Citizens from French farmers who yesterday staged a sit-in at Cargill’s headquarters in Paris protesting proposed new free trade agreements. The second largest farmers’ union in France, Confédération Paysanne, unfurled a banner that read, “Holland, Juncker, Obama: Don’t offer farmers and citizens to multinationals, Stop TTIP and CETA.” They occupied the Cargill trading floor all day, until they received an appointment with the Secretary of State for French Foreign Trade, Mr. Matthias Fekl. Continue Reading