The wall between the United States and Mexico has come to stand for desperation and suffering for many people. For most of us who live within 20 miles of this 452-mile wall, it’s also seen as a bizarre experiment: How much damage can ripple into the surrounding landscape from a wall that cuts a 60-foot swath through the natural world?
As climate change concerns grow, researchers are turning to small tree farmers for help. Actually, they have been helping for nearly a century, but their efforts have largely gone unrecognized.
Giant sequoias come as close to immortality as living organisms can. Many live over 1,000 years, an almost unimaginable span of survival in the face of all of nature’s challenges.
“The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie.”
The Biden administration has made some admirable moves and gestures toward addressing the immense challenges posed by climate-related migration. But it hasn’t adequately educated the American people about the issue, hamstringing its own efforts to advance an ambitious immigration agenda, including the creation of a path to citizenship for the 10.5 million residents who are undocumented.
“It’s like having gasoline out there,” said Brian Steinhardt, forest fire zone manager for Prescott and Coconino national forests in Arizona, in a recent Associated Press story about the increasingly fire-prone West.
American history is replete with warnings of impending disaster that went unheeded: Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and, more recently, the climate crisis, COVID-19 and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building.
In Myanmar in early March of this year, people began to attack and vandalize more than two dozen businesses. These rioters helped convince the military government of Myanmar to continue and to escalate the use of brutal crackdowns on all activists, up to and including the use of lethal force that left dozens dead over just one weekend in mid-March.
Currently, the United States spends at least three quarters of a trillion dollars each year on the Pentagon. The U.S. spends more on militarism than the next 10 countries combined; six of whom are allies. This amount excludes other military related spending like nuclear weapons (DOE), Homeland Security, and many other expenditures. Some say the total U.S. military spending is as high as $1.25 trillion/year.
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. To fully honor those resilient and brave Americans, it is our duty to learn more about our nation’s past and current relationship with them.
