⚡Dead end
Good morning! Hope you had a restful weekend.
If you missed our Friday community update, you can find it here.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Bloomberg has been flooding the internet with climate change ads. If you search “climate change” on Google you’ll probably see this:
He’s been a big spender since his late entry into the Presidential race. One of his biggest platform issues is Climate Change and he recently released a plan to cut emissions by 50% in 10 years. Sounds great, right? Some people are definitely excited about him as a candidate. Many of our friends have jumped ship and swam to his boat, but some aren’t particularly happy. Here’s an interesting take on Michael Bloomberg vs other climate activists:
A perspective. Michael Bloomberg wants to be the climate change candidate, but a new generation of climate activists have other ideas.
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Let’s get into it!
India’s Protests
This is a continuation on our coverage of India’s Muslim ban.
A quick summary. India passed a new citizenship law, Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), based on religion. The new legislation aims to fast-track citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians who arrived in India from Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Afghanistan before Dec 31. 2014. However, Muslims have been excluded from that list.
Mumbai, India December 16, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
Protests spread. Protests have spread to student campuses as critics claim the Hindu nationalist government is pushing an agenda that opposed the country’s founding ideals as a secular republic. On Dec 11, right before the bill was cleared, over 700 activists, academics, and filmmakers wrote a letter to the government expressing grave concerns:
“For the first time there is a statutory attempt to not just privilege peoples from some faiths but at the same time relegate another, Muslims, to second-rate status… The CAB is at odds with Constitutional secular principles and a violation of Articles 13, 14, 15, 16 and 21 which guarantee the right to equality, equality before the law and non discriminatory treatment by the Indian state.”
Police. At Jamia Millia Islamia university, officers entered the campus and fired tear gas to break up a protest. At least 100 people were wounded and it has sparked allegations of police brutality. The head of Jamia Millia demanded an investigation:
“It is not expected of the police to enter the university and beat up students.”
Najma Akhtar
Modi responds. The Prime Minister called for calm:
“Debate, discussion and dissent are essential parts of democracy but, never has damage to public property and disturbance of normal life been a part of our ethos.”
Peaceful is the way. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party, claimed that the Modi government was dividing Indian society through the new amended law, however asked for peaceful demonstrations:
“The best defense against these dirty weapons is peaceful, non-violent Satyagraha.”
Satyagraha is a policy of passive political resistance, especially that advocated by Mahatma Gandhi against British rule in India.
It seems there’s more and more protests occurring around the world. What does this mean and are there any commonalities? We hope to explore those questions more in the upcoming weeks, but a brief scan of what’s been happening and why it’s occurring, shows that there’s a large focus on corruption and inequality.
Climate Summit reaches dead end
This is a continuation of our coverage on COP25
Disappointed. Two things were impressive about the UN’s conference in Madrid:
They went into over-time and extended the conversations for two more days.
Very little was accomplished.
The disagreement. Though the conference declared a strong slogan “Time for Action,” nothing really was finalized, which means countries won’t implement changes until the next talks in 2020. Everyone seemed to agree that more needed to be done to cut emissions, but they couldn’t agree on who needed to be doing it.
“Never have I seen such a disconnect between what the science requires and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action.”
Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists
Who was missing. The United States was not present at these talks after Trump announced that the US was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement. Under Obama, the US bridged many divides between industrialized nations, poor countries, and rising powers such as India and China. The absence was a terrible set up for negotiations. Many developing countries (China and India included) demanded billions of dollars to finance the new climate goals. One French official said, many countries were now “waiting for the US election” to decide their next move.
We’re surprised, but also not surprised. Not surprised because when it comes to “action,” change that requires global coordination by global leaders often doesn’t come easy (if at all). But surprised still that something so globally pressing like climate change isn’t producing action. We also don’t understand why they need to stall conversations until next year. Let’s ditch the grandiose events and “summits” and bunker down somewhere until something get's done. Imagine if you had to wait a year to make a decision at a private company. You probably wouldn’t make it.
Short takes
Self driving car tech could help drones monitor power lines to prevent wildfires.
Remember where you came from. Reflecting on who helped you succeed can transform your idea of the meritocracy.
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Tomorrow Today
🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign up link and more details soon.
Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!
Why are we hosting this?
For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.
Igniting Tomorrow
💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding
UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.
Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!
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