WE'RE STILL HERE.

It's Earth Day, and it's worth noting, yet again, how a cause that might have been motivated by the Cuyahoga River catching fire, by inedible fish in some of the Great Lakes, or by the health risks that rescue divers ran in Chicago, was quickly captured by the scare-mongers.

That's how our 2024 post opened, and it continued with a few examples of the recent scare-mongering.

Our 2025 post called attention to a half-century and counting of failed forecasts.

We also noted, "Somewhere the doom-sayers are doing their thing."

The doom-sayers will do anything to get attention.  "Why a Feminist and Just Energy Transition Is the Only Way Out of the Climate Crisis."  That's, predictably, a Common Dreams contributor, Theiva Lingam, the current supreme leader of Friends of the Earth International.

And what, dear reader, makes an energy transition "feminist and just?"

A feminist and just energy transition must challenge the structures that perpetuate dependency and inequality, including unfair trade agreements, debt regimes, and corporate impunity. It must also recognize and address the intersecting forms of oppression based on gender, race, class, and colonial history that shape how the climate crisis is experienced and resisted.

As we look toward Santa Marta, the message is both simple and profound: We cannot solve the climate crisis with the same logic that caused it. If this transition is not rooted in justice, it will not be a solution. It will be the next phase of the crisis.

The path forward will require confronting entrenched interests and reimagining our economies and societies. From Santa Marta and beyond, communities are showing us the way. The task now is to listen, to act, and to ensure that the transition ahead is truly just—for people, for the planet, and for future generations.

"Santa Marta" refers to a Colombian city where the Peoples’ Summit and First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels will take place.  "This will be a critical space because, without justice, the energy transition will reproduce the same systems of extraction, control, and violence."  As if dressing up ancient notions of class struggle with contemporary culture studies word-noise will accomplish anything.

At the heart of this vision are peoples’ sovereignty and energy sovereignty: the right of communities to control their lands, resources, and energy systems, and to shape the decisions that affect their lives. This means treating energy as a common good that is managed for collective well-being rather than private profit, while building energy democracy, where communities have real decision-making power over how energy is produced and used. It also requires energy sufficiency, prioritizing meeting people’s needs over excessive and wasteful energy use. Together, these principles challenge the concentration of power in corporations and wealthy countries, and point toward energy systems that are locally rooted, democratic, and aligned with social and ecological needs.

Enjoy your poverty, global southerners, the aristocracy of pull that will emerge from "real decision-making power" will guarantee it.