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Saturday, September 21st, 2019

The Climate Disaster Inside America’s Prisons

Author:     Kim Kelly
Source:     The New Republic
Publication Date:     September 18, 2019
 Link: The Climate Disaster Inside America’s Prisons
Stephan:   It seems to be considered bad form to talk about the American gulag and concentration camp network, certainly few in the Congress of either party seem to have the moral cajones to do so. However, I find it an obscenity so, even though few of my readers seem to look at these articles, I keep posting them because I am appalled that millions of our fellow citizens are warehoused, often for profit, in a system that would be an embarrassment to North Korea. Here is the latest on this abomination.  

A Texas state prison that was flooded in 2016.
Credit: AP/David J. Phillip

Global warming far and away is the most pressing issue facing the United States (and the rest of the planet). The fast-approaching climate reckoning is bigger than the presidential election, bigger than our imperialist forever wars, bigger even than the virulent fascist threat that’s taken root in the White House and spread its tendrils across the globe. It is no longer an exaggeration to say that the world is dying. Time is running out to pull back from the point of no return before it swallows us all whole.

For millions of Americans, that point is already here—and unlike the majority of people, they have no way to escape its horrors. When natural disasters hit, incarcerated people are often the first to be abandoned; as the climate crisis worsens, so will their suffering. The specter of climate change is a hazardous fact of life for the prisoners forced to labor in sweltering Texas fields, the ones fighting wildfires for […]

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2 Comments

  1. Gerry Wass on Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 6:08 am

    I noticed your comment, so I made the effort to read the article. So, I now know one more gruesome, predictable aspect of the long cultural strategy of living for nothing more than money.

  2. Rev. Dean on Sunday, September 22, 2019 at 6:17 pm

    No matter how trivial the offense, a person in prison is no longer a citizen and has no rights at all; even the right to live. It is a horrible situation.