We’re excited to bring you an excerpt from Tucson journalist Todd Miller, whose newly released Storming the Walls examines how climate change is driving migration around the globe. Recent weeks have shown us how climate change is creating larger and larger storms, as residents of Texas and Florida—not to mention some Caribbean islands—are experiencing in devastating fashion. As Todd told TW arts writer Margaret Regan last week: “The future is unwritten right now. It’s not inevitable. There are things we still can do, serious mitigation efforts on greenhouse gas. We can continue with a militarized enforcement solution for people migrating—or we can we rethink what we’re doing.”
Read our cover story, pick up Todd’s book and tell your members of Congress that climate change is real, that human activity is making it worse and that it’s high time we worked harder to reduce the greenhouse gases that are driving it.
Elsewhere in the book: Emily Dieckman previews Brillo Box (3¢ Off), which is showing at the Loft Cinema on Sunday, Sept. 24, as part a celebration of National Arthouse Theatre Day. You may have already seen the film on HBO, but if you haven’t, here’s a chance to see with it with filmmaker and UA professor Lisanne Skyler, whose family bought—and then traded away—a Warhol Brillo Box sculpture that sold for $3 million at auction in 2010.
Other highlights in this week’s edition: Danyelle Khmara looks at what happens now that a federal judge has ruled that the law that torpedoed TUSD’s Mexican-American Studies was unconstitutional and inspired by “racial animus”; Mark Whittaker sings the praises of Boca Taco chef Maria Mezon, who has moved from the old Greasy Tony’s spot on Speedway to the roomier Delectable’s spot on Fourth Avenue; Sherilyn Forrester gets a look at Chapter Two, Arizona Theatre Company’s season opener; Margaret Regan tells you why you should check out a show of photography by Kris Graves at Joseph Gross Gallery; Isaac Kirkman introduces us to local hip-hop artist Profecy; and after a break of a few weeks, The Skinny is back with a look at the return of Zombie Trumpcare, which would finally achieve the longtime dream of conservative Republicans of dismantling the Medicaid program and hoping that state lawmakers will find enough charity in their hearts to ensure that poor people can get healthcare. (Such charity, as I point out in the column, has always been in short supply in Arizona.) Plus, throughout the book, you’ll find all kinds of details about concerts to hear, fun stuff to do and great places to eat.
Thanks for reading,
— Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor
This article appears in Sep 21-27, 2017.
We should definitely reduce greenhouse gases as fast as possible. It’s a disaster. We should also help out other countries affected by rising temperatures.
On migration, instead of militarization (which is mostly ineffective) we can pass mandatory E-Verify nationwide and make examples of a few employers and the problem of illegal immigration will mostly go away. We have no duty to overpopulate our country and sink our working class just because other countries have. Nor should anyone bully us into doing so out of some sort of racial guilt.
Following up on blsap’s comment – continuing to permit mass migration from Latin America to the United States actually increases net global carbon emissions in at least two ways. First, it takes people out of more sustainable agrarian economies and plugs them into our less sustainable, car based economy. Second, birthrates for Latin American immigrants to the U.S. are actually quite a bit higher than birthrates of even demographically similar people in Latin America. This makes sense when you consider the social services and quality education available to children born in the United States versus, for example, Mexico.
One of the most effective ways the U.S. can manage its carbon emissions is to get a handle on immigration driven population growth. We have a responsibility to the planet to do that.
It used be called POLLUTION. There’s no doubt that every human alive is running rough-shot over the environment. Trashing the place with garbage, sewage, fertilizer, animal slaughter and their waste, species extinct…on and on. But there’s no grants or Federal money to study what will take an eon to prove or disprove. If it was called pollution again, the same ‘concerned’ snowflakes would have to get up off their ass and clean the place up by modifying their own disgusting human behavior.
You like driving? How about that AC, use of a toilet, and the methane you personally emit just like the animals you eat? Everyone is guilty but Global Warming finger pointers. Pat yourselves on the back while you eat until you burst and contaminate yourselves with constant alcohol.