Despite an abysmal environmental and human rights record, Venezuela’s president is back on the international stage

Blaming Maduro for undermining Cop. Meanwhile all the spaces occupied by climate activists and NGOs have been replaced by fossil fuel companies selling products and services. One activist called it an expo. :the-gunman: the Guardian

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Damn, The Guardian. Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.

    But the presence of Maduro – who has one of Latin America’s worst environmental and human rights records

    :bolso-pain:

    “My immediate reaction was ‘What on earth is one of the world’s worst climate offenders doing at a summit meant to address the climate crisis?’” said Geoff Ramsey, director for Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America, a DC-based thinktank.

    :porky-scared-flipped:

    More than 50 nations recognised the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president

    :guaido:

    He even hosted an event with the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and Suriname’s president, Chan Santokhi, to call for a new alliance to protect the Amazon rainforest.

    :maduro-salute:

    Venezuela has the fastest accelerating rate of forest loss in Latin America according to Clima21, an NGO investigating environmental degradation in the Caribbean country.

    :zenz:

    Love "fastest accelerating" as a metric and not - idk - domestic percentage lost / year or total acres destroyed in a ten year span.

    Maduro opened up the area to mining in 2016 and it has since become a lawless, disease-plagued region under the control of armed groups clearing the forest and poisoning its rivers.

    Venezuela’s military turns a blind eye to the activities of drug-trafficking militias such as the Colombian ELN rebels in return for a share of their profits.

    :wonder-who-thats-for:

    “These images will run constantly on Venezuelan state television. Just the fact he is appearing in front of a camera shaking hands with foreign presidents and politicians is something that will be used in Venezuela to convince his own political base that he still matters on the world stage.”

    :maduro-coffee:

    • LeninsBeard [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      “My immediate reaction was ‘What on earth is one of the world’s worst climate offenders doing at a summit meant to address the climate crisis?’” said Geoff Ramsey, director for Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America, a DC-based thinktank.

      Half of the fucking conference is fossil fuel execs you worthless piece of shit

      On a very related note, I'm glad that this site exists so I can say that these people should be fucking shot for aiding and abetting what is going to be the largest genocide in human history

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Half of the fucking conference is fossil fuel execs you worthless piece of shit

        Wouldn't be surprised if one of their interns ghost-wrote the piece.

        On a very related note, I’m glad that this site exists so I can say that these people should be fucking shot for aiding and abetting what is going to be the largest genocide in human history

        Largest yet.

          • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I'm of the suspicion that a sudden catastrophic drop in human population will put a significant downward pressure on global climate.

            I also kinda think that's the "master plan" among brain geniuses in the capitalist elite. That's why there's the endless fixation on VR and automation and space colonies. They've really drunk their own kool-aid and believe they can tech their way into Galt's Gulch.

            • AllCatsAreBeautiful [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              From my extremely basic humanities-brained understanding of climate change, greenhouse gas effects operate with a delay so the warming we're experiencing right now is caused by CO2 from the 70's or 80's. You're totally right that a massive die off would drop emissions but we'd still have compounding effects from years ago chasing us. I would absolutely love to be wrong about this though.

              • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
                ·
                2 years ago

                I mean, just the crash in air travel after COVID hit dropped temperatures noticeably... for a little while. But we're talking about 4% of total emissions which can't be sustained without a massive industrial and manpower commitment. I suspect that in 100 years, after the shit really hits the fan, "the age of air travel" will be one of those things they write books about in found remembrance.

                That's hardly the only industry that would quickly become unsustainable without an enormous surplus of labor.

    • Notabutler [she/her,comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Maduro opened up the area to mining in 2016 and it has since become a lawless, disease-plagued region under the control of armed groups clearing the forest and poisoning its rivers.

      Venezuela’s military turns a blind eye to the activities of drug-trafficking militias such as the Colombian ELN rebels in return for a share of their profits.

      idk the context but this part seems pretty bad, what are you saying with the garf? I dont get it, this just seems like a venezuela L

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        what are you saying with the garf?

        That its pure projection.

        Crack open the first chapter of "Carry" by Toni Jensen (CW: Physical and Sexual violence, among other shit) and you get an eyeful of the very normal behaviors that happen in oil fields and other extractive industries across the US and the impact they have on locals. Migrant communities that lack permanent or elastic social services routinely develop problems of crime, disease, drug-trafficking, sex-trafficking, and every other vice. When locals are bold enough to crack down, they're vilified by state and national leaders as "nanny staters" and chastised for being unfriendly to local businesses. More often, they exist to facilitate the deprecation.

        I dont get it, this just seems like a venezuela L

        During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. ... A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. ... What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

        • Michael Parenti

        If Venezuela wants to develop their domestic mineral assets, they're Taking Ls by creating mining camps. And if they don't develop their domestic mineral assets, then they're Taking Ls with bad economic policy that's impoverishing their people.

      • RNAi [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Bad indeed but massive projection/hypocrisy too.

        Kettle and pot or some shit like that.

        • Notabutler [she/her,comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          ohh ok bad government props up drug trade in their own country ❌ :maduro-coffee:
          good government props up drug trade in many other countries ✅ :billdawg: :biden-troll:

          grr why isnt there a reagan emote