EXTINCTION REBELLION XR : Raising More Awareness For Climate Change In More Than 60 Places Around The World

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Extinction Rebellion

Description

Extinction Rebellion is a socio-political movement with the stated aim of using civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to compel government action on climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse

That's right - there's even a group here in Phoenix!

Extinction Rebellion Phoenix - Home | Facebook

https://www.facebook.com › ... › Cause › Extinction Rebellion Phoenix

Extinction Rebellion Phoenix. 74 likes · 66 talking about this. Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a socio-political movement which uses...

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Like most things it all had to start somewhere

How A Small English Town Spurred The Group That's Reshaping Global Climate Protests 4:26

"Whole businesses have been built on trashing our Earth — the very thing that feeds us, that gives us air," she says. "Many scientists are telling us that we are already in the sixth mass extinction."

Katerina Hasapopoulos, 41, the daughter of immigrants and once a power-lunching marketing director, joined her local environmental group in Stroud, a bohemian town of activists tucked into the rolling hills and daffodils of the Cotswolds in the south of England. That group, Extinction Rebellion, has now grown from a small-town band of determined neighbors super-gluing themselves to local city council buildings to a global movement of environmental demonstrators disrupting dozens of cities so policymakers will address climate change immediately. The group has kicked off protests again on Monday — including blocking traffic and landmarks and occupying government buildings, leading to hundreds of arrests in New York, London, Sydney and Amsterdam — and it plans to continue mobilizing for the next two weeks. 

You can read more and listen/download a 04:28 podcast or read the entire report from National Public Radio > 

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/767711216 

"This is a matter of life and death. Our Earth is dying. Our Earth dies, we die. It's just really that simple."

Fighting for something so huge, she says, can't be done by standing on sidewalks with banners.

"That just doesn't work," she says. "The situation is extreme and we need to match that with extreme tactics. I actually don't think we are extreme enough."

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Protesters douse Wall Street bull with fake blood

By Justine Calma  Today at 1:24pm MST 

Scenes from Extinction Rebellion protests 

in New York City

By Justine Calma@justcalma  Oct 7, 2019, 4:24pm EDT

Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales

Wall Street’s Charging Bull statue was doused in fake blood this morning by environmental protestors. A woman with the group Extinction Rebellion stood atop the bloodied bull waving the group’s green flag; other protesters, also splattered with the red liquid, staged a sit-in around the statue. The New York City Police Department arrested roughly 20 people there.The day of protests began with a staged funeral march from nearby Battery Park to the bull statue. Demonstrators mostly wore funeral black, but some participants who called themselves the “Red Brigade” wore scarlet robes. The robes, they said, represented the blood of all species facing extinction as a result of climate change. It’s all part of coordinated protests taking place today across 60 cities around the world.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20902936

How Many More Times Do We Really Need-To-Know???? Time To Act, Huh?

Graphic du jour: "The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes" 

Graphic: The New York Times. Used by permission.

"For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group," N.Y. Times op-ed columnist David Leonhardt writes.

The data is from what Leonhardt calls the most important book on government policy that he's read in a long time — "The Triumph of Injustice," by UC Berkeley economics professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, out Oct. 15.

The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay

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by Emmanuel Saez (Author, University of California, Berkeley),Gabriel Zucman (Author, University of California, Berkeley)

America’s runaway inequality has an engine: our unjust tax system.

"Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have had their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injusticepresents a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation, written by two economists who revolutionized the study of inequality. Eschewing ...Read More

Opportunity Zones Here In Mesa: 2 Getting Disproportionate Inflows of Millions / Southeast Mesa Is A Hot Bed

Readers of this blog might like to note that, according to a report from July 19, 2019, the  Phoenix Metro Area if the largest area in the entire State of Arizona for extreme concentrated poverty. 
So where do we now see what designated Opportunity Zones are receiving investments to deal with extreme concentrated poverty?? 
Is it a surprise to see huge investments of million$ in southeast Mesa, not exactly a poverty-stricken zone?????
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So how is that OZONE program working out compared to what it was intended to do in the Tax Credits and Job Act of 2017?
MesaZona > Table of Contents : O Zone + An O Fund > How To ...
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The Opportunity Zones program is a federal program designed to spur community investment by providing tax benefits to investors. The City of Mesa has 11 census tracts that have been designated Opportunity Zones by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Opportunity Zones | City of Mesa

https://www.selectmesa.com › business-environment › incentives-programs

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This federal program is meant to spur investment in low-income areas by providing tax benefits to investors who reinvest capital gains into Opportunity Zones. 

"Mesa has so many great locations for investment in Opportunity Zones," City of Mesa Economic Development Director Bill Jabjiniak said. "We now anticipate this new program to move investors off the sidelines and into development deals that will offer strong returns."

There are two requirements to take advantage of the tax benefits central to Opportunity Zones. 

First, the investment must be made via an Opportunity Fund. Second, the investments must be derived from a gain in another investment and transferred into an Opportunity Fund within 180 days of realizing that gain.
The tax benefits associated with this investment are that the tax on the realized gain is deferred and reduced if the investment is held in an Opportunity Fund for five to seven years. 

Second, gains on the Opportunity Fund investment will not be taxed if the investment is held for ten years. Opportunity Funds in turn must have at least 90% of their assets in qualified Opportunity Zone property.

http://mesanow.org/news/public/article/2109

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The U.S. Department of Treasury allowed two options in terms of data for determining qualifying tracts:  

2011-2015 American Community Survey data, 

or 

2012-2016 ACS data,”

A census tract that includes Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport has been included among the opportunity zones selected by Gov. Doug Ducey for federal development help./East Valley Tribune

New 'opportunity zones' aim at low-income area uplift

• By Wayne Schutsky Tribune Staff Writer and Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services
 
• May 3, 2018

IRS approval of 18 “opportunity zones” in the East Valley earlier this month are designed to promote economic development in low-income areas. The IRS awarded the designation to census tracts with indicators of poverty and income levels below the area median.

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Example

Eastmark area seeing more 

major development

• By Mikenna Yarmus-Gannon, Tribune Staff Writer
 

"After sitting on a patch of empty land in east Mesa for almost a decade, Rick Richmond decided it was time to start building. So this month he broke ground for the second phase of Crismon Gateway Village on 25.5 acres of land on Crismon Road between Baseline Road and the US 60. The development is set to include retail and office space, in addition to 128 units of multifamily housing with individual suite patios— all expected to be completed by late 2021. . . Phase II will consist of more retail space, . . And it is taking advantage of its proximity not only to rapidly growing Eastmark but also to Mesa’s Technology Corridor 

The first phase of the Crismon Gateway Village began in 2017. . . Phase II will be more retail space. . . Mary Nollenberger, director of leasing and retail investment sales and Nicole Ridberg of SVN Desert Commercial Advisors have worked with Richmond to expand the development. . . Meanwhile, the neighborhood near Crismon Gateway Village continues to get more economic growth,

Marwest Enterprises recently announced it is building Landing 202, a 605,000-square-foot Class A industrial building on about 45 acres just south of Loop 202 and west of Hawes Road on the north side of Ray Road. . . Marwest expects the buildings to be completed by mid-2020.

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Marwest’s development is within a federal opportunity zone, which allows investors to defer and potentially reduce taxes on capital gains.

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“Ray Road has been a hotbed for development over the past several years,” District 6 Councilman Kevin Thompson said. “Landing 202 will provide even more Class A industrial space for businesses looking to relocate or expand to the Gateway Area, which has become an employment corridor for the region.”

To ensure expansion continues, the city last week announced CenturyLink will expand network infrastructure in the Gateway area by expanding its footprint by more than 90 route miles of fiber.

 “The expansion of CenturyLink’s fiber in the Gateway area will help drive the future of Mesa’s Elliott Road Technology Corridor,” Giles said. “Their new capacity opens the door to major tech company expansions and new business while keeping Mesa at the forefront of innovation.” 

The expansion will support new data centers and technology companies planned for the area – including the 

• SkyBridge development at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport; educational institutions
• the newly completed Dignity Health hospital
• and numerous other area businesses.

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Taking The Time To Re-Visit One Small Wonder Here In Downtown Mesa: It Was Once Just Dirt

Every now and then walking around the streets here in 'The Old Donut-Hole', it is a pleasure to be reminded of what is in one small spot of land that was somehow transformed - not by the brilliant minds of city-staff urban planners inside City Hall, but by one transplant from Long Island with one idea to enhance the neighborhood where she lived. 
This post from the MesaZona Archives is dated 02 November 2016, about three years. Marie Green is now "a Master Gardener" - here's that story. You might want to take the time to take a walk and see how this looks today . . . 

02 November 2016

Spontaneous Creative Place Making On-The-Ground Here In The New Urban DTMesa

Is this installation going to be a Pop-Up phenomenon or an ephemeral part  of the urban landscape landscape?   
Time will tell and it's a story your MesaZona blogger wants to write about ... how did this happen?
It all started about a year ago [or more] when Marie Green, a retired psychiatric nurse from Bayshore, Long island, purchased a condo in Robson Villas. She had previously rented an apartment at Cimarron but after doing some arithmetic, decided to became an owner of real estate here.
A brave, risky and yet calculated move when after settling in to her 2-story home, an open empty space next to the property on North Robson Street made her dream. Now we all know what Sigmund Freud, founder of Psychiatry, has to say about dreams and the unconscious, but this get-go Ms. Green is working to make her dream real.

After being out-of-touch for a while, got this email in my inbox six days ago:
"Hi, Tim,
Marie Green here.  Have a new addition to downtown Mesa.
Please come and see the Labyrinth that John Jay Pelletier created yesterday.  I found him online, don't know him, never met him.
Yesterday he showed up unannounced and created a Labyrinth on the empty lot between Robson Street Villas and Inside The Bungalow.
It was my dream for over a year.  I was researching the Labyrinth at Superstition Mountain Museum and came across his name.  Contacted him and the rest is history. "