How to Help Katrina's Victims

The human tragedy of Hurricane Katrina is only beginning to become clear. There is a lot we still don't know, but we do know that hundreds, perhaps thousands, have lost their lives, and many more have become refugees.

What can you do to help? And how can you make sure your contribution is well used?

Here are some local groups who need donations to enable them to provide immediate disaster relief. These groups come well-recommended by trusted sources as organizations with a long-term commitment to stricken areas and a strong track record of making a difference.

The Enterprise Corporation of the Delta and the Hope Community Credit Union will use donated funds for immediate relief, and then help people rebuild their homes and businesses in the distressed communities where these not-for-profit organizations have been operating for a dozen years in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is estimating that as many as half a million displaced people may be in Baton Rouge for up to six months. The foundation's "Hurricane Kathrina Displace Residents Fund" is seeking funds to assist with housing, food, basic necessities for these hurricane refugees. A second fund, "Hurricane Katrina New Orleans Recovery Fund," will help those who return to the Greater New Orleans area get back on their feet. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is a non-profit community foundation composed of over 300 charitable funds.

One of my favorites is The American Friends Service Committee, which has a 87-year history of life-saving assistance and work for long-term justice.

Here is a list provided by the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, which is acting as a clearinghouse on disaster relief. Their list is drawn from Network for Good.

American Red Cross
Provides disaster services and relief

America’s Second Harvest
Provides food to victims

Catholic Charities USA
Provides relief and recovery assistance

Church World Service
Develops long-term recovery plans

New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity
Assisting victims of the hurricane

Salvation Army
Local, regional, and national disaster relief programs

United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area
Helps victims of the hurricane

This is a time when we the people can pull together, across red and blue, black and white.

Katrina's climate chaos

The Red Cross is describing the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina as the largest U.S. natural disaster in the organization's history. We still don't know the full impact of the storm, which is continuing to cause damage as it sweeps inland and as waters rise in New Orleans. But we do know that dozens are dead and one insurance industry estimate puts the cost at $26 billion.

Climate chaos comes in many forms. Sometimes it moves slowly and escapes attention in the news -- droughts, receding glaciers, melting permafrost. Sometimes it is with devastating speed and destructiveness, as we've seen with Katrina. Ross Gelbspan, an award-winning journalist and author of "The Heat is On" warned about the impacts of climate change the winter 1999/2000 issue of YES! magazine entitled Changing the Climate.

To those who deny the link between devastating storms and human-caused global warming, Gelbspan says you can not prove one hurricane is the result of global warming any more than you can prove one case of lung cancer is the result of a smoking habit. But we know the pattern associated with climate change, and the pattern of increasingly large catastrophic storms is exactly what scientists predict.

In an op-ed in today's Boston Globe, Gelbspan points out that Katrina started out as a relatively moderate hurricane, until it hit the overly warm waters of the Gulf, where it built up the enormous energy that slammed 20-foot-plus walls of water into towns along the Gulf coast and swept a 460-mile wide swath of devastation across the south. Warmer ocean temperatures, more devastating hurricanes.

Gelbspan does not just predict disaster, though. He points out that the future we live with is the future we are creating today. He proposes a plan to combat climate change in an article in the climate change issue of YES! These are not small changes, but they are ones that could revitalize our economy by developing new green technologies and increasing efficiencies of automobiles and industry.

The leadership at a federal level has failed miserably -- particularly the current administration, but also the disappointing Clinton administration. But there is visionary leadership coming from elsewhere:

• The Conference of Mayors in June unanimously adopted a climate protection agreement; see the current issue of YES!

• In the Northeast, eight states plus the city of New York have sued five utility companies to get them to clean up their global warming pollution, which they blame for 10 percent of the nation's contribution to climate change. See "States Sue Over Climate Change."

• In the Pacific Northwest, farmers, business leaders, and government officials are collaborating on technical advances that could make the region a leader in renewable energy technology and efficiency improvements. See "The Climate-friendly Northwest."

Probably the most exciting and comprehensive proposal comes in the form of the Apollo Project, a ten-year, multi-billion dollar proposal to revitalize the U.S. economy through massive investment in new green energy technology and energy efficiency. The initiative is backed by labor, environmentalists, and government leaders.

The power of this idea is that it taps the great American capacity to rally together to solve big problems, not through building an empire to make sure we get access to every last barrel of oil no matter at what cost to human life and human rights. Not through developing another unsafe, expensive, and dirty technology like nuclear power. But through going for the best solutions for our children and grandchildren, and solutions that will create thousands, perhaps millions of long-term, family wage jobs.

The YES! Fall 2004 issue, Can we live without oil? includes lots of avenues for transforming our transportation system, developing clean bio-fuels, and increasing efficiency, maybe even living a better life. We could either do something like what these authors propose, or we could continue to follow the lead of the Bush administration, and just sit back and wait for the next disaster. As Gelbspan has pointed out, it's our choice.

Back to school: will recruiters be waiting?

As kids return to school this fall, recruiters will be waiting for them. Recruitment in the Army National Guard, the Army Reserves and the Army itself is failing to meet goals so the pressure is on. And some of the tactics used by the military have been raising ethical red flags. A report on CBS television shows that the Pentagon is keeping a database of 30 million young people, aged 16 and up who are in high school, college, or have registered with the Selective Service.

What can concerned parents and community members do to protect our kids from the recruiters shining promises?

YES! asked a Vietnam infantry veteran, now an active member of Veteran for Peace, to lay out the options. Larry Kershner recommends the following steps:

Introduce the "I will not kill" pledge, promoted by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It's one way to get kids to come to terms with the real issues involved in joining the military and going to Iraq -- you will be trained to kill and expected to kill.

Keep your school free of recruiters. Get the "Military Out of Our Schools Organizing Kit," and help students through the paperwork needed to "opt-out" of the No Child Left Behind requirement that schools share their contact information with recruiters.

Find alternatives to military service as a way to get out of poverty; American Friends Service Committee has some great resources.

Listen to veterans. If your children or their classmates think they will become tough, admired adults through joining the military, they may want to talk to some people who have been there. Veterans for Peace will speak to interested groups and a CD of veterans speaking from their own experience is available by emailing: peacepoet@gmail.com.

My family, like so many others, has young friends and relatives who are in Iraq or on their way. We know how young people can be influenced by the rewards and glamour that recruiters promise. These tools, provided by a veteran who has been there, along with guidance from caring adults can provide some counterweight.

How to support Cindy Sheehan: Operation Homecoming

More than 1600 vigils took place in every region of the U.S. last week in support of Cindy Sheehan and the other mothers camped outside the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Many quoted Cindy, calling for an end to the violence in Iraq "before one more mother's child is lost."

But how do we end this war? What is a responsible way for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq?

In the fall issue of YES! you'll find a six-part plan to bring home our troops and end the killing -- or at least as much of the killing as the U.S. is directly involved in. In an article entitled Operation Homecoming: How to End the War in Iraq, Erik Leaver of the Institute for Policy Studies shows how the U.S. can withdraw from Iraq and return sovereignty to the Iraqi people. No permanent U.S. bases; no puppet governments. Real peace will only result when the people of Iraq are in charge of their own future. Leaver warns that the transition may be a rocky one, and we in the U.S. can't control the outcome, nor can we control the oil resources and economy of Iraq. But U.S. withdrawal is a first step down the road to healing and ending an unwinnable cycle of killing.

Cindy Sheehan is right. No more mothers should have to go through what she has gone through for this war -- and no more wives or husbands, daughters or sons, or fathers should either.

What can you do to help? Join thousands of Americans September 24 through 26 in Washington, DC, for a non-violent mobilization to end the war. Keep up with the latest from Cindy Sheehan and supporters at Camp Casey, and read about other efforts to investigate and end the war. CodePink for Peace is compiling one million reasons to end the war; you can add yours at the onemillionreasons website.

Make your voice heard, whether at a local vigil, in a letter to the editor of your paper or to your member of Congress, or by standing on a street corner with a sign supporting Cindy. Across the U.S., the tide of opinion is turning. Cindy is showing us the way; now is the time when each voice counts.