November 24, 2021

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Previously: (11/2/21): Will energy monopolies and the nuclear weapons cartel control New Mexico’s future? Reclaim our resources and build resilient communities, not plutonium bombs
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How New Mexico Could Become A Climate Leader

Re: How New Mexico Could Become A Climate Leader, Los Alamos Reporter, Nov 24, 2021

Dear friends --

You all got Bulletin 287 ("Nov 5 demonstration and workshops; NM greenhouse gas emissions have risen by about half under the current administration; legislative testimony on plutonium pit production"). There was a lot there on all three subjects!

In the process of summarizing part of that Bulletin for another audience it became clear that the New Mexico's climate strategy did not include the greenhouse gas emissions from the marketed oil and gas from which the State profits from so handsomely. Those emissions, which occur elsewhere as a result of policies here, are much larger than all the emissions produced in New Mexico (and which are inventoried as part of the climate plan).

Just considering those emissions which ARE tallied, and toward which state policy is directed, greenhouse gas emissions have already risen as much over the past three years as is planned for them to be reduced over the coming nine years. New Mexico is galloping backwards.

This is discussed in the above commentary, kindly published by the Los Alamos Reporter.

Yes, this does relate centrally to nuclear weapons and plutonium pit production. There are only a few ways New Mexico can be a climate leader. From the above commentary:

The second way [to lead] would be to first learn about, and then to seriously oppose, plutonium pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Halting pit production at LANL would halt pit production for a decade -- the decisive decade for the future of humankind and countless species.

New nuclear weapons in the quantities now planned require new pits. Détente is necessary for international progress on climate issues. A crash program to build pits, encouraging and allowing a nuclear arms race, is the opposite of what we need. Delaying pit production until the mid-2030s or later is one of the most consequential things New Mexicans could do on the climate issue.

We have a lot more to say about this, but not today.

Have a wonderful thanksgiving, everyone.

Greg