Published by Truthdig.com on December 23, 2015

Signs of an interfaith holiday: The first flames of a giant Hanukkah menorah blaze in front of a Christmas tree at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 2014. (Michael Sohn / AP)

I’ve been celebrating Christmas for as long as I can remember. As a child, I believed in Santa Claus and was rewarded every December for that …

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Published by Truthdig.com on December 17, 2015

Activists gather near the Eiffel Tower in Paris during COP21 earlier this month. (Thibault Camus / AP)

Sonali Kolhatkar reported for Truthdig from Paris.

At Saturday’s mass gathering in Paris marking the end of the United Nations climate negotiations, there were tens of thousands of people on the streets. One of them, a Swedish activist named Svetlana Gross, …

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GUEST: Eros Sana, French activist, member of Zone d’Ecologie Populaire (ZEP).

In the days following a historic agreement in Paris to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a strong contradiction has emerged between those who claim it is a major victory for the planet and most climate justice activists who see it as a death sentence.

That contradiction was in full view at the 2 week COP21 meeting in …

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GUEST: Alexis Rowell, an organizer with Coalition Climat 21, and author of ‘Communities, Councils and a Low-Carbon Future: what we can do if governments won’t.

In the second week of the COP21 climate talks, dozens of prominent climate justice non-profit groups organized a large convergence area in a historic space traditionally used by artists. CentQuatre, in a working-class neighborhood near the River Seine, hosted a series of …

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GUEST: Liddy Nakpil, Coordinator of Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development, from the Philippines.

Next door to the COP21 meeting, the UN and the French government built an official gathering space for members of civil society to use called Espaces Generations Climat, or Climate Generation Space. It was unofficially referred to as “the Green Zone,” as opposed to “the blue zone” where the official COP21 …

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GUESTS: Faith Gemmill, Arctic Village Alaska, Princess Daazhraii Johnson, Arctic Village Alaska, Jihan Gearon, Navajo Nation Arizona.

Indigenous activists had a strong presence at the COP21 meeting, both inside and outside. At the Climate Generation Space, I spoke with a trio of women from US-based indigenous communities who explained to me why they were there.

Watch a video of Sonali’s report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaLTQN-M05w.

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GUESTS: Martha Agbani from Nigeria, Executive Director of the Lokiaka Community Development Center, Pinki Alanga from South Africa, with the South Africa Green Revolutionary Council, Patience Muramuzi from Uganda, with the National Association for Women’s Action and Development, and Sophie Ogutu from Kenya, with the World March for Women.

Representatives from 190 countries announced success on negotiating an agreement to regulate greenhouse gas emissions after years of …

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GUEST: Dr. Hugh Sealy, Professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at St. George’s University in Grenada. The United Nations Development Programme appointed Dr. Sealy as a consultant and asked that he create a guidance manual that provides climate change negotiators in small island developing states with the information and tools to adequately represent their constituencies during international negotiations.

NOTE: This interview …

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GUESTS: Svetlana Gross, an activist from Sweden who traveled to Paris for the COP21 climate talks, Bill McKibben, acclaimed author and environmentalist, the co-founder of 350.org, Samuel Mondlane of Friends of the Earth, Mozambique, and Tania Libanze also from Mozambique with the National Platform for Climate Change, and Dipti Bhatnagar, International climate justice and energy coordinator with Friends of the Earth.

The COP21 summit in Paris was …

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Published by Truthdig.com on December 12, 2015

Red Line for Climate Justice activists march in Paris on Saturday. (Sonali Kolhatkar)

As climate negotiators at the COP21 summit in Paris celebrated a global accord on greenhouse gas emissions, tens of thousands of activists from all over the world gathered on the city’s streets, having obtained a last-minute permit despite a ban on assembly. A disconnect between the …

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