AFA will be repping at the Northeast Climate Confluence

[Othello repping the Nauts]

Hey ya'll-

A couple words about the Northeast Climate Confluence...

I got a call from Evan Greer about a three weeks ago asking the Nauts to perform at the Climate Confluence. I said yes right away, even though environmentalism has never been the #1 issue on my radar.

After being in New Orleans for a week, experiencing the devastation that STILL engulfs that city and learning about how the reasons why it flooded are MAN-MADE CAUSES and not the work of fate, or chance or mother nature, there is no way that we could not be a part of an event that will address the issues of climate change and our abuse of the planet. Industrialization has destroyed the wetlands that protects the coast and has created intercoastal canals that literally funel water into the city, overdevelopment is literally causing the city of New Orleans to sink as the loss of groundwater causes the city to fall further below sea level every year and urban planning put the most vunerable and poorest people in the most danger of being affected by flooding. Finally, the levee system has been a model of incompetence and neglect for the last 40 years. Never properly constructed or maintained, it's a wonder that they didn't fail sooner. The efforts to rebuild the city have been even more tragic than the catastrophe of the flooding immediately after Katrina hit. For example, the school that Ruby Bridges walked into as a young black girl, bravely taking some of the first steps towards desegregating our schools, is still boarded up and unusable. On many blocks in the city, all that is left of the houses that were there before Katrina is the 3 concrete steps that led into the house. For blocks and blocks, all that you can see are vacant lots overgrown with brush, littered with debris and sets of steps marking where houses used to be. This is our problem and I'm excited that there is an initiative to discuss what can be done at the grassroots level to confront this problem.

So, check out the website for the Northeast Climate Confluence at www.climateconfluence.org. Come through on Thursday and Saturday and check out the Nauts, Workforce, Sketch tha Cataclysm and the Rising Sun Quest, as well as all the great music and entertainment that will be featured at the event. Sit in on a workshop. Learn what we can do to treat our planet a little better. The stakes are high, New Orleans is still paying...