We Have To Defund The Police To Get Climate Justice Or Something

I know that you’re utterly shocked that climate cultists would hijack current affairs

There Is No Climate Justice Without Defunding the Police

The U.S. has erupted in protests over the brutal killing of George Floyd by police. The protests have largely been peaceful. The police response has not.

Over the past week, widespread police violence has gripped the nation. Police have shot protestors with rubber bullets, tear gassed them, and beat them with batons. Using live bullets, police shot and killed David McAtee, a black chef in Louisville, and left his body in the streets for 12 hours. Armored vehicles and cops in tactical body armor have taken over the streets in response to protests that are specifically about police violence against black communities.

Do we need to discuss the riots, looting, arson, property destruction, murder and attempted murder during the protests? If you’re throwing bottles at police who are just standing there, well, they need tactical body armor. I’ve always thought the police should be allowed to throw anything that was thrown at them back towards the protesters.

There are many very good reasons to defund and demilitarize police forces across the country, including the fact that research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows it provides “no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction, on average.” But there’s another reason that’s also tied to the disproportionate suffering of black and brown communities. The climate crisis is exacerbating existing inequalities, and a militarized police force will only make those inequalities worse. There’s a better way forward, though, one that prioritizes resilience—taking funding away from the force that is over-policing and racial profiling black communities, and putting that funding into preparing them for a 21st century of dangerous weather driven by the climate crisis.

This screed meanders back and forth, and seems pretty upset at the militarization of the police, all the gear given to police departments from the military (guess what, a lot of Conservatives agree with that), but, climate cultist Brian Khan at Gizmodo is linking this all to ‘climate change’ and climate justice, because, well, it’s a cult.

It’s why stopping the transfer of military-grade equipment to police is a first step to just climate adaptation. It’s why ending bail and asset seizures that needlessly land people in jail is good climate policy. And it’s why the growing number of laws that criminalize protests are bad climate policy and should be rolled back.

See, if cops didn’t have all that gear, climate change wouldn’t happen. And

Beyond that, defunding the police is another key step. A number of groups have been calling for a divest-invest strategy where cities pull money from the police and put it into community programs that actually make those places better (groups are advancing a similar policy for fossil fuels). In the context of climate change, that could include everything from improving access to healthcare, transit, and open streets. Ultimately, how that money is spent is a decision that’s best left to communities themselves.

You really do need to take time to read the entire thing. It’s nuttier than the norm.