Police Are Clear-Cutting The Lungs of Atlanta

The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), Dave Wilkinson, DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, Mayor Andre Dickens, and the majority of the Atlanta City Council don’t understand we are in a Climate emergency. If they did, they would not allow APF to clear-cut the trees on the Old Prison Farm (OPF) property, which are part of the lungs of Atlanta. 

A week ago, they clear-cut almost 40 acres on Constitution Road and Fayetteville Road, which is almost half of the 85 acres assigned for Cop City. 

Trees are our front-line troops to migrate against the worst of climate change, APF and their enablers either don’t understand this or don’t care that they are destroying the environment for future generations. The twenty-year-old forest defenders who lived in the forest for two years to prevent this type of clear-cutting know they will not have a future. 

It is not only Atlanta politicians destroying the future for younger generations, but people in power worldwide are continuing to support the fossil fuel industry, cutting down forests, and acting like climate change is not real.

Trees give us life. They absorb and store carbon dioxide and release oxygen, clean the air, provide shade, flood control, and give us fruits and nuts to eat. Without trees, we could not live on this planet. At the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, in 30 or 40 years, we won’t be able to live on this planet.

We are entering the second phase of runaway global warming, contributing to an unavoidable extinction process for half of humanity by mid-century. This second phase has been generally seen as irreversible for centuries.

According to Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Observatory, we are at 419 parts per million (ppm) and rising fast. Parts per million refers to the number of carbon dioxide molecules per million molecules of dry air. The second tipping point phase starts at 425-450 ppm, and we are a few years away from the beginning of runaway global warming.

Science tells us we must stay under the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Still, unless we have a miracle of consciousness or the political will to reduce carbon faster by the end of this century, we will be at 2.7 degrees Celsius, where most living things can’t survive.

Today we are experiencing more and worsening extreme droughts, storms, wildfires, rain bombs and cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other dangerous and unseasonable weather.

The APF, by clear-cutting the forest, shows a disregard for the will of the people and science.

 Here are pictures of clear-cutting on the Old Prison Farm property off of Constitution Road and Fayetteville Road on Thursday, May 4, 2023

photos by gloria tatum