More than 50 years ago, Dr. Seuss’ eco-parable “The Lorax” warned us of dire consequences of corporate greed and climate blindness. Today, the tale is as relevant as ever, writes Santa Cruz activist Michael Levy. But, he says, the environmentalism of the past needs to be updated with a much deeper, broader vision, even locally. These days, he says, every “environmentally friendly” solution – even Santa Cruz’s new hydrogen buses – has a downside. He says we all need to call for solutions that replace extraction and consumption with community resilience, not new corporate technologies. “We need a revolution yesterday,” he writes.
Michael Levy
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Can we please check our slogans and ‘insist on complete respect toward both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis’?
Local teacher and self-declared lefty Michael Levy is troubled by responses he is seeing across the world and in Santa Cruz in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. On Halloween, in downtown Santa Cruz, he felt a “gut punch” when he saw one of his lefty friends joining in with a controversial Palestinian slogan. As a Jew, he felt offended and angry and wanted to “smack him.” He decided to unpack his anger with research. Here, he makes a plea for others to do the same.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
We all deserve a decent place to live — vote yes on N
Housing in Santa Cruz is a rat race, homeowner Michael Levy argues, and we are passing the hurt on to our children and community by buying and selling at absurdly inflated prices. “I am guessing that most of us, given the choice, would opt for a housing system that is not inherently a scary place of winners and losers,” he writes. He supports Measure N, the empty home tax, as a way of getting funds to make housing more equal.