We’re told that we have 12 years to keep greenhouse carbon levels below 1.5 Celsius from pre-industrial 1800’s levels.

Most climate scientists agree that with current conditions consistently exceeding predicted outcomes year after year, we have already passed the point of preventing 1.5. Yet there is still time to avert breaking 2.

If we do hit 2 degrees, nearly all coral reefs die, roughly 1/4 of the surface of the earth becomes so inhospitable as to drop current staple crop production by 1/3, driving 400 million souls into exodus, fleeing famine and water scarcity in the tropics, while melting permafrost continues to release enough methane to double the heat trapping capacity of all greenhouse gases that humans have ever unleashed into the atmosphere.

We have already passed the tipping point for sea level rise of 12 feet – this will happen now even if we do everything in our power to reduce global fossil fuel consumption in half by 2030 and to zero emissions by 2050.

Mark Jacobson of the Solutions Project has determined we could reach zero emissions using existing tech, using 0.5% of earth’s land surface and coastlines to power 100% of humanity’s current energy use for 10 billion people by 2050, through rapid upscaling of solar, wind and hydropower infrastructure.

But this is only half the story.

Carbon neutrality will only get us to zero emissions – we must also reach net negative emissions by end century to avoid surpassing the 1.5-2 degree point, while effects of gases already released will combine and compound with those we must also continue to generate for years to come, in order to build the new infrastructure we need to complete the transition.

So how do we (or can we even) accomplish this?

Maddeningly, this will require each and every one of the following to be achieved:

1.) Massive government investments: expenditures of estimated $12 trillion for US, $60 trillion for the world. This means a GREEN NEW DEAL which creates a UNIVERSAL JOBS PROGRAM within the existing framework of the global capitalist economy, to increase immediate buy-in with wage growth incentives to stimulate and rapidly upscale the transition, through BUILDING RENEWABLE ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE and implementing a network of local, regional, national and GLOBAL CONSERVATION CORPS, charged with the preservation, restoration, reconstruction and adaptive STEWARDSHIP OF NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS, landscapes and habitats.

2.) ELECTRICITY AND HEATING UPGRADES: All residential and commercial building electrical and heating infrastructure. First in the nation, then for the world.

3.) EXPAND NATIONAL POWER GRIDS infrastructure. Then build long distance networks to connect across continents.

4.) TRANSPORTATION: Buyback or pay to remove 3-4 billion combustible engine cars from the global fleet expected to be on the road by 2050, all from billions of private consumers. Only achievable if supplanted with massive upscaling of alternative public/private transit infrastructure. This means cheap electric scooters, publicly subsidized (cheap to free) public transportation in electric buses and trains, ride-share vehicles, with ships and airplanes powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

5.) ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION THROUGH REGENERATIVE LAND USE PRACTICES: Afforestation of additional 1/3 of land surface, mostly grasslands, where 2/3 is currently used or converted by humans, and 1/2 of this (1/3 of total) soil used entirely for mass food production. Silvopasture, conservation tillage, integrated pest management and intercropping methods, suing low nitrate and phosphate intensive plant varieties to reduce fertilizer demand. Moving organic food waste from landfills to composting (1/3 of all food generated globally) and transport to rural farms to replace use of industrial fertilizers. These actions action alone could potentially remove half the carbon of which humans have released into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

5.) Multiple trillions paid for MASSIVE TRANSFERS OF TECHNOLOGIES AND RELATED INFRASTRUCTURE from the US, Europe, Japan and Australia to developing and emerging nations, for the 7.5 billion people either alive or to soon be born there, to supplant ‘western’ equivalent lifestyles with less natural resource consumption. Massive solar electrical infrastructure investments will be needed for upscaling (in place of coal and biomass burning) to power the millions of air conditioner systems that will be needed to survive in densely populated, expanding and inhospitably hot tropical areas, as an example.

6.) GOVERNMENTS ENDING SUBSIDIES AND TAX BREAKS FOR FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES, OTHER EMISSIONS INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES, INVESTMENT BANKS AND FUNDS THAT SUPPORT THEM and political and media campaigns aimed to prevent this transition. Government investments only paid to fossil fuel companies and other emissions intensive industries for projects which upgrade, expand and transform their current infrastructure to accelerate/lead this transition.

7.) Move most of 10 billion people by 2030 away from consuming heavy amounts of resource intensive beef in their diets, to chicken, fish and predominantly SUSTAINABLY GROWN MEAT AND PLANT BASED DIETS. Substitutes (such as Memphis Meats or Impossible Burgers) combined with shift in emphasis to a more ‘ethical’ drawing down of industrial animal agriculture, by eliminating factory farms and using open range pastoralism for chicken and turkey.

8.) Rapidly upscaled RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCTION AND DEPLOYMENT OF NEW CCS TECHNOLOGIES (carbon capture storage/sequestration) that have not been invented yet (seriously, this is an essential, non-substitutable component of the IPCC plan).

9.) Urbanization and DEVELOPMENT OF ‘SUSTAINABLE CITIES’. Mixed use neighborhoods, integrated housing which promotes community and fostering of social relationships, integrated within local natural ecosystems that provide pollution purification (oxygen water and air filtration, cooling of ‘heat islands’) and biophilic services for physical and psychosocial wellbeing, hiking, exercise, walkable areas with open yards, public spaces parks and greenbelts, fewer roads to reduce traffic flows, surface air particulate and toxic gas emissions, locally grown food and renewable energy production. This includes free, locally subsidized and financed transportation.

10.) Equity in EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN.
Most impactful is early childhood education.

11.) SHIFTING OUR ECONOMIC SYSTEMS away from value pricing based on production and consumption of extracted or converted goods to a system which prices value on production, to conservation and preservation of natural resources and renewable ecological services, FROM GROWTH MEASURED BY PRODUCTION AND ACCUMULATION OF FINANCIAL CAPITAL, TO A RESTORATIVE ECONOMY WHERE WEALTH IS GENERATED THROUGH PRODUCTION AND PRESERVATION OF ECOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL CAPITAL (human and ecosystem services). Levying high luxury taxes on any non-essential goods made from non-renewable materials and/or high emissions processes that cannot be rapidly repurposed or biodegraded.

12.) REFUSE REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE. Everything we consume, made from materials extracted from the natural world, even if repurposed cradle to cradle, eventually ends up either ends up incinerated or biodegraded. Food waste as compost instead of landfill. Plastics and other high energy and resource intensive (electricity and water) recyclable goods effectively transferred and isolated to landfill (plastics) or burned (paper). Low energy and resource intensive recyclable goods (steel, cloth) repurposed and integrated into new supply chains.

13.) SINGLE ISSUE VOTING. Electing political leaders in democratic governments who will legislate to promote environmental stewardship and enforce laws restricting economic activities of shareholders and executives of the 100 companies responsible for 70% of our fossil fuel emissions that continue to destroy the natural world for short term profits, over the long term health of our world that every living thing that will ever be born after us ever will have to live in.

14.) AN EQUITABLE FUTURE IS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE. Environmental, social, ecological, and historical injustices must be rectified. This means putting equal value and care upon fostering the health, well being, and existence of all living creatures. Shifting our collective consciousness to a biophilic centered Deep Ecology, where the interconnectedness, sovereignty, dignity and right to exist for of all life is instilled, where the health well being for all who live is revered and cherished as our holiest of human sacraments.

15.) PRESERVING AND PROTECTING 1/3 OF NATURAL LANDSCAPES TO PREVENT EXTINCTION OF 1/2 OF GLOBAL SPECIES (MEGAFAUNA AND FLORA).

16.) PLAN B: TO BRING HUMAN SOCIETY INTO A STABLE, INTEGRATED AND SUSTAINABLE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE NATURAL WORLD, WE MUST RE-DESIGN, RE-TOOL, RE-ENGINEER AND RE-OPTIMIZE OUR SOCIOECONOMIC SYSTEMS OF GOVERNANCE AND APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY, BASED ON PRINCIPLES OF ECOCENTRIC, HOLISTIC EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN – game theory, individual, kin and group selection, inclusive fitness, reciprocal altruism and free rider mitigation, explorer, resource abundance and scarcity behavioral modes, cooperation and competition, in vs. out grouping, tribalism, resource acquisition, retention, cognitive biases and heuristics, etc.

AND WE MUST WORK TO ACHIEVE EACH OF THESE THINGS POST HASTE. Because Climate Change is Ecocide. Climate Change is Violence. Climate Change is Death. Not simply to one or to many, not just to all who now exist, but to the untold trillions of beings who are still yet to come, to the forever all who are ever be born. Because any and every living soul brought into life after us will have to live with the future we now leave for them. 

So climate change is not solely a crime against humanity. It is a crime against all, and against nature itself. Therefore we must begin our path to restitution immediately, as this is our only absolution.

Today, 2.2 million working people are paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or less.
Approximately another 23 million people are paid between $7.25 and $11 an hour. 

Nearly half (42.4 percent) of working Americans make less than $15 per hour.

If the actual minimum wage had kept up with concomitant gains in productivity and inflation since 1968, it would be set at $22 per hour.

See this report by the Leadership Conference Education Fund and Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality:   http://civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/reports/Bare-Minimum.pdf

We live in a society where everyone feels poor.
And most are sober in their assessments.
Because a majority of our citizens in the lower and middle classes are losing financial ground year by year, in jobs with stagnant wages relative to moderate inflation, yet with soaring health insurance, education and housing costs rising steadily. Those who occupy the remaining upper classes are as a minority getting somewhat ahead, with fewer concentrated at the top becoming much richer.
We simply have to stop pretending that a minimum or even a median wage is a living wage in this country.
Because it is not.

In America

Eight in ten working Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
Nearly half of families cannot come up with $400 in an emergency.
Roughly three in ten adults have ZERO savings, and another three have less than $1,000.
One-third of working families cannot meet all basic monthly expenses.
This is while 1/3 of ALL Americans and 40% of ALL children live at low income or in poverty.

Many depend on entitlements
One in five Americans rely on some combination of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families a.k.a. welfare), SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program a.k.a. food stamps), Medicaid, and/or housing assistance to meet monthly living expenses.
For TANF, only 1 in 4 people who are eligible receive benefits.
For unemployment, it is 1 out of every 3.
And for Medicaid, nearly 5 million would qualify but cannot enroll, in states that opted not to expand coverage.

While trying to keep up with the exponential rising of rental and housing costs
In the US, at MINIMUM wage working full time, you cannot rent a 1 bedroom apartment in 98% of markets in the entire nation. This would require working an average of 68 hours per week with this income.
And you cannot afford renting a 2 bedroom apartment in any national market. This would require working an average 98 hours per week.
Most one bedroom apartments cost 2x Federal minimum wage, if paying 30% of income on rent.
For two bedroom apartments, the costs are closer to 3x Fed minimum wage, if paying 30%.
Similarly, even if earning the national US MEDIAN wage, you also cannot afford average US fair market value rent FOR EITHER a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment while working full time and paying 30% gross income for housing.
Paying higher rental or mortgage costs in the 31-50% gross income range closes this gap for middle class single or dual household wage earners.
But for low income Americans, 70% of them already spend more than 50% of their gross monthly income on housing.
So, for both low to median wage income earners, rising housing costs are increasingly making other necessary household costs unaffordable, including food, clothing, transportation, entertainment, child care, repaying of student loans, saving for an emergency, down payment on a home and/or for retirement increasingly our of reach.

How can this be in an economy that offers hundreds of thousands of new jobs each month?
Though the current national unemployment rate is considered low (at ~4%):
Real unemployment rate is usually 2x the official rate
Real underemployment is usually 3x the official rate
This means an actual 20% of the potential workforce is still looking for full employment.

Simply, because a majority of unemployed Americans either cannot afford to take or do not have the necessary training to enter into these new jobs.
Why?
Because most of these new jobs are in low skilled service industries which pay below median wage for full time work, or in fields that require significant technical expertise, extensive academic and/or vocational training, making them a realistically non-viable option for most seeking employment.

Except for Millennials and Generation Z who will fight tooth and nail for these opportunities
Our young people currently live in a perpetual state of economic desperation and anxiety.
Highly educated, motivated, and eager to get their adult lives started.
And through no fault of their own, they were cast headwind into the aftermath of Great Recession.
1/3 of college grads cannot land a job within two years of finishing their degree.
Those who don’t go off to college either join the military, apprentice for a trade, start businesses, or enter into labor intensive industries knowing their jobs are likely to be disrupted, displaced, transformed and/or eliminated by advances in technology, decades before they reach retirement.
But there is nothing any of them can do about it.

And many may wait decades to start families, because they do not yet feel financially secure
Knowing they will most likely be saddled with student debt for the majority of their working lives. Even as nearly 50% of them believe they will one day become rich.
That with whatever low wage work they can find, they will eventually come to understand they can never work hard enough to get ahead.
That they may never be able to afford a home.
That they will never feel financially secure.
That they will not be able to save enough for retirement.
Living their entire adult lives with precarious caution.
In fear of never escaping wage enslavement or housing insecurity.
With the self-loathing that comes with still believing themselves, even as adults, to be inadequate as capable partners and in their intimate relationships.
For not feeling safe enough to start the families they will desire to have. For not being able to trust in themselves and their own capabilities enough to provide for their children in a financially uncertain future.
And so they will constantly live with the anxiety and depression and sickness that comes with always feeling trapped, alone and unworthy as a man, woman, husband, wife, partner, parent, daughter, son, child, or even as a human being.
For never being able to accomplish your long-term goals, or to make the dreams of your own life come true.
Only to eventually resign to their situations. In order to cope. As humans who have come before us have always done. Finding a way to survive whatever environment they found themselves born into.

But then that time will soon arrive
When the X’s and Millennials and the Z’s will reach retirement age.
And no-one will have saved for any of it.
Because neither we nor they could have afforded to. But we also could not have afforded not to. And now here we will all be.
In the eye of the storm that we all saw coming.
But did nothing to address, other than to point the mast forward and keep sailing, full steam ahead.
And so now, from this vantage point in the future where we now look back upon ourselves, we must take measure and return to the present, in this moment, within which we still find ourselves able right the course of our ship, to save our future selves, by and from and for ourselves, while there is still time…
To avert the coming of the storm.

Still many reasonable options for those to take (including myself) who wish to continue consuming meat, albeit much less of it.
For one, if minimizing their suffering so that the full lives of those we do eat are much more worth living to them than not (admittedly somewhat subjectively assessed), a solid ethical first step.
Of course, this would substantially increase costs to the consumer, requiring it to become more of a delicacy.
And any added costs to shifting demand will HAVE to be enough to offset losses, maintain and improve sustainable livelihoods for our farmers and ranchers (including several friends) who currently work diligently and valuably to feed our society, at all levels in this industry.
Arguably the largest leap of all.
But our current system is unquestionably a deliberate mass atrocity being committed against sentient creatures at a scale paling any others in the history of our earth.

Sufferers of debilitating depression and other mood disorders that lead people to consider and/or act upon suicide are most often living with chronic conditions that they have lived with for years and will struggle to manage for their entire lives. And many do so in desperate silence. In most cases, these conditions can be treated and stabilized with a combination of the right talk therapy and pharma, in a manner where the lowest of the lows that give people little hope to come back from won’t ever have to return, if and when treatment is consistent. No two combinations of medication or therapy are exactly the same for anyone. Because no two people’s biochemistry is ever exactly alike. So because mood disorders are predominantly biochemical in nature, even with beginning treatments, it often takes time, usually months and sometimes years, for people to find the right balance of medications they need, the right therapist to confide in, that can provide the consistent relief against ever having to return to some of the worst lows they have experienced. Many of those who suffer have sadly not yet been able to find their way to this kind of effective treatment which DOES WORK. For many reasons. Cost, stigma, a feeling of obligation to handle their own emotions, to ‘step up’ ‘hold on’ toughen up’ or ‘just fight through it’, feelings of guilt or concern for not wanting to burden loved ones with something nightmarish that will make them always feel scared and helpless because it is out of their control anyway, as much as it is to the sufferer them self, all of these reasons and more are barriers for people at risk of suicide to reach out or to seek treatment. Even as many loved ones do know when their sufferers struggle, many others do not. And no-one is in complete control. Many sufferers that do hopefully make it through these hurdles to even seek treatment, either alone or with some support or encouragement, will still usually live with some degree of imperfect results for the rest of their lives, because biochemical imbalances are nearly impossible to completely control outright in anyone. So many who are able to find their way to treatment will manage their condition with life saving but imperfect or fluctuating results for the reminder of their lives. That will either hold or that can turn at any time. And even then, there are some who have biochemical imbalances that cannot be completely managed or blunted with current medications at all. So. Most all who suffer continue to live in chronic crisis, even with treatment. These types of conditions which lead people to consider, attempt, or complete suicide are vastly biochemically driven, unique to every individual, and again are usually beyond the control of the sufferer without treatment, where even then it is and will remain in too many cases a chronic, ongoing challenge to maintain the struggle. So how do we protect the most vulnerable in our lives from taking such a horrific, inconceivable action that seems to make sense to them in the storm of their bleakest, hopeless and most depleted moments, one they will never be able to come back from if taken either then or soon after, as come out with enough recovering energy to act and enough immediate memory of the helplessness they just felt to never want to go back? If you or someone you love can be, be someone they can call within, during before or after one of those moments. If only to just coexist in the moment with them, to be a supportive voice on the other end of the phone, or across the couch beside the bed sharing their space and company, unthreatened by their desperation and anguish, reminding them without judgement that there is hope. That you will be there for them regardless of how they feel in any given moment, whether they are silent or crying or breathing heavily or laughing across the line, motionless or animate or defeated asleep next to you, that you admire them for the strength they display in their ongoing struggle, and equally important, to remind them that their reality in that moment is part of a larger picture of their collective experience, and that most on this same journey they endure alone will take time, but that you will be there for them while they endure through the time they will need to find the right medication and discover the best fit for clinical support, because no two bodies or brains or personalities or collective needs are ever alike. IT is more than just caring. IT is understanding without judgement, and being that person who they can call at 3 AM to stay with them in the ER or to spend the night at their house and/or drive them to the doctor the next morning. Being the person they know they can trust to call in their darkest of moments, being that someone they know who will want to listen and not need for them to be anything other than what they can be in that moment, in any moment when they reach out to you, this is how you make a difference. The difference to your loved ones that may determine whether they live or do not, for any who live with a chronic disease that can overtake them at any given moment, without constant personal vigilance and reliable support. We all do the best we can do. And no two cases are alike. But this is what seems to work, if anything works at all. So RIP KS and AB. And for those who share in similar struggle with their own bodies, either in silence or out loud, know you are valued and you are supported by those who love you, those who believe in you, and those in like company who know you are worth all in this world to each of us. So please reach out when you need it, knowing there can and will always be someone there for you, that you a worthy adversary to this and are proudly capable in being there for yourself, and that there is a way out of this mine with the right help, though it may still be hard to find at first, but it is there, and those who live with this same struggle understand, care for and support you. So please be well, know you can reach out whenever you feel the need or want to, and there will always be those in your life looking forward to talking with you soon.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Call 1-800-273-8255

Available 24 hours any day, everyday.

“After injecting himself with a genetic line of ‘immortalized’ stem cells, a schizophrenic biologist believed to be the harbinger of the End of Days leads a global holy war to eradicate universal superstition and collective magical thought, to prevent humanity’s destruction of the natural world before it is too late…”

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND E-BOOK ON AMAZON.COM

A woman in the Netherlands carries her Starbucks coffee mug along with a black leather folder compiled with legal briefs into her boss’ Office of the Special Prosecutor, International Criminal Court in The Hague.
You wanted to see me?
I want to sue Bashir Assad for crimes against humanity.
She sits and waits silently for the man across the desk to respond.
You’re serious.
Yes.
Go back out and come in when you’ve gathered your senses.
I would have expected more pragmatism from you. Hear me out.
Get in line.
ICC only has jurisdiction over signatories to the Rome Statute. And the regime is not a party to that treaty. As I see it, the chemical weapons angle justifying a special UN Security Council resolution permitting an ICC investigation of crimes committed in Syrian territory is the only way to do it.
The US, France and Great Britain have already pulled back from the brink of war over that. They will never sponsor extradition or persecution of Assad or any senior regime members as long as they are playing ball with dismantling their chemical munitions and not interfering with coalition airstrikes against ISIL.
I’m talking build a case against the regime through eyewitness accounts, then present it to the Security Council under grounds of crimes against humanity.
Suppose you could even find a member state to sponsor your appeal, which you never will without the Americans on board. Why stop at the regime? By all accounts of the UN Commission on Special Inquiry to Syria, all sides have committed atrocities. So even if your special resolution was approved, you’re going to have to prosecute the rebels as well. Take out the Free Syrian Army leadership while you’re at, it if you really wish to guarantee ‘no impunity’. And then Syrians will have no government on any side. Except for the extremists who refuse our invitation for a ‘voluntary’ vacation to the chambers of The Hague to regale us with their lofty tales of resisting persecution and achieving absolution through slaughter and sacrifice. Why don’t you just go after ISIL?
Al-Baghdadi and his thugs will be long dead with the sustained international rollback before they ever get the chance to face justice. What I’m talking about is justice for the victims of the Civil War.
You want to go to Syria and interview victims? The snipers will cut your trip real short.
No, I’ll conduct the interviews in the camps.
With what resources? Hell, we can’t even prosecute war crimes in countries party to the ICC. You well know our budgets are beyond starved.
We need to have some preliminary vision around this if the Permanent 5 ever come to their senses to prosecute.
The documentation is already there for a framework to be put in place should that remotely happen. Anyone and their mother can download thousands of torture victim’s pictures. And Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have compiled endless eyewitness accounts documenting the atrocities in scores of reports…
We have to build our own case. Assemble our own witness lists, our own framework for a possible tribunal down the line.
As long as Russia and China will veto any resolution petitioning to bring war criminals from a non-signatory nation before the ICC, you’ve got no case worth developing.
But we will be ready if the Americans ever cut a deal with Russia and China in the future to persecute the regime. If we do the interviews, assemble the dossiers and build the necessary framework now for a special tribunal, once kicked into gear the process will be able to take months and not years. We may even be able to get a few of these thugs into the dock before our witnesses die.
In an ideal world, I would agree that would be nice. But we don’t have the resources to send you to Syria right now.
We could always go the Independent Prosecutor route.
Outside of the ICC? There will be no teeth for anything bit symbolic posturing.
Which firms would you suggest?
Never gonna happen either. First, You’re going to need a sponsor. Major international donors. Or a string of governments. Start contacting the foreign ministries. You won’t get EU buy in as a whole, but several eastern European nations, and those states with large refugee diasporas may buy in.
Like those 52 ladies who petitioned the Security Council for an International Criminal Tribunal when they went after that thug Bosco in the DRC. This can work.
Yeah, and suppose you miraculously manifest such a list, and the Security Council hears your case, and under the blue moon of your deluded fantasy, they decide to make an exception for the ICC to charge our favorite genocidal maniac, Bashir Assad. Still, no one will be able to extradite him.
But then he won’t be able to take sanctuary if the war swings the way of the rebels.
Assad has already proven he will die in Syria one way or the other.
It will establish a precedent.
Your better off with a Truth and Reconciliation approach along the lines of Cambodia, Rwanda or Kosovo if you really wish to give the victims a forum for their voices to be heard. But we both know either way, that won’t happen at least for another five years after the fighting stops.
I have vacation time accrued.
Vacation? You’ve only been here two years!
I’ve heard the beaches of Beirut and the sweltering humidity of Zaatari this time of year are incomparable.
Do what you want with your free time. I’ll take a look at what you come up with if you make it back. Deal?
That’s all I could ask for.
Which you better make it back. You know I can’t afford to lose you.
Then I’ll see you in two weeks.

A woman walked along the main road leading to São Conrado beach near Rocinha Favela, Brazil.

Her brother would be competing in the martial arts tournament that evening.

All the campesinos and musicians were walking the streets in anticipation for Carnival, only two weeks away.

Though Rocina was bustling on this day for another reason altogether.

The Anti-trafficking unit of the Polizia were infiltrating the favela this morning, clearing out suspected drug dens with the Rio Municipality officers issuing eviction notices to clear out the most dilapidated of tenements for razing.

World Cup was arriving in the city next year. And zoning officials were in a hurry to evict the favela dwellers before new tenement construction to accommodate the arriving crowds could begin.

But such occurrences were not new to Rocinha. The favela dwellers were their own community. They had forged their homes and made their own rules, following the laws mandated and imposed first by the early settlers, then the traffickers and finally now, the polizia as they facilitated the gradual transformation of slums near the olympic park being constructed down the slopes near the beach.

It was there that Ana Luisa ran into her girlfriend Fabiana, emerging from the market where she bought a fruit drink.

Aye mami, you’re looking hot to trot today!

Mauricio will be at the tournament tonight, no?

He has put the word out. He wants you to be his woman. The way he made lustful eyes at you in the discotech last Saturday night, tells everyone the same.

Ana Luisa laughed.  He will have to get in line.

Fabiana reeled with a hiss. Ohhh, so your going to make him work for it, huh?

I’ve got no time for wannabe trafficos.

But he’ll take good care of you if you’re his woman.

I’ve got myself and my family to worry about. They are enough.

You’re right. Marry yourself a soccer player instead.

Long as he knows how to be a real man. And how to handle a real woman!

Now that’s my lady talking! She slaps her hand. Well good luck sister, ‘less you want to keep living the life of a broke campesina.

There are worse ways to be.

Hallelulja to that. Though I can’t think of any.

So, for Diego’s party this evening…

Ana Luisa looked at her as if she was crazy.

He did call you, no?

Ana Luisa shook her head. He knows by now I’m not looking to get with him.

Well we are going. Pour the cashasa and bebida, ’cause he’s fine! And after a few drinks, you’ll be ready to get all up in that.

He’s too pale. And skinny. I like a little meat on my bones. That’s your type.

Well he ain’t of slave’s blood. But he does have bicepts like the Pão de Açúcar. Fabiana smiles.

We’re lucky we have different types.

But you might meet a nice favela boy, just the way you like ’em. You two can get married and go open a sweets shoppe, live your Rocinha fairytale just like you’ve always dreamed! Then you and all your kids can live in your momma’s house, cause your asses will be too broke to find a new one.

Long as he fine, I don’t mind.

Fabiana raises her hand to slap palms with Ana Luisa’s. You know how we do it!

The women continued along the slopes of the barrio until they approached a group of men brandishing vests and small firearms, standing at the far corner of the next street.

You know something? The tall and darker one smiled. You ladies get finer every time you walk by.  Ana Luisa, you going to come party it up with us Saturday? Why don’t you come by my place early? You know I’ll show you a good time.

Ana Luisa smiled back and waived him off. Didn’t Alejandro pull you guys off the corner today? Polizia are moving deep into Rocina. You heard the gunshots near the Playa this afternoon, no?

The man interested in her, Mauricio, shrugged. There will be no interferences here. Polizia understand we run this section.

Meanwhile, the man standing next to him, Luiz Gustavo, scanned Fabiana up and down with eager enthusiasm. Alejandro paid his dogs to focus their operations on the north side. They aren’t coming in today.

Ana Luisa countered. You know those soldiers are not all corrupt, right? And their captain’s won’t take your boss’ money forever.

As long as there are drugas in Rio, there will be cops. Mauricio agreed.

And as long as there are cops, there will be raids. Ana Lucia finished.

And as long as there are raids, there will be those who look the other way.

And the rest? Must they simply wait for their turn to die?

Mauricio looked away, not pleased with Ana Luisa’s prediction for him.

So Ana, are you ever going to let me take you out or what?

Are you ever going to get out of this life Mauricio? Ana pressed him. Because I’m not looking to tie my future to a walking corpse.

Mauricio smiled again. You know I’ll always do what it takes to get mine. Until I earn enough for us, once I save what we need, I’ll take you and I away from this place forever. With your momma and her kids. We’ll all leave Rio together and never look back.

And go where? Ana Luisa shook her head. Promises are only as good as the actions you take when it matters, she dismissed.

I will show you, my way. Mauricio promised her. One day, I will leave this life for you. If you will only have me.

Leave this life and then we will see.

Mauricio deflected. Are you still coming to the party Saturday?

Ana Luisa again. We’ll see.

You never make it easy.

How interesting would she be otherwise? Fabiana chimed in with a smirk.

Wish your brother luck from me tonight, Mauricio implored.

Keep your luck, Ana Luisa returned half-jokingly. You’ll need it more than he does.

Mauricio waved her off as Luiz Gustavo pushed his friend in jest. Ouch, you’re killing me! We will see you mamis later.

Not if we see you first.

Aye!

The women walked on. Halfway up the winding hill to the favela residences, Ana Luisa agreed to meet Fabiana at the tournament. From there they would head to the party being thrown by Fabiana’s crush, Diego.

Ana Luisa headed first to the local butcher for some beef cutlets and then to a hillside vendor for sweet potatoes, all the ingredients she would need to make her famed Tropeiro Carioca. Once the vendor was paid, Ana Luisa headed the rest of the way up the hill towards her home, sheltered well below the looming shadow of the mighty Christ the Redeemer statue hovering over majestic Rio.

Inside, her mother lay on the couch in a tank top and sweat shorts watching a telenovela. Alongside her near the floor, Ana Luisa’s baby sister, Isabella, played with her doll.

When Isabella spotted her older sister carrying a bag, she cried immediately to explore it’s contents. When Ana Luisa refused, she calmed the little one by pulling Isabella up from the floor with her free arm to carry her into the kitchen.

Once their faces were in reach, Ana Luisa rubbed noses with her.  So, are you ready to help your big sister cook dinner? The soothing novelty of the gesture immediately calmed the little one.

Once inside the kitchen, Isabella immediately grabbed for the cutlets again. But before she could get her hand into the bag, Ana Luisa poured them into a pan and heated them to a sizzle.

You don’t want to touch those, unless we get to eat your fingers too! Can I have one of these? Ana Luisa now held up her sister’s hand. This big one looks like it will taste good. She put Isabella’s ring finger into her mouth, as if about to take a bite. Smiling, the girl lurched her hand away quickly.

No! Mine!

Ana Luisa laughed. Well then, I guess I’ll just have to eat these instead, she proclaimed, pouring the vegetable oil into the pan to bring the cutlets to a sizzle.

Form the couch, Ana’s mother called to her. Were you able to get the papaia?

Ana Luisa returned to the living room and sat on the chair across from her mother, cradling her sister while bouncing her up and down on her leg.

The market was out. But I will pick them up from another vendor near the tournament, after Eliezer takes home the grand prize.

But Pedro and Juan Feliz have beat him twice already. He should not get his hopes up.

Eliezer has been practicing for three hours every day after school! He might just show everyone what he’s got to beat those boys tonight.

This is why he barely passes his exams, her mother lamented.

Aye, this tournament means a lot to him Mama. It keeps him focused and out of trouble. The jiu-jitsu is a healthy way for all the children in the favela to build self-esteem.

But must it be so violent? I am afraid he is learning to fight too well. This will only make him more attractive to the traffickers once he has come of age.

Not if I have anything to do with it. Ana Luisa assured.

He is already old enough to make money as a courier.

But still he stays away from the gangs! They prey on those with no other opportunities. But Eliezer has us.

The Virgin Mary has provided blessings with a daughter whose head sits solid on her shoulders. I pray she grants me the same with you brother.

Do not worry Mama, Eliezer makes his good decisions because you have raised him to do so.

And because you continue to show him the way. Her mother held up her hand, shaking its clenched palm with a gesture of gratitude to her daughter.

Ana Luisa turned and pointed to the kitchen, where the smoldering steam from the frying pan was now raging. Look Isabella, the food is now burning!

Isabella’s eyes widened. Ana Luisa opened her mouth playfully and kissed her sister. We have to move quickly! She pulled her sister back up into her arms and carried the girl with a playful rush back into to the kitchen, where together they moved the fryer away from the flame and tended to preparations for the rest of the meal.