Losing our Cool: Climate Emergency’s Heat Waves Threaten America
Informed Comment – June 14, 2024 – Stan Cox
https://www.juancole.com/2024/06/climate-emergency-threaten.html

This summer promises to eclipse even the summer of 2023, which, in the Northern Hemisphere, was the hottest since at least the year 1 AD, according to tree-ring analysis. You read that correctly: this summer may be hotter than any summer in the last 2,024 years (and undoubtedly many tens of thousands before that, since tree rings can take the data back only so far). The world’s hot future has already arrived in parts of the Global South, thanks largely to past greenhouse gas emissions mainly from the Global North. On May 29th, in Delhi, India, residents suffered under record-melting 127-degree heat. Earlier in May, deadly heat descended on Southeast Asia… And here’s the simple truth: when it comes to a sweltering planet, that’s only the start and no one is safe anymore.

[read Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 climate sci-fi novel “The Ministry for the Future.” where our world is predicted with frightening accuracy]

World’s Carbon Removal Must Increase by 4x to Reach Climate Targets
Ecowatch – June 7, 2024 – Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-removal-goals-climate-targets.html

The second edition of The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report — co-led by University of Oxford researchers — has found that, in order to reach global climate targets, governments must expand tree planting and the use of technologies to increase carbon dioxide removal (CDR) by four times annually… “Given the world is off track from the decarbonisation required to meet the Paris temperature goal, this shows the need to increase investment in CDR as well as for zero-emission solutions across the board,” said Dr. Steve Smith of University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment in the press release.

How a Faster Move to Clean Energy will Save everyone Money on Power Bills
Informed Comment – June 11, 2024 – Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/2024/06/faster-energy-everyone.html

Last week, the International Energy Agency put out a new report that turns conventional wisdom regarding the clean energy transition on its head. It is cheaper for everyone to adopt solar, wind, batteries and other renewables as soon as possible than to go on depending on coal, fossil gas and petroleum. And we’re just talking about energy costs in a vacuum here, not factoring in the climate change damage that fossil fuels do to the planet, which costs billions of dollars a year and will cost ever more as time goes on… If we stop subsidizing fossil fuels and put the money instead into a Manhattan Project-style full court press for renewables, in 11 years consumers could be paying 20% less for their energy, especially in the developing world.

NYC’s Independent Recyclers Emerged From the Pandemic Stronger Than Ever. Here’s How.
Next City – May 24, 2024 – Oscar Perry Abello
https://nextcity.org/features/nycs-independent-recyclers-emerged-from-the-pandemic-stronger-than-ever.-he

Since 1983, consumers in New York State have paid retailers a 5-cent deposit per can or bottle covered by the New York Returnable Container Act, more commonly known as the “Bottle Bill.” It was meant as a way to incentivize recycling. Consumers can get back those 5 cents per container by returning materials marked eligible for redemption to grocery stores, bodegas, or other retailers — or by bringing them to a state-licensed redemption center like Sure We Can… When the pandemic hit in 2020, all of that was thrown in jeopardy… Four years later, Sure We Can has emerged in a stronger position than ever… It’s become a community hub for independent recyclers to organize and represent their own interests in the legislative process to boost their incomes from canning.

How the recycling symbol lost its meaning
Grist – June 12, 2024 – Kate Yoder
https://grist.org/culture/recycling-symbol-logo-plastic-design/

So where did the three arrows go wrong? The trouble is that their loop has ensnared us. If some recycling is good, the thinking goes, then more recycling is better. That creates enormous pressure for packaging to be made recyclable and stamped with the arrows — regardless of whether trying to recycle a glass bottle or plastic yogurt container made much sense in the first place. David Allaway, a senior policy analyst at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, says that the facts just don’t support the recycling symbol’s reputation as a badge of environmental goodness. “The magnetic, gravitational power of recycling,” he said, has led “policymakers and the public to just talk more and more and more about recycling, and less and less and less about anything else.”

World’s top banks ‘greenwashing their role in destruction of the Amazon’
The Guardian – Junde 1, 2024 – Jonathan Watts
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/11/worlds-top-banks-greenwashing-their-role-in-destruction-of-the-amazon

The institutions are alleged to have provided billions of dollars of finance to oil and gas companies involved in projects that are impacting the Amazon, destabilising the climate or impinging on the land and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. The banks say they follow ethical policies that help to protect intact forests, biodiversity hotspots, indigenous territories and nature reserves. However, the investigation says it has found geographical and technical limitations on their ability to monitor and achieve these stated goals. The report was produced by the watchdog organisation Stand.earth and the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA).

Is Your City or State Investing in Israeli Bonds or Fossil Fuels? Here’s How to Find Out.
Next City – June 11, 2024 – Oscar Perry Abello
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/local-government-investing-israeli-bonds-fossil-fuels-divestment

At more than $4 trillion, local and state governments’ investments eclipse those of college endowments – but they often fly under the radar. So how do you find out where your state or local tax dollars invested? Next City explains.

The Fall of Roe: You Thought Dobbs Was Bad? They’re Coming for Brown v. Board
The Daily Beast – June 9, 2024 – Lloyd Green
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fall-of-roe-you-thought-dobbs-was-bad-theyre-coming-for-brown-v-board

In their new book “The Fall of Roe,” named for Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that previously safeguarded federal abortion rights, Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer masterfully lay out how the cultural right and pro-life movement refused to take “no” for an answer, played the long game, and attained the victory for which they had yearned. Dias and Lerer also capture the somnolence of the left and how “intersectionality” came to divide old allies… the mechanics of federalism have left legislatures in red states to act as a counterforce to the more liberal national ethos, a point stressed in “The Fall of Roe”… Said differently, fetuses weren’t the only reasons large checks were being cut to the Federalist Society, or that constitutional originalism had become the civic religion of the right. FDR’s legacy has to be gutted. Social security may no longer be so secure.

The Supreme Court Just Unanimously Struck Down a Challenge to the Abortion Pill
Mother Jones – June 13, 2024 – Nina Martin
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/the-supreme-court-just-unanimously-struck-down-a-challenge-to-the-abortion-pill/

The case brought together an unusual coalition of business and advocacy organizations alarmed by the potential ramifications of undermining and potentially gutting, the FDA’s long-established regulatory process. Drug companies warned that rescinding the FDA’s rules on mifepristone might set off a chain reaction that would destabilize the global pharmaceutical industry. Public health advocates warned that if the attacks on the abortion pill succeeded, conservative groups would likely respond by targeting a wide array of other medications and devices, including IUDs, emergency contraception, vaccines, HIV prevention pills, and hormones used in gender-affirming care.

No One Should Be Confused About Where Trump Stands on Abortion
The New Republic – June 11, 2024 – Melissa Gira Grant
https://newrepublic.com/article/182547/trump-abortion-danbury-institute

Why would Trump, who is trying to stick to a simple “leave it to the states” script, seek the support of a group that considers abortion “child sacrifice”? And, conversely, why would the Danbury Institute—a new group with ties to the more conservative factions of the Southern Baptist Convention—accept the leadership of a man just convicted of 34 felony crimes in connection with covering up sex with a porn performer? In truth, none of this is very surprising.

An old lawyer’s thoughts on Trump’s 34 New York convictions
The Rag Blog – June 13, 2024 – Lamar Hankins
https://www.theragblog.com/lamar-hankins-ireflections-i-an-old-lawyers-thoughts-on-trumps-34-new-york-convictions/

I have never lost faith in democracy and the compromises that are necessary conditions of living together in community or, at least, proximity. But I never believed in what Hubert Humphrey would have called “the fundamental goodness of America” (in the words of journalist James Traub’s biography of Humphrey). I believe we should be honest about our history. We should feel shame when we accuse others of being colonizers because that is exactly what we did to the indigenous people we found on the North American continent when we “discovered” it. We continue to try to control political outcomes in other countries, usually to satisfy the desires of economic elites. And the internment of Japanese-Americans is difficult to forgive, as is our historic antisemitism and ethnocentrism, along with the several inexcusable wars we have spawned during my lifetime… I did not become a lawyer to help people like Trump — someone who uses people, games the legal system against them, follows racist business practices, and does as he wishes to whomever he wishes. What I learned on this journey is that the deck is stacked, but it can be rearranged on occasion to create some fairness and equity… Trump’s criminal cases make clear that we have a system of unequal justice in this country. For that, there is no remedy available given the way our present government is constituted.

It’s The American Flag – Not a Trump flag
Dan Rather’s blog “Steady” – June 14, 2024
https://steady.substack.com/p/its-the-american-flag

On a day chosen to honor our nation’s most revered emblem, the American flag has regretfully become a symbol of division rather than unity. In the upside-down political world in which we find ourselves, the flag has been seized by supporters of a political candidate who wants to dismantle democracy. As MAGA extremists fly the flag for someone who tried to subvert a free and fair election, do they recognize the irony?

White Nationalist, anti-LGBTQ Activity on the Rise
Informed Comment – June 10, 2024 – Ashley Murray
https://www.juancole.com/2024/06/nationalist-activity-annual.html

Emboldened by the mainstreaming of hard-right politics ahead of a presidential election cycle, white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups increased to record levels in the United States last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest annual report on hate and extremism… “What we’re seeing now should be a wake-up call for all of us,” Margaret Huang, SPLC’s president and CEO, said on a call with reporters on Tuesday. “Our 2023 report documented more hate and anti-government extremist groups than ever before. With a historic election just months away, these groups are multiplying, mobilizing, and making, and in some cases already implementing, plans to undo democracy.”… The SPLC report cites the expanding influence of extreme Christian nationalism as a driver for the growing number of anti-government organizations.

Gaza vs Ukraine: A double standard that has broken the world order
Open Democracy – June 10, 2024 – Chelsea Ngoc Minh Nguyen
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/gaza-ukraine-hypocrisy-geopolitics/

Will support for the West’s cause in Ukraine lead to a more egalitarian and consistent rules-based world order? Or will it reinforce the hierarchical status quo, characterised by the selective compliance with international law across different wars and occupations? That has been the question on the minds of many of us in the Global South since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022. The answer has been on full display since the start of Israel’s latest war on Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attack on 7 October The result has been an ongoing collapse of confidence in the so-called ‘rules-based international order’, not only in the eyes of the Global South but also in the eyes of many feminist, environmentalist and human rights movements around the world, who are appalled at their Western counterparts’ treatment of the Palestinians… What kind of geopolitics, notions of sovereignty, human rights, and legality are needed to overcome today’s challenges? Otherwise, we will slip ever closer towards the abyss of a more violent, nihilistic, and soulless world, in which the weak are crushed in the interests of the powerful few.

    Active-Duty US Service Members Issue Appeal to Congress to Stop Funding Genocide
    Truthout – June 13, 2024 – Marjorie Cohn
    https://truthout.org/articles/active-duty-us-service-members-issue-appeal-to-congress-to-stop-funding-genocide/

    Kathleen Gilberd, executive director of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild and my coauthor for Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, told Truthout there has been an increase in the number of applications for conscientious objection (CO) and other types of honorable discharge from the military. “Many military personnel have serious objections to the U.S. support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians,” Gilberd said…. Gilberd noted the significance of these protests, saying: “As in the Vietnam War, Iraq War and Afghanistan War, G.I. resistance is a powerful force for peace. The National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force and our allies stand in support of these military dissenters and resisters.”… This courageous effort by service members and veterans follows in a long tradition of dissent in the U.S. military, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. The G.I. movement during the Vietnam War was integral to ending that war.

    Expiration of Pandemic Relief Led to Record Increases in Poverty and Child Poverty in 2022
    Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – June 10, 2024 – Danilo Trisi
    https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expiration-of-pandemic-relief-led-to-record-increases-in-poverty

    The significant backsliding on child poverty that occurred after Congress allowed the Child Tax Credit expansion to expire underscores the fact that the number of children living in poverty is a policy choice. More broadly, to recapture and build on the progress against poverty made during the pandemic, policymakers will need to strengthen economic supports for families who face difficulties affording the basics — whether during a recession or in normal economic times, when individual families also face hardships due to layoffs, illness, caregiving responsibilities, or other circumstances… This will require the right fiscal policy choices, including raising revenues from high-income people and corporations so we have the resources we need to make important investments that improve economic security and broaden opportunity.

    Catholic bishops apologize for church’s role operating Indian boarding schools
    The Washington Post – June 14, 2024 – Sari Horwitz and Dana Hedgpeth
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/06/14/catholic-church-indian-boarding-schools/

    U.S. Catholic bishops issued a formal apology Friday morning for the church’s role in inflicting a “history of trauma” on Native Americans, including at church-run Indian boarding schools… The vote by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which establishes policies and norms for the church in the United States, represents the most direct expression of regret to date by church officials for past participation in a systematic effort by the U.S. government to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into White society… While the 56-page document covers many aspects of the church’s relationship with Native Americans, it specifically highlights its role in the Indian boarding schools that were created in the 19th century as part of a U.S. government policy to eradicate Native American cultures.

    Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic
    Reuters – June 14, 2024 – By Chris Bing and Joel Schectman
    https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/

    The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found… The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said… Academic research published recently has shown that, when individuals develop skepticism toward a single vaccine, those doubts often lead to uncertainty about other inoculations.

    The Chiquita Verdict Was a Long Time Coming
    The New Republic – June 12, 2024 – Kate Aronoff
    https://newrepublic.com/article/182589/chiquita-colombia-deaths-verdict

    Judgments against corporations are rare. That’s especially true when the people suing them are foreign nationals who have been harmed in their home countries; Chiquita previously paid a $25 million criminal fine in 2007 for violating U.S. anti-terrorism laws. This week’s ruling against Chiquita, however, is reportedly the first time that a major U.S. company has been held liable for human rights abuses in another country… In light of an international legal architecture so thoroughly rigged against the victims of corporate abuse, the victory against Chiquita this week is remarkable. With any hope, it won’t be the last.

    One change that would make cars safer for everyone
    Vox – June 11, 2024 – Marin Cogan
    https://www.vox.com/policy/354561/pedestrian-fatalities-car-safety-ratings

    Why has the government failed to address the fact that large, heavy vehicles are deadlier to pedestrians and cyclists than smaller cars? There is actually a way to make cars safer for everyone — and it includes changing how the government rates a “safe car.” In Europe, government regulators test new vehicles to see how dangerous they are for pedestrians and cyclists and include that information in their safety ratings. They’ve been doing it for years. The US does no such thing… “For too long the federal government has prioritized moving cars quickly to the exclusion of all other transportation priorities. This philosophy has had deadly ramifications,” says Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who’s been pushing Congress for safer streets and vehicles for 28 years. “It’s time to design vehicles that don’t maim pedestrians. It should not be this hard.”

    In Remembrance of James Lawson, a Force for Good and Champion of Peace
    Common Dreams – June 16, 2024 – Ethan Vesely-Flad
    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/james-lawson-civil-rights

    Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called him “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” To Rep. John Lewis, he was “the architect of the nonviolence movement.” Jesse Jackson simply called him “the Teacher.” We at the Fellowship of Reconciliation are blessed to have counted him among our core team of organizers. It is with reverence that we remember his life and time with us… “By the end of my high school years, I came to recognize that that whole business – walk the second mile, turn the other cheek, pray for the enemy, see the enemy as a fellow human being – was a resistance movement. It was not an acquiescent affair or a passive affair. I saw it as a place where my own life grew in strength inwardly, and where I had actually seen people changed because I responded with the other cheek. I went the second mile with them.”… Lawson’s profound assessment of U.S. militarism and what he called “plantation capitalism” shaped not only the interweaving of the 1960s civil rights and anti-war struggles but ultimately how our intersectional social movements are shaped today… Whether prophetically interpreting the scriptures, challenging America’s original sin with the fierce power of nonviolent direct action, or strategically connecting with other monumental peace leaders, Lawson’s commitment to social justice was relentless and unwavering.

    How Daniel Ellsberg’s Moral Power Remains Alive
    Tom Dispatch – June 9, 2024 – Norman Solomon
    https://tomdispatch.com/the-absence-and-presence-of-daniel-ellsberg/

    After working inside this country’s doomsday machinery, even drafting nuclear war plans for the Pentagon during President John F. Kennedy’s administration, Dan Ellsberg had gained intricate perspectives on what greased the bureaucratic wheels, personal ambitions, and political messaging of the warfare state. Deceptions about arranging for the ultimate violence of thermonuclear omnicide were of a piece with routine falsehoods about American war-making. It was easy enough to get away with lying, he told me: “How difficult is it to deceive the public? I would say, as a former insider, one becomes aware: it’s not difficult to deceive them. First of all, you’re often telling them what they would like to believe — that we’re better than other people, we’re superior in our morality and our perceptions of the world.”… While he can no longer speak to the world about the latest developments, Dan Ellsberg will continue to speak directly to hearts and minds about the extreme evils of our time — and the potential for overcoming them with love in action. [watch free film A COMMON INSANITY A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg About Nuclear Weapons – https://defusenuclearwar.org/a-common-insanity/]

    Capitalism Can’t Overcome the Laws of Physics
    Znetwork – May 30, 2024 – Pete Dolack
    https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/capitalism-cant-overcome-the-laws-of-physics/

    You can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet. That should be a commonplace idea. And that inevitably means facing up to the necessity of putting an end to capitalism in favor of an economic system of rationality, sustainability and equity for all the world’s peoples. It can’t be said too many times that the concept of “green capitalism” is a chimera. Unfortunately, belief in that chimera is not limited to the world’s center-left political parties; it extends to the world’s Green parties. Various “Green New Deal” programs have been floated in recent years, generally revolving around a massive buildout of renewable-energy infrastructure and strengthening the social safety net. On their own, there is no rational argument that such programs, should they materialize, would not provide some benefits. But how transformative are such programs? Here is where “green capitalism” rapidly falls apart… The material basis for everybody to have enough to eat and a place to live comfortably already exists; such a distribution is impossible under capitalism, where, again, production is performed for a small number of people to accumulate massive amounts of money with little left for everybody else. Once again, Rosa Luxemburg’s thesis that either socialism or barbarism is our future stares us in the face.

    Reject Ego-nomics, Embrace Eco-nomics
    Yes! Magazine – June 11, 2024 – David Korten
    https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2024/06/11/ego-economics-gdp-civilization

    By the end of the current decade, humans must reverse the damage we are doing to the Earth or face an almost-certain risk of that damage becoming irreversible… We have followed the policy guidance of unfettered capitalism—an economics devoted to growing the fortunes of billionaires without regard for the consequences for the living Earth and most of Earth’s inhabitants. Focused on maximizing individual financial return, contemporary economics is more accurately known as ego-nomics. Finding our way to a viable human future will require the guidance of a true eco-nomics. “Eco” comes from the Greek oikos, meaning household. Grounded in biology and ecology rather than finance, the new eco-nomics will guide us to an ecological civilization devoted to caring for the living Earth’s household and all its living beings… We have allowed money to replace mutual care in mediating our relationships with other people and the living Earth. This love for money now so dominates our consciousness that we have come to idolize financial predators. The challenge of our time is to fulfill our true and largely unrealized human potential by learning to live as beloved communities rooted in mutual caring and service to one another, and to the natural and human commons consistent with our true nature.