Attenborough gives stark warning on climate change to UN
Yale Forum – BBC – February 22, 2021 – Sir David Attenborough
https://fore.yale.edu/news/Attenborough-gives-stark-warning-on-climate-change-to-UN
Climate change could, within a lifetime, destroy “entire cities and societies”, Sir David Attenborough has told the UN Security Council. “I don’t envy the responsibility that this places on all of you,” the naturalist said. Watch the short video here.
Climate change: Carbon emission promises ‘put Earth on red alert’
BBC – February 26, 2021 – Roger Harrabin
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56208651
Governments must halve emissions by 2030 if they intend the Earth to stay within the 1.5C “safe” threshold. But the latest set of national policies submitted to the UN shows emissions will merely be stabilised by 2030. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, called it a red alert for our planet. He said: “It shows governments are nowhere close to the level of ambition needed to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees and meet the goals of the Paris (Climate) Agreement. “The major emitters must step up with much more ambitious emissions reductions targets.”
On Climate, Wall Street Out-Orwells Orwell
The New Yorker – February 25, 2021 – Bill McKibben
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/on-climate-wall-street-out-orwells-orwell
Now capitalism—or so the scientists tell us—does not have time. It has nine years to deliver a world in which emissions are cut in half; if it doesn’t, then the talk of “Paris” will be utterly meaningless, because the targets we set there just six years ago will be unachievable. These institutions, to play their part, would have to set aside only a small part of their business. (A hundred and fifty-six billion dollars is, stunningly, a small part of Bank of America’s business—but a rant about the concentration of economic power will have to wait for another day). But they are, simply put, too greedy to do that. I suppose a politer way of saying it would be that they are too invested in their current business model. Forget about reading the room (though one hopes that they’re underestimating Biden’s moxie); they’re not reading the planet.
“Judas and the Black Messiah” and the Klan Act
The New Yorker – February 21, 2021 – Jelani Cobb
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/01/judas-and-the-black-messiah-and-the-klan-act
A new movie and a lawsuit filed by the N.A.A.C.P. highlight historic disparities in the official response to radical groups… Early in Shaka King’s new film, “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Roy Mitchell, a white F.B.I. agent says “The Panthers and the Klan are one and the same. Their aim is to sow hatred and inspire terror.” It’s a pointed moment not simply because it prefaces Hampton’s death at the hands of Chicago police officers during a raid in December, 1969, but because it presents a moral equivalency that raises more questions than it answers… Like so much of this nation’s traumatic racial history, the false equivalencies that Shaka King depicts in his movie have gained renewed salience.
A key to ending racism: Make it personal
The Harvard Gazette – February 22, 2021 – John Laidler
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/02/social-psychologist-offers-key-to-ending-racism/
Social psychologist Robert Livingston has spent decades studying racism and advising businesses and nonprofits how to confront it in their workplaces. In a new book, “The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations,” the Harvard Kennedy School lecturer in public policy argues that racism can be battled with constructive dialogue. The Gazette recently spoke to Livingston about what fuels his optimism and how people can help bring about meaningful change… [It’s] the power of conversation, what happens when you have information plus human connection. It’s what Bryan Stevenson refers to as proximity, that the human relationship factor is much more likely to result in real change in how people see the world, do things, or behave.
The Right to Vote Is Under Siege
The Chicago Sun-Times – February 22, 2021 – Jesse Jackson
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/2/22/22296180/voting-rights-republican-party-attacks-mail-voting-registration-jesse-jackson
The fundamental right in a democracy — the right to vote — is once more under siege. In state after state, Republican legislators have introduced literally hundreds of bills designed to suppress voting. Their passion is fueled by Donald Trump’s big lie that the presidential election was “stolen” from him. Their targets are minorities — African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans, and the young. They call themselves Republicans, but their lineage comes not from Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, but from Jefferson Davis, the southern Democrat who led the Confederacy in its battle to keep Blacks enslaved.
The Future of the Democratic Party
Reader Supported News – February 24, 2021 – Bernie Sanders
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68005-the-future-of-the-democratic-party
The next four years will determine whether our country continues as a democracy or whether we elect another president like Donald Trump who permanently puts us on the path towards authoritarianism. This will in part be decided by how well the Democratic Party, with control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, does at enacting policies that make a difference in the lives of working people. It is also dependent on building a Democratic Party that can truly speak to the working class of our party — Black, white, Latino, Native Americans and Asian Americans. The party must reach out and organize all Americans who believe in the principles of economic justice, racial justice, social justice, and environmental justice. It must be a party that has the courage to stand up to the powerful special interests who have so much control over the economic and political life of our country. Finally, it must be a party driven by grassroots activism, not one that serves the interests of well-paid political consultants… Now is not the time for business as usual. We need a grassroots movement which forges a new vision for America and creates a government based on the principles of justice, not greed.
The Origins of Environmental Justice – and Why It’s Finally Getting the Attention It Deserves
The National Geographic Magazine – February 24, 2021 – Alejandra Borunda
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/environmental-justice-origins-why-finally-getting-the-attention-it-deserves
Sociologist Robert Bullard has spent four decades making the case that environmental harms have disproportionately affected communities of color across the United States. So when one of President Joe Biden’s first moves after inauguration was to sign an executive order that pledged to “advance environmental justice” in his efforts to address the climate crisis, Bullard was ecstatic. “Now, environmental and racial justice is the centerpiece, not a footnote,” says the professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University. Over 40 years of research has outlined patterns of environmental injustice, where Black and brown communities bear the brunt of environmental degradation or pollution. Now, climate change is adding another dimension: Those communities also often experience the worst effects of climate-change fueled risks like hurricanes and wildfires… Bullard is fizzy with hope for the new administration. “The environmental justice framing is integral here, and we’ve never had that before,” he says. “What we have now is an opportunity for the reformulation and overhauling of the whole thing.”
Why Do Meatpacking Workers Face Such Gruesome Conditions?
Mother Jones Magazine – February 25, 2021 – Tom Philpott
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/02/meatpack-food-lobby-coronavirus/
What gives—why do food-related industries like meatpacking enjoy such carte blanche under Democrats and Republicans alike? A new report from the non-profit advocacy group Feed the Truth gets at the answer. Using data from the money-in-politics watchdog Maplight, the report shows how the companies that loom over our food system reserve a portion of their massive profits to invest in lobbying and campaign donations, and in doing so secure a friendly regulatory playing field. The report spotlights just one of the many ways Big Food shovels money into Washington: through the bigfoot trade groups they fund.
Texas Blackout Reveals Deep Impact of Environmental Racism, Aid Organizers Say
Truth Out – February 22, 2021 – Candice Bernd
https://truthout.org/articles/texas-blackout-reveals-deep-impact-of-environmental-racism-aid-organizers-say/
The parts of the state which took the biggest hit from Winter Storm Uri are largely under-resourced communities of color whose infrastructure has long been inadequate and neglected, mutual aid organizers say. These include areas of South Dallas and the border communities known as the colonias — informal settlements that lack basic necessities, often including potable water, septic or sewer systems, electricity, paved roads, or safe and sanitary housing… The climate-fueled storm, Higgins says, amplified longstanding issues of environmental racism, lack of development, and old and neglected infrastructure in the under-resourced neighborhoods of South Dallas. These communities have long suffered a cycle of environmental degradation after major highways broke up neighborhoods and invited heavy industry into the area, which in turn, has long taken an environmental and health toll on the community, creating a downward spiral. When the storm hit, these issues compounded.
Why Texas Republicans Fear the Green New Deal
The New York Times – February 21, 2021 – Naomi Klein
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/opinion/green-new-deal-texas-blackout.html
Weather alone did not cause this crisis. Texans are living through the collapse of a 40-year experiment in free-market fundamentalism, one that has also stood in the way of effective climate action. Fortunately, there’s a way out — and that’s precisely what Republican politicians in the state most fear… A fateful series of decisions were made in the late-’90s, when the now-defunct, scandal-plagued energy company Enron led a successful push to radically deregulate Texas’s electricity sector. As a result, decisions about the generation and distribution of power were stripped from regulators and, in effect, handed over to private energy companies. Unsurprisingly, these companies prioritized short-term profit over costly investments to maintain the grid and build in redundancies for extreme weather… Put bluntly, Texas is about as far from having a Green New Deal as any place on earth. So why have Republicans seized it as their scapegoat of choice?
Fossil Fuel Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein on Deadly Deregulation
Democracy Now! – February 22, 2021 – Amy Goodman interviews Naomi Klein
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/22/naomi_klein_texas_green_new_deal
Texas is about as far from a Green New Deal as you can possibly get, seeing as a Green New Deal is a plan to bring together the need to get off fossil fuels in the next decade to radically decarbonize our energy system, and, as we know, fossil fuels are still king in Texas. It’s a plan to marry that huge infrastructure investment in the next green economy with a plan to battle poverty, to create huge numbers of good, union, green jobs, to take care of people. It’s a plan to have universal public healthcare and child care and a jobs guarantee. So it’s all the things that are not happening in Texas.
We Have No Choice but to Plan for Our New Reality
Steady – February 21, 2021 – Dan Rather
https://steady.substack.com/p/be-prepared
Anyone who has ever had to weed a garden or clean up their children’s toys knows that the universe tends towards disorder. If you leave any machine unchecked for too long it will break. And that’s what happened this week in Texas. That’s what’s happening with the pandemic and our climate crisis. Indeed, these problems along with many other looming crises, have been predicted. Many times. You can look it up. Although I bet you don’t have to. Because you know it as well… So what can we do to turn the tide? One obvious answer is organizing and voting. The people who have presided over a Texas that is incompetent, selfish, short-sighted, dismissive of facts, cozy with lobbyists, and divisive will be on ballots in the future… If we keep doing business as usual, then we can expect the same results —or worse— in the future. The world is only getting more uncertain. And that means we have no choice but to plan for our new reality.
Now is the time to revolutionize policing
Vox – February 22, 2021 – Sean Collins
https://www.vox.com/22263084/breathe-act-revolutionize-policing-pressley-tlaib
There are a number of proposals that might achieve this aim. One that would bring particularly sweeping change is the BREATHE Act, a plan written by activists at the Movement for Black Lives and backed by progressive Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Its central premise is that policing can only be fixed by addressing a range of systemic problems, and posits that state and local governments can be incentivized to contend with these issues through financial aid. “BREATHE is a bill that invests,” Essie Justice Group founder and executive director Gina Clayton-Johnson, who led the creation of the BREATHE Act, told me. “It’s about making sure that states and local places have what they need in order to provide for the safety of their communities. And we divest from the very things that have been harming and stand as an impediment to safety.”… A problem as deep-rooted and damaging as policing requires a radical solution — one that does not just reform police departments but rethinks them.
10 Largest US Cities Will Spend More on Police Than Public Health This Year
Truth Out – February 24, 2021 – Ella Fassler
https://truthout.org/articles/10-largest-us-cities-will-spend-more-on-police-than-public-health-this-year/
A public health approach divests from a punishment framework and invests in a prevention framework, centering community-based and community-led efforts to public safety and well-being… Bagheri Garakani similarly emphasizes community empowerment as a pathway toward abolition, noting that the current public health system sometimes stands as a barrier. “Put simply, people most harmed by health harms and state violence must be shaping the ways we build and dismantle systems,” he told Truthout. “The system of public health is often complicit in the harm we are seeing — both with the pandemic and beyond.”… Throughout the pandemic, the enormous mutual aid efforts we’ve seen grow in communities across the country and the world are proof that communities know what is best and what is needed for our own health.
CODEPINK’s Guide to Pentagon Cuts
Codepink – February, 2021
https://www.codepink.org/guidetocuts
The 2021 budget for the Pentagon and related agencies is $741 billion, larger than the next eight countries combined, 11 times greater than Russia’s military budget and four times the size of China’s military expenditures. This year Congress voted to increase the military budget by $30 billion, an amount that exceeds the entire budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. We are invested in a death economy, wasting billions on weapons and war, while failing to eradicate violent extremism and ignoring urgent human needs at home. In 2021 we will spend over $2 billion a day on the U.S. military, more than a million dollars every minute… We must reduce the Pentagon budget to invest in what really makes us safe: Medicare for All; a Green New Deal; housing for all; full employment; great public education and much more. The need for global diplomacy and cooperation in the face of an existential climate crisis is more urgent now than ever. Below is a list of opportunities for savings that could significantly reduce spending by $541 billion. All numbers listed represent one-year savings:
Will Biden Really End Our Endless Wars?
The Nation – February 25, 2021 – William D. Hartung
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/biden-military-yemen-war/
A more effective and progressive foreign policy requires more than just undoing the damage of the Trump years. It means putting the real risks to human security—from the pandemic to climate change to racial and economic injustice—front and center. A good place to start would be reducing the Pentagon’s bloated budget, which at nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars per year is at one of the highest levels since World War II and accounts for well over half of the government’s discretionary budget. Biden has been silent on this point, but he will need to address it if he wants to make the enduring investments in public health, environmental protection, and fighting poverty and inequality that we urgently need… there is much that needs to be fleshed out if Washington is really going to set a new course in which diplomacy indeed comes first and we abandon once and for all the militarized approach to foreign affairs that has characterized US policy for so many years.
500,000 Americans Have Died of Covid. Will We Wake Up to Our Own Callousness?
The Guardian – February 23, 2021 – Reverend William Barber
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/23/500000-americans-have-died-of-covid-will-we-wake-up-to-our-own-callousness
When we look at the impact of this pandemic on other wealthy nations around the world, the disproportionate death toll we have sustained in the US exposes a basic failure of national security. Though we spend more than the next several nations combined on our military budget, our government was unable to protect its citizens against a deadly pathogen… As I listen to our ongoing conversation about what a rescue plan for America should include, I hear a dysfunction more basic than infrastructure, investment or partisan disagreement. The very language we use to talk about how we might respond to this crisis is insufficient. It does not allow us to tell the truth about either the problems we face or the possibilities to address them… As James Baldwin said: “Not everything that’s faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it has been faced.” It’s past time we face the need for policy solutions that our language has allowed us to too easily dismiss.
Bolstering Family Income Is Essential to Helping Children Emerge Successfully From the Current Crisis
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – Fedbruary 25, 2021 – Claire Zippel and Arloc Sherman
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/bolstering-family-income-is-essential-to-helping-children-emerge
Providing support to children experiencing hardship now can make an important difference in their lives now and in the long term. Nutrition assistance, for example, can not only help with children’s immediate needs but can also lead to long-term improvements in health and longevity. And compelling evidence links income support with better outcomes from healthier birthweights and lower maternal stress to better academic test scores and higher rates of high school graduation and college entry. The dangers of failing to provide adequate support, on the other hand, are substantial. Even short periods of food insecurity pose long-term health and developmental risks for children. Housing insecurity contributes to stress on parents and children, and can result in frequent moving and disrupted schooling. Intense financial worries can interfere with parenting, adversely influence children’s mental health and behavior, and in some cases contribute to toxic stress, which is associated with measurable changes in brain structure, cognitive damage, and worse health.
Lawmakers vote to make Virginia first Southern state to abolish death penalty
The Washington post – February 22, 2021 – Laura Vozzella and Gregory S. Schneider
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-death-penalty-ban/2021/02/22/742eed3e-7146-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
“This bill speaks to a lot of Virginians, a lot of people around the country,” Surovell said ahead of passage. “It says a lot about how we value human life. It says a lot about how our commonwealth is going to move past some of our darkest moments.”
How to Reopen Schools
The New York Times – February 23, 2021 – David Leonhardt
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/briefing/covid-biden-Emma-Coronel-Aispuro-daft-punk.html
Can teachers be vaccinated quickly? And can most schools safely reopen now? Yes and yes… There are two obvious ways to reopen schools. One is to take precautions like mask wearing that minimize the risk of outbreaks inside school buildings. The other is to vaccinate the country’s teachers as quickly as possible. Both strategies now appear to be feasible — and yet neither is happening in many places.
Mexico to Ban Glyphosate, GM Corn
Inter Press Service – February 24, 2021 – Timothy A. Wise
http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/02/mexico-ban-glyphosate-gm-corn-presidential-decree-comes-despite-intense-pressure-industry-u-s-authorities/
Presidential Decree Comes Despite Intense Pressure from Industry, U.S. Authorities… The import ban cites the same environmental threats but goes further, advancing the López Obrador administration’s goals of promoting greater food self-sufficiency in key crops. As the decree states: “[W]ith the objective of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, our country must be oriented towards establishing sustainable and culturally adequate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico.”
Tribes Revive Traditional Hemp Economies
Yes! Magazine – February 16, 2021 – Winona LaDuke
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/ecological-civilization/2021/02/16/tribes-revive-traditional-hemp-economies/
Tribes have the potential to revolutionize the industry. We have the land—we just need a bit of time, technology, and finances. This is an opportunity for justice—social and ecological—in this post-petroleum economic transition. And we are ready to go… Now White Plume is involved in processing hemp and plans to make a vertically integrated Lakota industry. He envisions a sustainable industry that will create high-paying jobs and bring in a steady stream of income for Lakota tribes. “This is going to be all Lakota hemp, grown on Lakota [land], produced by Lakota, and we’re going to market it by Lakota,” White Plume says. The hemp world is changing. With 10,000 uses, hemp is one of the most versatile plants to grow—and in many ways can be a catalyst for change for Native peoples. We see a New Green Revolution in Indian Country, tied to justice, economics, restoration ecology, and a return-to-the-land movement, and it’s growing.
By the End of the Year, Germany will have a Million Electric Cars on the Road out of 4.7 mn Total
Informed Comment – Clean Energy Wire – February 27, 2021 – Sören Amelang
https://www.juancole.com/2021/02/germany-million-electric.html
The NPM [National Platform Future of Mobility] recommended in its latest progress report that plug-in hybrids should be equipped with an automatic switch to increase the use of electric propulsion. “Due to the high proportion of internal combustion engine- powered vehicles in the existing fleet and the current positive market development of plug-in hybrid vehicles, CO2 emissions can be reduced through the use of alternative fuels,” the NPM report states. It also says plug-in hybrids can help preserve car industry jobs during the transition to clean mobility, because they can “spread out the reduction in the workforce over time.” Registrations of new pure electric vehicles recently overtook plug-in hybrids in Germany.
Trump Briefings? Always News. Biden Briefings? Not News.
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) – February 26, 2021 – Janine Jackson
https://fair.org/home/trump-briefings-always-news-biden-briefings-not-news/
So the upshot: Obama briefings? Not news. Trump briefings? Always news. Biden briefings? Not news again. Whatever you make of the fact that a news network’s rule of “Everybody stop what you’re doing, the White House is about to make a statement!” only seemed to hold when they could expect that statement to be akin to a flaming car wreck…just remember that those are the “journalistic” criteria they’re working with all the time.
The Billionaire Syndrome: How Individuals Become Excessively Wealthy
Global Research – February 28, 2021 – Rod Driver
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-billionaire-syndrome-how-individuals-become-excessively-wealthy/5738536
Economics textbooks don’t discuss how the economy is rigged to help the rich get richer, often at the expense of everyone else… The mainstream press occasionally discuss one or two of these issues, but until recently did not get anywhere close to discussing the full extent of the problem, and tended to present rich people in positive terms. However, in the last couple of years there have been a small number of articles explaining that the presence of excessively wealthy people is an obvious sign of an economic system that is not working properly, with the recommendation that we abolish billionaires.