Want to heal the planet? Stop ignoring Indigenous science
Grist – January 24, 2022 – Jena Brooker, A Q&A with Jessica Hernandez, a Maya Ch’orti
https://grist.org/culture/want-to-heal-the-planet-stop-ignoring-indigenous-science/
Hernandez chronicles the Mayan Ich Eq community’s fight to protect the bees and their people in her new book, “Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science.” In an interview with Grist, she talks about the urgent need to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into modern conservation, as well as respect tribal communities’ long-standing protection of the world’s biodiversity… We have that strong kinship with our forests, with our trees, because they’re part of us. It ties back to our creation stories and our ancestors.
Birds are remarkable and beautiful animals – and they’re disappearing from our world
The Guardian – January 28, 2022 – Kim Heacox
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/28/birds-are-remarkable-and-beautiful-animals-and-theyre-disappearing-from-our-world
In the past half century, North America has lost a fourth of its birds… This is where we find ourselves, trapped in a diminished world of our own making. Today only 30% of all birds are wild; the other 70% are mostly poultry chickens. In essence, Earth is now a coalmine, and every wild bird is a canary – what ecologists call a “bio-indicator” – in that mine. Their fate is ours.
Climate lawsuit claiming disinformation by oil companies can move ahead
NPR – January 25, 2022 – Rebecca Hersher
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075560742/oil-lawsuit-climate-change-baltimore
The case was brought by the city of Baltimore against some of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, and it hinges on alleged disinformation by the corporations. The Baltimore city government argues that the companies must help pay for the costs of climate change, because they misled the public about how their products contribute to global warming.
Divestment campaigns — and reinvestment efforts — gain strength as climate change intensifies
Grist – January 25, 2022
https://grist.org/sponsored/divestment-campaigns-and-reinvestment-efforts-gain-strength-as-climate-change-intensifies/
The global motion to sell off fossil fuel assets has picked up major speed this year. … With over 80 percent of the world’s population experiencing extreme weather linked to climate change, university endowments have become a focal point for students, faculty, and community members eager to snuff out their schools’ support for the fossil fuel companies most responsible for fueling the climate crisis. Major universities, including Boston University, the University of Minnesota, and Harvard University — which boasts the largest endowment of any school in the world — are among the latest to commit to pull billions from fossil fuel funds.
Plans to quadruple logging in US’s most popular forest – months after Biden’s Cop26 reforestation pledge
The Independent – January 25, 2022 – Louise Boyle
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/forest-trees-deforestation-carbon-biden-b1999661.html
Logging would be set to quadruple in North Carolina’s Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest with more than half of the public land – half a million acres – opened up, environmentalists have warned… The USFS Final Environmental Impact Statement lays out how Pisgah-Nantahala will be used and protected for up to three decades. It is the most popular national forest in the country, with nearly 5.2 million visitors last year, and a key source of drinking water across the southeast. The plan appears to fly in the face of the global deforestation pledge formally unveiled by President Joe Biden at Cop26 this past November.
Gas stoves in kitchens pose a risk to public health and the planet, research finds
The Washington Post – January 27, 2022 – Maxine Joselow
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/27/gas-stoves-kitchens-pose-risk-public-health-planet-research-finds/
The appliances release far more of the potent planet-warming gas methane than the Environmental Protection Agency estimates, Stanford University scientists found in a study published Thursday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The appliances also emit significant amounts of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant that can trigger asthma and other respiratory conditions.
3.7 million kids may fall into poverty in January without child tax credit, study says
McClatchy – January 19, 2022 – Bailey Aldridge
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article257504169.html
January is the first time in months that families won’t receive a direct payment, as the boosted credits came to their planned end, and it could translate to a jump in the country’s child poverty rate compared with the end of last year, according to a study published Tuesday, Jan. 18, by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.
Inflation Misperceptions Cloud Policy Debate
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – January 21, 2022 – Chad Stone
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/inflation-misperceptions-cloud-policy-debate
Two things largely lost in coverage of the latest inflation data undercut opposition to Build Back Better measures based on inflation concerns. First, contrary to perceptions that inflation is getting progressively worse month after month, the monthly increase in the consumer price index (CPI) slowed in the last part of 2021, and most analysts predict that inflation will moderate this year, though not necessarily early in the year. Second, while the pandemic has induced a shift toward purchases of goods rather than services, total consumer spending is roughly tracking its pre-pandemic trend, which counters assertions that aggregate spending is overly stimulated and we can’t afford further relief legislation — no matter its merits and design — out of concern that it will generate excessive consumer spending.
Psst: Want to know why Americans are gloomy about the “best” economy since 1984?
Robert Reich’s Substack website – January 28, 2022
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-starbucks-dilemma
Americans are gloomy about the economy despite its record growth because most Americans haven’t shared in that growth… Could it be that Americans are gloomy despite the economy’s record growth because the super-rich are taking home an ever-larger share of those gains while most people are getting the crumbs? Is it possible they blame Biden and the Democrats for promising to change this but, after a good start, not delivering?… Perhaps it was too much to expect Biden and the Dems to alter a trend that’s been growing for four decades as large corporations have steadily gained bargaining power (a handful of big firms now dominate most industries), while hourly wage earners have steadily lost it (the share of private-sector workers in unions has plummeted from over 30 percent to 6.1 percent). This power shift is directly reflected in the increasing share of economic gains going to the top, and decreasing share to everyone else.
The fight for federal voting rights legislation is far from over
The Guardian – January 24, 2022 – Jared Evans
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/24/voting-rights-legislation-fight-democracy-jared-evans
American democracy is in a state of emergency. Without federal voting rights legislation, discriminatory voting laws will continue to pass unchallenged and harm millions in their wake. Following the US Senate’s recent failure to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R Lewis Act, civil rights leaders urged senators to continue pressing for the bill. But understanding how deeply the absence of its protections will continue to affect voters is key to the bill’s success.
Time for action on voting rights
The Chicago Sun-Times – January 24, 2022 – Jesse Jackson
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2022/1/24/22899896/voting-rights-manchin-sinema-filibuster-presidewnt-biden-jesse-jackson-column
For African Americans, the Republican commitment to rig the rules for the minority is particularly ominous. “States’ rights” was the cover story used by the Southern plantation class after the Civil War to suppress the Black vote and impose apartheid — legal segregation — on the South. Today, “states’ rights” is used to justify systematic Republican efforts to make it harder to vote, particularly in urban areas with high numbers of Blacks and other people of color… Now we witness a reaction once more as Republicans seek to suppress the vote. Once more they invoke states’ rights to oppose federal efforts to protect this basic right. The question now is what can be done about it. This is not a time for the wringing of hands, for giving up. It is a time to act.
“No Rights which the White Man was Bound to Respect” What SCOTUS once Ruled about a Black Woman, as Biden prepares to Nominate One
Informed Comment – January 27, 2022 – Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/2022/01/respect-prepares-nominate.html
Let us consider the history of the court that this African-American woman would be joining, and that time it ruled that African-American women by virtue of their race could not be American citizens or have any legal rights at the federal level at all. Although we all learn about the 1857 Dred Scott decision in school, we aren’t usually told that it actually should be called the Harriet and Dred Scott decision, since Scott’s wife was also a plaintiff in the suit… So President Biden’s nominee will be joining a court that once upon a time denied that Harriet Robinson Scott was or could be a citizen or had any human or civil rights at all. Harriet lived to see the Emancipation Proclamation and the Fourteenth Amendment, which bestowed citizenship on everyone born in the US.
The Janes were hoping no one would need to call them again. The state of Roe v. Wade may prove them wrong.
The Washington Post – January 14, 2022 – Petula Dvorak
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/01/24/abortion-roe-v-wade-jane-heather-booth-tia-lessin-emma-pildes-sundance-documentary/
This documentary was supposed to be about history, a look at the past. Now? It’s current events. Centered on the bold, desperate actions of women who lived before abortion laws were on their side, “The Janes” tracks an underground network created in the late 1960s to help women avoid back alleys, coat hangers and the mob to get safe, affordable abortions. The film debuts at the Sundance Film Festival this week as the U.S. Supreme Court looks at potentially reversing abortion rights before the Roe v. Wade decision becomes 50 years old… “Freedom is a constant struggle”
The Supreme Court will hear two cases that are likely to end affirmative action
Vox – January 24, 2022 – Ian Millhiser
https://www.vox.com/2022/1/24/22526151/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard
These cases are the culmination of a years-long strategy by conservative activists — and by one activist in particular — to win a court decision invalidating affirmative action. The president of Students for Fair Admissions, the lead plaintiff in the Harvard and UNC cases, is not a student at all. It is Edward Blum, a former stockbroker who was also the driving force behind several other lawsuits asking the courts to expand the power and influence of white people.
The Case for Impeaching Clarence Thomas
The New Republic – January 24, 2022 – Michael Tomasky
https://newrepublic.com/article/165118/clarence-thomas-impeachment-case-democrats
In a sane world, Jane Mayer’s excellent piece on Ginni Thomas in The New Yorker would set off a series of events that would lead to her husband Clarence Thomas’s impeachment and removal from the Supreme Court. Ginni is involved with numerous far-right organizations and schemes that take very public positions on court decisions across a range of social and political issues, such as last week’s 8–1 holding that Donald Trump could not block the release of documents related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Thomas was the lone dissenter in that case. His wife sat on the advisory board of a group that sent busloads of insurrectionists to Washington on January 6. In addition, she cheered the insurrection on Facebook. It’s just the most recent example where she has been involved in activities that directly or indirectly place her activism before the court, and her husband does not care how corrupt it looks.
Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? [excellent long piece]
The New Yorker – January 21, 2022 – Jane Mayer
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court
Behind closed doors, Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife is working with many groups directly involved in controversial cases before the Court… The claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept, especially from Thomas, whose wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, is a vocal right-wing activist. She has declared that America is in existential danger because of the “deep state” and the “fascist left,” which includes “transsexual fascists.” Thomas, a lawyer who runs a small political-lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, has become a prominent member of various hard-line groups. Her political activism has caused controversy for years. For the most part, it has been dismissed as the harmless action of an independent spouse. But now the Court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases—on abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights.
Amid Calls to Defund the Police, Many Mayors Are Still Relying on Cops to Address Homelessness
The City – January 27, 2022 – Roshan Abraham
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/amid-calls-defund-police-mayors-relying-on-cops-address-homelessness
For the survey—the eighth annual Menino Survey of Mayors but the first to include questions on homelessness—researchers spoke with 126 mayors in 39 states. Among their findings were that 73% of mayors believe that they are held accountable by their constituents for their response to the homeless crisis, but 81% do not believe they have a lot of control over the issue. The reasons for this, according to mayors surveyed, had to do with lack of funding and public opposition to new affordable housing. The findings also revealed that many mayors lack dedicated homeless staff and lean on police departments for policy advice. mong those who have staff, some place them within their police departments… The potential consequences of this are the criminalization of homelessness, high profile clearings of homeless encampments and violent encounters with people in the midst of a mental health crisis. “You’re using the least equipped force in your community to respond to extremely complex health and social challenges that people experience,” Maguire says.
Attack of the right-wing thought police
The New York Times – January 24, 2022 – Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/florida-critical-race-theory-de-santis.html
Let’s talk, in particular, about the attack on education, especially but not only in Florida, which has become one of America’s leading laboratories of democratic erosion. Republicans have made considerable political hay by denouncing the teaching of critical race theory; this strategy has succeeded even though most voters have no idea what that theory is and it isn’t actually being taught in public schools. But the facts in this case don’t matter, because denunciations of C.R.T. are basically a cover for a much bigger agenda: an attempt to stop schools from teaching anything that makes right-wingers uncomfortable.
Russia Has Been Warning the West About Ukraine for Decades
Yime Magazine – January 25, 2022 – Anatol Lieven
https://time.com/6141806/russia-ukraine-threats/
There is nothing mysterious, extreme, or Putinesque about this Russian attitude. In the first place, Western language about NATO expansion establishing a “Europe whole and free” implies the exclusion of Russia from Europe and from a role in Europe—a matter of deep offence to Russians, and Russian liberals in particular, especially since this Western rhetoric was imbued with the assumption (a racist one, by the way) that the word “European” equates to “civilized.” And that Russia isn’t part of that idea.
Liberal Illusions About NATO Caused the Ukraine Crisis With Russia
Foreign Policy – January 10, 2022 – Stephen M. Walt
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-crisis-liberal-illusions/
The greatest tragedy about Russia’s potential invasion is how easily it could have been avoided.
Unions Have the Potential and the Responsibility to Advance a “Just Transition”
Truthout – January 22, 2022 – C.J. Polychroniou
https://truthout.org/articles/unions-have-the-potential-and-the-responsibility-to-advance-a-just-transition/
The idea of a “just transition” has emerged as an absolute requirement for any progress toward a clean energy future. An energy transformation will impact workers in the fossil fuel industry but will also affect regions and communities differently. A just transition must be designed to ensure that the benefits of greening the economy are shared widely and that no worker is left behind… A just transition is essential because, at the end of the day, the decisions to be made to address climate concerns are ultimately going to take place in the ballot booth, and to the extent people see their jobs going away, without alternatives, their vote [will] be to maintain the status quo. There has to be a pathway for those folks set to lose their jobs to move into other careers… As we start from scratch, sustainable development tools for economically disadvantaged communities must be incorporated so everyone benefits from what’s to come… The goals of meeting climate challenges and the realities of people being able to support their families and communities need not be the “us or them,” either/or proposition it is being made out to be. It is a chance for us to see how well we can listen and then how clever we can be with what we’ve heard.
2022’s Imperative: Letting Go of Our Past to Birth Our Future
Yes! Magazine – January 18, 2022 – David Korten
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/01/18/ecological-civilization-only-way-forward
Our current society cannot be considered civilized by any objective standard. We grow the fortunes of billionaires, even as we increase the numbers of homeless refugees and destroy Earth’s capacity to sustain life. This places us all at risk, rich and poor alike. The problem becomes more evident with each passing year. But delineating a viable alternative continues to elude us… Out of these conversations is emerging a vision of a life-serving civilization built from a convergence of Indigenous understanding and observations at the leading edge of contemporary science. Let us commit to making 2022 our year for crafting that vision.