Why Extreme Heat Plus Pollution Is a Deadly Combination
Time Magazine – July 28, 2022 – Emily Barone
https://time.com/6201615/heat-pollution-health-risk/
Researchers at the University of Southern California set out to answer that question. Their results, based on mortality data from California between 2014 and 2019 and published at the end of June in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, indicate that the combined mortality risk of extreme temperatures and thick pollution is significantly more than the sum of their individual effects… Erika Garcia, assistant professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine who co-authored the study with Rahman, warns that even though wildfires are episodic, their effects can last for weeks. “With climate change progression, we will continue to experience more frequent, more intense, and longer extreme heat events, and extreme particulate pollution events,” she says. “We really need to have better interventions and adaptation policies so that we can save lives during these extreme heat and pollution days.”
Looking for Someone to Blame for the Extreme Heat? Try Wall Street
The Guardian – July 27, 2022 – Alec Connon
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/27/looking-for-someone-to-blame-for-the-extreme-heat-try-wall-street
There are many to blame for the climate crisis and its extreme weather impacts. Executives of fossil fuel companies bear the greatest responsibility. More than anything else, it has been their great deceit – their burying of climate science, funding of climate denial, and spending of billions to kill climate policy – that has prevented us from transitioning away from an economy powered by coal, oil and gas… Since the Paris Agreement, the six largest US banks – Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs – have provided $1.4tn in financing to the fossil fuel industry. Indeed, since that heralded day in the French capital, the world’s four largest funders of fossil fuel expansion have all been US banks… we should keep in mind that our banks are deeply culpable for climate breakdown and that they are often using our money to make it even worse. And once we realize that, the real question is: what are we going to do about it?
Leaked: US Power Companies Secretly Spending Millions to Protect Profits and Fight Clean Energy
Reader Supported News – The Orlando Sentinel – July 27, 2022 – Mario Alejandro Ariza and Miranda Green, Floodlight and Annie Martin
https://www.rsn.org/001/leaked-us-power-companies-secretly-spending-millions-to-protect-profits-and-fight-clean-energy.html
One industry consulting firm has influenced politics across Florida, Alabama and at least six other states… Hundreds of pages of internal documents – which are only coming to light now because Matrix’s founders are locked in an epic feud – detail the firm’s secret work to help power companies like FPL protect their profits and fight the transition to cleaner forms of energy. The Matrix saga illustrates the political obstacles policymakers and experts face as they attempt to cut climate pollution from the power sector, one of the biggest greenhouse gas contributors in the US. The ongoing clash between Matrix’s founder Joe Perkins, 72, and former CEO Jeff Pitts, 51, is exposing the firm’s decades of extensive influence peddling on behalf of utility clients… Headquartered in Montgomery, Matrix has been described there as “the closest thing Alabama politics has to a non-governmental secret agency”.
Climate Crisis Linked to Deadly Kentucky Floods
Common Dreams – July 29, 2022 – Julia Conley
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/29/climate-crisis-linked-deadly-kentucky-floods
Climate experts say that as the climate warms, flash flooding will become more frequent and dangerous as rains become heavier during storms. Florida-based meteorologist Jeff Berardelli pointed to the nine inches of rain that fell in Hazard, Kentucky over a 12-hour period as an example of the kind of weather event which was extremely rare several decades ago, but is becoming increasingly common as carbon emissions continue to heat the planet. “To say it’s an expected 1-in-1000 year event, in a 20th century climate, is an understatement,” said Berardelli. “But with climate change, what was almost impossible then is now not only possible, it’s probable.”
Greenland Loses 6 Billion Tons of Ice in 3 Days, Harbinger of Unprecedented Coastal Flooding
Common Dreams – July 24, 2022 – Juan Cole
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/24/greenland-loses-6-billion-tons-ice-3-days-harbinger-unprecedented-coastal-flooding
If all Greenland’s ice melts, it would raise the seas by more than 24 feet (7.5 meters). We can still halt an apocalyptic scenario like that, which would wipe out coastal cities around the world, if we stop spewing out carbon by 2050. The existing CO2 in the atmosphere will all go into the oceans. That will make them acidic and wipe out a lot of marine life, but temperatures would immediately stop rising and would gradually go back to a nineteenth-century normal.
The Global Ruling Class Is Frog-Marching Us Towards Extinction
Common Dreams – July 26, 2022 – Chris Hedges
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/26/global-ruling-class-frog-marching-us-towards-extinction
The ruling class for decades denied the reality of the climate crisis or acknowledged the crisis and did nothing. We sleepwalked into catastrophe. Record heat waves. Monster droughts. Shifts in rainfall patterns. Declining crop yields. The melting of the polar icecaps and glaciers resulting in sea level rise. Flooding. Wildfires. Pandemics. The breakdown of supply chains. Mass migrations. Expanding deserts. The acidification of the oceans that extinguishes sea life, the food source for billions of people. Feedback loops will see one environmental catastrophe worsen another environmental catastrophe. The breakdown will be nonlinear. These are the harbingers of the future… The greatest existential crisis of our time is to at once be willing to accept the bleakness before us and resist. The global ruling class has forfeited its legitimacy and credibility. It must be replaced. This will require sustained mass civil disobedience, such as those mounted by Extinction Rebellion, to drive the global rulers from power. Once the rulers see us as a real threat they will become vicious, even barbaric, in their efforts to cling to their positions of privilege and power. We may not succeed in halting the death march, but let those who come after us, especially our children, say we tried.
Oak fire remains uncontained as Al Gore warns ‘civilization at stake’
The Guardian – July 24, 2022 – Gabrielle Canon and Edward Helmore
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/24/california-oak-wildfire-uncontained
Gore, who was vice-president to Bill Clinton between 1993 and 2001 and has since campaigned on environmental issues, spoke to ABC’s This Week, repeating his warnings over rising global fossil fuel emissions. “We’re seeing this global emergency play out and it’s getting worse more quickly than was predicted,” Gore said. “We have got to step up. This should be a moment for a global epiphany.” Climate scientists, he said, have for years warned that “if we don’t stop using our atmosphere as an open sewer, and if we don’t stop these heat trapping emissions, things are gonna get a lot worse. “More people will be killed and the survival of our civilization is at stake.
As Heat Rises, Who Will Protect Farmworkers?
Mother Jones – July 1, 2022 – Bridget Huber, Nancy Averett and Teresa Cotsirilos
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2022/07/as-heat-rises-who-will-protect-farmworkers/
As climate change drives increasingly brutal heat waves, farmworkers lack protection. How they fare will largely depend on whether their employers voluntarily decide to provide the access to water, shade, and rest breaks that are critical when working in extreme heat. There are currently no nationwide regulations that spell out what employers must do to protect workers from heat and, while efforts to draft a federal rule recently began, it will likely be years before the standards are in place. Farmworkers are up to 35 times more likely to die from heat-related illness than workers in general, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And the risk will only grow as the climate crisis intensifies, and particularly if swift action to cut emissions is not taken.
“Hellholes”: Heat Waves Worsen Conditions in Prisons with No Air Conditioning, Understaffing
Democracy Now! – July 29, 2022 – Keri Blakinger and Dr. Homer Venters
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/7/29/prisons_heatwave_keri_blakinger
This is a drastically underappreciated problem. And one of the most basic tools, which is to understand who are the heat-sensitive people who are in a jail or a prison or detention center, is almost never undertaken. So, when it gets over 85 degrees in a living space, the risk of death and serious illness from that high heat condition is different. But the medical staff, the medical services in these places know who are the people that are more likely to die or get sick. And they almost never identify people as being heat sensitive and focus on making sure they are OK, get them into air-conditioned settings. So, this is a problem all over the country as more and more places that historically don’t have high heat days do and aren’t prepared to take the mitigation efforts, on top of the long-standing problems in places that Keri was just talking about.
Nuclear threat higher now than in Cold War, British official warns
The Washington Post – July 28, 2022 – Ellen Francis
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/nuclear-threat-higher-cold-war-uk-warning/
Britain’s national security adviser has warned that a breakdown in dialogue among rival powers is raising the risk of nuclear war, with fewer safeguards now than during the Cold War. Western nations had a greater “understanding of the Soviet doctrine and capabilities — and vice versa” at the time because they kept more negotiation channels open, Stephen Lovegrove said at an event in Washington on Wednesday…. According to Lovegrove’s assessment, the conflict in Ukraine is also “a manifestation of a much broader contest unfolding” over what comes next after the post-Cold War world order. “We are entering a dangerous new age,” he added, citing the spread of advanced weapons and cyberwarfare. As the war fuels fear of wider confrontations, an arms research group said last month that the world’s nuclear arsenal was set to increase over the next decade. The Stockholm-based institute said that it saw a “very worrying trend,” with all nuclear-armed states upgrading their stockpiles and what appeared to be the end of the era of declining nuclear arsenals.
Trump’s Authoritarian Plans for a Second Term Should Scare the Crap Out of You
Vanity Fair – July 22, 2022 – Bess Levin
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/donald-trump-second-term-purge-plans
In a long, terrifyingly specific article published on Friday, Axios’s Jonathan Swan reports that should Trump win in 2024, he’ll unleash an authoritarian rule that will make his plot to steal a second term look innocent by comparison—which is sort of like saying that for his second act, Jeffrey Dahmer was going to do something worse than eat all those people… He literally alluded to it at a rally last March. ”We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States,” he told a crowd in South Carolina. ”The deep state must and will be brought to heel.” And this is not just something Trump is characteristically blathering on about with no one knowing what he’s talking about. No, this is being carefully plotted by Trump allies who want to ensure the government is filled with loyalists, ready to do his bidding, from the get-go.
Trump’s attempted coup continues – even after January 6 hearings are over for now
The Guardian – July 24, 2022 – Robert Reich
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/24/trumps-attempted-coup-continues-even-after-january-6-hearings-are-over-for-now
History teaches that it is possible to bring down an American demagogue by putting his wickedness on display for all to see. In 1954, I watched the Army-McCarthy hearings. The Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy – whose communist witch hunt was ending careers and debasing much of the US government – had charged the US army with lax security at a top-secret army facility. The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to make its case. At a session on 9 June 1954, after McCarthy accused one of Welch’s young staff attorneys of being a communist, Welch responded in words that led to McCarthy’s undoing: “Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” Almost overnight, McCarthy’s immense national popularity evaporated. Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man. Now, the January 6 committee has produced history’s most detailed account of an American president’s cruel and seditious pursuit of power. Will it be enough to stop Trump’s ongoing attempted coup? That depends on whether Americans heed the committee’s implicit plea to ensure that American democracy endures.
The role of independent funds to help people access abortion is growing
PBS – WHYY – July 26, 2022
https://whyy.org/npr_story_post/abortion-care-access-roe-independent-funds/
Some abortion funds have been around for decades, but their importance to abortion access is growing in a post-Roe world, especially in states like South Dakota that now ban abortion. “They’re going to be really vital for people to access legal abortion out of state,” said Gretchen Ely, a professor of social work at the University of Tennessee and one of the country’s few abortion fund researchers. Ely’s research has shown that abortion funds primarily serve people in their 20s who already have kids and often lack full-time work, stable housing and safe relationships. She also found that about half of abortion fund clients are Black, compared to around one-third of overall abortion seekers. “They serve people who have the greatest needs,” Ely said… Floren and other abortion fund leaders say the biggest change they’ve seen post-Roe is how scared and unsure the people who call them are. “I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘I’m afraid to call you all because I don’t want my line getting tapped. I don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want to be arrested,’” said Erin Smith, executive director of the Kentucky Health Justice Network.
Dobbs Is About More Than Abortion. It’s an Attack on Us All
Yes! Magazine – July 29, 2022 – Liz Theoharis
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/07/29/dobbs-supreme-court-christian-nationalists
The multi-decade campaign to reverse Roe v. Wade has always been about building a political movement to seize and wield political power. For decades, it’s championed a vision of “family values” grounded in the nuclear family and a version of community life meant to tightly control sex and sexuality, while sanctioning attacks on women and LGBTQIA people. Thanks to its militant and disciplined fight to bring down Roe, this Christian nationalist movement has positioned itself to advance a full-spectrum extremist agenda that is not only patriarchal and sexist, but also racist, anti-poor, and anti-democratic. Consider the Dobbs decision the crown jewel in a power-building strategy years in the making. Consider it, as well, the coronation of a movement ready to flex its power in ever larger, more violent, and more audacious ways.
The Political Power of Pro-Choice Protests
Yes! Magazine – July 19, 2022 – Dr. Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/07/19/pro-choice-protests-political-power
Activists are moving the party to action and should be embraced. There is still a long way to go, but this should be a lesson to those who support abortion rights or any other civil or human rights policy: To make change, one must protest and pester those in power, not just vote and hope. Rather than attack the Left, Democratic voters should hold those in power accountable to their base and a majority of Americans. As early 20th-century labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill once said in the face of defeat, “Don’t mourn, organize.” Then, agitate like hell for real change. Democracy is not a spectator sport. There is much to be done. Let’s get busy.
How Amazon, Starbucks and other Companies fight Unions
Informed Comment – July 27, 2022 – Robert Reich
https://www.juancole.com/2022/07/amazon-starbucks-companies.html
Here are four of the biggest union-busting tricks to look out for:… Anti-union propaganda… Your employer hires fancy anti-union firms, lawyers and consultants… Delay, delay, delay… If none of these union-busting tactics work, your employer might just break the law… But here’s some good news: A bill called “The PRO Act” would strengthen protections for union organizers and make many kinds of “union avoidance” illegal. Call your lawmakers and ask them to support it today. They won’t just be on the right side of history. They’ll be on the right side of public opinion. A majority of Americans, including 77% of young people, support the right to join a union. Workers at Starbucks and Amazon have refused to be intimidated and have started to unionize. All over the country, American workers are growing wise to corporate union-busting tricks. Big corporations are fighting dirty to keep their workers from organizing – and they’re still losing. Imagine what could happen if they had to fight fair.
Inside Amazon’s plan to “neutralize” powerful unions by hiring ex-inmates and “vulnerable students”
Vox – July 29, 2022 – Jason Del Rey
https://www.vox.com/recode/23282640/leaked-internal-memo-reveals-amazons-anti-union-strategies-teamsters
Leaked memo reveals the tech giant’s plans to combat the Teamsters in California… In June 2021, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the most powerful unions in the world, published a “special resolution” about Amazon, labeling the tech giant “an existential threat” and vowing that “building worker power at Amazon and helping those workers achieve a union contract is a top priority.” But inside Amazon, company officials were already preparing for battle, according to a leaked internal memo viewed by Recode and reported on here for the first time. The document, from May 2021, offers rare insights into the anti-union strategies of one of the world’s most powerful companies.
US sees union boom despite big companies’ aggressive opposition
The Guardian – July 27, 2022 – Michael Sainato
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/27/us-union-boom-starbucks-amazon
After years of decline, the American labor movement is experiencing a resurgence, with an increase in popularity of unions and of workers organizing. But the corporate pushback in America has been fierce, and has come amid allegations of union-busting, and brutal campaigns to try and discourage workers from organizing. An August 2021 poll conducted by Gallup found support for labor unions at their highest point in the US since 1965, with 68% support in the US. Labor unions were the only institution for whom Americans’ approval did not decline over the past year, in a June poll on confidence for 16 major US institutions. During the first three-quarters of the fiscal year, the National Labor Relations reported an increase of union election petitions by 58%, up to 1,892 from 1,197. The NLRB is now pushing for increased funding to handle the surge in labor activity.
Young Workers Are Bridging the Climate and Labor Movements
Portside – July 26, 2022 – Leanna First-Arai
https://portside.org/2022-07-26/young-workers-are-bridging-climate-and-labor-movements
In the past few years, though, young people have reinvigorated the strike tactic in creative new ways. For example, youth around the world have led a massive number of school climate strikes, and organizers who were part of the Black Lives Matter movement organized a Strike for Black Lives. Many of those young racial justice and climate justice activists have now found themselves in the labor movement… For climate activist Alexandria Fisher, the labor movement has proven a vessel for making a more significant impact on climate-focused interventions than in more conventional climate spaces… Fisher praised the union’s elders for their support and willingness to pass the torch and create space for leadership of younger organizers with new visions… Amid stalled climate policy at the federal level, ongoing growth in the labor movement could have enormous implications for curbing the climate crisis and improving quality of life for those living in its midst.
What Would Be Different About a Socialist Economy?
Portside – July 30, 2022 – Ben Hillier
https://portside.org/2022-07-30/what-would-be-different-about-socialist-economy
A socialist economy, being run by the majority in the interests of all, simply would not allow our planet to be trashed so that a few of us could live better than the rest… So when you think “socialism”, you might, not unreasonably, conjure images of the storming and burning of stock exchanges everywhere. Yet a socialist economy would likely retain the machinery of Wall Street, albeit for refashioned ends… Minor detail—more than enough being produced but billions of people struggling—is replicated in almost all areas: housing, incomes, health care, education etc. The problem is that, while capitalism excels in producing masses of things, it fails dismally in distributing them in any equitable way… Under capitalism, bosses like Jeff Bezos reap the rewards of their impoverished, exploited workers, then turn around and say, “I want to go to space”—and it happens. Under socialism, working people would reap the rewards of their own labour and communities would turn around and say, “We need a hospital”—and it would happen. It’s not materially or technically different; it’s just a different set of priorities and beneficiaries.
The Nation Has Made Progress Against Poverty But Policy Advances Are Needed to Reduce Still-High Hardship
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – July 28, 2022 – Testimony of Sharon Parrott, President, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/the-nation-has-made-progress-against-poverty-but-policy-advances
This testimony will make three main points. First, the nation’s economic security programs have made tremendous progress over the past 50 years in reducing poverty and advancing equity, but significant gaps in our policies remain, keeping poverty and hardship far higher than they should be. Second, policymakers shored up economic security policies during the pandemic, achieving historic gains against poverty and lowering hardship despite the twin economic and health crises caused by the pandemic. Third, by building on the experiences of the last two recessions and the strong research base for a number of policies, policymakers should make the investments needed to address economic and health insecurity and glaring disparities in hardship and opportunity across lines of race and ethnicity.
Zeitgeist Matters: If You Want to Know Who Changed Manchin’s Mind – You Did
Bill McKibben’s Blog – July 27, 2022
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/zeitgeist-matters
For decades now, when asked about the point of one climate protest or another, I’ve usually said something to the effect of: we fight to change the zeitgeist, people’s sense of what is normal and natural and obvious. Yes, we fight to block this pipeline or divest that pension fund, and each of those is important: but they add up to something more, a slowly moving weight that eventually shifts from one side to the other. That’s what happened last night when Joe Manchin caved. Now the Senate finally—for the first time in more than three decades—seems set to pass actual serious climate legislation… There’s no longer a real public doubt about climate change. Yes, for partisan Republicans it remains fun to pretend it’s a hoax, but after thirty years of science, fifteen years of movement building, and an ever-increasing cascade of fires, floods, heatwaves and droughts, the public mood is finally strong enough to at least begin to match the political power of the fossil fuel industry… Now it’s time to make that same zeitgeist weigh on the financial industry, the other source of ultimate power in our society. It’s time for bank CEOs to feel what Manchin finally felt—the little shudder of worry at the idea that their names will be forever linked with the ravaging of a planet. Together we can do it. Together we’ve done this.
What are strategies of hope? Responding to the Supreme Court
Steady – July 26, 2022 – Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
https://steady.substack.com/p/responding-to-the-supreme-court
Ok. It’s bad. We all know that: the climate crisis, war, the threat to American democracy, our politics more generally, this damned persistent pandemic. What is particularly disconcerting is the sense that the forces of repression, illiberalism, inequality, and injustice are locked into a system of power and governance that seems to make overturning these wrongs increasingly difficult. At the heart of that concern lies the United States Supreme Court… A sizable hard-right majority is determined to remake American society in a manner that, according to the most reliable poll information, is very unpopular with the electorate at large. It is vital that we keep track of the results of these decisions. To allow any of this to be normalized is dangerous for the country… Ultimately, in a democracy, the energy for change must come from the people — a rising chorus of voices clamoring to be heard and recognizing their power. As Professor Bowie points out, time and time again in the course of American history, those who used their perches in the marbled halls of Washington to try to resist the will of the people had no choice but to listen — or get out of the way.