Climate Campaigners Decry ‘Absolutely Horrendous’ Brutality Against Protesters at Fed Summit
Common Dreams August 25, 2023 – Brett Wilkins
https://www.commondreams.org/news/jackson-hole-economic-policy-symposium
Climate campaigners on Friday condemned the violent takedown of activists during a demonstration at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Wyoming, an elite gathering where U.S. Federal Reserve officials, central bankers from around the world, economists, and policymakers meet, mingle, and craft financial policies that critics say are exacerbating the planetary emergency… Akiksha Chatterji, lead campaigner at Positive Money U.S., a research and campaigning group “working to reimagine money, banks, and our economy for the well-being of people, communities, and the planet,” said that “regulators are failing to act at the scale or pace necessary to curb the significant financial stability threats arising from climate change and fossil fuel financing.”
How Montana Youth Turned the Tables and Won an Unprecedented Climate Victory
In These Times – August 24, 2023 – Nick Engelfried
https://inthesetimes.com/article/montana-youth-climate-ruling-constitution-environment
In Held v. State of Montana, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled the state must safeguard 16 young plaintiffs’ right to a ?“clean and healthful environment,” which is protected by Montana’s constitution. Seeley also clarified that the climate crisis threatens this fundamental right… “We hope this victory helps people move past their feelings of powerlessness and gloom and doom surrounding climate change,” says Winona Bateman, executive director of Families for a Livable Climate, a Missoula, MT-based nonprofit that organized to support the Held plaintiffs at trial. “None of us can solve the climate crisis alone, but together we can make a difference.”… What is harder to quantify is how Held is giving new hope to grassroots climate activists throughout the country. The youth-led Sunrise Movement called the verdict, “a victory that echoes across the world, as a testament to the undeniable power young people hold.”
Renewables Are Both Necessary for Carbon Reduction and Cheap
The American Prospect – August 25, 2023 – Ramenda Cyrus
https://prospect.org/environment/2023-08-25-renewables-cheap-necessary-carbon-reduction/
New research shows that renewable power like solar and wind is now affordable enough to shut down the debate over cost… Climate progress has been massively delayed by endless debates over cost. But if the right people, with the right-sized pockets, can be convinced that saving the planet can also save them money, maybe renewable energy will get the boost it needs. There are mounds of potential, and literally nothing to lose.
How 19th-century pineapple plantations turned Maui into a tinderbox
The Guardian – August 27, 2023 – Claire Wang
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/27/maui-wildfire-water-plantations-ecology
n the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”… more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.
When Antarctic Sea Ice Melted Last November, It Took More Than 9,000 Emperor Penguin Chicks With It
Common Dreams – August 25, 2023 – Olivia Rosane
https://www.commondreams.org/news/emperor-penguin-chick-deaths
The loss of more than 9,000 chicks was documented in a study published in Communications Earth & Environment Thursday. It’s the first recorded case of such extensive breeding failure in the charismatic penguins due to sea-ice loss, but the study authors warn it may be a “snapshot of a future, warming Antarctica.” “There is hope: We can cut our carbon emissions that are causing the warming,” study lead author Peter Fretwell of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) toldBBC News. “But if we don’t we will drive these iconic, beautiful birds to the verge of extinction.” … “It is another warning sign for humanity that we cannot continue down this path, politicians must act to minimize the impact of climate change,” Wilkinson added. ” There is no time left.”
Amazon nations launch alliance to protect rainforest at key summit
Aljazeera – August 9, 2023
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/9/amazon-nations-launch-alliance-to-protect-rainforest-at-key-summit
The closely-watched summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) adopted on Tuesday what host country Brazil called a “new and ambitious shared agenda” to save the rainforest, a crucial buffer against climate change that experts warn is being pushed to the brink of collapse. The group’s members – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – signed a joint declaration in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, laying out a nearly 10,000-word roadmap to promote sustainable development, end deforestation and fight the organised crime that fuels it… Scientists warn the destruction of the rainforest is pushing it dangerously close to a “tipping point” beyond which trees would die off and release carbon rather than absorb it, with catastrophic consequences for the climate. Seeking to pressure the gathered heads of state, hundreds of environmentalists, activists and Indigenous demonstrators marched to the conference venue, urging bold action. This is the first summit in 14 years for the eight-nation group, set up in 1995 by the South American countries that share the Amazon basin. The summit is also being seen as a dress rehearsal for the 2025 United Nations climate talks, which Belem will host.
The US and China must unite to fight the climate crisis, not each other
The Guardian – August 21, 2023 – Bernie Sanders
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/21/us-bernie-sanders-china-climate-change-cooperation
Climate change is a global crisis and cannot be solved by any one country alone. If the United States, China and other industrialized countries do not come together to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the world we leave our children and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. Tragically, the cooperation required to address this existential threat is being undermined by hawks in both the United States and China who are moving us toward a disastrous cold war. Now is the time for a radical rethinking of geopolitics to reflect the reality that international cooperation is not only in the best interests of all countries, but is absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet… Perhaps most importantly, go talk to the hundreds of millions of young people in every country on earth who are losing hope, wondering whether they should even have children of their own, given the enormous challenges the climate crisis poses for a normal life. Nelson Mandela famously remarked; “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” If we are to save the planet, now is the time for bold action. Let’s do it.
In A World Ruled By Propaganda
Consortium News – August 26, 2023 – Caitlin Johnstone
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/25/caitlin-johnstone-in-a-world-ruled-by-propaganda/
It’s a well-documented fact that the rich and powerful pour vast fortunes into manipulating the political and media landscape in ways that serve their interests. Their control over the news media and Silicon Valley tech platforms is used to set the agenda and influence public perception by determining what issues will receive attention and which won’t in ways that preserve the political status quo they’ve built their empire upon, thereby shrinking the Overton window of acceptable debate down to a very narrow spectrum whose outcomes can’t threaten their interests in any way… So you’ll have to get comfortable rejecting mainstream orthodoxies, dismissing mainstream media, and shunning mainstream politics, because those things are all inseparably interwoven with the matrix of deceit by which our rulers have pulled the blindfold over this civilization.
Negative narratives about the border are often false. We must embrace lived experience.
The San Diego Union-Tribune – August 16, 2023 – Pedro Rios
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/community-voices-project/story/2023-08-16/opinion-rios-border-narrative-community-lived-experience-san-diego-tijuana
Imagine how much more informed our communities would be when we build our knowledge base on expressions of compassionate solidarity… When I think of potential contributions that my voice might have to the greater narratives about our border region, I consider this African proverb a metaphorical guide for challenging the imbalances of power in storytelling: “Until the lions have their own historians, tales of the greatest hunts will always glorify the hunter.”
We Did Not Evolve to Be Selfish
LA Progressive – August 19, 2023 – April Short
https://www.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/we-did-not-evolve-to-be-selfish
As a species, we have been on a self-destructive trajectory that has led us to our current polycrisis of unlivable economic conditions, worsening climate disasters, and the potential of an unspeakably devastating war, as the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 puts it. The changes we all need to make, if we want subsequent generations to enjoy life, will most likely require big shifts toward improving connections with each other and the planet, and away from extraction and individualism. The good news is that humans evolved often as cooperative and “prosocial” beings, so looking to the past and better understanding our cultural evolution as a species might help illuminate the best ways forward across the board.
Widening the field of view on ‘Oppenheimer’
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – August 17, 2023 – Robert J. Goldston
https://thebulletin.org/2023/08/widening-the-field-of-view-on-oppenheimer/
Oppenheimer also invites widening the field of view backward in time. After the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, starting with Copernicus and Galileo, it seems inevitable that application of the scientific method would eventually lead to the discovery of energy-releasing nuclear interactions capable of supporting a chain reaction. And once discovered, their potential for use in weapons of massive destructive power would very quickly become apparent… It is hard to see how this would not have happened quickly, given the long and wide history of war between human tribes and, more recently, between so-called “civilized nations.”… The human species needs to overcome its tribal nature and find common purpose—if it is to survive.
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
The New Yorker – August 21, 2023 – Ronan Farrow
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in. [This long and detailed article is worth reading.]
End of Pandemic-Era Child Care Aid Spells Crisis for Millions of Working Moms
Truthout – August 20, 2023 – Prentiss Haney and Tamara Lunan
https://truthout.org/articles/end-of-pandemic-era-child-care-aid-spells-crisis-for-millions-of-working-moms/
Most people have no idea the systems that must be in place in early childhood education to accommodate women and families and help them get back to work and stay at work… The reality for many of those women is that pandemic-era support, made possible with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), has ended. This means most women must return to work to survive, but the support they received for child care has vanished… What we must understand is that many of the issues that sidelined women before, during and after the pandemic have not gone away. Child care is still unaffordable. Women who work in early childhood education and care continue to suffer with low pay. Child care centers are still not receiving a stable source of funding that would enable them to open additional spots for families in need or pay workers a competitive wage… We need a child care system that is affordable for every family but is also a stable career path for child care educators. That’s not possible without adequate government funding for early childhood educators… No child in the U.S. should lack quality child care and no family or provider should struggle in this industry. These are common-sense solutions to an urgent problem.
Gun-carrying laws are becoming looser in the U.S.; researchers and advocates say it’s a dangerous change
NPR – WHYY – August 24, 2023 – Sammy Caiola
https://whyy.org/articles/concealed-carry-gun-violence-homicides-rutgers-camden-study-philadelphila/
The total number of carrying permits issued by the Philadelphia Police Department more than tripled between 2019 and 2022, from roughly 9,000 to more than 33,000, according to City of Philadelphia data. That trend may be part of what’s keeping the homicide totals at a high, said Ian Silver, co-author of a recent study in the Journal of Urban Health… Long term trends illustrate that an increase in the number of granted permits was consistently followed by increased homicide numbers, and not the other way around.
Six Tropes to Look Out for That Distort Israel/Palestine Coverage
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) – August 22, 2023 – Lara-Nour Walton
https://fair.org/home/six-tropes-to-look-out-for-that-distort-israel-palestine-coverage/
US corporate media lean in favor of Israel. As Abeer Al-Najjar (New Arab, 7/28/22) noted: “The framing, sourcing, selection of facts, and language choices used to report on Palestine…often reveal systematic biases which distort the Palestinian struggle.” Some trends are more ubiquitous than others, which is why it is vital that news readers become acquainted with the tropes that dominate coverage of the Israeli occupation.
Trump’s debate response: The fascist who doesn’t want America to think
Robert Reich’s Substack – ugust 25, 2023
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-debate-response-the-fascist
I want to talk about symbols, images, and fascism. Here is Trump’s mug shot from his arraignment yesterday in Georgia. It’s a look of defiance — which I’m sure he practiced repeatedly beforehand — intended to make his supporters and his Republican base feel defiant, too… a defiant photograph isn’t “news.” It’s a symbol, an image. Which is exactly what Donald Trump is. He has no political platform, no specific policy agenda, no new ideas, and no plan for what he’ll do if he gets a second term. He exists as a symbol for the anger, discontent, bigotry, and vindictiveness he has unleashed in America. He is as close as America has come to a fascist leader, who doesn’t want his followers to think or analyze. He wants them only to feel… But Trump is not a brainless buffoon. He’s a cunning marketer, a diabolic manipulator of the public, a sly producer of his own daily reality show… How to deal with a fascist who doesn’t want followers to think but only to feel rage? Expose him for who he is.
Indictments of Trump and Allies Highlight Need To Protect Election Systems
Portside – Brennan Center for Justice – August 25, 2023 – Derek Tisler and Lawrence Norden
https://portside.org/2023-08-25/indictments-trump-and-allies-highlight-need-protect-election-systems
Georgia has mirrored a broader trend: rising threats and harassment against election workers. The Brennan Center’s April 2023 nationwide survey of election officials found that nearly one in three have been harassed, abused, or threatened because of their job, and an alarming one in five are concerned about being physically assaulted on the job in future elections… Seeking accountability is necessary but not sufficient to repair a democratic system that has been badly damaged by the election denial movement that continues across the country. Ahead of 2024, leaders at all levels of government must not only stand up for the integrity of our election system, but also invest in safeguards to protect the people who run it and our democracy as a whole.
The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again
The Atlantic – August 19, 2023 – Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/donald-trump-constitutionally-prohibited-presidency/675048/
As students of the United States Constitution for many decades—one of us as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, the other as a professor of constitutional law, and both as constitutional advocates, scholars, and practitioners—we long ago came to the conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment, the amendment ratified in 1868 that represents our nation’s second founding and a new birth of freedom, contains within it a protection against the dissolution of the republic by a treasonous president… The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause.
Outside The Law
Steady, Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner’s blog – August 25, 2023
https://steady.substack.com/p/outside-the-law
As we reckon with the uncertainty and the peril of our moment, we can recall the words of James “Jem” Coughlin in the Irish mob film “The Town.” Says Jem, “If we get jammed up, we’re holding court in the street.” Trump already showed us he feels the same way… In a democratic republic, governed by the rule of law, we cannot allow extralegal methods, for anyone. And least of all for a would-be autocrat desperate to return to power and escape accountability for his actions.
GOP’s Decline into Authoritarionism
Heather Cox Richardson’s blog – Letters From an American – August 24, 2023
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-24-2023
As their economic policies have become more and more unpopular, the Republicans have kept voters behind them by insisting that anyone calling for federal action is advocating socialism and by drawing deep divisions between those who vote Republican, whom they define as true Americans, and anyone who does not vote Republican and thus, in their ideology, is anti-American. From there it has been a short step to arguing that those who do not support Republican candidates should not vote or are voting illegally (although voter fraud is vanishingly rare). And from there, it appears to have been a short step to trying to overturn the results of an election where 7 million more Americans voted for Joe Biden, a Democrat, than voted for Trump and where the Electoral College vote for Biden was 306 to 232, the same margin Trump called a landslide in 2016 when it was in his favor… It is quite a thing to see leading Republicans—including a former president—in mugshots for their assault on our democracy and to know that party leadership supports their actions. Indeed, it is unprecedented, and for those who remember what a grand party the Republicans have been at times in their history—Lincoln, after all, was a Republican, and so were Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower—it is a sad end. But an end it is. The authoritarians who have taken over the party have abandoned their history and are now building something altogether different.
How Do We Meet the AI Moment?
Yes! Magazine – August 22, 2023 – Greg Ruggiero
https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2023/08/22/ai-google-regulate-chatgpt
There remain only a handful of profit-driven corporations in control of this technology and that is part of what scares me most. The amount of power these digital entities will facilitate is huge. Choices made in the next year or two will have lasting consequences for decades, if not centuries. Sadly, I don’t think our societies are really ready for this technology. It will be disruptive in ways that we expect, like in job markets, but there are massive “unknown unknowns,” particularly around how the simple existence of these entities will impact people psychologically… If we want to maintain a democratic society without upending the entire social order, we need to slow down the development of this technology long enough for people to come up to speed on this and pass meaningful regulation. If that doesn’t happen, then we need to pray that the technocracy appoints benevolent emperors. That’s what I’m afraid of most—not the AI itself but how people will use AI while there are absolutely no restrictions on it, which is the case right now.
What Jesus Actually Said
LA Progressive – August 27, 2023 – Berry Craig
https://www.laprogressive.com/science-and-religion-2/what-jesus-actually-said
Call it “liberal” if you will. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expressed the essence of Christian humanism. Here are the salient passages from the Book of Matthew, King James Version:… A conservative fundamentalist, Sunday prayed for Divine deliverance from “off-handed, flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, sissified, three-carat Christianity.” Christ was anything but the gentle Lamb of God, according to Sunday, who had been a big league ball player. Oh no, The Prince of Peace was “the greatest scrapper who ever lived.”