It’s Getting Late
Counterpunch – February 20, 2024 – Lawrence Wittner
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/20/its-getting-late/
For some time, it’s been apparent that the world’s nations are not meeting the growing challenges to human survival. A key challenge comes from modern war… And then, of course, there’s nuclear war, which emerged in 1945 with the utter annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and which now has the capacity to end virtually all life on earth… War particularly nuclear war is probably the fastest way to extinguish the human race, but there are other crises underway that, on a longer-range basis, seem likely to accomplish the same task. The most serious of these crises is environmental. In recent decades, there has been a rapid loss of biodiversity, with the sixth mass extinction of wildlife clearly accelerating… A key element in the environmental collapse is the growing climate catastrophe, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. Melting icecaps and rising sea levels, unprecedented hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, and ocean acidification are all well underway. Together with unsustainable farming practices, rising temperatures have produced growing food and water scarcity. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared that, unless immediate action is taken, there will be a “global food emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of adults and children.”… some social movements, recognizing the global nature of the problems facing humanity, have called for enhanced global governance to cope with the severe threats posed by war, environmental devastation, and violations of human rights. Even so, as the world once again veers toward destruction, it’s clear that it’s getting late very late to avert catastrophe.
Fighting Climate Change by Halting Overfishing
Informed Comment – February 20, 2024 – Rashid Sumaila
https://www.juancole.com/2024/02/fighting-climate-overfishing.html
Amid the escalating threats of a warming world, and with the latest annual United Nations global climate conference (COP28) behind us, there is one critical message that’s often left out of the climate change discourse. Halting overfishing is itself effective climate action. This argument is the logical conclusion of a plethora of studies that unequivocally assert that stopping overfishing isn’t just a necessity, it’s a win-win for ocean vitality, climate robustness and the livelihoods reliant on sustainable fisheries… Ending overfishing isn’t just an ecological imperative but a linchpin for climate action. Furthermore, fisheries aren’t mere victims in these dynamics, but have real agency to play a pivotal role in either exacerbating or mitigating climate change.
Climate change may cause crisis amid important insect populations
Reader Supported News – CBS News – February 24, 2024 – Adam Yamaguchi and Kerry Breen
https://www.rsn.org/001/climate-change-may-cause-crisis-amid-important-insect-populations-researchers-say.html
They might be tiny, but insects rule the planet, making up over two-thirds of the world’s 1.5 million known animal species and the backbone of the food chain. But despite their immense impact and large numbers, bugs might be in trouble. Scientists estimate that 40% of insect species are in decline, and a third are endangered. Habitat loss, the use of pesticides and climate change are threatening insects of all shapes and sizes, including the not-so-glamorous dung beetle… While people often look at animals like the polar bear as the poster child of the climate crisis, Milman said that insects are just as deserving of people’s attention. “That’s why people have described insects as the little things that run the world,” Sheldon said. “They’re really that important.”
The Rising Cost of the Oil Industry’s Slow Death
ProPublica – February 22, 2024 – Mark Olalde and Nick Bowlin
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-rising-cost-of-the-oil-industrys-slow-death
There are more than 2 million unplugged oil and gas wells that will need to be cleaned up, and the current production boom and windfall profits for industry giants have obscured the bill’s imminent arrival. More than 90% of the country’s unplugged wells either produce little oil and gas or are already dormant… the impact is felt everywhere, as many belch methane, the second-largest contributor to climate change, into the atmosphere… An analysis by ProPublica and Capital & Main has found that the money set aside for this cleanup work in the 15 states accounting for nearly all the nation’s oil and gas production covers less than 2% of the projected cost. That shortfall puts taxpayers at risk of picking up the rest of the massive tab to avoid the environmental, economic and public health consequences of aging oil fields.
Chicago Sues 5 Oil Companies, Accusing Them of Climate Change Destruction, Fraud
Inside Climate News – February 20, 2024 – Brett Chase, Chicago Sun-Times
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022024/chicago-sues-five-oil-companies/
The suit says BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Shell have hurt the city by discrediting science even as their products lead to “catastrophic consequences,” including strong storms, flooding, severe heat and shoreline erosion… The city is also suing the trade group American Petroleum Institute, which it accuses of conspiring with the companies to deceive consumers through disinformation campaigns even as the industry acknowledged internally that climate change was real… Chicago is following the lead of New York, California and other cities and states that seek to recoup potentially billions of dollars in damages blamed on the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, that create carbon dioxide and have led to climate change. The city has not asked for a specific amount of money.
A Single Antarctic heatwave or storm can Noticeably Raise the Sea Level
Informed Comment – February 22, 2024 – Edward Hanna, Danish Meteorological Institute
https://www.juancole.com/2024/02/antarctic-heatwave-noticeably.html
Scientists have long known that there is a potential for sudden accelerations in the rate at which ice is lost from Greenland and Antarctica which could cause considerably more sea-level rise: perhaps a metre or more in a century. Once started, this would be impossible to stop… Our research found that these huge glacial ice masses respond in far quicker and more unexpected ways as the climate warms, similarly to the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and heatwaves responding to changes with the climate… Failing to adequately account for this short-term variability might mean we underestimate how much ice will be lost in future.
Record 50 Million Children Now Displaced as Wars, Climate Crisis Rage
Common Dreams – February 20, 2024 – Olivia Rosane
https://www.commondreams.org/news/50-million-children-displaced-2023
Crises created by conflict and the climate emergency are displacing an average of 29,000 children a day, for a total of 10.5 million in 2023… Overall, children represent around 40% of all displaced people. They are especially at risk when they are forced from their homes because they can lose access to education, healthcare, and other essential services… “We need to act urgently and keep the rights of children—who are the least responsible for the conflicts and climate emergencies that uproot them—at the center of our responses to displacement,” [Save the Children’s global humanitarian director, Gabriella] Waaijman said.
‘America is a factory farming nation’: key takeaways from US agriculture census
The Guardian – February 15, 2024 – Nina Lakhani
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/15/us-agriculture-census-farming
Record numbers of US farms are going out of business with small farms and Black farmers the hardest hit – again, according to the 2022 agriculture census, a comprehensive snapshot of the state of America’s farms and farmers published every five years by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Yet industrial factory farms rearing thousands of livestock in confinement have further expanded into rural America, acquiring smaller farms, raking in taxpayer subsidies and generating environmental harms… Large farms – which includes mega operations with hundreds of thousands of acres – account for only 4% of the total number of farms, but control two-thirds of US agricultural land. The largest – with sales of $5m or more – accounted for fewer than 1% of all farms but 42% of all sales. The consolidation of American agriculture continues, despite a commitment by the USDA secretary, Tom Vilsack, a former big dairy executive, to shore up small and midsize farm operations.
The Plastic Chemicals Hiding in Your Food
Consumer Reports – February 8, 2024 – Lauren F. Friedman
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the-plastic-chemicals-hiding-in-your-food-a7358224781/
By the time you open a container of yogurt, the food has taken a long journey to reach your spoon… There is a chance for a little something extra to sneak in, a stowaway of sorts that shouldn’t be there. That unexpected ingredient is something called a plasticizer: a chemical used to make plastic more flexible and durable. Today, plasticizers—the most common of which are called phthalates—show up inside almost all of us, right along with other chemicals found in plastic, including bisphenols such as BPA. These have been linked to a long list of health concerns, even at very low levels… Our tests of nearly 100 foods found that despite growing evidence of potential health threats, bisphenols and phthalates remain widespread in our food… There are few regulations restricting the use of these chemicals in food production, or requiring that manufacturers test foods for them. But our guide can help you learn how plasticizers get into your food, how to reduce your exposure, and how key changes by industry and regulators could make our food safer.
Alabama’s IVF warning to the country
Vox – February 23, 2024 – Rachel M. Cohen
https://www.vox.com/24080428/alabama-ivf-embryo-abortion-women-fertility
Let’s be clear. This decision and its very obvious fallout are a victory for an extremist wing of the anti-abortion movement I’ve been covering for the last two years. These particular activists believe in the radical idea of “fetal personhood,” meaning they want to endow fetuses (and embryos) with full human rights and legal protection. It’s also a reminder that the overturn of Roe v. Wade is about more than just abortion. It has ramifications for the full spectrum of reproductive health care — including birth control and fertility treatments… This is all a sober reminder that for many activists, attacking reproductive health care has always been about more than just ending abortion. For these religious crusaders, nothing short of “fetal personhood” will suffice.
I’m an American Doctor Who Went to Gaza. What I Saw Wasn’t War — It Was Annihilation
The Los Angeles Times – February 16, 2024 – Irfan Galaria
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-16/rafah-gaza-hospitals-surgery-israel-bombing-ground-offensive-children
In late January, I left my home in Virginia, where I work as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and joined a group of physicians and nurses traveling to Egypt with the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal to volunteer in Gaza. I have worked in other war zones. But what I witnessed during the next 10 days in Gaza was not war — it was annihilation. At least 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. From Cairo, Egypt’s capital, we drove 12 hours east to the Rafah border. We passed miles of parked humanitarian aid trucks because they weren’t allowed into Gaza. Aside from my team and other envoy members from the United Nations and World Health Organization, there were very few others there… I feel incredibly guilty that I was able to leave while millions are forced to endure the nightmare in Gaza. As an American, I think of our tax dollars paying for the weapons that likely injured my patients there. Already driven from their homes, these people have nowhere else to turn.
UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls
United Nations Human Rights – February 20, 2024 – Office of High Commissioner
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against
UN experts* today expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received. “We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.
200+ Unions Launch Network to Push for Gaza Cease-Fire
Common Dreams – February 16, 2024 – Brett Wilkins
https://www.commondreams.org/news/labor-unions-cease-fire
The coalition says it represents more than 9 million union workers—”more than half the labor movement in the United States.” “The war between Israel and Hamas has continued unabated since Hamas brutally attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,163 people, and taking 253 hostages,” NLNC said in a statement. “Israel responded with an onslaught that has killed over 28,000 Palestinians and left over 67,000 others injured,” while “1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced, and humanitarian aid remains mostly blocked from those in need,” the coalition added… Carl Rosen, UE’s president, said: “The support for a cease-fire is overwhelming. We can’t stand by in the face of this suffering. We cannot bomb our way to peace. We express our solidarity with all workers and our common desire for peace in Palestine and Israel.” APWU president Mark Dimondstein said that “as a union that stands for equality, social justice, human and labor rights, we unite with unions and people of goodwill around the world in calls for a cease-fire, for justice and peace. The cries of humanity call for nothing less.”
Biden can end the bombing of Gaza right now. Here’s how
The Guardian – February 21, 2024 – Mehdi Hasan
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/21/biden-stop-gaza-bombing-genocide-israel
The truth is that the commander-in-chief of the richest country in the history of the world is far from powerless and, like every commander-in-chief before him, possesses plenty of leverage. How do we know? First, because members of the US defense establishment say so. Take Bruce Riedel, who spent three decades in the CIA and at the national security council, advising four different presidents. “The US has immense leverage,” Riedel pointed out in a recent interview. “Everyday we provide Israel with the missiles, with the drones, with the ammunition, that it needs to sustain a major military campaign like the campaign in Gaza.”… The president’s admirers like to refer to him as the “comforter-in-chief”. His aides call him a “devout Catholic”. He himself has talked, movingly and at length, about grief, loss and pain. So how does that same Biden sleep at night, as US-made bombs continue to fall on innocents in Gaza? … He now possesses the power, unique among the 8 billion people who live on this planet, to pick up the phone, dial a number beginning +972, and halt the daily killing of hundreds of wives and children. It really is that simple.
UN-Appointed Human Rights Experts Demand Halt of Arms Shipments to Israel for Violations of Laws of War
Informed Comment – February 24, 2024 – Juan Cole
https://www.juancole.com/2024/02/appointed-shipments-violations.html
The joint statement said, “All States must ‘ensure respect’ for international humanitarian law by parties to an armed conflict, as required by 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law. States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behaviour, that they would be used to violate international law.”… As for states, they observed, “International law does not enforce itself. All States must not be complicit in international crimes through arms transfers. They must do their part to urgently end the unrelenting humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”
How Israel’s war went wrong
Vox – February 20, 204 – Zack Beauchamp
https://www.vox.com/24055522/israel-hamas-gaza-war-strategy-netanyahu-strategy-morality
A world where hundreds of thousands of Gazans suffer and only Hamas benefits is the worst of all possible worlds. Yet it is increasingly looking like a likely one. How did we get here? The truth is that this nightmare was depressingly predictable. When I surveyed over a dozen experts about the war back in October, they warned that Israel had a dangerously loose understanding of what the war was about. The stated aim of “destroying Hamas” was at once maximalist and open-ended: It wasn’t clear how it could be accomplished or what limit there might be on the means used in its pursuit. Israel’s conduct in the war so far has vindicated these fears. The embrace of an objective at once so massive and vague has dragged Israel down the moral nadir documented in Abraham’s reporting, with unclear and perhaps even self-defeating ends. It is a situation that Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, terms “an era-defining catastrophe.”
I’m Heartbroken by the War in Israel
Tom Dispatch – February 22, 2024 – Robert Lipsyte
https://tomdispatch.com/im-heartbroken-by-the-war-in-israel/
Yes, Hamas are thugs and vandals, but how is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any different in his behavior? The truth is we shouldn’t have to choose between them. It’s important to get rid of them both, while, at least in our thinking, separating two power-mad and murderous ruling bodies from their people, most of whom just want peace. How can we use the “ethical monotheism” of Judaism to find common ground and a country for each? We don’t have that answer and don’t even know if it’s possible, but at least we should know what the only true goal is: to end the present horror. And that would be good for the Jews, with or without God.
Bipartisan Child Tax Credit Expansion Would Benefit Millions of Workers in Low-Paid Occupations
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – February 20, 2024 – George Fenton
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/bipartisan-child-tax-credit-expansion-would-benefit-millions-of-workers-in-low-paid
The Senate should act now to pass this legislation and support millions of low-paid workers, whose families include about 16 million children who currently get a partial credit or none at all because their families’ incomes are too low… About 16 million children in low-income families would benefit in the first year of the bipartisan Child Tax Credit expansion. When the expansion is fully in effect in 2025, it would lift some half a million or more children above the poverty line and provide financial support to about 5 million more children in families with incomes below the poverty line. The Senate should take this opportunity to pass the House bipartisan bill as-is to support people working for low pay and their families.
The US supreme court may turn this election into a constitutional crisis
The Guardian – February 14, 2024 – Sidney Blumenthal
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/14/us-supreme-court-trump-election-sidney-blumenthal
By dodging the question of Trump’s eligibility for re-election, the court could force a dangerous situation on to Congress… Picture how the scenario might unfold as though reading it as a history from the vantage point of one year from now. The Ginsberg brief predicts the dire consequences that would flow from the supreme court ruling against Colorado. If we layer on to that prophesy the seemingly disparate events of this winter of our discontent we can see, through a mixture of fact and speculation, a disastrous unraveling.
A New SCOTUS Case Could Undo Decades of Regulation
Jacobin – February 20, 2024 – Katya Schwenk
https://jacobin.com/2024/02/supreme-court-case-corner-post-regulation
Plaintiffs in the case, which is ostensibly about a convenience store’s challenge to debit-card fee limits, are backed by big business and groups tied to the conservative Koch network, and they’re asking the court to overturn a long-standing statute of limitations that currently protects federal rules from certain legal challenges once they’ve been finalized for six years. If they win, it could unleash an onslaught of attacks on all federal regulations, most of which Americans likely don’t even know protect them. “Health, safety, the economy, food and drug safety, the environment — basically everything that we take for granted has been protected by [federal] agencies,” said Devon Ombres, the senior director of courts and legal reform at the public policy advocacy group Center for American Progress, who coauthored a report last week that warned the case “could open a pandora’s box” for federal deregulation.
America’s Richest Men Ask the Courts to Make Unions Illegal
The American Prospect – February 22, 2024 – Harold Meyerson
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-02-22-americas-richest-men-ask-courts-make-unions-illegal/
Fourscore and seven years ago—1937, to be exact—our fathers on the Supreme Court (well, five of them, which was just enough) brought forth a new nation: New Deal America. In that year, the justices ruled that the most fundamental legislative works of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency—Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)—were constitutional… Now we are engaged in a war with the rulers of the new economy, who, having already downsized that middle class by appropriating an ever larger share of the proceeds from its work for themselves, actually want to strike down the NLRA. In the past few weeks, three pillars of that economy—Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, and the Albrecht family’s Trader Joe’s—have all asked federal courts to declare the core functions of the NLRA unconstitutional, on the grounds that the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) administrative courts, like those of other regulatory agencies, mix judicial functions with executive branch functions.
Restoring the 52% Corporate Tax Bracket Would Make America Stronger
Common Dreams – February 22, 2024 – Thom Hartmann
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/corporate-taxes-make-america-stronger
The higher wages and increased innovation that derive from a high corporate tax rate all benefit the company, the workers, and the communities where they operate… Most of these myths promoted by the morbidly rich exploit the fact that only a tiny fraction of Americans have ever run a business or taken a business course in college, and so most Americans don’t have a clue how corporate income taxes work… There are really two reasons for both personal and corporate taxes, and they’re both based on similar rationales. The first reason—the one everybody understands—is to raise money to pay for government services that benefit us all. Taxes, as FDR often said, are “the price of admission to a civil society.” The second, though, is really the most important: Taxes are used to incentivize behaviors that are good for the nation and discourage behaviors that are destructive to the nation… It’s time to punch a hole in the neoliberal lie that high tax rates hurt countries and companies. The only group that “suffers” from high taxes are companies that refuse to innovate, and morbidly rich CEOs who want to keep bleeding their companies dry.
Trump and allies planning militarized mass deportations, detention camps
The Washington Post – February 21, 2024 – Isaac Arnsdorf, Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/20/trump-mass-deportations-immigration/
“He was obsessed with having the military involved,” said a former senior administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. That approach and unfinished business have taken on renewed significance and urgency as the country confronts another migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, and as Trump closes in on the Republican presidential nomination. The former president is making immigration a core campaign theme, promoting a proposal for an unprecedented deportation effort if he is returned to power… “Americans can expect that immediately upon President Trump’s return to the Oval Office, he will restore all of his prior policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send shock waves to all the world’s criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a statement. She added that undocumented immigrants “should not get comfortable because very soon they will be going home.”
As It Turns Out, Chicken Little Was Right
The Mort Report – February 21, 2024 – Mort Rosenblum
https://www.mortreport.org/reports/sky-falling
Particles in the air are killing us softly. Fire rains down on Ukraine, Gaza and places few people can find on a map, unchecked by any “world community.” Apathy, greed, bigotry and mutant new fascism may soon make this unimaginably worse. Americans soon must choose between two old men to confront these challenges. Joe Biden, sane and humane, has done remarkably well against stiff odds to clean up the mess Donald Trump left behind and to keep the lid on a simmering world. Yet polls veer increasingly toward Trump, found liable for fraud and sexual abuse, with high-crime trials to come. Obese on an unhealthy diet, he masks age with putty-knife makeup, camera angles and more money on his hair than many of his cultists earn… The difference is glaring after Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic gulag at 47. Biden immediately accused Putin of murder and urged allies to double down in Ukraine. Trump remained silent until [his] unhinged post on his anti-social platform… An unchecked Trump reign would push climate collapse past a tipping point. Despots he admires, restless behind their own borders, amass arms and revive old Fascist rhetoric. A world on the boil needs leaders who unite, not divide.
30 Years After NAFTA, UAW Launches Solidarity Project for Mexican Autoworkers
Common Dreams – February 23, 2024 – Brett Wilkins
https://www.commondreams.org/news/uaw-mexico
Signed in 1993 and taking effect the following year, NAFTA eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The leaders of the three nations, including then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, promised the pact would create millions of new jobs and lift living standards… “For decades, corporations have taken advantage of inadequate trade laws to offshore thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico where worker wages and conditions have long been suppressed,” the UAW said… United Auto Workers (UAW) said the new project “will provide resources to Mexican workers and independent unions in Mexico, and aims to strengthen cross-border solidarity between U.S. and Mexican workers.” … Cross-border solidarity was a key component of last year’s six-week UAW strike at the Big Three U.S. automakers.
From Assange to Navalny, Powerful Nations Show Their Contempt for Press Freedoms
Common Dreams – February 25, 2024 – Mira Oklobdzija
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/julian-assange-alexei-navalny-press-freedoms
It is not surprising that politicians in power do not want to encourage whistleblowers and autonomous journalists. Those who rule the world prefer to indulge in their power games in secrecy… Alexei Navalny challenged the Russian political system and lost his life. Julian Assange believed that the public has every right to know what their democratically elected representatives and their armies are doing. For now, he has lost his freedom and health… The two brave men are the martyrs of very different political realities and imperfect legal systems. Navalny fought for the freedom of his country, Assange for the transparency, freedom of information and press. One way or another, Navalny received the death penalty, delivered by the horseman shielded by two-headed eagle. Assange must wait in Belmarsh prison for the decision on his fate.
The Cost of Courage
Dan Rather’s blog site Steady – February 20, 2024
https://steady.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-courage
Courage is the moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty, according to Merriam-Webster. It comes from the Latin cor, meaning heart. My father instilled in me a respect for the word and the ideal when I was very ill as a young child… We see courageous acts every day from frontline workers across America. Our history, too, is replete with courageous figures from battlefields to the back of the bus and with the likes of Susan B. Anthony and John Lewis. But I don’t recall anyone, anywhere in recent times with more courage than Russian dissident Alexei Navalny… The world needs to stand up to Putin. The courage of one man is not enough, of course. But keeping alive the memories of Navalny’s heroism will help.