October, 29 2014, 02:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Taralynn Reynolds, (520) 623-5252 x 313, treynolds@biologicaldiversity.org
35,000 Endangered Species Condoms to Be Handed Out This Halloween
Campaign Highlights Scary Reality of Growing Human Population Pushing Out Wildlife
TUSCON, Ariz.
As Americans prepare to celebrate Halloween, the Center for Biological Diversity this week is distributing 35,000 free Endangered Species Condoms to highlight the scary truth about human population growth and the wildlife extinction crisis. The condoms will be distributed by more than 400 volunteers in some of America's spookiest cities, including San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago and New Orleans.
The condoms will be handed out at Halloween parties, bars, local festivals and other events around the country.
"The idea of a world with no room for wildlife is far more frightening than vampires, ghosts and ghouls," said Taralynn Reynolds, the Center's population and sustainability organizer. "In the past 40 years, we've added more than 3 billion people to our population, while wildlife populations have plummeted. We can no longer ignore that rampant human population growth and overconsumption are driving species extinct."
The Endangered Species Condoms are wrapped in colorful packages featuring six different endangered species and information to help volunteers start the conversation about the impact of runaway human population growth on polar bears, panthers and other imperiled wildlife. The Center has given away more than half a million Endangered Species Condoms since 2009.
According to a recent study published by the World Wildlife Fund, Earth has lost half its wildlife in the past 40 years. Meanwhile the latest UN projections say human population growth is unlikely to peak anytime soon; we could have as many as 12 billion people on the planet by the end of the century.
"It would cost an estimated $8 billion to meet the unmet need for modern contraception worldwide, giving millions of women the tools they need to choose when and how many children they'd like to have," said Reynolds. "That's far less than the $11 billion Americans are expected to spend on costumes, candy and decorations this Halloween season. We can address the population crisis before it's too late."
In addition to distributing Endangered Species Condoms, the Center is asking people to share "spooky selfies" on social media with the message "What's Really Scary? A #CrowdedPlanet with No Wildlife. #FearExtinction." A sample flyer -- along with shareable Halloween-themed images featuring bats, spiders and snakes -- is available here.
The Center's population and sustainability program promotes a range of solutions, including universal access to birth control and family planning, as well as education and empowerment of women and girls and reduced consumption of meat and energy. The program's Halloween outreach also includes the new video "Meatstinction!" which highlights the link between meat production and the wildlife extinction crisis.
Some of the "haunted" cities where Endangered Species Condoms will be given away this week include: San Francisco; New York; Portland, Ore.; Dallas; Chicago; New Orleans; Atlanta; Charleston, S.C.; Baltimore; Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, N.C.
To find out if Endangered Species Condoms are being given away in your coverage area, please contact Taralynn Reynolds at treynolds@biologicaldiversity.org.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Biden Urged to 'Hold the Line' Against For-Profit Medicare Advantage Industry
"Do not let them bully you," said Alex Lawson of Social Security Works. "Corporate insurers are holding the country's health hostage and demanding bags of cash."
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Opponents of healthcare privatization gathered at the White House on Thursday to send President Joe Biden a message from tens of thousands of Americans: "Do not give in to corporate insurers."
With the Biden administration set to unveil its final payment rate for privatized Medicare Advantage (MA) plans on April 1, Alex Lawson of Social Security Works and Brittany Shannahan of Public Citizen delivered around 28,000 petition signatures to the White House imploring Biden to "reduce MA rates to a level commensurate with traditional Medicare and recoup all overpayments."
"Do not let them bully you," Lawson said during a livestream in front of the White House on Thursday. "Corporate insurers are holding the country's health hostage and demanding bags of cash."
Medicare Advantage is a privately run program funded by the federal government, and the major for-profit insurers that dominate the MA industry are notorious for denying patients necessary care and overbilling the government by making patients appear sicker than they are—a practice known as "upcoding."
One recent study estimated that Medicare Advantage plans overcharge U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $140 billion per year, which would be enough to zero out Medicare Part B premiums.
"Medicare is under threat from greedy corporations that are more focused on profit than providing patient care," said Brittany Shannahan, a Medicare for All organizer. "This is a threat to Medicare. This should be on campaign ads."
The Biden administration is expected to propose a 3.7% payment increase for Medicare Advantage in 2025. More than 30,000 people have submitted comments opposing that rate, according to Social Security Works.
Insurers, a powerful lobbying force in Washington, D.C., are also pushing back on the administration's plan—demanding that they receive more, not less, government money.
"Taking our money and denying our care: That's their business model," Lawson said Thursday.
Lawson and Shannahan welcomed the Biden administration's recent efforts to curb Medicare Advantage overbilling and other abuses.
Survey results released earlier this week by Data for Progress show that the Biden administration's efforts to curtail MA plans' wrongful care denials and overbilling are overwhelmingly popular across party lines.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Just Care USA president Diane Archer noted that "since its inception," MA has "cost the Medicare program more per enrollee than traditional Medicare" even as it imposes "obstacles to care that don't exist for people in traditional Medicare, including burdensome prior authorization requirements and restricted physician and hospital networks."
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In their remarks in front of the White House on Thursday, Shannahan and Lawson urged the Biden administration to "hold the line" and take bolder action to rein in Medicare Advantage plans, which now cover half of all eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
"We need to see more," said Shannahan. "We know that Medicare Advantage insurers are throwing around cash trying to make sure that they can continue to exploit their patients undetected and unchecked."
Carmen Rhodes, senior adviser and programs director at Be A Hero—a group founded by the late Medicare for All champion Ady Barkan—wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Thursday that the Biden administration must hold Medicare Advantage plans "accountable for their greed, not give them a raise."
"Hundreds of our grassroots supporters have shared their painful stories of being delayed or denied care by faceless, cruel insurance companies," Rhodes wrote. "Others reveal feeling tricked or even forced onto a Medicare Advantage plan and then being stuck in the 'Hotel California.' Their heartbreaking stories called Ady and now call all of us to take action."
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“This is not only disappointing, but it sets a perilous precedent," said Ellen Freidin, CEO of FairDistricts NOW.
Mar 28, 2024
A federal three-judge panel unanimously ruled on Wednesday that Florida's congressional map may remain after it was challenged by former Rep. Al Lawson and the watchdog group Common Cause.
Lawson is a black Democrat whose district was dismantled when the map was created in 2022. Lawson and Common Cause alleged that the map was discriminatory against Black voters, but the federal court rejected those claims. Two of the three judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents.
“After clearly recognizing Florida’s history of racial discrimination, the court ignored its most recent iteration, greenlighting legislative adoption of the Governor’s racially motivated map,” says @CommonCauseFL’s Amy Keith, on the discriminatory map ruling.
— Common Cause (@CommonCause) March 28, 2024
The plaintiffs argued that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was acting with racial animus when he called for Lawson's district to be dismantled. The court ruled that even if DeSantis was acting with racial animus, the plaintiffs couldn't prove the Legislature was when it created the map.
"This is not only disappointing, but it sets a perilous precedent. The court is saying that a state legislature can erase a performing Black district for political gain as long as it can blame the governor for coming up with the racist scheme in the first place," said Ellen Freidin, CEO of FairDistricts NOW. "The ultimate result permits legislators to conspire with the governor to keep themselves and their party in power while remaining insulated from the law."
A Florida judge had ruled the map was unconstitutional in 2022 because "it diminishes African Americans' ability to elect candidates of their choice."
One of the judges on the federal court panel, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan, did say he believed DeSantis had racist reasoning behind his actions.
"I do not think that Governor DeSantis harbors personal racial animus toward Black voters," Jordan wrote. "But I do believe that he used race impermissibly as a means to achieve ends (including partisan advantage) that he cannot admit to."
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"The science is clear: No new oil and gas fields, or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle," said one analyst.
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Fossil fuel-producing countries late last year pledged to "transition away from fossil fuels," but a report on new energy projects shows that with the United States leading the way in continuing to extract oil and gas, governments' true views on renewable energy is closer to a statement by a Saudi oil executive Amin Nasser earlier this month.
"We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas," the CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, said at an energy conference in Houston.
A new report published Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) suggests the U.S. in particular has abandoned any plans to adhere to warnings from climate scientists and the International Energy Agency (IEA), which said in 2021 that new oil and gas infrastructure has no place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C.
Despite the stark warning, last year at least 20 oil and gas fields worldwide reached "final investment decision," the point at which companies decide to move ahead with construction and development. Those approvals paved the way for the extraction of 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
By the end of the decade, companies aim to sanction nearly four times that amount, producing 31.2 billion boe from 64 oil and gas fields.
The U.S. led the way in approving new oil and gas projects over the past two years, GEM's analysis found.
An analysis by Carbon Brief of GEM's findings shows that burning all the oil and gas from newly discovered fields and approved projects would emit at least 14.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
"This is equivalent to more than one-third of the CO2 emissions from global energy use in 2022, or all the emissions from burning oil that year," said Carbon Brief.
GEM noted in its analysis that oil companies and the policymakers who continue to support their planet-heating activities have come up with numerous "extraction justifications" even as the IEA has been clear that new fossil fuel projects are incompatible with avoiding catastrophic planetary heating.
The report notes that U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) "supported ConocoPhillips' Willow oil field, arguing that the Alaskan oil and gas industry has a 'better environmental track record,' and not approving the project 'impoverish[es] Alaska Natives and blame[s] them for changes in the climate that they did not cause.'"
Carbon Brief reported that oil executives have claimed they are powerless to stop extracting fossil fuels since demand for oil and gas exists for people's energy needs, with ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods tellingFortune last month that members of the public "aren't willing to spend the money" on renewable energy sources.
A poll by Pew Research Center last year found 67% of Americans supported the development of alternative energy sources. Another recent survey by Eligo Energy showed that 65% of U.S. consumers were willing to pay more for renewable energy.
"Oil and gas producers have given all kinds of reasons for continuing to discover and develop new fields, but none of these hold water," said Scott Zimmerman, project manager for the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker at GEM. "The science is clear: No new oil and gas fields, or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle."
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The continued development of new oil and gas fields, he added, amounts to "pure insanity."
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