January, 26 2016, 09:45pm EDT
Washington Ballot Measure Approved for 2016 Elections
Washington State Coalition and National Coalition to Amend Constitution Praises Volunteer Efforts on Statewide Initiative
OLYMPIA, Washington
The Secretary of State's Office for Washington State Elections certified Initiative 735 for the ballot today. I-735 will ask Washington voters to decide this November whether to join sixteen other states in calling for their state legislature and Congress to propose an amendment that makes clear that constitutional rights belong to human beings only and that money is not protected speech, effectively overturning the controversial decision in the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
"We are inspired by the tremendous efforts by our Washington volunteers in the WAmend Coalition and the people of Washington State who made this ballot measure a reality! This represents an overwhelming rejection of the Supreme Court's expansion of corporate power," said Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, National Director of Move to Amend. "Voters in Washington have the opportunity to join a growing movement of people from all walks of life rejecting the overwhelming influence of big corporations in politics, and demanding a genuine democracy that is accountable to We the People, not wealthy interests."
Since the Court's 2010 decision to expand First Amendment rights for corporations and unions the amount of campaign spending in state and national elections has increased at an unprecedented rate. Over 1,200 volunteers and supporters of the WAmend Coalition worked over the past year collecting over 337,000 signatures supporting I-735, with over 112,000 signatures collected in December alone. Volunteers from Move to Amend, the national campaign that launched in the wake of Citizens United, played a large role in securing the initiative signatures.
"An overwhelming majority of Americans share the sentiment that corporations should not have the same rights as people, and big money in politics should be removed from the political process," continued Sopoci-Belknap. "It is time for Congress to pass the We the People Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and send it to the states for ratification. The leadership of both parties need to realize their constituents are demanding an end to money as speech and corporate personhood through a Constitutional amendment. We will only get louder the longer they delay."
Move to Amend is a rapidly growing national grassroots coalition of over 400,000 individuals and thousands of organizations working to pass a constitutional amendment to make clear that Constitutional rights belong to human beings and political spending is not protected speech under the First Amendment. Their "We The People Amendment" was introduced in the US House of Representatives on April 29, 2015 as House Joint Resolution 48 by Representative Richard Nolan (D-MN).
More information about the WAmend coalition can be found on their website at WAmend.org. The coalition is includes members of Move to Amend, Fix Democracy First, Public Citizen, Backbone Campaign, Move On, Money Out Voters In, and a number of other organizations.
MovetoAmend.org is a coalition supported by hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals dedicated to ending the illegitimate legal doctrines that prevent the American people from governing ourselves.
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The climate crisis will shrink the average global income 19% in the next 26 years compared to what it would have been without global heating caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, a study published in Nature Wednesday has found.
The researchers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said that economic shrinkage was largely locked in by mid-century by existing climate change, but that actions taken to reduce emissions now could determine whether income losses hold steady at around 20% or triple through the second half of the century.
"These near-term damages are a result of our past emissions," study lead author and PIK scientist Leonie Wenz said in a statement. "We will need more adaptation efforts if we want to avoid at least some of them. And we have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately—if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100."
"I am used to my work not having a nice societal outcome, but I was surprised by how big the damages were."
Put in dollar terms, the climate crisis will take a yearly $38 trillion chunk out of the global economy in damages by 2050, the study authors found.
"That seems like… a lot," writer and climate advocate Bill McKibben wrote in response to the findings. "The entire world economy at the moment is about $100 trillion a year; the federal budget is about $6 trillion a year."
This means that the costs of inaction have already exceeded the costs of limiting global heating to 2°C by six times, the study authors said. However, limiting warming to 2°C can still significantly reduce economic losses through 2100.
"This clearly shows that protecting our climate is much cheaper than not doing so, and that is without even considering noneconomic impacts such as loss of life or biodiversity," Wenz said.
The damages predicted by the study were more than twice those of similar analyses because the researchers looked beyond national temperature data to also incorporate the impacts of extreme weather and rainfall on more than 1,600 subnational regions over a 40-year period, The Guardian explained.
"Strong income reductions are projected for the majority of regions, including North America and Europe, with South Asia and Africa being most strongly affected," PIK scientist and first author Maximilian Kotz said in a statement. "These are caused by the impact of climate change on various aspects that are relevant for economic growth such as agricultural yields, labor productivity, or infrastructure."
However, Wenz told the paper that the paper's projected reduction was likely a "lower bound" because the study still doesn't include climate impacts such as heatwaves, tropical storms, sea-level rise, and harms to human health.
Unlike previous studies, the research predicted economic losses for most wealthier countries in the Global North, with the U.S. and German economies shrinking by 11% by mid-century, France's by 13%, and the U.K.'s by 7%. However, the countries set to suffer the most are countries closer to the equator that have lower incomes already and have historically done much less to contribute to the climate crisis. Iraq, for example, could see incomes drop by 30%, Botswana 25%, and Brazil 21%.
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Wenz told The Guardian that the results were "devastating."
"I am used to my work not having a nice societal outcome, but I was surprised by how big the damages were. The inequality dimension was really shocking," Wenz said.
Levermann said the paper presented society with a clear choice:
It is on us to decide: Structural change towards a renewable energy system is needed for our security and will save us money. Staying on the path we are currently on, will lead to catastrophic consequences. The temperature of the planet can only be stabilized if we stop burning oil, gas, and coal.
McKibben, meanwhile, argued that the findings should persuade major companies to embrace climate action for self-interested reasons. He noted that most corporate emissions come from how company money is invested by banks, particularly in the continued exploitation of fossil fuel resources.
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The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a "flagrant act of retaliation" late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.
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Google accused the workers of "bullying," "harassment," defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers "have yet to hear from a single executive about" their concerns over Google's collaboration with Israel.
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