February, 26 2018, 09:45am EDT
WASHINGTON
Net neutrality supporters and major web platforms like Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Medium, and GitHub are planning Operation: #OneMoreVote, a mass day of online and offline action this Tuesday, February 27, to secure the final vote needed to pass a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution in the Senate to block the FCC's resoundingly unpopular repeal of rules that prevent Internet providers from controlling what websites and apps web users can use with censorship, throttling, and new fees.
Internet users, small businesses, online communities, public interest groups and popular websites will harness their reach to flood lawmakers with phone calls and emails from constituents, while high-traffic websites will help sound the alarm with prominent alerts encouraging visitors to take action. Offline, net neutrality supporters will gather outside 8 key Senate offices across the country, as well as at a rally outside the Senate in Washington, DC.
The day of action is being organized by Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action Fund, the groups behind BattleForTheNet.com and many of the largest online protests in history. Well-known companies like Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Medium, Vimeo, Imgur, Namecheap, DuckDuckGo, Private Internet Access, Fiverr, Patreon, and KnowYourMeme, Sonos have announced their participation, along with groups like Consumer Reports, the ACLU, Common Cause, Engine, CCIA, Change.org, National Hispanic Media Coalition, and Creative Commons. Participants continue to stream in as the date approaches.
"The CRA is a simple up or down vote on the future of the free and open Internet. There are fifty US Senators who have a decision to make: are they going to listen to lobbyists who are paid to lie to them, or are they going to listen to their constituents and small businesses in their district?" said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future. "Internet users need net neutrality protections now, not months or years from now as court battles play out and Congress deliberates on legislation that's unlikely to pass, and might not protect us even if it did. Make no mistake: every member of Congress who fails to publicly support the CRA is casting their vote against net neutrality, and will be seen by voters as an enemy of Internet freedom come election time."
The FCC's resoundingly unpopular net neutrality repeal was published in the Federal Register last week, officially starting a countdown of 60 legislative days to pass a Senate resolution to reverse the order. 50 senators have already come out in support of the CRA, which would overturn the FCC's December 14th decision and restore net neutrality protections that are supported by more than 83% of voters from across the political spectrum. The February 27th push is laser-focused on securing the final vote needed to pass the resolution in the Senate. Advocates will also take the fight to the House of Representatives, where net neutrality supporters plan to wage an all-out war to reach the 218 supporters (a simple majority) needed to force the CRA to the floor.
If the CRA passes both houses, it will go to the President's desk. The White House--which has criticized mergers and other actions by large telecom companies--has been noticeably quiet about the FCC repeal, which was unpopular with voters from across the political spectrum including 3 out of 4 Republicans. While a veto is possible, the reality is that no one can predict what Trump will do. Republican FCC Commissioner O'Rielly told Politico in January that he was unsure President Trump would veto a CRA if it landed on his desk.
Over the last year net neutrality has emerged as a mainstream political issue, with millions of people contacting their lawmakers, broad participation from small businesses, major web companies, and even brands like Burger King, and hundreds of volunteer-led grassroots protests, in-district meetings, and petition deliveries to congressional offices. Previous days of action on July 12 and December 12 drove unprecedented numbers of phone calls, emails, and comments to lawmakers and the FCC.
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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Climate Crisis to Cost Global Economy $38 Trillion a Year by 2050
"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," a new study's lead author said.
Apr 18, 2024
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%.
"Our study highlights the considerable inequity of climate impacts: We find damages almost everywhere, but countries in the tropics will suffer the most because they are already warmer," study co-author Anders Levermann, who leads Research Department Complexity Science at PIK, said in a statement. "Further temperature increases will therefore be most harmful there. The countries least responsible for climate change, are predicted to suffer income loss that is 60% greater than the higher-income countries and 40% greater than higher-emission countries. They are also the ones with the least resources to adapt to its impacts."
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.
"If Amazon and Apple and Microsoft wanted to avoid a world where, by century's end, people had 60% less money to spend on buying whatever phones and software and weird junk (doubtless weirder by then) they plan on selling, then they should be putting pressure on their banks to stop making the problem worse. They should also be unleashing their lobbying teams to demand climate action from Congress," McKibben wrote.
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The Congressional Progressive Caucus says its legislative blueprint for 2025 and beyond aims to "deliver equality, justice, and economic security for working people."
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The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday published a "comprehensive domestic policy legislative agenda" for U.S. President Joe Biden's possible second White House term that seeks to "deliver equality, justice, and economic security for working people."
The CPC's Progressive Proposition Agenda is a seven-point plan aimed at lowering the cost of living, boosting wages and worker power, advancing justice, combating climate change and protecting the environment, strengthening democracy, breaking the corporate stranglehold on the economy, and bolstering public education.
"Progressives are proud to have been part of the most significant Democratic legislative accomplishments of this century. We have made real progress for everyday Americans—but there's much more work to be done," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
"That's why the Progressive Caucus has identified these popular, populist, and possible solutions," she added. "Democrats in Congress can meet the urgent needs people are facing; rewrite the rules to ensure majorities of this country are no longer barred from the American promise of equality, justice, and economic opportunity; and motivate people with a vision of progressive governance under Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and a Democratic White House."
Progressive lawmakers have already introduced bills for many items on the agenda, including a Green New Deal for Public Schools, expanding the Supreme Court, comprehensive voting rights protection, and legalizing marijuana.
Critics noted the conspicuous absence of Medicare for All—once a top progressive agenda item—and foreign policy issues including ending Israel's genocide, apartheid, occupation, settler colonization, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Jayapal toldNBC News that the CPC is focusing its blueprint exclusively on domestic goals—especially ones it feels can be achieved.
"The way we came to this agenda is to say that we were going to put into this agenda things that were populist and possible... and affected a huge number of people," she said. "We haven't taken a position on particularly Israel and Gaza in the progressive caucus, and so that's not on here."
The CPC agenda is backed by a wide range of labor, climate, environmental, civil rights, consumer, faith-based, and other organizations.
"The Congressional Progressive Caucus is leading the way for Congress to address the major issues affecting working families, from reducing healthcare and housing costs to strengthening workers' rights to join unions, earn living wages and benefits, and have safe workplaces," Service Employees International Union president Mary Kay Henry said in a statement.
"SEIU is proud to partner with the CPC to move these priorities forward and build a more equitable economy in which corporations are held accountable for their actions," she added.
Mary Small, chief strategy officer at Indivisible, said: "House progressives were the engine at the heart of our legislative accomplishments in 2021 and 2022. They've continued that momentum to be true governing partners to the Biden administration as those laws and programs are implemented."
"That's why Indivisible is so supportive of the CPC's Proposition Agenda, a bold vision for progressive governance in 2025 and beyond. From reproductive rights to saving our democracy to economic security for all, the CPC is driving forward exactly the sort of legislative goals we want to see in our next governing moment."
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"These mass, illegal firings will not stop us," said organizers. "Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide."
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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.
The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.
Workers have denounced Project Nimbus since it was announced in 2021, but Israel's killing of at least 33,970 Palestinians in Gaza since October and its intentional starvation of civilians led employees to escalate their protests.
No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement that Google officials called the police to both offices to arrest nine protesters—dubbed the Nimbus Nine—on Tuesday morning, before utilizing "a dragnet of in-office surveillance" to fire nearly two dozen other employees on Wednesday.
"They punished all of the workers they could associate with this action in wholesale firings," said the coalition, which includes Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change, a Muslim-led anti-war group.
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.
"This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie," said the workers. "Even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers. Instead they received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support."
The organizers staged the sit-ins on the heels of reporting in Time magazine about new negotiations between Google and the Israeli government regarding further potential tech contracts.
Kate J. Sim, a child safety policy adviser at Google who said she was among those fired this week, said the terminations show "how terrified [executives] are of worker power."
Google employees have a history of harnessing worker power to change policies at the company. In 2018, Google terminated a deal with the U.S. Defense Department to develop drone and artificial intelligence (AI) technology through a contract called Project Maven. The decision followed the resignations of several employees and the condemnation of thousands of workers.
Calling Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian "genocide profiteers," No Tech for Apartheid said Wednesday that they will not stop demonstrating against Project Nimbus until they get a similar result.
"The truth is clear: Google is terrified of us," said the group. "They are terrified of workers coming together and calling for accountability and transparency from our bosses... The corporation is trying to downplay and discredit our power.
"These mass, illegal firings will not stop us," No Tech for Apartheid added. "On the contrary, they only serve as further fuel for the growth of this movement. Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide."
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