August, 22 2019, 12:00am EDT
Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal Proposal is a Blueprint for the Regenerative Economy We Must Strive For
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policy package is heralded as one of the farthest reaching accomplishments by a president in a generation. While there were many aspects of his New Deal that should be lauded, we can no longer ignore the fact that it deliberately excluded People of Color from enjoying its benefits while enacting policies that continue to harm those in Indian Country. The New Deal, in many ways, was responsible for the creation of frontline communities, which are treated as sacrifice zones via redlining and other discriminatory housing practices.
WASHINGTON
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policy package is heralded as one of the farthest reaching accomplishments by a president in a generation. While there were many aspects of his New Deal that should be lauded, we can no longer ignore the fact that it deliberately excluded People of Color from enjoying its benefits while enacting policies that continue to harm those in Indian Country. The New Deal, in many ways, was responsible for the creation of frontline communities, which are treated as sacrifice zones via redlining and other discriminatory housing practices.
It is imperative that any Green New Deal agenda state these truths explicitly and make firm commitments to address and erase many of the discriminatory practices of the past in order to secure a regenerative economy that leaves no one behind.
Senator Sanders' Green New Deal does just that by centering frontline communities, including Native Nations and tribal communities, with regulatory and financial mechanisms that could have immediate and long-lasting beneficial impacts if implemented.
In 2019, Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) expressed our concern that the Ocasio-Cortez/Markey Green New Deal resolution did not include "commit to omit" language associated with destructive schemes such as geoengineering, carbon markets, carbon offsets, and industrial carbon capture and storage. Senator Sanders' plan is the first of the presidential candidate platforms to explicitly reject these false "solutions".
Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and CJA Steering Committee Member, positively acknowledges this clear commitment stating, "false solutions disproportionately impact Indigenous communities here in the US and Canada, as well as globally. If we are serious about reversing the climate crisis, we have to be serious about how we're going to do it, and false solutions like carbon pricing and offset regimes are neither serious nor realistic initiatives that cut emissions at source."
Senator Sanders' three-point Green New Deal approach includes holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for past harm and making it obsolete. CJA Policy Coordinator, Anthony Rogers-Wright remarked, "The climate crisis is a crisis of justice, and fossil fuel cartels are and have been at the heart of this crisis. For too long, they have enjoyed impunity for knowingly subjecting Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples to disproportionate impacts that have cost lives and adversely impacted public health. From Cancer Alley in the Gulf South to the 48217 in Detroit, MI, it's past time for the people to realize justice. Senator Sanders is to be applauded for understanding that mechanisms that restore Civil Rights Law are integral for an equitable Green New Deal."
We are encouraged to see that Senator Sanders understands that a regenerative economy must be inclusive and accessible for all people. His financial commitments to a transition from investor-owned utilities to a 100% publicly owned model is a bold leap towards Energy Democracy, which will allow for local control of renewable energy production and distribution.
CJA understands that Transit Justice is Climate Justice. The Senator's plan for huge investments in zero emission personal, public transit, and shipping vehicles, while also ensuring that public transportation is affordable, are steps in the right direction. Construction of a long overdue national high speed rail network is a welcome component of his GND that will vastly reduce emissions, and also create good paying union jobs in the process.
Rural communities and farmers, especially Black and tribal grassroots communities, have been neglected and left out of the discussion for far too long, even though they suffer some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Worse yet, these communities have been treated as non-entities by local and federal governments. Agriculture accounts for nearly 15% of national emissions when it could actually assist in the drawdown of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.. Senator Sanders' call for a transformation from industrial agriculture to agroecology/regenerative practices will secure soil health, increase natural sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions, foster the production of healthy food, and protect farm workers from exposure to harmful pesticides. Offering financial protections for small family farms, which produce the majority of our food shows the Senator understands the harmful role that Big Ag plays in exacerbating the climate crisis and economic inequality.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders released, arguably, the most comprehensive climate platform of all the candidates. His current proposal indicates that he continues to learn and understands the need to center frontline communities in any Green New Deal.
CJA Executive Director, Angela Adrar, summed up his proposal stating, "Climate change is a complex challenge and Senator Sanders' GND offers multi-faceted solutions. We are looking for bold plans that directly benefit the frontlines, build on their wisdom and strategic efforts, and transform the economy to one that is regenerative in a way that leaves no one behind through a Just Transition. While there are some aspects of the plan that could be improved, the Senator's GND is a solid foundation to build from and we look forward to working to ensure such a plan's full potential is realized."
Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) formed in 2013 to create a new center of gravity in the climate movement by uniting frontline communities and organizations into a formidable force. Our translocal organizing strategy and mobilizing capacity is building a Just Transition away from extractive systems of production, consumption and political oppression, and towards resilient, regenerative and equitable economies. We believe that the process of transition must place race, gender and class at the center of the solutions equation in order to make it a truly Just Transition.
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'Landmark Victory': US Proposes Endangered Species Protections for Monarch Butterfly
"We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline," said one federal scientist.
Dec 10, 2024
Biodiversity defenders on Tuesday welcomed a "long overdue" move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service toward protecting the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act—the result, the Center for Biological Diversity said, of a lawsuit filed by several groups to safeguard the pollinators and their fragile habitat.
The FWS proposed designating the butterfly as threatened with extinction, four years after monarchs were placed on a waiting list for protection.
"For too long, the monarch butterfly has been waiting in line, hoping for new protections while its population has plummeted. This announcement by the Fish and Wildlife Service gets this iconic flier closer to the protections it needs, and given its staggering drop in numbers, that can't happen soon enough," said Steve Blackledge, senior director of conservation campaigns for Environment America.
Monarch butterflies journey from Mexico each spring to points across the United States east of the Rocky Mountains to pollinate and reproduce. When cooler weather arrives they migrate back to the south for the winter.
But their populations have declined by more than 95% from over 4.5 million in the 1980s, leaving the western monarch with a 99% chance of becoming extinct over the next six decades, according to federal scientists.
The decline has been driven by the widespread use of herbicides like Roundup on milkweed, the monarch's sole food source, as well as the use of neonicotinoid insecticides. Millions of monarchs are also killed by vehicles annually during their migration, and in their winter habitats they face the loss of forests due to logging.
"The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American species and like other such iconic species, including the bald eagle and American peregrine falcon, it too deserves a chance at recovery."
Rising temperatures have also disrupted the monarch's reproduction and migration, with warmer weather tricking them into staying in the north later in the year.
"The species has been declining for a number of years," FWS biologist Kristen Lundh toldThe Washington Post. "We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline."
Western monarchs are down to an estimated 233,394 butterflies, while experts say there are several million eastern monarchs in existence.
"The protections that come with Endangered Species Act listing increase the chance that these precious pollinators will rebound and recover throughout their historic range," said Andrew Carter, director of conservation policy for Defenders of Wildlife. "The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American species and like other such iconic species, including the bald eagle and American peregrine falcon, it too deserves a chance at recovery."
The FWS is also proposing to designate 4,395 acres of the western monarch's overwintering sites as a critical habitat.
If the butterfly's protections are finalized—a process that could be completed by the end of 2025—landowners would be required to get federal approval for development that could harm the monarch.
During his first term, President-elect Donald Trump weakened the Endangered Species Act, limiting the definition of a "critical habitat."
"Today's monarch listing decision is a landmark victory 10 years in the making. It is also a damning precedent, revealing the driving role of pesticides and industrial agriculture in the ongoing extinction crisis," said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety. "But the job isn't done... The service must do what science and the law require and promptly finalize protection for monarchs."
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'It Had to Be Done': Luigi Mangione Manifesto Revealed
"A reminder: the U.S. has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy," the 26-year-old accused of assassinating a health insurance CEO reportedly wrote.
Dec 10, 2024
This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates...
A day after Luigi Mangione was arrested and charged as the alleged killer of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, independent journalist Ken Klippenstien on Tuesday published what he said was the 26-year-old's highly reported on manifesto.
The existence of the handwritten document found on Mangione when he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania on Monday was confirmed by the New York Police Department, and major media outlets have quoted from it, but none had released it in full.
"My queries to The New York Times, CNN, and ABC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered," Klippenstein explained on his Substack.
According to Klippenstein—who previously published dossiers on Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the nominee for U.S. secretary of state—Mangione's manifesto reads:
To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.
Common Dreams has not independently verified its authenticity.
Klippenstein
said on social media that the manifesto he published is "the real one, not the fake one circulating online."
NBC News deputy technology editor Ben Goggin noted that language shared by Klippenstein "matches what NBC has reported here as real."
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Pesticide Scorecard Exposes Which Food Retailers Are Failing Bees
"Under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," said one climate advocate.
Dec 10, 2024
A report released Tuesday from the environmental group Friends of the Earth finds that the U.S. food retail sector's use of pesticides on just four crops—almonds, apples, soy, and corn—could result in over $200 billion worth of financial, climate, and biodiversity risks for the industry between 2024 and 2050. Pollinators, including bees, form a crucial link between pesticide use and these risks.
The report was released in tandem with the group's annual retailer scorecard, which ranks the largest U.S. grocery stores on the "steps they are taking to address the use of toxic pesticides in their supply chains and to support the expansion of organic agriculture and other ecological solutions."
While it highlights some industry leadership on this issue, the authors of the scorecard say that, on the whole, retailer action to curb the impact of pesticides falls short. The following retailers received an "F" grade from Friends of the Earth: Wakefern, Publix, Dollar General, 7-Eleven Inc., Hy-Vee, Walgreens, H-E-B, BJ's, Amazon, and Wegmans.
Although its owner, Amazon, received an F grade, the grocery store Whole Foods was the only retailer that was given an A grade.
A handful of the companies, including Whole Foods, have made time bound pledges to address pesticide use by requiring fresh produce suppliers to adopt ecological farming methods and to confirm their practices through third-party verifications. Eight companies have created policies that encourage suppliers to reduce the use of "pesticides of concern—including neonicotinoids, organophosphates, and glyphosate—and to shift to least-toxic approaches," according to the scorecard.
Friends of the Earth's report on risks associated with pesticide use explains why scrutiny around retailers' use of pesticides is warranted, and why retailers themselves ought to be motivated to reduce these risks.
For one thing, "under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," according to Kendra Klein, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth.
"Food retailers must urgently reduce their use of pesticides and advance organic and other ecologically regenerative approaches. They have the opportunity to lead in the fight against biodiversity collapse and climate change, helping to ensure Americans have continued access to healthy food," she said in a statement.
An estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures, according to the report. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems.
According to the report, an estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline, per the report. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems, the report states.
The report states that 89% of the almond crop area, 72% of apples, 100% of corn, and 40% of soy receives more than one "lethal dose" of an insecticide that is considered toxic to bees. This "quantification of the risk of pesticides to pollinators" for the four crops "provides the values to conduct the financial analysis in this study."
The document details how the food retail industry's use of pesticides creates direct costs for the industry—for example, the money spent purchasing and applying the pesticides, the CO2 emissions associated with using or producing pesticides, and the impact on crop yields, as well as indirect costs.
When it comes to climate damage costs, the report estimates that U.S. food retailer sales for products that include soy, corn, apples, and almonds will suffer $4.5 billion over the period of 2024-50. Biodiversity risk stemming from using pollinator-harming pesticides on those four crops is valued much higher, at $34.3 billion, over the same time period.
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