December, 07 2021, 11:54am EDT
WASHINGTON
Despite CEO Larry Fink's supposed commitment to climate leadership, BlackRock is leading a group of investors in a $15.5 billion deal with Saudi Aramco to support the fossil fuel giant's massive planned expansion of gas pipelines.
BlackRock is one of the world's leading investors in fossil fuels. Larry Fink often touts his commitment to using the firm's enormous influence to support a clean energy transition and tackle the climate crisis, and has taken steps toward limiting BlackRock's investments in polluting sectors like coal and tar sands. This year, BlackRock pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 across its portfolio and joined the Net-Zero Asset Managers initiative. However, experts agree that in order to avert the worst of the climate crisis, the expansion of all fossil fuels -- including gas -- must stop immediately.
In response, Ben Cushing, Campaign Manager of the Sierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign, released the following statement:
"This bet on the future of dirty fossil fuels makes it clear that Larry Fink is still all talk when it comes to climate action. Massive fossil fuel expansion projects like this will make it impossible to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and anyone who claims otherwise is either delusional or lying. Regardless of vague long-term pledges and incremental steps in the right direction, Fink simply cannot paint BlackRock as a climate leader and continue to invest in locking in climate pollution far beyond what the world can afford."
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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'Huge Win for Abortion Rights': Planned Parenthood to Resume Care in Wisconsin
While welcoming the shift, Gov. Tony Evers also stressed that the broader battle is far from over and "I will keep fighting like hell every day until Wisconsinites have the right to make their own healthcare decisions."
Sep 14, 2023
Wisconsin residents, reproductive rights advocates, and Democratic political leaders on Thursday celebrated after Planned Parenthood announced that it will resume abortion care at Madison and Milwaukee clinics next week following a recent court ruling.
"With patients and community as our central priority and driving force, we are eager to resume abortion services and provide this essential care to people in our state," said Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) president and CEO Tanya Atkinson in a statement.
"With the recent confirmation from the court that there is not an enforceable abortion ban in Wisconsin, our staff can now provide the full scope of sexual and reproductive healthcare to anyone in Wisconsin who needs it, no matter what," added Atkinson.
After the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversedRoe v. Wade last year, PPWI stopped providing abortion care due to uncertainty over an 1849 Wisconsin law—which is still being challenged and expected to eventually reach the state Supreme Court.
As Atkinson explained in a two-minute video posted on social media Thursday, PPWI decided to resume care after Dane County Judge Diane Schlipper ruled in July that "there is no such thing as an '1849 abortion ban' in Wisconsin."
Schlipper determined that the law only applies to feticide, or the act of killing a fetus, and wrote that "a physician who performs a consensual medical abortion commits a crime only 'after the fetus or unborn child reaches viability.'"
The Guttmacher Institute—which tracks state-level policy changes on abortion rights across the country—declared Thursday on X, formerly Twitter, that "this is a win for people in Wisconsin seeking care, advocates, and providers!"
The pause on abortion care in Wisconsin forced patients to continue dangerous or unwanted pregnancies, self-manage abortions, or seek care elsewhere—such as in Democrat-controlled Illinois, which is surrounded by states with strict anti-choice laws, including Wisconsin, and has been flooded with "abortion refugees" since the Roe reversal.
"The ability to provide abortion services in Wisconsin again is crucial to being able to address the full scope of care for our patients," PPWI associate medical director Dr. Allie Linton said Thursday. "Patients who walk through our doors can again know they will receive the comprehensive, high quality, nonjudgmental, and confidential reproductive care they deserve."
In a statement welcoming PPWI's decision, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers noted that Schlipper's ruling in July stemmed from an attempt to dismiss a lawsuit that he and state Attorney General Josh Kaul filed to clarify that the 1849 law could not be used to prevent abortion care.
"I've been clear from the beginning that I would fight to restore reproductive freedom in our state with every power and every tool we have, and I've spent every day over the last year doing just that," said Evers. "This is critically important news for Wisconsin women and patients across our state who, for a year now, have been unable to access the healthcare they need when and where they need it."
"But I also want to be clear today: I will never let up. And we must not let up. Our fight to restore the same reproductive rights and freedoms Wisconsinites had up until the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe must continue," he added. "I will keep fighting like hell every day until Wisconsinites have the right to make their own healthcare decisions without interference from politicians who don't know anything about their lives, their family, or their circumstances."
Other Democratic political leaders in Wisconsin who applauded the development included former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and Congresswoman Gwen Moore, who has previously spoken about her decision, as a low-income 19-year-old mother, to end her second pregnancy before Roe.
Praising PPWI's announcement as "an important step toward restoring reproductive freedom for everyone in our state," Opportunity Wisconsin said that "no Wisconsinite should face a massive financial burden just to access the basic healthcare services they need."
The coalition also called out Wisconsin Republicans in Congress who have joined their GOP colleagues in blocking federal legislation that would affirm abortion rights nationwide.
Abortion—and specifically, fights over the 1849 law—was a key issue in the April election in which voters elected Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which now has a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years. Republicans in the state Legislature are threatening to impeach her before she even hears a case.
"Wisconsin Republicans are threatening to impeach Justice Protasiewicz for one reason: to stay in power," Moore said Sunday. "They know they're outnumbered on issues like abortion, so the only way to keep their extreme policies in place is to subvert the will of the voters."
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'Alarming Trend': Despite Growing Climate Threat, Venice Avoids UNESCO Endangered Listing
"If nations continue to ignore the existential threat climate change poses to places like Venice, they could be irrevocably damaged or lost forever," said one climate expert.
Sep 14, 2023
Climate campaigners expressed dismay Thursday after a United Nations panel declined to place Venice on its list of endangered World Heritage sites—even though the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization acknowledges thatsea-level rise and extreme weather driven by the planetary emergency are increasingly threatening the famed Italian city.
Meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the 21 nations on UNESCO's World Heritage Committee for the second time since 2021 did not include Venice—a city of 260,000 residents, 118 islands, 150 canals, and around 10 million annual visitors—on its endangered list. This, despite UNESCO recommending the listing and previously noting that the city "has become vulnerable as a result of irreversible natural and climate changes."
"Italy is an alcoholic in denial over Venice."
UNESCO officials attributed Venice's omission from the World Heritage in Danger list to the city's efforts to mitigate climate and mass tourism risks. Large cruise ships have been banned from Venetian waters, while barriers largely block high tides and other seawater from flooding the city. On Tuesday, Venice city councilmembers approved a pilot program to charge day-trippers a €5 fee to visit the city on days when the number of visitors is expected to be particularly high, such as holidays and weekends in spring and summertime.
Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro—a member of the center-right Coraggio Italia party—hailed the UNESCO decision, writing on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that while "the world has understood all the work we have done to defend our city, some of the opposition in Venice still hasn't!"
Likewise, Italy's far-right government said it was "proud" to have prevented Venice from inclusion on the World Heritage in Danger list.
However, Adam Markham, deputy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that "today's decision by the World Heritage Committee signals an alarming trend of nations not being held accountable for protecting some of the most iconic and irreplaceable natural and historic sites around the globe."
Markham continued:
Venice is a city in crisis facing rising sea levels and flooding that threaten the structural integrity of homes, businesses, critical infrastructure, and world-renowned historical sites. Uncontrolled mass tourism has also made affordable housing scarce for locals as demand for vacation rentals increases and the growth of cruise ship traffic has caused significant damage to the Venice lagoon. If nations continue to ignore the existential threat climate change poses to places like Venice, they could be irrevocably damaged or lost forever. Sadly, climate change and tourism are killing Venice.
Writing last week in The Art Newspaper, Anna Somers Cocks noted that sea levels are predicted to rise 1 meter in Venice by 2100.
"Sea-level rise will destroy Venice by the end of the century unless a major national and international effort is made to save it," she warned. "The city will crumble, bit by bit."
"If Italy objects to listing, like an alcoholic in denial, it will once again have refused to recognize that it has a serious problem," Somers Cocks added. "It will also deal yet another blow to UNESCO's already fading credibility as a protector of the world's heritage, which has been undermined by the member states themselves."
In 2019, floodwaters inundated the chamber where the far-right majority of the Venice City Council had moments earlier voted down a resolution addressing the climate emergency, prompting one concerned observer to quip that nature just did "a mic drop."
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Sanders Announces 'Historic' Bipartisan Bill to Confront US Primary Care Crisis
"It is unacceptable that millions of Americans throughout our country do not have access to affordable, high-quality primary care and are unable to get the healthcare they need when they need it."
Sep 14, 2023
After weeks of negotiations, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas announced Thursday that they have reached an agreement on a bill to confront the United States' primary care crisis, which has left millions of people across the nation without access to critical healthcare.
Sanders, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said in a statement that the new legislation marks a "historic" effort "to expand primary care and to reduce the massive shortage of nurses and primary care doctors in America."
According to a report released earlier this year by the National Association of Community Health Centers, more than 100 million people in the U.S. face difficulty accessing primary care, which is often the initial point of contact for patients seeking care.
The U.S. underinvests in primary care compared to other wealthy nations, despite spending more on healthcare overall.
"It is unacceptable that millions of Americans throughout our country do not have access to affordable, high-quality primary care and are unable to get the healthcare they need when they need it," the Vermont senator said. "Every major medical organization understands that our investment in primary care is woefully inadequate. They understand that focusing on disease prevention and providing more Americans with a medical home instead of relying on expensive emergency rooms for primary care will not only save lives and human suffering, it will save money."
The new bipartisan legislation includes nearly $6 billion in mandatory annual funding for community health centers over the next three years, according to a summary of the measure. If Congress doesn't act by the end of the month, community health centers—which provide primary care to tens of millions of vulnerable Americans—will face steep funding cuts.
The Sanders-Marshall legislation also includes funding that would support an estimated 2,000 primary care physicians over the next decade.
Additionally, the measure would boost funding for the National Health Service Corps to support scholarships and debt relief for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals.
Recent data suggests the U.S. could see a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians over the next decade. Elisabeth Rosenthal of KFF Health News noted last week that "the percentage of U.S. doctors in adult primary care has been declining for years and is now about 25%—a tipping point beyond which many Americans won't be able to find a family doctor at all."
The nursing shortage is also severe and could soon get much worse. One study released earlier this year estimated that around 100,000 registered nurses in the U.S. left their jobs over the past two years—often due to pandemic-related stress—and more than 610,000 more intend to leave over the next four years.
Sanders and Marshall's legislation, which is set to be marked up in the Senate HELP Committee on September 21, would provide $1.2 billion in grants to state universities and community colleges with the goal of boosting the number of students enrolled in registered nursing programs.
Marshall, the top Republican on HELP's Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, said in a statement that the new bill "recognizes and addresses the challenges our healthcare industry is facing, like the shortage of nurses and primary care doctors, and includes programs to bolster the workforce in a fiscally responsible way."
According to Sanders' office, the legislation would be "fully paid for by combating the enormous waste, fraud, and abuse in the healthcare system, making it easier for patients to access low-cost generic drugs, and holding pharmacy benefit managers accountable, among other provisions."
In remarks on the Senate floor on Thursday, Sanders noted that "in Vermont and all over this country, our people often have to wait months in order to get an appointment with a doctor and, in some cases, they have to travel very long distances to get the healthcare they need."
"It is literally insane," said Sanders, "that millions of Americans with nonemergency healthcare needs get their primary care in a hospital emergency room."
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