In sixteenth century England, gibbeting was a technique used for punishing convicted murders by hanging them in cages. Once a gibbet was hung, it attracted jubilant crowds since the display was engineered to maximize horror. By 1834 the practice was altogether banned, but objections arose to the practice of hanging people in cages, a form of punishment considered barbaric.

Throughout history, prisoners have been held in cages for not only torture, but also humiliation. It shocks the conscience that the immigration cages shut down and shuttered by activists denouncing the Trump administration are now dusted off for use temporarily.

A first step would be to not to cage people fleeing food shortages, drought, famine, and violence in their home countries caused by decades of U.S. imperialism.

Public outcry to immigration cages in the South has led some in the Biden administration to consider housing immigrant children in places like Connecticut. Middleton, CT Mayor Ben Florsheim said, “Taking kids out of cages in the southwest and moving them into cages in the northeast is not an immigration policy.”

Those who show up at our borders are often the most poor and downtrodden. President Biden’s Build Back Better programs address climate change and criminal justice reform, but they fail to account for how the two issues overlap.

I use the phrase, climate cages, to describe how public policy responses to climate change limit mobility, worsen prison conditions, and increase incarceration. These public policy responses can include immigration detention, deportation, self-deportation, and harsh sentencing guidelines.

Last month, the UN reported, “People living in low-income countries are at least four times more likely to be displaced by extreme weather compared to people in rich countries, despite being the least responsible for climate change.” In 2019, 34 million people suffered from food insecurity due to climate extremes. Meanwhile, weather hazards caused almost 25 million displacements in 140 countries.

Policy makers have not yet met the gravity of the climate crisis with the moment. The governmental response has been to find solutions to climate in a vacuum from immigration and incarceration. Detention facility rates show that as climate change has increased, more efforts to restrict mobility and incarcerate Black and Brown people has occurred to maximize available land and space for those who are richer and whiter. The impacts of intensified global warming correspond with the higher prison populations, worsening prison conditions, and health disparities.

As the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border soars, more than a dozen Catholic bishops from both countries are issuing a reminder that “there is a shared responsibility of all nations to preserve human life and provide for safe, orderly, and humane immigration, including the right to asylum.” The joint statement from bishops comes when thousands of children and families have arrived at border in recent weeks, leading to overcrowded and packed border facilities.

Are we working to preserve the status quo or working to dismantle the racism of immigration policies?

A first step would be to not to cage people fleeing food shortages, drought, famine, and violence in their home countries caused by decades of U.S. imperialism.

Overcrowding in prisons is a way to preserve an economic system known as corporatism through racist immigration and incarceration policies, which later manifested in disparate responses to environmental pollution concerns from the Flint water crisis to pipeline protests at Line 3 in Minnesota.

NYU journalism professor Suketu Mehta puts forward “that immigrants ‘have become a credit to this country’—the United States” through job growth, decreased crime rates, enhanced cultural innovation, and as a counterweight to aging populations through their “youth, fertility, and ability to support retirees.” Immigration corrects “the wrongs of colonialism and corporate neocolonialism.” Columbia law professor Michael Gerrard put forth that “the United States and other nations disproportionately responsible for carbon emissions should accept climate change refugees as a form of compensation to them and a form of justice.”

The rash of immigration enforcement actions parallels concerns for environmental struggles. While these struggles may diverge, the systems at play still operate in hegemonic unison. Blackouts and water contamination in prisons are becoming more of a problem, but bold solutions for climate change historically neglect frontline communities. Climate change will increase extreme weather conditions, increasing vulnerabilities for those already at the margins—from prison populations to those attempting to cross the borders. Overcrowding in prisons is a way to preserve an economic system known as corporatism through racist immigration and incarceration policies, which later manifested in disparate responses to environmental pollution concerns from the Flint water crisis to pipeline protests at Line 3 in Minnesota.

In other words, caging is a strategy—both legal, financial, and political—used against the critics of this corporatist system, which capitalizes upon and targets marginalized communities and vulnerable populations. Corporatism is “a system of interest and/or attitude representation, a particular modal or ideal-typical institutional arrangement for linking the associationally organized interests of civil society with the decisional structures of the state.” Nevertheless, the impacts of corporatism are also environmental in that these impacts work to silence environmental efforts and to demonstrate adverse impacts of climate change on frontline communities. That is, vulnerable communities, located in “sacrifice zones,” have less of a right to be here—in the United States or on the planet—and, therefore, require less of a need for a clean environment, including clean air, clean water, and energy access.

Unless we are deliberately antiracist, we are complicit. Citizenship privilege is one of the highest privileges in the world. Either we can correct a wrong or allow it to perpetuate. Where we hold citizenship measures how we will be treated. And we cannot put kids in cages and be indifferent to those policies. We cannot race ahead with renewable energy and green finance and ignore those left behind in the carceral state. The green revolution should also be a freedom revolution. Today’s climate cages are yesterday’s gibbets.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

In a year dominated by coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, one might expect other topics to fall lower on the media’s priority list. But the climate crisis has not lessened in intensity; on the contrary, the urgency of addressing it increases each year. (Not to mention that climate change is an important driver of increased disease outbreaks like the current pandemic.) News media must be capable of covering two emergencies at the same time.

Their failure to do so reached shocking levels last year. ABC‘s This Week, CBS‘s Face the Nation and NBC‘s Meet the Press didn’t ask a single question that mentioned the climate crisis, climate change or the Green New Deal until more than two-thirds of the way through the year (9/13/20), when wildfires—which, due to climate change, are becoming more frequent and more intense—devastated the West Coast.

CNN‘s State of the Union did little better, asking one tangential question earlier in the year (2/2/20) to Republican Iowa Sen. Jodi Ernst about why she believed the Green New Deal and Medicare for All were socialism but farm subsidies were not. Its coverage of extreme weather beat the other networks by two weeks when it reported on Hurricane Laura in Louisiana (8/30/20).

Face the Nation asked only two questions referencing the climate crisis the entire year. In the first, CBS host Margaret Brennan (9/13/20) challenged Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s statement that the wildfires were “a wake-up call for all of us that we have got to do everything in our power to tackle climate change.” Brennan responded:

Governor, I understand that’s your conviction. But I know four former Oregon lawmakers have written an op-ed in the Washington Post, though, saying you can’t blame climate change. Instead, it’s a failure of your state government to prepare, and that warnings were ignored regarding mismanagement of Oregon’s forests. What is your response to that?

Brennan presented climate disruption’s role in wildfires as a mere “conviction” of her guest–not because there was scientific evidence that questioned the connection, but on the basis of an op-ed (Washington Post, 9/12/20) written by a former Republican state representative (not four of them) who’s now associated with a pro-logging group funded by corporate timber interests and linked to far-right militias (Mother Jones, 3/6/20).

In the other question, Brennan (11/8/20) asked West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin if Joe Biden’s “energy message”—which featured a vow to transition away from oil and gas—hurt him in the election.

NBC asked three questions, ABC and Fox News asked four, and CNN asked 13 in their Sunday morning shows. The five shows combined aired a total of only 18 segments in which any questions were asked that referenced the climate crisis. There were 26 questions asked, to 18 guests.

The Sunday shows historically skew overwhelmingly toward official sources—politicians, party operatives and other current or former government officials—who typically account for half or more (FAIR.org, 4/1/12, 5/22/20) of all guests, with journalists making up most of the rest. In 2020, questions about climate skewed even more toward partisan guests, who accounted for all but two of the sources, and received 24 of the 26 questions. (The other two, both on Fox News Sunday, were an actor and a conservative pundit.)

Last April, when there was a crucial role for news outlets to play in clarifying the medical and scientific aspects of the Covid crisis, as well as offering space for vigorous debate over solutions, FAIR (5/22/20) criticized the Sunday shows for sidelining independent public health experts, who comprised only 10% of all guests that month. On climate, however, the shows have proved even worse, inviting not a single climate scientist or other climate expert or advocate as a guest over the entire year.

Of the partisan guests asked about climate issues, 12 were Democrats and only three were Republicans (taking 17 versus seven questions, respectively), despite the fact that Republicans dominated Washington for the year, holding both the White House and Senate and blocking any major climate change legislation. In fact, the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News Sunday shows didn’t pose a single question about the climate crisis to a Republican politician the entire year.

In effect, these shows are allowing politicians to define reality. If Republicans say the climate crisis doesn’t exist, then Sunday hosts—with the exception of CNN—don’t question them about it.

Twelve of the 18 segments centered on the US presidential election or the subsequent presidential transition, five were about the West Coast wildfires and Hurricane Laura, and one was a feature about an actor whose climate activism came up in a question.

All but one of the 10 climate-related questions in the extreme weather segments were about whether climate change is an important contributor to extreme weather events of 2020, or whether humans are the main driver of that climate change—questions that have long been settled science. CNN (8/30/20, 9/13/20) posed several such questions to two Republican climate deniers, and the network’s Dana Bash (8/30/20) stated clearly multiple times in her interview some variation of “the overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity is responsible for the climate crisis.” While holding Republicans accountable for their climate denial stance is important, it’s also important to go beyond settled science and press them on policy. But with so few questions to Republicans at all, none did so.

What’s more, three Democrats were also asked whether climate change could be blamed for the West Coast wildfires (ABC, 9/13/20; CBS, 9/13/20; CNN, 9/13/20), letting then–President Donald Trump frame the news with his claims that it was simply a “forest management” problem, rather than doing what they ought to have done: set the record straight on what the science says about the role of climate change in wildfires, then use their questions to ask their political guests about government responses based on those scientific facts.

If we have any hope of addressing the climate crisis, journalists have to move beyond debating its existence or importance, and start looking at both its causes—very concretely, looking at culprits—and its solutions. You can’t debate climate solutions without understanding what is driving climate change, yet only 12 questions were asked on the Sunday shows all year that even touched on emissions or the oil and gas industry, and none mentioned agriculture, deforestation or capitalism more generally.

Of those 12 questions, few got the national conversation closer to where it needs to be, instead asking about such things as whether Biden’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050 was “realistic” (ABC, 9/13/20) or the impact of his stance on oil and gas on voters, not the planet (CNN, 10/25/20; Fox News, 10/25/20). On ABC, host Martha Raddatz (10/25/20) asked Democratic strategist Rahm Emanuel whether Biden’s promise in one of the presidential debates to transition away from oil and gas made him “cringe a little bit.”

Meanwhile, the industry didn’t reduce its own media output during the pandemic; in fact, it increased it. The American Petroleum Institute, the largest industry lobbying group, spent over $3.1 million on TV ads—a 51% increase from the year before—falsely touting natural gas as “clean” energy (Independent, 8/19/20). These ads aired during almost the exact same period (1/1/20–8/16/20) that most of the Sunday shows were completely silent on climate.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

In statements at an informal World Trade Organization meeting on Thursday, South Africa took rich countries to task for publicly stressing the need for international cooperation in the fight against Covid-19 while simultaneously blocking a patent waiver that would help manufacturers ramp up vaccine production across the globe.

“One year on, three million deaths later, there is still huge disparity in access to vaccines, while the technology and knowledge for the development and production of vaccine is monopolized through the intellectual property system, with only select manufacturers allowed to manufacture by way of a license, and even then on terms that restrict production and supply,” a South African representative said during the WTO gathering.

“One year on, three million deaths later, there is still huge disparity in access to vaccines, while the technology and knowledge for the development and production of vaccine is monopolized.”

“There are a handful of developed countries blocking progress on the discussion of our proposal that has received massive global support,” the representative continued. “These same countries call for international solidarity and yet at the same time have purchased most of the vaccine supply sufficient to vaccinate their population several times over with the result of denying developing countries access to vaccines.”

Along with India and more than 100 other nations, South Africa is pushing for a temporary waiver of WTO intellectual property protections that, according to critics, are artificially limiting vaccine supply by keeping manufacturing under the control of profit-driven pharmaceutical corporations.

The waiver—which is being blocked by the U.S., the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations—would enable generic manufacturers around the world to replicate vaccine formulas, a step advocates say is necessary to meet global needs as coronavirus infections surge.

Pointing to a recent Guardian report detailing the massive profits Pfizer, Moderna, and other drug companies are raking in from sales of their vaccines, South Africa’s spokesperson at the WTO meeting asked, “Is the concern of [waiver] opponents really that Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, etc. have not made sufficient billions, while in the current Covid situation… specific industries and economies are collapsing and millions of lives and livelihoods around the world are at stake?”

“Of the more than 890 million vaccine doses that have been administered globally, more than 81% have been given in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Low-income countries have received just 0.3 percent.”
—Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization“While we have circular discussions in this forum, the virus is running rampant, evading vaccines, with a strong likelihood that the lack of vaccines in many parts of the world will come back to bite hard, with many more lockdowns and illnesses,” the official continued. “If the opposition is just to protect the few more billions these companies will make, then the opposition is self-defeating and short-sighted.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, echoed that warning in a Friday op-ed for the New York Times, writing that the “longer this coronavirus circulates anywhere, the longer global trade and travel will be disrupted, and the higher the chances that a variant could emerge that renders vaccines less effective.”

“Of the more than 890 million vaccine doses that have been administered globally, more than 81% have been given in high- and upper-middle-income countries,” Tedros noted. “Low-income countries have received just 0.3 percent.”

In addition to offering financial resources and excess doses to developing countries in need, Tedros argued that rich countries should back South Africa and India’s proposal to temporarily waive certain coronavirus-related intellectual property rights, a move that he said “would level the playing field and give countries more leverage” in vaccine discussions with pharmaceutical companies.

“If this is not a time to take those actions,” wrote Tedros, “it’s hard to fathom when that would be.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

As the world celebrated Earth Day, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and Corporation Counsel James E. Johnson on Thursday announced that New York City filed suit over Big Oil’s decades of lies about fossil fuels and the climate emergency—just the latest addition to over two dozen similar cases launched by U.S. communities.

“My Earth Day message to Big Oil: See you in court.”
—New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

Like many of the other cases throughout the country, this lawsuit (pdf), filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the County of New York, names fossil fuel giants BP, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell as well as the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry trade group, as defendants.

A statement announcing the suit accuses the defendants of “systematically and intentionally deceiving New Yorkers” in violation of the city’s Consumer Protection Law. The complaint says they engaged in “deceptive trade practices” including “false and misleading greenwashing campaigns.”

“Climate change is very much on the mind of New Yorkers. Overwhelmed with the idea that there is nothing they can do, consumers are looking for ways to help, including by spending money on fossil fuel alternatives and rewarding companies that seem green,” Johnson explained.

“The defendants in our lawsuit have spent millions to persuade consumers that they present a clean, green choice. But they don’t,” he continued. “They say they are making meaningful investments to protect the environment. But they aren’t. They would like us to believe they are good faith partners in the drive to reduce fossil fuel consumption. And we don’t.”

Asserting that “consumers are entitled to clear, accurate information about products they may choose,” Johnson added that “we are bringing this litigation to protect that right. The defendants’ deceptive practices are squarely prohibited by New York City law and cannot be allowed to continue.”

Other key city officials joined in calling out the oil and gas majors, including Lorelei Salas of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Dave A. Chokshi of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Ben Furnas of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability, and Jainey Bavishi of the Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency.

“Fossil fuel companies are continuing to spin a tangled web of lies about the deadly products they produce and sell after decades of misleading consumers,” said Bavishi. “There’s undeniable scientific evidence that oil, gas, and coal are warming our planet and making climate disasters more frequent and more severe. We won’t be able to protect New York City from climate change unless we stop these companies from lying to New Yorkers—and that’s what we intend to do.”

The mayor, who has gained some international attention for his work to address the climate emergency, reiterated a point he has often made—that “our children deserve to live in a world free from climate change, and we must do everything in our power to give them hope and stop climate change in its tracks.”

“That means taking on some of the biggest polluting corporations for false advertising and greenwashing,” de Blasio added, describing the behavior as illegal. “My Earth Day message to Big Oil: See you in court.”

Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), welcomed the filing in a statement.

“Oil and gas executives caused the climate crisis, then systematically lied about it. They need to be held accountable,” he said. “Exxon, Shell, BP, and API have spent decades targeting policymakers and the public with climate disinformation. It’s time for policymakers everywhere to realize that oil and gas executives will never be good faith partners in climate solutions.”

The new lawsuit comes after a federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of an earlier New York City nuisance suit that aimed to hold some of the same companies accountable for the cost of climate damages they knowingly caused. That ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court contrasts with other recent federal court decisions.

Responding to NYC’s latest move, API, ExxonMobil, and Shell all highlighted the dismissal, while a representative for BP declined to comment, according to CNN.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

LGBTQ advocates on Thursday hailed a decision by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to withdraw a proposed Trump administration rule that would have allowed federally funded single-sex shelters to deny unhoused transgender people refuge in facilities matching their gender identity. 

 “Today, we are taking a critical step in affirming HUD’s commitment that no person be denied access to housing or other critical services because of their gender identity. HUD is open for business for all.”
—HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge

In a clear break with the previous administration’s anti-transgender stance, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said in a statement that “access to safe, stable housing—and shelter—is a basic necessity.”

“Unfortunately, transgender and gender-nonconforming people report more instances of housing instability and homelessness than cisgender people,” she added. “Today, we are taking a critical step in affirming HUD’s commitment that no person be denied access to housing or other critical services because of their gender identity. HUD is open for business for all.”

In what was then condemned as “yet another dangerous and disgraceful attack on transgender people,” the May 2019 proposal would have rolled back the Obama administration’s Equal Access Rules, which aimed to provide everyone with access to safe and secure housing, “regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.”

While promoting the Trump administration’s discriminatory policies during a September 2019 visit to the agency’s San Francisco office, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson sparked outrage when he speculated that residents at shelters for unhoused women would be traumatized if “big, hairy men” were allowed to stay there. 

The National Center for Transgender Equality called Thursday’s move “a clear indication that Secretary Fudge and President [Joe] Biden are strongly committed to protecting transgender people from housing discrimination.”

Center deputy executive director Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen said in a statement that “the Biden administration is living up to its commitment to protect transgender people from discrimination.”

“Today’s announcement by Secretary Fudge is an important step in ensuring access to safe, affirming housing for transgender people,” he added. “This is a decision that will save lives and help transgender people experiencing homelessness receive the assistance they need.”

Dylan Waguespack, public policy and external affairs director at the LGBTQ youth advocacy group True Colors United, said that “by ending this discriminatory proposal for good, the department is righting a serious wrong.”

“Whether it’s homeless shelters, sports, or healthcare, supporting the safety and dignity of all young people is a central tenet to our society, regardless of who they are or who they love,” asserted Waguespack. “We’re thrilled to see that tenet wholeheartedly embraced by Secretary Fudge and leadership across the Biden administration.”

HUD’s decision is the latest move by an administration that has worked swiftly to reverse Trump’s anti-LGBTQ policies.

On his first day in office, Biden signed what the Human Rights Campaign hailed as “the most substantive, wide-ranging executive order concerning sexual orientation and gender identity” in U.S. history, while the Department of Defense announced last month that the Trump-era prohibition on transgender troops would be lifted. 

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Thursday reiterated its call for the ouster of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the Republican megadonor accused of attempting to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service last year as millions of Americans relied on the agency to participate in the presidential election. 

As the House Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee held a confirmation hearing for President Joe Biden’s three nominees to the USPS Board of Governors, CREW tweeted numerous times that DeJoy must be dismissed and replaced promptly due to his actions last year and his so-called “Delivering for America” program, proposed last month. 

“Save the US Postal Service. Fire Louis DeJoy,” the group later tweeted.

“If you want to save the USPS,” it added, “you have to fire Louis DeJoy.”

Under “Delivering for America”—denounced by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) as a “pathetic 10-year plan to weaken USPS,” DeJoy would raise prices, cut administrative costs, and slow down deliveries. 

Biden’s three nominees—Ron Stroman, Anton Hajjar, and Amber McReynolds—said in the hearing that they would prioritize reliable mail service and took “veiled shots” at “Delivering for America”—but declined to say that they would oust DeJoy, even though the appointment of all three would give Biden and the Democrats a 5-4 majority and control of the board of governors for the first time since 2016.

Board Chairman Ron A. Bloom, a former Obama administration official, and member Lee Moak are the only Democrats on the board of governors, but both have expressed reluctance to dismiss DeJoy. 

“The board of governors believes the postmaster general, in very difficult circumstances, is doing a good job,” Bloom told lawmakers in February. 

As the Washington Post reported Thursday, members of Congress have been discussing with Biden administration officials the possibility of the president declining to nominate Bloom for a second term, to get rid of what critics have called “an enabler” of DeJoy. 

“There’s a growing number of people who say, maybe you don’t need to fire all the board, but you need to be able to create a majority to fire DeJoy,” a House aide told the Post. “And there’s another group saying, when we get enough Democrats on the board, that will be enough to maybe slow down some of the things DeJoy is doing.”

Meanwhile, Moak’s refusal to discuss his position on DeJoy has angered Democrats including Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), whose office corresponded with Moak in January in what became an “acrimonious” exchange.

“The congressman is deeply disconcerted by the destruction and degradation of USPS over the course of the past year by Postmaster General DeJoy and the public silence of the Board of Governors in the face of it,” wrote Pascrell’s office. “To that end, an additional question we’d appreciate you clearing up for us tomorrow: will you move to fire Postmaster General DeJoy for his arson, and if not, why not?”

Moak declined to answer the question and wrote to the congressman, “If you spent more time working to solve problems than create them perhaps we would be further along.”

“Good luck tomorrow—you will need it,” he added. Moak told the Post he was referring to an upcoming conversation he expected to have with the congressman, but Pascrell on Thursday accused Moak of sending him “unhinged messages and threats.”

“I was the first to call for the postal board to go because rebuilding USPS starts with removing and replacing the failed leadership at the top,” Pascrell told the Post. “The exchange from this board member only proves my point. The entire board and then Mr. DeJoy should be handed their walking papers. Their unquestioning support for this postmaster general is unacceptable.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

While marking Earth Day with his long-awaited Leaders Summit on Climate to discuss how countries plan to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday released an International Climate Finance Plan that disappointed some progressive campaigners.

“Today’s announcement by President Biden on international finance for fossil fuels is a welcome step, but the lack of firm commitments falls short of what’s needed,” said Collin Rees, senior campaigner at Oil Change International, in a statement.

“This is a missed opportunity to end a harmful U.S. climate legacy abroad and add to the growing momentum of other institutions ruling out all public finance for fossil fuels,” he said. “We urge the Biden administration to add a clear commitment to an immediate phaseout, with no loopholes for gas or any other continued fossil support.”

Biden initiated the development of this first-of-its-kind U.S. finance plan on January 27 with his Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (E.O. 14008). As a new summary from the White House details, it has five key components:

• Scaling up international climate finance and enhancing its impact;
• Mobilizing private finance internationally;
• Ending international official financing for carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy;
• Making capital flows consistent with low-emissions, climate-resilient pathways; and
• Defining, measuring, and reporting U.S. international climate finance.

“The United States intends to double, by 2024, our annual public climate finance to developing countries relative to the average level during the second half of the Obama-Biden administration (FY 2013-2016),” the summary says. “As part of this goal, the United States intends to triple our adaptation finance by 2024.”

The White House highlights specific plans for some U.S. agencies. This month, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will adopt a new climate strategy, and at COP26, a United Nations summit in Glasgow scheduled for November, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will release its new climate strategy.

“Treasury will direct U.S. executive directors in multilateral development banks (MDBs) to help ensure MDBs set and apply ambitious climate finance targets and policies, in partnership with other shareholders,” according to the document.

The summary says that the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the nation’s development bank, “will update its development strategy to not only include climate for the first time, but also to make investments in climate mitigation and adaptation a top priority.”

Biden’s January order said that the secretaries of state, the treasury, and energy would work with the Export–Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), the head of DFC, and leaders at other agencies to identify steps the country can take to “promote ending international financing of carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy while simultaneously advancing sustainable development and a green recovery, in consultation with the assistant to the president for national security affairs.”

DFC, in support of Biden’s summit on Thursday, announced key commitments, from a pledge to get its portfolio to net-zero emissions by 2040 to boosting climate-focused investment—including in mitigation, adaptation, and resilience—to 33% of new investments beginning in FY 2023. The bank added that “to advance these efforts and further enable the private sector to tackle climate-related challenges, DFC will launch a new $50 million technical assistance facility as well as a risk-sharing platform.”

The institution’s chief operating officer, David Marchick, said that “Biden has appropriately stated that the climate crisis represents the existential threat of our time and called for coordinated global action.”

 “DFC is proud to contribute to U.S. leadership on climate action through our net-zero pledge, new climate investment target, and inclusion of climate as a core element in our development strategy for the first time—steps that aim to help developing countries mitigate and respond to climate change while increasing resilience,” he added.

Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager at Friends of the Earth U.S., was critical of the bank’s announcement.

“DFC’s broad-based restrictions on fossil fuel financing are a first for any U.S. institution, but still insufficient to address the true nature of the climate crisis,” she said. “DFC should have taken the opportunity of the climate summit to once and for all end support for all fossil fuels immediately. In putting forward a net-zero target, DFC is ignoring the lifetime and lifecycle emissions of its portfolio while putting off real climate action with dangerous and ineffective offsets.”

“Even more alarming is Biden’s silence on the Export-Import Bank, which provides billions of dollars every year to disastrous projects like Mozambique LNG and the Vaca Muerta fracking projects in Argentina,” DeAngelis added. “While the United Kingdom has shown true climate leadership by ending support for overseas fossil fuel projects, Biden has failed to take a whole-of-government approach to stop enabling overseas carbon emissions.”

Earlier Thursday, The Guardian reported that Lidy Nacpil, coordinator at the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, said, “We are at a point where we know what needs to be done to reverse the climate chaos and it boils down to this simple principle: wealthier countries, who emit more now and historically, can and should do more with their emissions reductions and delivery of climate finance.”

As the newspaper detailed:

Poor countries were promised $100 billion a year in climate finance from 2020, more than a decade ago at the troubled Copenhagen climate summit in 2009. But that longstanding commitment, repeated in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement, was not met last year.

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant rich countries are facing rising financial pressures, as countries struggle to recover from the health impacts and lockdowns. But for poor countries, the situation is yet more dire: their economies have been battered by the global Covid recession, at the same time as they have lost large amounts of the remittances sent home by their citizens working abroad that many rely on, and they face mounting debt as the cost of finance has increased.

In a statement, Oil Change International strategic communications director David Turnbull emphasized that “true climate leadership requires a full reckoning with the realities of what’s driving our climate crisis: fossil fuels. Without a robust plan from rich countries in particular to ramp down fossil fuel production and ramp up support for communities for a just transition to a renewable energy economy, any conversation about ‘climate leadership’ is incomplete at best, or misleading at worst.”

“Continued fossil fuel production impacts those on the frontlines of extraction and related infrastructure every day, adding to the historic injustices our extractive economy has perpetuated,” Turnbull added. “Today’s session on ramping up ambition came up short, and we call on all world leaders to quickly catch up to the reality that we must stop spending public money on fossil fuels and start the fossil fuel production phaseout and just transition for communities immediately.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – In response to recent reporting that the Biden administration is planning to increase the long-term capital gains tax rate on people earning more than $1 million a year up to 39.6% as part of its forthcoming American Families Plan, Morris Pearl, former managing director at Blackrock, Inc., Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, and co-author of Tax the Rich!, issued the following statement:

“President Biden’s plan to have millionaires pay the same tax rates on their long term capital gains as working Americans do on their wages is a no brainer. There is no reason that money earned through wealth and investments should be taxed at a lower rate than the money that people earn from work.

Biden has the right idea—our tax code should value work over wealth. Millionaires like me who sit around and live off of our investments should not pay a lower tax rate than Americans who work for a living. It’s not anti-capitalist, it’s common sense.

Take it from a millionaire investor—investors don’t need any extra incentive to invest. What else are we going to do with our money, put it in a mattress? Last I checked mattresses don’t provide particularly high returns.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Responding to a surge in racist attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders fueled by racist rhetoric from former President Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Senate on Thursday nearly unanimously approved a bill aimed at fighting anti-AAPI hate—with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri casting the sole dissenting vote. 

In a rare display of overwhelming Senate bipartisanship, the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, sponsored by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)—who in 2013 became the first Asian American woman elected to the upper chamber—passed by a vote of 94-1. 

“This historic, bipartisan vote… is a powerful message of solidarity to our AAPI community,” Hirono said following the measure’s passage. “Now, I urge the House to swiftly pass this legislation so President [Joe] Biden can sign it into law.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), the only other Asian American woman currently in the Senate, recalled racist harassment endured by her mother and said that “this bill will allow me to go home to my mom and say we did something.”

Hawley, a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender who helped incite the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and was one of the leading peddlers of the lie that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Trump, offered no immediate response to queries about his “no” vote. 

However, according to The Hill, Hawley previously told reporters he was concerned with the bill’s scope, calling the measure “hugely open-ended.”

“It just you know the ability and power to define crimes, to define incidents going forward, and collect all that data, it just seemed hugely, hugely overbroad,” he said. 

AAPI advocates, however, welcomed the bill’s passage. Advancing Justice-AAJC told Politico the bill would “provide much-needed support for individuals and communities impacted by hate and discrimination.” 

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights issued a statement applauding the Senate for “recognizing the urgency of this moment and the need to improve hate crimes reporting and invest in communities targeted for hate.”

“More accurate reporting and data would help to create community-centered solutions to prevent and report hate crimes and help law enforcement carry out its duty to protect and serve communities targeted for hate,” the group said, adding that “we… call on the House of Representatives to pass this important legislation so the president can sign it into law.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

For human rights advocates who also enjoy the sport of car racing, a great opportunity awaits us. Lewis Hamilton, the only Black driver in the history of Formula 1 racing, has been bravely and consistently supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. In the wake of the protests against the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Hamilton started to call Formula 1 out for its lack of diversity, even saying he would trade his 7th world championship for more diversity in the sport. Accused of bringing politics into the sporting world, he refused to back down, saying that his support for Black Lives Matter was a matter of supporting basic human rights.

Hamilton describes his concern for human rights as being global, and has expressed concern about human rights violations taking place in countries that Formula 1 travels to. During the tail end of the 2020 season when an F1 race was scheduled to take place in Bahrain, Hamilton received a letter from the young son of a man facing the death penalty in Bahrain. Moved by the plea by 11-year-old Ahmed Ramadhan to “please save my father,” Hamilton replied that he “definitely won’t let it go unnoticed.”

Perhaps the most decorated athlete in F1 history will wear a shirt telling the world that sure, here is a race, but just a few hundred miles south the Saudi government is systematically starving the people of Yemen.

Hamilton had plans to address the Bahraini Crown Prince about Ahmed Ramadhan’s father, as well as Bahrain’s use of torture, but unfortunatly he contracted COVID-19 and was unable to travel to and race in the country. Still, Hamilton promised, “When I get some time now, I will definitely try and speak to those [people] and see how I can positively impact that [race] weekend [in future].”

Clearly, Hamilton has a deep concern for human suffering and is willing to take action. His willingness to speak out comes at an opportune time, as 2021 is the first year that Formula 1 will go to Saudi Arabia.

The UN has called the Saudi-led war in Yemen the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” By blockading Yemen’s main port of Hodeidah, Saudi Arabia is intentionally starving an entire population. The situation is so bad that a Yemeni child dies every 75 seconds. On top of this is an almost constant aerial bombardment. Yemen is attempting to address the COVID-19 pandemic without a functioning health care, proper sanitation, or other infrastructure.

According to four UN agencies, if Saudi Arabia does not cease its campaign, 400,000 children under the age of five could die of starvation this year.

It isn’t just in Yemen that Saudi Arabia is causing harm. In fact, It’s bold of the Saudi government to host a Grand Prix while it’s only been three years since they first granted Saudi women the right to drive. That right came at a grave price for Saudi women. Shortly after Saudi Arabia allowed women to drive, they rounded up the very women who had campaigned for the change.

A fierce activist, Loujain Al-Hathloul was first arrested in 2014 for attempting to drive across the UAE border—where she was a licensed driver—into Saudi Arabia. The 73 days she spent in jail at that time did not deter her. In 2018, right after Saudi Arabia gave women the right to drive, they arrested Loujain again. She was held in excessive pretrial detention, tortured, threatened, and eventually sentenced to almost six years in prison by a terrorism court. On February 11, 2021, after 1000 days in prison and enormous international attention to her case, Loujain was released but she remainsunder a five year travel ban where she is barred from leaving Saudi Arabia.

In addition to Saudi restrictions on women’s rights, in 2018, Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, approved an operation to capture or kill journalist Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia is also known for having one of the highest execution rates in the world where people’s heads are chopped off in public for offenses ranging from atheism to homosexuality to sorcery. Long prison terms and physical punishment are used against everyone from bloggers to lawyers who dare question the regime’s absolute power.

When advocates to end the war in Yemen and achieve human rights inside Saudi Arabia became aware of the upcoming Formula 1 race in Saudi Arabia and Lewis Hamilton’s support for Black Lives Matter and other causes, they began calling on Hamilton to boycott the Saudi race or at least make a statement. Lifelong F1 fans and peace activists alike have signed the petition with over 5,000 signatures. “The top Formula 1 driver refusing to compete in Saudi Arabia or speaking out could go a long way toward convincing Saudi Arabia to finally adhere to human rights,” the petition reads, “This would send the message that the world is not blind to MbS trying to ‘sportswash’ his war crimes and human rights violations.”

In addition, to the petition, a letter was sent to Hamilton from 46 human rights groups. Lina al-Hathloul, the sister of Loujain al-Hathloul stated, “It is our sincere hope as a family that Mr. Hamilton considers the gravity of supporting a country like Saudi Arabia that imprisons and tortures its own citizens like my sister Loujain.” Dr. Aisha Jumaan, the founder of Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation said “The U.N. reported that 2.3 million Yemeni children under five years of age are experiencing famine. This is due to the Saudi war and blockade on Yemen. I hope that you send their agonized parents a message of solidarity by boycotting the race.”

Those calling on Hamilton to act imagine that if he doesn’t boycott the race he might wear a t-shirt with Loujain’s face on it or the hashtag #FreeHumanRightsDefenders which calls for the Saudi government to release the many journalists, dissidents, and women’s right activists currently languishing in prison. Perhaps the most decorated athlete in F1 history will wear a shirt telling the world that sure, here is a race, but just a few hundred miles south the Saudi government is systematically starving the people of Yemen.

Hamilton, if he chooses to boycott or make a statement, would not be the first athlete or celebrity to call out a country for its human rights record. In 2017, Professional football player Michael Bennett, after finding out his scheduled trip to Israel was being organized by the Israeli government, backed out of the trip saying “One of my heroes has always been Muhammad Ali. I know that Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people.” In 2019, Nicki Minaj cancelled her scheduled performance in Saudi Arabia citing women’s rights and LGBTQ rights concerns. “After careful reflection I have decided to no longer move forward with my scheduled concert at Jeddah World Fest,” Minaj said in a statement. “While I want nothing more than to bring my show to fans in Saudi Arabia, after better educating myself on the issues, I believe it is important for me to make clear my support for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and freedom of expression.”

A lot of people say that sports aren’t a place for “politics.” But what they usually mean is that they want to maintain their willful ignorance. Sports are a part of the larger world, not outside of it. Athletes aren’t characters in a movie, they’re real people that benefit from or are harmed by the systems that are in place. Human rights advocates and F1 fans are glad Lewis Hamilton is part of the Black Lives Matter Movement. They hope he decides to extend his activism to calling out Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses and brutal war in Yemen. 

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, released the following statement after the Senate passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act:

“There has been a devastating spike in hate incidents and violence targeting the Asian American community, as well as other people of color, religious minorities, immigrants, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. By passing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, with the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act (Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act) as an amendment, the Senate is recognizing the urgency of this moment and the need to improve hate crimes reporting and invest in communities targeted for hate. More accurate reporting and data would help to create community-centered solutions to prevent and report hate crimes and help law enforcement carry out its duty to protect and serve communities targeted for hate. We applaud the Senate for this vote, and call on the House of Representatives to pass this important legislation so the president can sign it into law.”

The Leadership Conference urged Congress to pass the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act earlier this month. The letter is available here.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, President Biden has world governmental leaders attending his virtual Leaders Summit on Climate Change. The world governments invited include 17 countries responsible for about 80% of all global emissions. Our Indigenous Environmental Network is watching for the outcome of this summit on what their plans are to address real solutions for addressing the climate crisis and what climate ambitions they plan to bring to the United Nations climate negotiations this November in Glasgow, Scotland, to raise targets for reducing GHG emissions at levels to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
 
The current commitments made by world governments under the Paris Agreement already puts the world on a course for a disastrous 3-5 degrees of warming with a problematic carbon “net zero” goal that has left a trap door open, leading to risky geoengineering technologies like carbon capture and storage and a world of carbon markets.
 
IEN will see what the outcome is of this two-day summit. We hope this is not another attempt of the worst enablers of global warming to paint themselves yet another shade of green with climate ambitions that will be vague pledges that do not directly address the continued investments in fossil fuels.
 
The United States and other national governments are setting “net zero” targets, as part of the actions they are taking in the context of the Paris Agreement, and in the context of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) reporting process. Government “net-zero” targets are really just accounting tricks.
 
“Net-zero” emissions sounds like it cuts emissions to zero but it does not. “Net-zero” emissions pretend to “remove” pollution with false solutions to climate change to justify polluting more. Furthermore, “net-zero” emissions and carbon neutrality inherently imply that the reduction of carbon and other greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions can be met through carbon market systems and techno-fixes.
 
Geoengineering technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon capture use and storage (CCUS) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) are examples of techno-fixes that can be claimed by the governments of the world as producing “net-zero” emissions as well as building so-called green infrastructure. However, these techno-fixes are expensive, unproven, unjust and do not address the root causes of climate change nor support environmental justice. Carbon trading allows polluters to buy and sell permits to pollute instead of cutting air pollution at source. Our Indigenous spiritual authorities have told us that the trading of carbon, as part of the air we breathe, of the sky, and turning it into a private property to be traded as a commodity, is a violation of the sacred.  
 
We are seeing an alarming tendency towards “politics of desperation” in climate policy, where opportunistic disaster capitalism coupled with a myopic carbon fundamentalism drives a pandemic of corporate and private sector false promises. We are being flooded with billions of dollars from philanthro-capitalists such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk that are pushing techno-fixes.
 
Investing in America means making a just transition away from a fossil fuel economy. First and foremost, if we are to stop climate change, we must create a plan to keep fossil fuels in the ground that includes cutting off subsidies, tax breaks and carbon pricing loopholes. Let us see what the US and the world leaders come up with.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – In response to the House of Representatives vote to grant D.C. statehood, Ellen Sciales, Press Secretary of Sunrise Movement, released the following statement:

“Every good bill that passes in the House and dies in the Senate is a reminder that our democracy is broken. Today, Sunrise celebrates the hard work activists took to ensure the passage of D.C. statehood in the House. But the truth is, we cannot come close to fixing our democracy and granting D.C. residents the representation they deserve until Democrats get serious about abolishing the filibuster.

“Today we remember that the filibuster, a significant obstacle to D.C. statehood, was popularized by white supremacists to prevent the passing of civil rights legislation. This feels especially stark given that D.C. statehood is a racial justice issue and hundreds of thousands of people of color will continue to be silenced unless the filibuster is abolished and this is passed into law. 

“Democrats have a majority in the House, Senate, and a President who claims he is ready to take action. Democrats have the power to deliver, but are frankly choosing not to. So we must ask—when will you deliver on your promises and heed the calls of voters across country? You cannot say your hands are tied when you’re the ones putting on the handcuffs.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Voting rights advocates urged the U.S. Senate on Thursday to pass legislation establishing statehood for Washington, D.C., after the House’s historic vote in favor of the move. 

The House voted for the second time in history to grant full representation to Washington’s 700,000 full-time residents, passing the Washington, D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51) in a party line vote—216 to 208.

“With the passage of the bill today, the residents of the nation’s capital are closer than ever to achieving voting representation in Congress and full local self-government, and the United States is one step closer to deserving the term democracy.”
—Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.)

“All of our citizens should be afforded the same rights, regardless of where they live or the color of their skin,” said Sean Eldridge, founder and president of Stand Up America. “Yet, for centuries, Americans living within the District of Columbia—a majority of whom are Black and Brown—have been denied the rights of representation afforded to their neighbors and have instead been at the mercy of lawmakers from far off states.”

“Today, the House of Representatives moved closer to ensuring that those living within the District have autonomy over the laws that govern them and full representation in the halls of Congress,” he added. 

The bill was introduced last year by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who has represented D.C. in the House since 1991 but whose position doesn’t allow her to vote on final legislation. If passed into law, the bill would establish a smaller federal district, comprised of government buildings, and rename the rest of the U.S. Capitol as the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, to honor abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

The House passage came two days after the White House issued its first-ever official policy statement supporting D.C. statehood, which would give equal representation to the residents of the district, 46% of whom are Black. 

During the debate over the legislation, freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) explicitly called out the GOP for its support of the racist disenfranchisement of D.C. residents and members’ failure to present any compelling arguments against D.C. statehood, leading some Republicans to ask that his statement be withdrawn. 

“I have had enough of my colleagues’ racist insinuations that somehow the people of Washington, D.C. are incapable or even unworthy of our democracy,” Jones said. “One Senate Republican said that D.C. wouldn’t be ‘a well-rounded, working-class state.’ I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word ‘white.’”

The Biden administration’s support for the measure as well as Senate Democrats’ enthusiasm for giving the bill its first-ever hearing in the chamber has marked a turning point for the movement for D.C. statehood; when the House voted on the issue in 1993, a majority of Democrats joined the Republicans in rejecting the bill. 

“With the passage of the bill today, the residents of the nation’s capital are closer than ever to achieving voting representation in Congress and full local self-government, and the United States is one step closer to deserving the term democracy,” Norton said in a statement Thursday. 

In the Senate, the legislation faces an uphill battle, with Republicans refusing to back it and four members of the Democratic caucus—Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Angus King of Maine, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia—have not signaled their support for the bill. With the filibuster in place, the Democrats, who have 51 votes in the Senate, would need a majority of 60 votes to pass the bill. 

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights called on the Senate “to act swiftly and also pass this critically important legislation.”

“With the House passage of H.R. 51, more than 700,000 residents of D.C. are one step closer to finally having a meaningful voice in our nation’s legislature and no longer being spectators to our democracy,” said Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of the organization. “The right to vote is our most fundamental right. It allows us to hold our leaders accountable. Democracy cannot exist without all of our participation.”

Economic justice group Patriotic Millionaires denounced the “inexcusable hypocrisy that has left more than half a million U.S citizens without an equal say in our government.”

“It is morally repugnant that over 700,000 citizens lack the most basic right in our democracy—equal representation—all because they live in our nation’s capital,” said Morris Pearl, chair of Patriotic Millionaires. “Washington, D.C. has a larger population than two current U.S states and a GDP larger than that of sixteen different states, yet the hundreds of thousands of residents and hardworking Americans receive no representation of their own.”

“Today’s vote by the House of Representatives and the White House’s statement of support underscore just how vital D.C. statehood is to ensuring that our democracy is fair and representative of everyone who calls this country home,” added Pearl.

Lawmakers and political advocates called on the Senate to end the use of the filibuster and follow the House’s lead in passing the legislation.

“It’s now up to the Senate to do what’s right and finally give [D.C. residents] the justice they deserve!” tweeted Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – The following is a statement from Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, on the reintroduction of H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act:

“The Lower Drug Costs Now Act is an important first step towards taking on Big Pharma’s greed and lowering drug prices for everyone in America. It will also save the government upwards of $450 billion in savings over the next 10 years.

President Biden should strengthen the bill and include it in his forthcoming American Families Plan. Furthermore, he should reinvest the savings into Medicare by lowering the eligibility age and adding vision, hearing, and dental benefits.

Not only is lowering drug prices a moral necessity, it’s also a political no-brainer. Democratic, Republican, and independent voters all overwhelmingly support bold action to lower drug prices. The White House and Congressional Democrats need to listen. Failing to do so would be a huge gift to Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – As part of its International Climate Finance Plan announced during today’s Leaders Summit on Climate, the Biden Administration committed to “end international investments in and support for carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy projects” at multilateral and bilateral finance agencies such as the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and U.S. Export-Import Bank.

While welcome, the announcement fell short of other recent commitments by other institutions and countries. In response to the announcement, Collin Rees, Senior Campaigner at Oil Change International made the following statement:

“Today’s announcement by President Biden on international finance for fossil fuels is a welcome step, but the lack of firm commitments falls short of what’s needed. This is a missed opportunity to end a harmful U.S. climate legacy abroad and add to the growing momentum of other institutions ruling out all public finance for fossil fuels.

“We urge the Biden administration to add a clear commitment to an immediate phase-out, with no loopholes for gas or any other continued fossil support.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Every Earth Day, your inbox becomes inundated with corporate messaging about sustainability and vague pledges from brands to protect our planet. Usually, the emails are instructional: “Cut your carbon footprint with our new product!” What we don’t hear so much about is how financial institutions are poisoning the planet.

That’s right, the world’s biggest banks are responsible for fueling the climate crisis. According to a report from the Rainforest Action Network, the world’s 60 biggest banks have financed $3.8 trillion worth of fossil fuel companies, just since the passage of the Paris Climate Agreement. America’s largest banks—JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and CitiGroup—have each put more than $200 billion of fossil fuel interests in the past five years.

“While we must demand that regulators do more to hold banks accountable for their role in the climate crisis, we should also encourage an exodus from companies that invest in extractive industries.”

To put that in plain English: if your money is in one of those banks, you’re inadvertently helping to fund oil drilling.

Of course, the banks don’t want you to know that. So they put a positive spin on things with press releases that wholeheartedly agree that climate change is the “critical issue of our time“—like from JP Morgan Chase, which gave over $300 million to fossil fuel interests in the past five years. Wells Fargo, the largest financier of fracking in the world, which recently adopted a “net zero financing” pledge—an empty promise, since the commitment does not rule out further funding for fossil fuel interests.

The only “green” the big banks are interested in is your hard earned money.

Of course, these empty promises are common in the banking industry, and they keep you in the dark on purpose. Banks and financial institutions don’t want you to know what your money does while you are sleeping. They don’t want you to know that your money is going to companies that are destroying the planet. And they certainly don’t want you to ask them about it.

And while we must demand that regulators do more to hold banks accountable for their role in the climate crisis, we should also encourage an exodus from companies that invest in extractive industries.

The good news is, sustainable options are more widely available, in large part because of the work climate activists have led in creating greater awareness around Wall Street’s role in this crisis. Consumers are demanding that the way they spend, save and participate in the economy mitigates the harm to the planet—that’s leading them to turn to sustainable cash management services and investment products. Unlike the big banks, these options don’t use deposits to fund oil pipelines, fossil fuel companies, or other investments that contribute to climate destruction.

While the big banks pad their corporate profits and pay their CEOs millions of dollars in compensation, funded by their investments in harmful industries, there is a different approach. Banking can, and should, provide the operating system for the good economy.

You probably won’t see it in an advertisement this Earth Day, but overcoming the climate crisis will require an end to banking and personal finance as we know it. Fortunately, there is a path forward to building a truly environmentally conscious and socially conscious banking industry that benefits consumers and the economy. And we can force that change by putting our dollars behind our values, and choosing to take our money out of circulation from institutions that harm the planet.

The future of our Earth is at stake.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Congresswoman Cori Bush and nearly 100 other House Democrats on Thursday urged their Senate counterparts to immediately eliminate the legislative filibuster, an archaic rule standing in the way of D.C. statehood, a major expansion of voting rights, labor law reforms, and other key priorities.

“There is this old, outdated, racist rule called the filibuster that has been used to deny our basic human rights, especially to people who look like me,” Bush (D-Mo.), a Black woman, said during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol Building. “When it comes to eliminating the filibuster, everything we love is at stake.”

“It’s D.C. statehood, voting rights, LGBTQ+ rights, criminal legal and immigration reform, gun violence prevention, workers’ rights—or it’s the filibuster.”
—Rep. Cori Bush

In a letter (pdf) to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Thursday morning, 98 House Democrats argue that “there is simply no avenue for bold legislation that meets the needs of everyday Americans without ending the filibuster,” which the lawmakers describe as a “relic of Jim Crow-era policies.”

“This is an existential moment for our country,” the lawmakers write. “For too many people in our communities, their very survival is at stake. Republicans are well aware of this reality. It is why they are passing legislation at the state level across the country in an attempt to suppress the votes of Black, brown, and Indigenous people. It is also why they are preventing the Senate from advancing critical legislation that can meet the needs of the people we represent.”

“We urge Senate Democrats to do what it takes to pass an agenda that meets the needs of everyday people, including eliminating the filibuster,” the letter continues. “What has become patently clear is that we cannot let a procedural tool that can be abolished stand in the way of justice, prosperity, and equity. We simply cannot afford such a catastrophic compromise.”

The letter was sent hours before the House—without the support of a single Republican—passed legislation that would make Washington, D.C. the 51st U.S. state and grant full congressional representation to the district’s roughly 700,000 residents.

But as Bush noted on Twitter, the statehood bill is destined for the Senate’s crowded legislative graveyard if Democrats allow the filibuster to remain intact.

“It’s D.C. statehood, voting rights, LGBTQ+ rights, criminal legal and immigration reform, gun violence prevention, workers’ rights—or it’s the filibuster,” Bush wrote.

Senate Democrats can abolish or weaken the filibuster with a simple majority vote, meaning they would need the support of every member of the caucus and a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Democratic senators who defend the filibuster are protecting a legacy of racism, and are choosing to let an outdated rule block progress that would begin to address the challenges facing Black communities across the country.”
—Scott Roberts, Color of Change

But at least two conservative caucus members—Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)—have been outspoken in their defense of the filibuster even as the rule hobbles their party’s ability to pass its agenda and potentially puts Democrats at greater risk of losing control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.

Scott Roberts, senior director of democracy and criminal justice for Color of Change, said in a statement Thursday that “Democratic senators who defend the filibuster are protecting a legacy of racism, and are choosing to let an outdated rule block progress that would begin to address the challenges facing Black communities across the country.”

“Filibuster reform is critical for advancing racial justice,” Roberts added.

In a report released earlier this week, advocacy group Fix Our Senate detailed how the legislative filibuster—which dates back to the early 19th century—became “the primary weapon used by racist, segregationist politicians to delay and restrict progress—primarily in the form of civil rights.”

“The historical record is clear: there is a long and shameful history of segregationists and racists using the filibuster to block overdue progress on civil rights, voting rights, and other efforts to build a more inclusive democracy,” said Fix Our Senate spokesperson Eli Zupnick. “Senators can protect the filibuster… or they can protect our democracy and the right to vote. They cannot do both.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

The impact of former President Donald Trump’s three appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court was illuminated on Thursday with a six-three ruling in which the right-wing justices rejected a challenge to life sentences issued to minors—a move that critics described as “vile,” “inhumane,” and “really awful news.”

This case, Jones v. Mississippi, centered on Brett Jones, who fatally stabbed his grandfather in 2004, at age 15, during an argument about the boy’s girlfriend. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. His attorneys argued that violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, because the judge did not make a separate finding that he was “permanently incorrigible,” or incapable of rehabilitation, which Mississippi allows.

Although many states have restricted or outlawed life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles, legal experts framed the Thursday decision as “a huge blow against the movement to end” JLWOP. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote what Mark Joseph Stern, Slate‘s staff writer covering courts, called the “dishonest and barbaric” majority opinion (pdf).

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s other two left-leaning justices, delivered a “scathing” and “extremely powerful” dissenting opinion. Her dissent, Stern wrote, “pulls no punches in its biting rebuke of Kavanaugh’s duplicity and inhumanity. It doubles as an ominous warning that the conservative majority is more than willing to destroy major precedents while falsely claiming to uphold them.”

As Stern explained:

The Supreme Court strictly curtailed the imposition of juvenile life without parole in two landmark decisions: 2012’s Miller v. Alabama and 2016’s Montgomery v. Louisiana…

On Thursday, Kavanaugh overturned these decisions without admitting it. His majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi claims fidelity to Miller and Montgomery while stripping them of all meaning. Kavanaugh wrote that these precedents do not require a judge to “make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility” before imposing JLWOP. Nor, Kavanaugh wrote, do they compel a judge to “at least provide an on-the-record sentencing explanation with an implicit finding of permanent incorrigibility.” Instead, a judge need only be granted “discretion” to sentence a child to less than life without parole. So long as that discretion exists, Kavanaugh held, the Eighth Amendment is satisfied—even if the judge provides no indication that they actually considered the defendant’s youth, gauged their potential for rehabilitation, and nonetheless decided their crime reflected “permanent incorrigibility.”

As Sotomayor noted in her extraordinary dissent, “this conclusion would come as a shock to the Courts in Miller and Montgomery.” Those decisions explicitly required the judge to “actually make the judgment” that the child is incorrigible. They also “expressly rejected the notion that sentencing discretion, alone, suffices.” Kavanaugh claimed that he followed these precedents, Sotomayor wrote, but he “is fooling no one.” (Justice Clarence Thomas, writing separately, was more honest than Kavanaugh: He acknowledged that the majority had subverted Montgomery, and supported openly killing it off instead of quietly overruling it while pretending to follow it.)

“Children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing,” Sotomayor wrote, referencing studies that have confirmed “juveniles are less mature and responsible than adults.” Citing Miller, she added that “juvenile offenders ‘must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.’”

Jones’ lawyer made the case, according to NPR, that his client “should have at least a chance at parole because he has shown he is capable of rehabilitation—he has earned a high school degree while behind bars and has been a model prisoner.”

“Jones should know that, despite the court’s decision today, what he does in life matters,” wrote Sotomayor. “So, too, do the efforts of the almost 1,500 other juvenile offenders like Jones who are serving LWOP sentences. Of course, nothing can repair the damage their crimes caused. But that is not the question.”

“The question is whether the state, at some point, must consider whether a juvenile offender has demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation sufficient to merit a chance at life beyond the prison in which he has grown up,” the dissenting justice concluded. “For most, the answer is yes.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, world leaders have gathered virtually at a so-called “Leaders Summit on Climate” hosted by the Biden administration. These leaders provided statements and commitments to increase ambition on global climate action. With a few notable exceptions, however, largely absent from the discussions were commitments to a managed ramp-down of fossil fuel production, though some progress was made on shifting public finance out of fossil fuels and into clean. In response, Oil Change International experts provided the following statements:

David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director:
“True climate leadership requires a full reckoning with the realities of what’s driving our climate crisis: fossil fuels. Without a robust plan from rich countries in particular to ramp down fossil fuel production and ramp up support for communities for a just transition to a renewable energy economy, any conversation about ‘climate leadership’ is incomplete at best, or misleading at worst. We’re pleased to hear countries recommit to the 1.5ºC Paris goal and ramp up their emission reduction commitments, however we are gravely concerned after today’s statements that there is still limited willingness to actually stop digging the climate hole we find ourselves in. 

“Continued fossil fuel production impacts those on the frontlines of extraction and related infrastructure every day, adding to the historic injustices our extractive economy has perpetuated. Today’s session on ramping up ambition came up short, and we call on all world leaders to quickly catch up to the reality that we must stop spending public money on fossil fuels and start the fossil fuel production phase out and just transition for communities immediately.”

Laurie van der Burg, Senior Campaigner:
“A bright spot of the climate summit is that it reconfirmed the momentum that is building on shifting public finance out of fossil fuels and into clean. Korea announced an end to coal financing, and, though woefully incomplete, the US reiterated it is taking steps towards ending overseas finance for fossil fuels. This follows the UK putting an immediate halt to new finance for fossil fuel projects overseas, not just coal, but also oil and gas, last month.” 

“As COP26 host and president of the upcoming G7 and having acted on this agenda itself, the UK is uniquely positioned to prioritize making 2021 the year in which the public finance balance tips from fossils to clean. It must encourage other governments to follow its example by the G7 to keep the ball rolling towards COP26.”  

Collin Rees, Senior Campaigner:
“Today’s announcements from the Biden Administration were a welcome change from the Trump era, but they laid bare how important tackling fossil fuels will be to restore U.S. climate leadership on the global stage and end environmental injustice. President Biden must follow through on his pledges to end fossil fuel subsidies and move swiftly to end overseas public finance for fossil fuels, an area in which the U.S. risks falling drastically behind its peers. Biden has made some good first steps by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline and pausing oil and gas leasing on public lands, but much more must be done to limit the expansion of the oil and gas industry. New decarbonization goals are difficult to take seriously until Biden takes immediate action to stop the Line 3 and Dakota Access oil pipelines and lays out a credible plan to ramp down fossil fuel production here at home.”

Romain Ioualalen, Senior Campaigner:
“Today, the leaders of the world met to tout their climate action while presiding over the second largest increase in CO2 emissions in history. This disconnect between pledges and actions is the reason why we are failing to address the climate crisis. It is urgent for so-called climate leaders in the US, Canada, Norway and the UK to enact policies to phase out their production of fossil fuels, and to follow the example of countries such as Denmark and Costa Rica that have banned new oil and gas exploration and production. Distant carbon neutrality pledges and revised NDCs will continue to ring hollow as long as countries fail to address the root of the climate crisis: our continued reliance on fossil fuels.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, world leaders have gathered virtually at a so-called “Leaders Summit on Climate” hosted by the Biden administration. These leaders provided statements and commitments to increase ambition on global climate action. With a few notable exceptions, however, largely absent from the discussions were commitments to a managed ramp-down of fossil fuel production, though some progress was made on shifting public finance out of fossil fuels and into clean. In response, Oil Change International experts provided the following statements:

David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director:
“True climate leadership requires a full reckoning with the realities of what’s driving our climate crisis: fossil fuels. Without a robust plan from rich countries in particular to ramp down fossil fuel production and ramp up support for communities for a just transition to a renewable energy economy, any conversation about ‘climate leadership’ is incomplete at best, or misleading at worst. We’re pleased to hear countries recommit to the 1.5ºC Paris goal and ramp up their emission reduction commitments, however we are gravely concerned after today’s statements that there is still limited willingness to actually stop digging the climate hole we find ourselves in. 

“Continued fossil fuel production impacts those on the frontlines of extraction and related infrastructure every day, adding to the historic injustices our extractive economy has perpetuated. Today’s session on ramping up ambition came up short, and we call on all world leaders to quickly catch up to the reality that we must stop spending public money on fossil fuels and start the fossil fuel production phase out and just transition for communities immediately.”

Laurie van der Burg, Senior Campaigner:
“A bright spot of the climate summit is that it reconfirmed the momentum that is building on shifting public finance out of fossil fuels and into clean. Korea announced an end to coal financing, and, though woefully incomplete, the US reiterated it is taking steps towards ending overseas finance for fossil fuels. This follows the UK putting an immediate halt to new finance for fossil fuel projects overseas, not just coal, but also oil and gas, last month.” 

“As COP26 host and president of the upcoming G7 and having acted on this agenda itself, the UK is uniquely positioned to prioritize making 2021 the year in which the public finance balance tips from fossils to clean. It must encourage other governments to follow its example by the G7 to keep the ball rolling towards COP26.”  

Collin Rees, Senior Campaigner:
“Today’s announcements from the Biden Administration were a welcome change from the Trump era, but they laid bare how important tackling fossil fuels will be to restore U.S. climate leadership on the global stage and end environmental injustice. President Biden must follow through on his pledges to end fossil fuel subsidies and move swiftly to end overseas public finance for fossil fuels, an area in which the U.S. risks falling drastically behind its peers. Biden has made some good first steps by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline and pausing oil and gas leasing on public lands, but much more must be done to limit the expansion of the oil and gas industry. New decarbonization goals are difficult to take seriously until Biden takes immediate action to stop the Line 3 and Dakota Access oil pipelines and lays out a credible plan to ramp down fossil fuel production here at home.”

Romain Ioualalen, Senior Campaigner:
“Today, the leaders of the world met to tout their climate action while presiding over the second largest increase in CO2 emissions in history. This disconnect between pledges and actions is the reason why we are failing to address the climate crisis. It is urgent for so-called climate leaders in the US, Canada, Norway and the UK to enact policies to phase out their production of fossil fuels, and to follow the example of countries such as Denmark and Costa Rica that have banned new oil and gas exploration and production. Distant carbon neutrality pledges and revised NDCs will continue to ring hollow as long as countries fail to address the root of the climate crisis: our continued reliance on fossil fuels.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 51, a bill to formally establish the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth as the 51st state in our union. In response to this historic vote, Morris Pearl, former managing director at Blackrock, Inc., and Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, issued the following statement:

“Washington D.C is home to a diverse population, a distinct culture, and a robust workforce of Americans who for far too long have been denied basic representation in the halls of Congress. It is morally repugnant that over 700,000 citizens lack the most basic right in our democracy—equal representation—all because they live in our nation’s capital.

Washington D.C has a larger population than two current U.S states and a GDP larger than that of sixteen different states, yet the hundreds of thousands of residents and hardworking Americans receive no representation of their own. H.R.51, which the House passed today, would finally end this inexcusable hypocrisy that has left more than half a million U.S citizens without an equal say in our government. Today’s vote by the House of Representatives and the White House’s statement of support underscore just how vital D.C. statehood is to ensuring that our democracy is fair and representative of everyone who calls this country home. I hope the United States Senate will follow the leadership of the People’s House and establish Washington D.C as our 51st state.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 51, a bill to formally establish the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth as the 51st state in our union. In response to this historic vote, Morris Pearl, former managing director at Blackrock, Inc., and Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, issued the following statement:

“Washington D.C is home to a diverse population, a distinct culture, and a robust workforce of Americans who for far too long have been denied basic representation in the halls of Congress. It is morally repugnant that over 700,000 citizens lack the most basic right in our democracy—equal representation—all because they live in our nation’s capital.

Washington D.C has a larger population than two current U.S states and a GDP larger than that of sixteen different states, yet the hundreds of thousands of residents and hardworking Americans receive no representation of their own. H.R.51, which the House passed today, would finally end this inexcusable hypocrisy that has left more than half a million U.S citizens without an equal say in our government. Today’s vote by the House of Representatives and the White House’s statement of support underscore just how vital D.C. statehood is to ensuring that our democracy is fair and representative of everyone who calls this country home. I hope the United States Senate will follow the leadership of the People’s House and establish Washington D.C as our 51st state.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – AFSCME President Lee Saunders issued the following statement praising House passage of the Washington, D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51):

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – AFSCME President Lee Saunders issued the following statement praising House passage of the Washington, D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51):

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – A comprehensive report released today by the national advocacy organization Food & Water Watch outlines the crisis state of the country’s food system, including detailed analysis on the severe damage levied on society by unchecked corporate monopolies dominating the system.

The report, “Well-Fed: A Roadmap to a Sustainable Food System that Works For All,” offers a corrective policy blueprint that includes sweeping federal legislation and an overhaul of the country’s farm safety net. It also features a number of case studies from across the country featuring family farmers, ranchers and food hubs that have enacted safe, healthy, sustainable and profitable business models.

The report outlines the alarming degree of corporate consolidation in the food industry and its impact on consumers and small farms. For example:

• 83 percent of all beef is produced by just four processing companies;
• 65 percent of consumer grocery market share is held by just four retailers; and 
• 67 percent of crop seed market share is held by just four corporations. 

These and other conditions have had a devastating effect on consumer choice and costs, and small farm income and stability.

“The COVID pandemic laid bare many of the systemic crises in our food system today, all of which are exacerbated by unchecked corporate consolidation,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “But there is a clear path forward. Small, diversified family farms are already raising healthy, sustainable food for their local communities. We need bold action from the federal government to help rebuild our regional food infrastructure — our small slaughterhouses, grain mills and grocery cooperatives—to support the growth of more independent, sustainable farms.”

The report recommends a number of robust policy prescriptions that would help to move the country to a safer, healthier and more sustainable food future by addressing the unchecked power of mega-corporations and creating systems to adequately sustain small farms and ranches. Among these prescriptions are:

• Federal legislation like the Farm System Reform Act, which would ban new factory farms and the expansion of existing ones, and phase out the most egregious factory farm operations by 2040; 
• Reinstating federal supply management programs for commodities, including price floors;
• Enacting through legislation a moratorium on corporate mergers in the food system; and
• Redirecting public agriculture funding to encourage and support organic and regenerative farming practices.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – A comprehensive report released today by the national advocacy organization Food & Water Watch outlines the crisis state of the country’s food system, including detailed analysis on the severe damage levied on society by unchecked corporate monopolies dominating the system.

The report, “Well-Fed: A Roadmap to a Sustainable Food System that Works For All,” offers a corrective policy blueprint that includes sweeping federal legislation and an overhaul of the country’s farm safety net. It also features a number of case studies from across the country featuring family farmers, ranchers and food hubs that have enacted safe, healthy, sustainable and profitable business models.

The report outlines the alarming degree of corporate consolidation in the food industry and its impact on consumers and small farms. For example:

• 83 percent of all beef is produced by just four processing companies;
• 65 percent of consumer grocery market share is held by just four retailers; and 
• 67 percent of crop seed market share is held by just four corporations. 

These and other conditions have had a devastating effect on consumer choice and costs, and small farm income and stability.

“The COVID pandemic laid bare many of the systemic crises in our food system today, all of which are exacerbated by unchecked corporate consolidation,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “But there is a clear path forward. Small, diversified family farms are already raising healthy, sustainable food for their local communities. We need bold action from the federal government to help rebuild our regional food infrastructure — our small slaughterhouses, grain mills and grocery cooperatives—to support the growth of more independent, sustainable farms.”

The report recommends a number of robust policy prescriptions that would help to move the country to a safer, healthier and more sustainable food future by addressing the unchecked power of mega-corporations and creating systems to adequately sustain small farms and ranches. Among these prescriptions are:

• Federal legislation like the Farm System Reform Act, which would ban new factory farms and the expansion of existing ones, and phase out the most egregious factory farm operations by 2040; 
• Reinstating federal supply management programs for commodities, including price floors;
• Enacting through legislation a moratorium on corporate mergers in the food system; and
• Redirecting public agriculture funding to encourage and support organic and regenerative farming practices.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

As the world marks Earth Day and U.S. President Joe Biden hosts global leaders at his virtual climate summit, a leading advocacy group on Thursday urged his administration to eschew “market-based approaches and techno-fixes” and instead pursue “real solutions” to the planetary emergency. 

“CJA encourages all hands on deck to battle this climate emergency worldwide, but we can’t continue to follow, empower, and rely on those who created the crisis to solve it.”
—Climate Justice Alliance

Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), a collective of over 70 community-based climate justice groups, commended Biden for reengaging with the international effort to combat the climate crisis following four years of denial and inaction by the Trump administration.

However, CJA said in a statement that Biden’s climate objectives—which include the newly announced goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by the end of the decade—”is not the U.S. leadership our communities need nor does it ensure just solutions to the climate emergency.”

“The focus on promoting market-based approaches and unproven techno-fixes will only further harm Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities here and in the Global South,” said CJA.

“Passing the burden of emissions reductions through unproven technologies including carbon capture and storage (CCS), REDD and REDD+, carbon markets, gas, nuclear, and biomass to the Global South is nothing more than cruel, disingenuous, and doomed to fail,” the group added.

“These false schemes should not be on the menu or funded through U.S. investments,” CJA continued. “This will only serve to save the dying fossil fuel and gas industries [by] fattening their wallets while continuing to lay the burden to solve the crisis on frontline communities.”

“We will continue to push back against Article 6 of the Paris agreement, which supports carbon pricing systems and offsets,” the group said. “We will continue to expose the perils of geoengineering, which are nothing more than risky, unproven technologies that mess with our ecosystems, will not reduce emissions at source, and will put frontline communities around the world in danger.”

CJA called on the United States to immediately: 

• Commit to reducing emissions at source to limit global warming to at least 1.5°C;
• Stop all new fossil fuel projects and stop extracting from Mother Earth;
• Pay reparations to the Global South through investments including renewable energy and sustainable mitigation measures and infrastructure, among others; and
• Address environmental racism by ending support for false solutions that harm BIPOC communities and the Global South, which only continue the practice of using our communities as sacrifice zones.

“CJA encourages all hands on deck to battle this climate emergency worldwide, but we can’t continue to follow, empower, and rely on those who created the crisis to solve it,” the coalition’s statement said. 

Other climate campaigners also used Earth Day to admonish world leaders they say are failing to do what’s necessary to confront the climate emergency. Activists hammered home the point that the only true solution involving fossil fuels is keeping them in the ground.

Speaking at Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate, Xiye Bastida, a 19-year-old Indigenous Mexican Chilean organizer with the youth-led Fridays for Future movement, said that “we need to accept that the era of fossil fuels is over.” 

“We need a just transition to renewables worldwide so that we can stop emitting carbon and focus on drawing down carbon,” said Bastida. “But most importantly, all of these solutions must be emitted with the voices of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities as leaders and decision-makers.”

Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg released a video in which she warned that “the gap between the urgency needed and the current level of awareness and attention is becoming more and more absurd.”

“Let’s call out their bullshit,” the Swedish teen said of world leaders, whose incongruous words and actions she called “the biggest elephant there’s even been in any room.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – After the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, Stand Up America Founder and President Sean Eldridge released the following statement:

“All of our citizens should be afforded the same rights, regardless of where they live or the color of their skin. Yet, for centuries, Americans living within the District of Columbia—a majority of whom are Black and Brown—have been denied the rights of representation afforded to their neighbors and have instead been at the mercy of lawmakers from far off states.

“Today, the House of Representatives moved closer to ensuring that those living within the District have autonomy over the laws that govern them and full representation in the halls of Congress. We applaud Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton and the House Democrats who voted for this bill today, and the activists and organizers who made this historic vote possible.

“With the support of the Biden-Harris administration, it’s now time for Senate Democrats to step up and make D.C. the 51st state with 51 votes. We must not let the filibuster stand in the way of representation for more than 700,000 Americans.”

Stand Up America proudly supports the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which admits the District as the 51st state, having driven thousands of constituent calls to Congress in support of H.R. 51.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – After the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, Stand Up America Founder and President Sean Eldridge released the following statement:

“All of our citizens should be afforded the same rights, regardless of where they live or the color of their skin. Yet, for centuries, Americans living within the District of Columbia—a majority of whom are Black and Brown—have been denied the rights of representation afforded to their neighbors and have instead been at the mercy of lawmakers from far off states.

“Today, the House of Representatives moved closer to ensuring that those living within the District have autonomy over the laws that govern them and full representation in the halls of Congress. We applaud Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton and the House Democrats who voted for this bill today, and the activists and organizers who made this historic vote possible.

“With the support of the Biden-Harris administration, it’s now time for Senate Democrats to step up and make D.C. the 51st state with 51 votes. We must not let the filibuster stand in the way of representation for more than 700,000 Americans.”

Stand Up America proudly supports the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which admits the District as the 51st state, having driven thousands of constituent calls to Congress in support of H.R. 51.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.