News Feeds | ecology.iww.org (2024)

Oil Change International - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 23:00

In response…

Lorne Stockman, Research Director, Oil Change International, said:

“We investigated one of the primary companies gas producers pay to “certify” their fossil fuel as “clean” or “responsible” – and found nothing to support their claims. We put independent pollution monitors at sites the company claimed to track and found over 20 pollution events. The company’s monitors missed all of them. Private gas “certification” is flawed because companies have every incentive to claim they’re clean, and no repercussions when they instead pollute, poison our air, harm our health, and cause the climate crisis. It’s important our lawmakers are advocating for the government to step in, stop this scam, and regulate gas companies to clean up their mess.”

Allie Rosenbluth U.S. Program Manager, Oil Change International, said:

“Fossil fuels cause the climate crisis, pollute our air and water, and harm our health. That’s why the Biden Administration paused new approvals of gas export terminals and tasked the Department of Energy to consider whether its process accurately assesses the impacts of these projects. In response, companies may try to make the desperate case that gas is in the public interest by “certifying” their gas as “cleaner,” “responsibly sourced,” “climate safe,” or other false advertising. Our lawmakers are wise to call for a stop to this scam, and get ahead of what’s likely to be a mad scramble to greenwash gas. Only phasing out fossil fuels will solve the climate crisis and protect the health and safety of our communities.”

Caleb Heeringa, Program Director of the Gas Leaks Project, said:

“The ‘natural’ gas industry knows it has a huge methane problem, and it’s desperate to look like it’s cleaning up its act. But plugging a couple holes in a fracking well or pipeline doesn’t make methane gas ‘clean’ — it’s still a fossil fuel that warms the planet, harms nearby communities and pollutes the air in your home if you own gas appliances. Today’s letter from climate leaders in the Senate is an important step towards protecting the public from the industry’s misleading marketing of ‘natural’ gas.”

The senators wrote: “Gas certification companies currently operate in a Wild West environment.”

Washington (February 12, 2024) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety, along with Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), today sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina M. Khan urging the Commission to investigate and crack down on misleading environmental claims by fossil fuel companies and gas certification programs. The senators call on the FTC to update its “Green Guides” to provide better guidance on the claims gas certification programs can legitimately make. The Green Guides have not been updated since 2012 and do not currently include any guidance for oil and gas marketing.

Over the past decade, the gas industry has engaged in a greenwashing campaign in which third-party “gas certifiers” evaluate methane emissions from natural gas production, often utilizing unreliable and inaccurate technologies and methodologies. Gas companies then misleadingly use these inaccurate evaluations to advertise their products as a clean bridge between fossil fuel and renewable energy and charge higher prices for the purportedly “clean” gas—costs that are usually passed on to consumers.

In their letter to Chair Khan, the senators wrote, “Gas producers sometimes publicly describe their product as ‘certified,’ ‘responsible,’ or ‘differentiated’ and market it as a climate-friendly fossil fuel. But too often, these green claims are false or misleading, as the methodology underlying them is opaque, the technology supporting them is unreliable, and the downstream climate effects of gas combustion are ignored… many utilities are using so-called ‘certified’ gas to falsely burnish their climate bona fides, and some charge premiums for gas bearing these frequently meaningless designations.”

The senators continued, “This greenwashing scheme demands an FTC investigation and the express inclusion of guidance for third-party natural gas certification regimes in revised FTC Green Guides. These steps will help prevent gas producers and certification companies from misleading and ripping off consumers, harming the environment, and hindering progress on climate change.”

False or misleading certified gas claims create a greenwashing effect that obscures the negative short- and long-term climate effects posed by methane gas. Studies measuring methane leakage have concluded that if gas leaks, even a little, it can be as bad as coal. These certification schemes have allowed the gas industry to justify continued expansion while undermining climate goals of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

To better understand how the FTC addresses false or misleading gas certification claims, the senators request answers to the following questions by March 31, 2024:

1. Has the FTC examined the “certified,” “differentiated,” or “responsible” gas certification process and the clean gas claims made by the gas industry? If so, what has the Commission found? If not, will the Commission commit to investigating these claims?
2. In the next iteration of the Green Guides, will the FTC include guidance expressly addressing claims about certified gas? If so, when does the FTC anticipate that guidance will be published? If not, why not?
3. Does the FTC believe that the Green Guides can sufficiently address gas certification claims? Has the FTC considered commencing a rulemaking proceeding to promulgate regulations that address them? If so, what is the status of those considerations? If not, why not?

The post Senator Markey, Colleagues Urge FTC to Crack Down on Deceptive “Certified” Gas Claims appeared first on Oil Change International.

Categories: J2. Fossil Fuel Industry

Ecologist - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 23:00

Categories: H. Green News

Spring Magazine - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 22:49

This week the Peel District School Board (PDSB) announced to staff that it would be getting rid of all of the contained “communication classes” and...

The post School board responds to staffing shortage with more cuts first appeared on Spring.

Categories: B3. EcoSocialism

The Red Nation - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 22:00

Outside of Allegiant Stadium on unceded Paiute land, a coalition of Native-led organizations held a protest hours ahead of Super Bowl 58. The organizers also held a press conference the night before.

Over a dozen Native relatives chanted “Stop the Chop. Change the Name” on the intersection of Hacienda Ave and Polaris Ave in front of thousands of people entering the stadium. We held signs that read “your chop is synchronized racism” “shake it off. Stop the chop” “Kansas City playing Indian since 1963” and “Native-themed mascots cause harm to all children”.

Amanda Blackhorse, a longtime Diné organizer who brought the coalition of Native-led organizations together for this action, linked the connection of the erasure of Native people in the US through racist imagery, to the genocide happening in Gaza. Amanda Blackhorse stated, “This country doesn’t care about Indigenous people. Because if they did, they wouldn’t be committing genocide against Indigenous people in Palestine”

We thank Amanda Blackhorse for inviting The Red Nation to this action and organizing it. Follow the coalition of organizations for updates on changing racist Native imagery in sports: AZ to Rally Against Native Mascots (@aztorally), No More Native Mascots (nomorrnativemascots.org), Kansas City Indian Center (kcindiancenter.org), and Not In Our Honor (notinourhonor.com)

Special gratitude to Nuwu Art + Community Center(@nuwuare) for hosting the space.

To listen to the interviews gathered at Super Bowl 58 from the organizers and supporters of today’s action, listen to The Red Nation podcast and subscribe to our Patreon.

#superbowlLVIII #decolonization #gaza

Follow us on Tiktok! @therednationpodcast

Heres what the Super Bowl won’t tell you… Stop the chop! Change the name! #notyourmascot

♬ original sound – The Red Nation Podcast

The post Change the name of the Kansas City football team! appeared first on The Red Nation.

Categories: B3. EcoSocialism

Backbone Campaign - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 21:20

Activists in Seattle and Portland took the overpasses to honor Jim Waddell who recently lost his battle with cancer.

Categories: G2. Local Greens

Tempest Magazine - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 20:09

David McNally specializes in the history and political economy of capitalism. He teaches in the Department of History at the University of Houston and is the author, among other books of, Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance, Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism, and Blood and Money: War, Slavery, Finance, and Empire.

Tempest Collective: We are interested in your take on the current global economic situation, particularly the economic cycle, the response to the 2007–09 crisis, the post-COVID period, and the coming home to roost of the “easy money” moment. What’s your perspective on the current moment? How close are we to a global recession?

David McNally: Those of us who grasp that the global crisis of 2007–09 was a turning point in the evolution of the global economy were proved right. But I think almost all of us (certainly myself) underestimated the degree to which the ruling classes would make an incredibly sharp pivot towards Keynesian-style stimulus and that all of their neoliberal nostrums against deficit spending would fly out the window when they saw a potential meltdown of the global financial system.

It’s always worth reminding ourselves that all seven major Wall Street banks faced collapse in 2008–09 and that there was genuine trauma in ruling-class circles about whether they could pull off an immediate rescue. Once that happened, I think the best commentators understood that neoliberalism was really fundamentally about a realignment of class power and much less about a hard ideological commitment to never running deficits and never going into debt. In other words, to preserve the existing configuration of class power that characterized neoliberalism (based on weakened unions, depleted social movements, and restored profitability), they would inject unprecedented amounts of stimulus into the system, and they would run enormous deficits to make this happen.

While stabilizing the system, stimulus policies also essentially offset capitalism’s inbuilt restorative mechanisms. Classically, the system has used deep recessions to purge the least efficient capitals from the economy and therefore open up the road to a new wave of restructuring, technological innovation, managerial reorganizations, and much larger concentrations of capital that enable a new boom.

We have not seen a new boom. What we did see, however, was a concerted effort by central banks around the world to block the shift into a full-scale depression, which they did avert. This needs to be acknowledged. But one of the issues that then arises is the contradiction of having stopped a recession (and a very deep one) by blocking capitalism’s restructuring mechanism. They have failed to purge the least efficient capitals from the system.

Most commentators agree that a significant number of corporations in the Global North are so-called zombie firms. That is to say, they’re not actually profitable. But when money was effectively free from central banks, they could borrow to stay alive. They could take out loans at 1.5 percent and relend at 3.5 percent, and therefore show financial profits even if their core businesses were not making money.

So, we have not seen the deep and prolonged restructuring that the United States saw in the early 1980s when steel plants, automobile factories, electrical goods, rubber, and parts plants went bankrupt on a large scale. There was very significant technological restructuring in that period which then enabled the neoliberal expansion to take place for the next 20 or 25 years.

We haven’t seen that kind of restructuring in the aftermath of the crisis of 2008–09. Instead what we have now is a capitalism that has dodged a huge bullet but did so at a cost to its own dynamism. But now, central banks have jacked up interest rates in order to bring down inflation, which is what we have seen for the last 18 to 24 months.

Having done that, we need to then ask ourselves what has this produced? They jacked up interest rates because what they feared most was not inflation in the abstract. Rather, what they feared was wage inflation. They feared that there would be a wave of strikes and unionizing efforts to catch up with what workers had lost under price inflation.

If inflation is at 6, 8, and 10 percent a year (particularly in foodstuffs, gas prices, rents), and if workers feel any enhanced bargaining power, they’re going to push to make up that gap. That was the pattern particularly of the late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s when there was a rising strike wave, particularly throughout the Western countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Global North but also in critical parts of the Global South.

The so-called war on inflation was a preemptive assault against a wage explosion that would have been driven by unionization and a much larger wave of strikes than we’ve seen.

So, the ruling classes were very worried about the so-called low unemployment figures and the problem of the “quit rate,” where workers feel sufficiently confident to leave low wage jobs in search of other work. They were concerned that this had created a sense among working-class people, even in the United States, that they could bargain with employers individually, leaving a low wage job for another slightly better one. But what troubled them the most was that workers might bargain—and act—collectively. They understood there was a new wave of unionization at Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, and beyond, particularly among young workers. They also knew that they might face a United Auto Workers (UAW) strike down the road in the United States, as in the event they did.

The Federal Reserve Board was positioning itself for this. If you read the Fed’s reports, they’re incredibly honest that what concerned them the most was the “sticky” employment rate. They wanted to bring the employment rate down—in other words, bring the unemployment rate up to create a greater sense of insecurity and to essentially inhibit the wave of union drives and strikes that was clearly in play.

The so-called war on inflation was a preemptive assault against a wage explosion that would have been driven by unionization and a much larger wave of strikes than we’ve seen, even though we’ve seen a not insignificant one, in Britain, France, India, Argentina, the United States, and so on.

But as they drove up interest rates, they created a predicament, which is that more and more of those zombie companies are now deeply precarious. The bankruptcy rate for corporations has started to rise, but they’ve not yet seen a huge purging of the system, because they’ve avoided a deep recession. If demand falls off, then the most vulnerable firms are in huge trouble. The financial system will face growing challenges due to bad loans.

But more than this, the driving up of interest rates has displaced the crisis onto the Global South. We’re once again in a situation where there are probably 50 or so countries in the Global South that are at risk of debt default, resulting from a simple inability to pay because they’ve now had to renew the 2 percent they initially paid in financing loans at 5 and 6 percent instead. The only option outside of debt repudiation is a further move down the road of catastrophic cuts to health care, education, fuel subsidies, and so on.

Over the next year we may see a variety of revolts in parts of the Global South, from places like Nigeria to Pakistan, where debt burdens are becoming so unsustainable that either reaction to huge austerity programs will produce social upheaval or countries will essentially have to go into debt default and in all probability negotiate draconian agreements with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other global lenders.

General strikers surround the Argentine Congress in opposition to new President Javier Milei’s massive austerity efforts. Photo by MST/ ISL.

This is a class warfare from above led by central banks that has been disguised as an anti-inflationary war. It has put the most vulnerable sections of the global economy under a very dire threat of debt crisis. This scenario will be in play over the next 12 months in a very dramatic way.

Of course, all of this then means as well that the dominant imperial powers will intensify their jockeying for supremacy. It is often forgotten that part of what imperialism is about is deflecting the effects of the global crisis from one block to another. A good part of U.S. strategy is precisely about deflecting the crisis toward China, Russia, and those in their orbit.

Today inter-imperial conflict is intensifying. The long, grinding war in Ukraine is an expression of that. Although founded upon a legitimate resistance by the Ukrainian people to foreign occupation, the war is also overlaid with an inter-imperial conflict.

Among Marxists there is a classic understanding that you can have a war which is multilayered, in which a variety of different antagonisms coexist. What we’re seeing in Ukraine is an inter-imperial rivalry overlying a colonial-style war of Russia against the Ukrainian people.

This is indicative of growing fractures in the global system. It’s easy to forget that the neoliberal game plan was integration of China into the world capitalist order. Western ruling classes pursued that quite vigorously for a quarter century. That has now significantly wound down because of the effects of the 2007–09 crisis.

We’ve moved from integration to disintegration. We’ve moved from cooperation to rivalry.

TC: Do you think that the U.S. ruling class, represented in the central bank, has been successful, considering they were driven centrally by the question of wage inflation and the labor market? We still have a very hot labor market. It’s not clear that they’ve successfully suppressed wages. The seeds of labor militancy continue. And with regards to the question of inter-imperial rivalry generally, the crisis in China has meant that there’s been a retreat from the Belt and Road Initiative, a retreat from its efforts to extend alternative debt offerings. That may, as we saw in Sri Lanka, compound the debt dynamic.

DM: Regarding the United States, I think what’s so interesting is that they have brought down the core inflation numbers. But I don’t think they have significantly dented the mood of combativity among working-class people, particularly among young workers in large multiracial urban settings.

One of the ironies of this moment is that the proliferation of political conflicts, most critically Palestine, actually will feed back into workplaces, especially among young workers. I was speaking with Kim Moody recently about how young activists and organizers in the late 1960s and 1970s brought Vietnam back into the workplace. The mood of defiance toward the ruling class over the Vietnam War was part of the radicalization of a young layer of workers in the workplace.

I think the global justice movement for Palestine is going to play out that way. Millions of young workers are completely disconnected from the ruling class over Palestine. It puts them in an oppositional spirit and creates a pattern similar to what Rosa Luxemburg described about the interplay of political and economic dynamics. In this scenario, even if one level of struggle starts to subside a little bit, the other dimension (in this case, the political) will have a feedback effect and nourish new kinds of economic disputes, confrontations, organizing campaigns, and so on. We’re not in a mass strike wave, of course, but there is an invigorated combativity.

I think they’ve singularly failed to stop the overall oppositional sense among young workers in particular within workplaces. While I’m emphasizing young workers, because there’s a locus of defiance there, labor unrest can very quickly take off among an older layer of workers as we saw in the UAW strike, for all of its unevenness.

I’m living and working in Texas these days. We had GM plants and auto parts plants on strike in Texas with very solid picket lines. That’s telling us something. Labor defiance continues even outside the centers of young worker organizing I was talking about. So, I don’t think that the ruling class has succeeded in dampening oppositional attitudes among workers.

[Y]oung workers are completely disconnected from the ruling class over Palestine. It puts them in an oppositional spirit..even if one level of struggle starts to subside a little bit, the other dimension (in this case, the political) will have a feedback effect and nourish new kinds of economic disputes, confrontations, organizing campaigns, and so on.

In terms of China, there is what you might call a reconsolidation of an imperial bloc strategy. In addition to moves toward greater protection by both the U.S. and Chinese states, there is also a retreat from some efforts to incorporate other states. When growth rates were high, when China was leading the world in rates of investment and growth in output, its rulers could afford to experiment with a number of initiatives to see what worked and what didn’t work.

Now, as their growth rates are tumbling, it’s not clear whether China is going to avoid a major crisis in the property sector. There’s a huge overaccumulation in the housing sector in China, which has not yet shaken out, and it is unclear if they can contain that. This doesn’t mean the ruling class in China is going to retreat towards a kind of autarkic isolationism. But it is consolidating, retrenching, and reprioritizing investment policies outside of China. This isn’t purely economic. It is also deciding which geopolitical and military investments are worthwhile and which ones ought to be shelved.

The Belt and Road Initiative, for instance, is really being throttled back. One way to think about the Chinese ruling class is to think about the conflict that’s being waged largely between Biden Democrats, on the one hand, and Republicans, on the other, about the degree of global military, diplomatic, and foreign policy spending that’s appropriate. Biden is still pushing hard for major U. S. spending designed to ensure global hegemony, but a whole layer of the Republicans, influenced by Trump’s kind of semi-isolationism, wants a retrenchment.

This has played out largely between two parties in Congress in the United States. But in China it has played out inside the one ruling party. In other words, they’ve got different currents and factions, and they’re trying to resolve their differences right now. I think they are retrenching but they’re not going to move backward on increased military spending. I don’t think they’re going to back off in their tacit support for Putin in Ukraine. They’re not going to back off over Taiwan.

But they are reconsidering within their own ruling circle what they see as extravagant foreign initiatives. That fits with the U.S. pattern overall also. When there’s a single ruling party, as in China, the shifts occur without much open debate of the sort that we’re seeing inside the U.S. ruling class.

I think that the axis of U.S.-China rivalry is not only going to continue throughout this period, but it’s going to remain very sharp. We saw the beginnings of the pivot from integration to rivalry after the 2007–09 crisis, but it has really sharpened since 2016.

TC: To what extent do you believe the imperial blocs are entrenched? Do you think Russia is more committed, perhaps by necessity, to an autarkic model because it’s under such pressure? To what extent is Russia an independent actor in light of its attempt to assert regional power via Ukraine, its threats to Finland, and so on? To what extent do you see Russia as answerable to the Chinese?

DM: I think we need a much deeper analysis of the internal dynamism within imperial blocs. We have a tendency to think that one state dictates, but I think it’s much more complex than that. The junior partners within an imperial bloc can at times exercise a more significant degree of autonomy than we often imagine. They are not writing the script. That’s not how global power works. But the dominant power within the bloc has to accommodate other powers.

An imperial bloc involves regional powers that have their own aspirations. The dominant power needs their regional influence and often has to accept actions that are not fully in their own interests. For example, China is not moving troops into Eastern Europe any more than the U.S. military is going to move 100,000 troops into Gaza and occupied Palestine. But they are enabling sub-imperial powers to do so.

Regional powers that need the umbrella of the larger imperialist power exercise a lot of autonomy themselves, particularly at this moment. Right now, Putin cannot afford to back down on Ukraine. That’s a simple reality. Defeat in Ukraine is the end of the line for Putin and his section of the ruling class. They remember what happened when Russia lost a war with Japan in 1905 and how it cracked open Czarism and opened up the floodgates of the 1905 revolution. They remember the lessons of the First World War: all the losing belligerents were shaken by working-class upheavals involving soldiers and sailors on a very large scale.

Putin needs to persist in Ukraine. China needs the alliance with Putin’s Russia because Putin is the containment strategy for NATO. Without Putin, China’s rulers fear NATO will sweep across Eastern Europe. So, Putin gets a lot of leash from the Chinese state to pursue a war with Ukraine that does not offer a lot to China itself.

[The U.S.] prefers to limit its own direct interventions. Better to let regional proxies do the dirty work. So, the likes of Saudi Arabia and Israel—especially Israel—are given a lot of rope to do what they deem necessary.

I would argue that there are elements of these dynamics in play in the Middle East. There’s no question that Israel is utterly reliant on foreign and particularly military aid from the United States. It needs the United States’s global authority with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states for its long-term plans. So, it’s reliant on the U.S. government. But the United States wants territorial influence and to prevent anti-imperialist upheavals in the region. At the same time, it prefers to limit its own direct interventions. Better to let regional proxies do the dirty work. So, the likes of Saudi Arabia and Israel—especially Israel—are given a lot of rope to do what they deem necessary. The United States may try to constrain its allied states in the region, to influence and pressure them. But since it needs these powers as regional police forces for empire, it gives them a lot of room to maneuver. This is the long-standing Kissinger Doctrine after the U.S. defeat in Vietnam.

We need to recognize that imperial blocs are dynamic and that the junior parties within a bloc can exercise very significant regional autonomy while carrying out strategies that often are not identical with those of the larger patron that dominates the bloc.

I think there was a period of time when China hoped for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine. They thought it was in their overall best interests to be seen as a power that could actually bring about a settlement. When they couldn’t do this, they decided to live with an ongoing war.

I think the United States genuinely wants a less destructive pulverization of the people of Gaza right now. I don’t think they’re going to get it. They probably know that, and are going to live with that. Those tensions are going to continue.

The interesting thing is there are no hegemonic powers that have the kind of influence within their blocs that Russia and the United States had in 1948. They don’t dominate in the same way. So we’re going to see tensions that are sometimes even much more overt inside the blocs, although this doesn’t mean the blocs are going to fly apart.

TC: Regarding the Middle East, certainly one sees the tensions you are talking about play out between Iran and Saudi Arabia. There are independent assertions of power by the Gulf states. There’s been a commitment over the last few U.S. administrations, and perhaps further, to strengthening regional stability and normalization of relations with Israel, most importantly with Saudi Arabia. That appears to have been part of the motivation for the October 7 attacks and appears to have at least momentarily impacted that process. What’s your assessment of what October 7 has meant for that dynamic—or is it too early to say?

DM: It’s too early to say. We’re in the middle of it. There are still an awful lot of factors that could come into play. We should not underestimate what it would mean to have a mass global Palestine solidarity movement capable of the kind and level of mobilization that the anti–Vietnam War movement had over years.

We’re not there yet. But should we get there, it then becomes an independent factor in drawing up a kind of balance sheet. Such a mass movement could become a very important factor.

I don’t believe it’s the case that everything that happened around October 7 was dictated by the regional and global dynamics. They were a factor, no doubt a significant one, but we need to understand the ways in which Hamas confronted a dilemma that earlier confronted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Many folks have been rightly reading Tareq Baconi’s book on Hamas recently, but let’s remember the title, Hamas Contained. Baconi sketched a scenario in which Hamas ran the risk of becoming a rump administrative power in Gaza, contained by the occupation and essentially administering local austerity. It wasn’t yet in the situation in which Yasser Arafat of the PLO had found himself, literally in a compound and surrounded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). But Hamas understood that risk.

If you cannot pose as a force of resistance to the occupation of Palestinian lands, over time you become an administrator of the occupation. I think that was a large part of what happened on October 7, an attempt to restore the idea of resistance.

If you cannot pose as a force of resistance to the occupation of Palestinian lands, over time you become an administrator of the occupation. I think that was a large part of what happened on October 7, an attempt to restore the idea of resistance.

Now, I take it for granted that Hamas does not represent the politics of Palestinian liberation to which we aspire. Hamas’s politics, political strategies, and ideological formation are foreign to those of the revolutionary socialist left. It does not represent authentic resistance, but it is a genuine force and it had to do something.

In terms of the regional context, Saudi Arabia in particular was being reconciled to the status quo. Saudi Arabia was moving toward a U.S.-driven accommodation with Israel because of Iran. It fears Iran as a destabilizing force hostile to the power of the Gulf states in the region.

But ultimately we need to understand that the Israeli state has demonstrated that it has no interest in negotiating with any representatives of the Palestinian people. Recently, Netanyahu has said bluntly and overtly that he is completely opposed to any kind of parcellized and fractionated Palestinian state. To suggest that the objectives of the Oslo peace process are some huge risk to the Zionist project is borderline crazy. The Oslo Accords were a victory for the United States and Israel. Nevertheless, the dominant ideology of the Israeli right sees in them excessive concessions to Palestinians.

As much as the regional dynamics matter in generating the events of October 7, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that so long as there is no movement toward any kind of even semi-reasonable Palestinian sovereignty, there’s going to be resistance. Regrettably that resistance won’t always take shape in the way that the socialist left would like. But it’s going to happen one way or the other.

Featured image credit: BullMoose1912; modified by Tempest.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

Categories: D2. Socialism

Renew Economy - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 19:27

South Australia reached a record average of 82% renewables in the December quarter, establishing a stunning blueprint for the way the entire Australia grid could reach the federal government's current national target for 2030.

The post South Australia enjoyed 82 pct wind and solar for entire December quarter. So it can be done appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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Renew Economy - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 19:23

January kicks off 2024 with another two solar records for Australia, including all-time monthly highs for utility solar generation in NSW and Queensland.

The post Wind in the west, solar in the east as NSW and Qld set new output records appeared first on RenewEconomy.

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Lock the Gate Alliance - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 19:22

Categories: G2. Local Greens

Protect Thacker Pass - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 16:33

For the past three years, I’ve been involved in a campaign to stop the Lithium Nevada Corporation from destroying a beautiful mountain pass in northern Nevada – known as Thacker Pass in English, or Peehee mu’huh in the local Numic (Paiute) language – to extract lithium from the land for electric car batteries. Thacker Pass is some of the best remaining greater sage grouse habitat left on Earth. Thacker Pass is home to pronghorn antelope, coyotes, sage brush, meadowlarks, rattlesnakes, pygmy rabbits, kangaroo rats, golden eagles, a rare snail known as the King’s River Pyrg that is threatened with extinction by the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine, amongst many other creatures. Thacker Pass was also the site of two massacres of Paiute people including the September 12, 1865 massacre where federal soldiers massacred at least 31 men, women, and children in the Snake War which was fought over…wait for it…mining encroachments on Native land.

We lost the campaign. Mine construction proceeds full speed ahead and hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of Thacker Pass are being carved up right now by Lithium Nevada. Though we lost the campaign and the mine is being constructed, four Native folks and three settler allies (myself included) were sued by Lithium Nevada for “trespassing” on public land to protest the mine. We might end up owing Lithium Nevada – a corporation profiting from the destruction of threatened species’ habitat and the final resting places of massacred Paiutes – hundreds of thousands of dollars for our peaceful protest. The case against us is still in its early stages so we’ll probably be fighting that lawsuit for months, at least. All while the violation of Thacker Pass and all the creatures who live there only gets worse.

Tonight, I will watch the Super Bowl – and the inevitable deluge of electric vehicle commercials that corporations will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure are witnessed by millions if not billions of people worldwide. (Yes, I know the Super Bowl is not the biggest sporting event on Earth. Still, it is widely viewed in North America, Europe, and parts of Africa.) The electric vehicle commercials are infuriating, of course. But, truth be told, most commercials infuriate me because virtually every one of them are wickedly designed to manipulate both the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind to consume evermore stuff. And, what does consuming evermore stuff – whether it’s consuming evermore Coca-Cola, Coors Light, that new dog food brand that you refrigerate, or electric vehicles – do?

It destroys more of what’s left of the natural world. And, at a time when human population has overshot the Earth’s carrying capacity, literally anything you consume destroys the natural world in an unsustainable manner.

But, what will really infuriate me while watching the Super Bowl will be the echo of all the people who criticized those of us working to stop the Thacker Pass mine for owning automobiles (and using them to get to Thacker Pass to confront mining there), for owning computers (and using them to educate the world about what mining does), for owning cell phones (and using them to organize resistance to the mine.) I will be infuriated because these people seem to truly believe that the destruction of the planet can be stopped if the precious few of us who both 1. actually care about the destruction of the planet and 2. are willing to do more than just tell everyone how much we care about the destruction of the planet just give up our cars, computers, and phones. Meanwhile, the corporations who profit from destroying the natural world will gain access to the consciousness of billions of people with their commercials encouraging everyone that if they just spend a smooth $60,000 or $70,000 on a sleek new electric vehicle they can stop the destruction of the planet and appear very virtuous while they’re at it.

Unfortunately, manufacturing electric vehicles includes the same fossil-fuel intensive processes that manufacturing anything (including traditional vehicles) does. When you buy your groovy new Tesla, you need to see the destruction of places like Thacker Pass, the deaths of child laborers in mines in the Congo, the murder of golden eagles reflected in that polished gleam your car salesman is so good at achieving.

But you also need to understand that just like simply buying an electric vehicle isn’t going to save the planet, simply refraining from buying an electric vehicle isn’t going to save the planet, either. Why? Because the global economy is based on the destruction of the natural world. This is true whether we’re talking about destroying the natural world for electric vehicles, whether we’re talking about destroying the natural world for agriculture, or whether we’re talking about destroying the natural world with the pollution nearly 9 billion humans make just from eating, pooping, and sheltering themselves. (Yes, people in the so-called First World use many more resources than others, but per capita consumption by all humans is increasing).

Because nearly every human life today is only possible through the destruction of the natural world, we’re simply not going to convince enough people to ever make the sacrifices necessary to keep the world from ecological collapse. This is especially true when those most responsible for destroying the natural world can put their propaganda in every American living room through things like television commercials more or less constantly. And, please, if you think that a few of us “leading by example” or “being the change” by giving up tools like computers will ever be as persuasive as Super Bowl commercials, then please keep in mind that virtually every traditional culture that thrived with stone age technologies has been massacred, forcibly assimilated, or otherwise destroyed upon contact with the dominant industrial culture. Those 31 Paiutes murdered in Thacker Pass by federal soldiers for standing in the way of mines are just one of countless examples of that.

Am I saying “give up?” Hell, no. I’m saying that we have to think much bigger than personal responsibility, lifestyle changes, or consumption choices. We can’t pat ourselves on our backs for arguing with people who disagree with us online, for buying a “green” product, for writing passionate essays.

Which brings me to Taylor Swift. I played college football. And for the first 22 years of my life, playing the game of football was my favorite thing to do on Earth. So, yes, I have been watching the NFL this year and have followed the Travis Kelce – Taylor Swift story. I’ve watched as some conservatives – believing that God has mandated that they try to put in her place an uppity, successful woman who points out some forms of misogyny – lose their minds about Taylor Swift. I’ve watched as some environmentalists – believing Mother Earth has mandated that they put an individual woman who boards planes which burn fossil fuels – lose their minds about Taylor Swift. I’ve watched as some feminists – believing the Goddess has ordered them to protect a single billionaire because she’s a successful woman that some men have criticized – lose their minds about Taylor Swift. (Full Disclosure: I do not know Taylor Swift, but I have a partner who cheers my activism on like Taylor Swift cheers Travis Kelce on. And that means something to me.)

But, here’s the thing: I see far fewer of anyone losing their minds about the current mass extinction event we’re living through, far fewer of anyone losing their minds about the fact that we’ve lost over 70% of vertebrate species on Earth since 1970, far fewer of anyone losing their minds about the fact that we can’t convince anyone to do hardly anything to actually stop any of this.

We’re not going to convince most people to make the sacrifices necessary to make sure there’s a livable planet to watch the Super Bowl on, to complain about Taylor Swift on, to complain about those who complain about Taylor Swift on, to – you know – live on. The good news is we don’t need to convince most people. We just need to deprive most people of the tools they need to continue to destroy the Earth, our only home. Worried about misogyny and p*rn culture? You don’t have to convince internet servers to stop serving p*rnography if you smash them. Worried about climate change? You don’t have to convince oil refineries to stop refining if you break them. Worried about how mass media affects us? You don’t have to convince televisions to stop brainwashing people if you pull enough power lines down.

I know that’s scary to think about. I know it would be scary to do. But, isn’t the collapse of life on Earth scarier? Scarier, at least, than team mascots, football games, or Taylor Swift?

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Earth First! Newswire - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 09:16

from Abolition Media

Two Teslas were set on fire in Rummelsburg on February 7 and two Tesla charging stations on Vulkanstraße on February 8.

We think that Tesla is an ideal target for our attacks.

Because:

> Several armies use Tesla’s Starlink satellite system in their wars. Including Israel in Gaza. Also Ukraine. Tesla’s Starlink infrastructure is an important military player and attacks on Tesla can be a sign everywhere: against every war!

> Tesla is a symbol of “green capitalism”. But it is anything but green: the lithium batteries come from toxic mines in Chile and devour other rare metals, which means misery and destruction for the mining areas. “Green capitalism” stands for colonialism and land theft!

> Tesla wants to further expand its Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin. We want to defend ourselves against this! We don’t want any more Teslas on the roads! The Gigafactory became known for its extreme exploitation conditions. In addition, the factory contaminates the groundwater and consumes huge amounts of this already scarce resource for its products.

> Tesla is militarizing our roads. Their cars are equipped with high-resolution cameras. In “guard mode”, they film everything and everyone. Make sure to make yourself unrecognizable during actions.

> Elon Musk is an arsehole!

Therefore:

Let the air out of the tyres of expensive cars? great.

Even better: let Teslas burst into flames everywhere!

A few barbecue lighters and spring can begin!

original source: https://de.indymedia.org/node/339237

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Earth First! Newswire - Sat, 02/10/2024 - 11:14

by Aja Arnold / Mainline Zine

ATLANTA—On February 8, between 6 and 7 a.m., the Atlanta Police Department, FBI,and ATFconducted a jointmulti-agency raid, with Georgia State Patrol also present, at three homes in southeast Atlanta. Two residences are in the Lakewood area, and the other in Starlight Heights. Police have arrested at least one person,and have charged them with first-degree arson, which police say is related to Stop Cop City protests.

At least one other individual was held in police custody until around 5 p.m., when they were released. the person arrested is currently being held in Fulton County Jail.

Their bond hearing took place on Feb., Fri. 9, and was initially closed to media and the public due to a cyberattack, which has closed courts in Atlanta down for nearly two weeks. Media were eventually permitted to attend the trial.

A judge denied them bond the next day, on the grounds that they perceived them to be a threat to the community and a flight risk. They will remain in Fulton County Jail until their trial.

According to one search warrant from the raids obtained by Mainline, police seized a number of items, including laptops, iPhones, “Defend the Atlanta Forest” stickers, posters, and flyers, video cameras and tapes, among other things.

Search warrant documents obtained by Mainline from the Atlanta police raids on Feb. 8, 2024. Personal information has been redacted.

A resident at one of the homes who was raided this morning and was present for the arrest, told Mainline that when they asked police to see arrest warrants, police refused. Our source says they asked three times and were told that the police would leave the arrest warrant behind them after the search was completed. Our source confirmed that an arrest warrant was not left behind.

The same resident also said thatthat police dug up a nude photograph of them that was hidden privately under their bed, and then proppeditup on display for others to see during the raid. Residents also said that police left a trail of destruction in their homes behind them, and the person arrested was removed from their home in full-body chains. Witnesses also told Mainline police pointed assault rifles in residents’ faces during the raid.

“These raids are an escalation at the federal level and an attack on the movement to disappear dissenters against Cop City,” said Stop Cop City activists in a joint statement released to the media. “We demand the immediate release of all detained and arrested activists. We will not be intimidated and the community will continue to apply a variety of strategies to oppose the construction of this dangerous facility.”

Today’s raid is the latest development in a widespreadcrackdownfrom the State of Georgia in response to the movement to Stop Cop City. On Jan. 18, 2023, Georgia state police violently shot and killed 26-year-old queer climate activistManuel “Tortuguita” Terán.In August, the Georgia Attorney General announced asweepingRICO indictmentagainst 61activists. On Mon., Feb. 5, Atlanta City Council passed what critics callvoter suppression legislationto makeCop Cityreferendum requirements more restrictive.

On the heels of these past city and state escalations against the movement, more potential state repression appears on the horizon. TheGeorgia state legislature recently passedwidely criticizedSenate Bill 63,which requires cash bail for more than 30 new offenses and makes it illegalfor nonprofits and charitable groupsto bail out more than three people per year. Critics say that the bill targetsactivistbail funds and social justice movements, and will also exasperate Georgia’s already detrimental prison and jail crisis, in which facilities are already extremely overcrowded.(Georgia prisons are currently under a Department of Justice probes that are investigating multiple human rights violations.)The billhas beencondemnedby the Southern Center for Human Rights andwill face a legal challengeby the American Civil Liberties Unionof Georgia if signed by Gov. Brian Kemp into law.

“The resistance to Atlanta’s militarized police state is strong and continues to grow,” says Kamau Franklin, director of Black liberation group Community Movement Builders, in an official press statement.“The police and jails must be stopped. They continue to murder people like Johnny Hollman and Lashawn Thompson without any accountability.The community stands in solidarity with all affected by the police repression against the movement toStop Cop City.”Organizershave announced a 5p.m.press conference and rally today at the headquarters of the Atlanta Police Foundation at 191 PeachtreeSt.to provide further details on the raids.

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Just Transition Alliance - Sat, 02/10/2024 - 06:58

We are pleased to announce a collection of essays titled Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement, co-edited by our dear friend Jeff Ordower and published just a few days ago by The New Press.

Shantell Bingham of Climate Justice Alliance says, “Power Lines presents critical case studies on advancing all communities towards a just transition. The book provides key insights directly from the frontlines on how we can organize our communities towards collective power, navigate tensions, and truly advance change. This book makes it more apparent the critical role that labor plays, and needs to play, in advancing a just transition.”

It features an interview with José Bravo describing the origins of the just transition movement.

Excerpt:

Just transition is not a cookie-cutter approach. It’s not one thing for everyone. But I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that if a just transition doesn’t have workers and there’s only communities at the table, then it’s not a just transition, and vice versa. If it only has workers and the community’s not at the table, then it’s not a just transition. A just transition is literally a cradle-to-grave approach that removes the exploitation out of the whole process of production.

Content Get Your Copy of “Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement” appears first in Just Transition Alliance.

Categories: E2. Front Line Community Green

EarthBlog - Fri, 02/09/2024 - 10:33

By Sayyidatiihayaa Afra, Researcher of Satya Bumi.

When Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited the White House in November 2023, he had one thing on his mind: selling President Biden on a trade agreement that would facilitate the flow of Indonesian nickel to the United States. It’s an appealing prospect. Biden has made bold promises to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, and Indonesia has the world’s largest reserves of nickel, one of the key metals used in the production of electric vehicle batteries. But we and other Indonesian civil society organizations have deep concerns, which we shared in a letter with President Biden.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo is welcomed by President Biden at the White House.

In the end, President Widodo went home empty-handed. As of this writing, any such trade deal faces long odds for a simple reason: longstanding trade tensions between the United States and China. Chinese companies dominate the Indonesian nickel mining and processing industries, and would be the primary beneficiaries of any deal. Yet the problems entrenched in Indonesian nickel cannot be reduced to China-U.S. trade problems.

Since 2000, when nickel became a mining commodity in Indonesia, extraction has caused massive environmental damage. Indonesian nickel mining has led to deforestation in biodiversity hotspots, displacement of uncontacted tribes such as the Hongana Manyawa and contamination of sensitive reef habitat in the Coral Triangle. In October, nine U.S. Senators submitted an open letter opposing a trade deal citing these and other concerns, including weak labor protection and the lack of meaningful consultation with impacted communities.

President Widodo is aware of these concerns, and has encouraged the Indonesian mining sector to comply with international standards, such as the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. This is a good sign. Unfortunately, the Widodo government is also actively undermining Indonesia’s existing environmental safeguards. For instance, the administration weakened environmental protection through the Mining Law and Job Creation Law, which reduces the involvement of civil society in preparing environmental impact studies.

Meanwhile, updates to the Mining Law allow companies to automatically extend concessions for up to 20 years. Indonesian lawmakers also recently withdrew the authority of regional governments to supervise mining implementation and relaxed reclamation obligations. Mining companies are allowed to dispose of their waste in the sea and dig for nickel in protected forests. The People Representative and Corruption Eradication Commission, which is supposed to offer some oversight, has been weakened through various legal instruments and rendered effectively powerless.

As an example of the absence of good mining governance, Satya Bumi, together with WALHI South Sulawesi, Walhi Southeast Sulawesi, and Walhi Central Sulawesi, found that 330 nickel concessions in Indonesia are destroying core biodiversity areas. In Sulawesi alone, at least 51 thousand hectares of core biodiversity areas have been destroyed by nickel mining. On a national level, from 2000 to 2023, a total of 156,281 hectares of forest have been impacted by nickel mines. A de facto ban by the Indonesian government on the practice of submarine tailings disposal hasn’t stopped waste from mineral processing at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park from contaminating fish and other sea life. The waters of the Morowali Sea have 76% of the world’s coral reefs, 37% of coral reef fish, and the world’s largest mangrove forest—a critical source of carbon sequestration.

The government also uses the military to protect resources and developments that it considers of strategic value, including nickel mines and processing facilities. This can even involve using force against local people who oppose these projects. As a result, clashes between the police, soldiers, and residents in mining areas have become a regular occurrence.

While demand continues to grow for green energy sourced from a clean supply chain, Indonesia is still stuck on the idea of green energy through dirty nickel mining practices. Until the nickel supply chain is improved, advertising responsible Indonesian nickel on the global market is nothing but greenwashing. It is high time for the Indonesian government to address these issues and work towards establishing a clean, fair, and sustainable supply chain for nickel.

The post Any US-Indonesia Trade Deal Must Respect Indonesians appeared first on Earthworks.

Categories: H. Green News

The Red Nation - Thu, 02/08/2024 - 15:27

Feb 10, 2020 – Venezuela & anti-imperialism w/ Onyesonwu

Onyesonwu joins us for a report-back from recent African and Indigenous delegations to Venezuela, and why the Bolivarian Revolution is leading at the forefront of the global anti-imperialist movement.

Onyesonwu is an organizer with the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and the All African Women’s Revolutionary Union as well as an editor with Hood Communist.

Read the Final Declaration of the World Conference Against Imperialism:http://hoodcommunist.org/2020/02/06/final-declaration-of-the-world-meeting-against-imperialism/

Read the Declaration of the First International Gathering of Indigenous Peoples:https://therednation.org/2020/01/11/declaration-of-the-first-international-gathering-of-indigenous-peoples-guayana-venezuela-oct-31-2019/

Listen to The Red Nation Podcast on Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. Listen and download for free on Libsyn.

The Red Nation Podcast is sustained by comrades and supporters like you, power our work here:www.patreon.com/redmediapr

The Red Nation Podcast is produced byRed Media.

The post The Red Nation Podcast #Throwback appeared first on The Red Nation.

Categories: B3. EcoSocialism

EarthBlog - Thu, 02/08/2024 - 10:16

Over the past few years, oil and gas companies like Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, and EQT, have made headlines for their public support for the EPA taking action to cut methane. But that support has amounted to little more than just words on paper.

It is long past time for oil and gas companies to be held responsible for the countless promises they’ve made to cut methane. We are at a critical moment for our climate. Every day of inaction is pushing us closer to the point of no return.

That is why it is so vital that the media — editors, reporters, and even nightly news producers — stop taking them at their word and start asking them for the receipts.

Now that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized the first-ever oil and gas methane rules, it is time to put them to the test. Implementing the EPA rules will be painstakingly slow: in the best-case scenario, it will take 3-5 years. We can’t waste that much time.

The test starts now

If you’re an oil and gas company that claims to understand your role in the climate crisis AND has said it wants to take climate action, there’s no reason to wait. Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, EQT, and every other oil and gas company that has advocated and supported action to cut methane pollution can and must start now.

Many of these companies have supported rules the EPA just enacted for years. But if these companies were true to their word, they would have acted already.

No room for excuses.

We aren’t talking about small businesses here. We’re talking about major fossil fuel companies coming off record-breaking years of profits — specifically, the ones who have already acknowledged the need for fast methane action.

So, for all those reading, this is a simple test they all should be passing by now… if they were honest about action on methane:

• If you said you’d do something urgently, you should probably do it… urgently, especially when it has life-or-death consequences.

• Consumers, local officials, state and federal elected officials, investors, or anyone interacting with oil and gas companies should ask if these companies are sincere about their climate promises.
• Media professionals — particularly journalists working on climate, climate justice, and energy issues — have the most critical role here. It’s time to write the stories about what oil and gas companies ARE NOT doing. Ask the companies to show the receipts for how they have cut methane — and if they won’t tell you, come into the field with Earthworks and see for your own eyes through our optical gas imaging cameras.

Oil and gas companies want the public to believe they are accountable for their impact. We know they’re lying to us, but EPA and past industry promises have finally given us the litmus test for their sincerity.

The post It Is Past Time for Oil and Gas to Be Honest About Cutting Methane appeared first on Earthworks.

Categories: H. Green News

EarthBlog - Wed, 02/07/2024 - 09:20

On January 25th the Brazilian Federal Court ordered mining company Samarco, along with its parent companies, Vale and BHP, to pay $9.7B in compensation for “moral damages” caused by the 2015 failure of their tailings dam in the town of Mariana.

The Mariana tailings dam failure was called the worst ecological disaster Brazil had ever seen. On November 3, 2015, a 40 million cubic meter avalanche of mine waste killed 19 people and contaminated 668 km of rivers and watersheds, before finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The waste spread across 39 municipalities, displaced 500 families and ultimately affected 3 million people living in the contaminated watersheds. The widespread pollution has caused serious health problems across the region.

This is an important step towards justice for the communities suffering from Vale and BHP’s dangerous mining practices. However, there is still more to be done to provide fair and equitable compensation for all the victims of the Mariana tailings dam failure, and to ensure these types of catastrophes never happen again.

Leaders from the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) called the decision a “victory for the people” but pointed out that it was long overdue and only a fraction of the amount that should have been awarded.

The judge in the case said the money from the mining companies would be put into a fund administered by the government, to be used for projects and initiatives for areas impacted by the failure.

However, there is a long track record of mismanagement for funds intended to compensate victims of the Mariana disaster. The Renova Foundation, which has administered a similar fund since 2016, has come under fire for a series of allegations including tax fraud and interference with the justice system. Additionally, it took the foundation almost four years to resettle 240 families whose houses were destroyed by the avalanche of tailings, and community members have lodged complaints about the process as well as the final results. Its failures and the outsized influence of the mining companies were so drastic that the UN Special Rapporteur on Hazardous Substances and Waste recommended, “reforming the governance structure of the Renova Foundation to replace all influence of Vale, BHP and Samarco with independent experts free of conflicts.”

In the UK, BHP and Vale are also facing a class-action lawsuit with over 720,000 claimants demanding over £36bn, with a trial scheduled for October. If successful, the compensation from this suit would go directly to impacted families.

The verdict from the Brazilian courts came on the fifth anniversary of another catastrophic tailings dam failure at a Vale mine in Brumadinho, Brazil. The dam at the Córrego do Feijão mine collapsed releasing 9.7 million cubic meters of waste. Another tidal wave of mud covered the mine’s cafeteria, parts of the town of Brumadinho and killed 272 people.

It is worth bearing in mind that these tragedies were completely preventable. Safer tailings management practices exist, and civil society has been calling for significant changes to business as usual for a long time. In 2022, 163 human rights and environmental organizations, Tribal Governments, impacted communities and technical experts endorsed Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management. These guidelines provide concrete steps for reigning in risky technology, guaranteeing respect for impacted communities, and holding mining companies accountable. Hopefully this ruling will serve as a long-overdue wakeup call for these mining companies to clean up their act.Their reputations cannot afford to ignore safety any longer.

The post Brazilian Judge Orders Mining Companies to Pay for Suffering Caused by Tailings Dam Failure appeared first on Earthworks.

Categories: H. Green News

The Red Nation - Tue, 02/06/2024 - 06:11

Episode 343 of The Red Nation Podcast

February 6th is International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier and All Political Prisoners. Today marks the 49th year of Leonard Peltier’s wrongful imprisonment. Free Palestine! Free Leonard Peltier!

01. [00:00] TRN-KREZ Morning Show

Feb 6 , 2024 – Good morning, Turtle Island

02. [01:15] 49

May 3, 2023 – President Biden: Free Leonard Peltier – Amnesty International USA

Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist, has been imprisoned for nearly 50 years in the USA for a crime he maintains he did not commit. There are serious and ongoing concerns about the fairness of his trial and conviction. Tribal Nations, Nobel Peace Laureates, former FBI agents, numerous others, and even the former U.S. Attorney, James Reynolds, whose office handled the prosecution, have called for Leonard Peltier’s release. Watch to learn more.

03. [04:14] Whistleblower

Jan 18, 2023 – Ex-FBI Agent breaks the silence on Leonard Peltier and COINTELPRO w/ Coleen Rowley X

The first FBI agent close to the Leonard Peltier case is calling for his freedom. Coleen Rowley recounts, in this wide-ranging and exclusive interview, her time as an agent in the Minneapolis field office. For nearly 50 years, the FBI has indoctrinated its agents on a specific version of events that led to Leonard Peltier’s arrest, conviction, and imprisonment. The mentality then, Rowley argues, is little different than the mentality today. That’s why she decided to break the silence and is calling on President Joe Biden to grant Leonard Peltier executive clemency.

Rowley gives us an insider’s view of the FBI and how the dark and violent history of COINTELPRO, which targeted civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and social movements like the Black Panthers and AIM, didn’t end in 1971. It morphed and evolved over the years and continued well into the U.S. war on terror. Despite attempts at reform and accountability, the FBI continues its ongoing persecution of political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and the unarmed Water Protectors at Standing Rock.

04. [17:00] Don’t Believe Lies

Mar 28, 2022 – The importance of Leonard Peltier to Indigenous peoples

Co-hosts of Red Power Hour Melanie Yazzie and Elena Ortiz on the meaning of Leonard Peltier to Indigenous peoples.

05. [32:02] Oglala

Jul 25, 2022 – Remembering the Reign of Terror at Oglala

It’s been 47 years since the shootout at Oglala that left two FBI agents and a young Native man named Joe Stuntz dead. While Leonard Peltier unjustly sits in prison for the events of that day, the shootout and the deadly legacy of the “reign of terror” remain an open wound for community members and the American Indian Movement. Here’s their story.

06. [38:07] Father

Sep 4, 2022 Leonard Peltier’s Walk to Justice

The American Indian Movement has organized “Leonard Peltier’s Walk to Justice” from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., where organizers plan to meet with government officials to demand the release of Peltier from the U.S. federal prison system. This recording is taken from the kickoff event in Minneapolis held on August 31st.

07. [44:10] Walk to Justice

Nov 20, 2022 – “Your people are coming for you”: the Leonard Peltier Walk to Justice 2022

The Leonard Peltier Walk to Justice kicked off in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 1st, 2022. Ten weeks and 1103 miles later it reached Washington, D.C., where a rally was held demanding the freedom of Leonard Peltier, unjustly imprisoned for over 47 years.

08. [01:01:58] 79

Sep 12, 2023 – ‘A stain of injustice’: Free Leonard Peltier White House rally

On September 12, hundreds gathered on Piscataway lands in front of the White House to demand executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, who celebrated his 79th birthday that day. A caravan of supporters, family, and loved ones departed after ceremony from Rapid City, South Dakota en route to Washington, D.C.– a 1,600 mile journey that arrived on Monday, September 11.

09. [01:06:38] We Are Victorious

Nov 23, 2023 – National Day of Mourning 2023

An annual tradition since 1970, National Day of Mourning is a solemn, spiritual and highly political day. Many of us fast from sundown the day before through the afternoon of that day (and have a social after NDOM so that participants in NDOM can break their fasts). We are mourning our ancestors and the genocide of our peoples and the theft of our lands. NDOM is a day when we mourn, but we also feel our strength in action and solidarity.

10. [01:18:55] Free All Political Prisoners

Feb 7, 2020 – Rise Up For Peltier Demonstration – Tiwa Territory

February 7, 2022, Albuquerque A.I.M. Grassroots, Indigenous Rights Center, and The Red Nation host the demonstration Rise Up For Peltier in downtown Albuquerque in front of the Pete V. Domenici United States Courthouse.

The Red Nation Podcast is sustained by comrades and supporters like you. Power our work here:www.patreon.com/redmediapr

The post The Red Nation Podcast – Leonard Peltier Mixtape Vol. 2 appeared first on The Red Nation.

Categories: B3. EcoSocialism

EarthBlog - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 15:09

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) just wrapped up the public comment period for the highly controversial Ambler Road, a proposed 211-mile private industrial mining road across pristine public lands in Alaska’s Southern Brooks Range.

If approved, it would extend across a vast and wild landscape along the Southern Brooks Range, and cut through National Park Service lands in the Gates of the Arctic National Preserve. It would cross 11 major rivers, 3,000 streams, tear through unspoiled tundra and disrupt the migratory path for one of our nation’s most majestic and vital caribou herds.

A Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement, released by the BLM in November 2023, identified extensive and devastating impacts to Alaska rural communities, and vital subsistence resources, including caribou, salmon and sheefish.

2. It does not enhance U.S. mineral independence. Although the road proponents have repeatedly touted the Ambler Road as necessary to access an “abundance” of critical minerals, the latest mineral resource reports associated with the major mineral deposits in the Ambler District tell a different story. All four major mineral deposits in the Ambler District (Arctic, Bornite, Sun and Smucker) are still undergoing exploration, and no company has submitted an application to mine. Claims of critical minerals are highly uncertain. Even if the Arctic deposit were permitted for development, the company’s feasibility report plans for the ore to be shipped out of the U.S. to be sold for refining in Asia, rather than processing the ore in the U.S. for domestic use.

3. It’s a financial boondoggle. The road is proposed by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), on behalf of primarily foreign-owned mining companies,[1] at an estimated total cost of roughly $2 billion. AIDEA plans for the mining companies to reimburse the State of Alaska for those costs via a toll system for the road. Its assumption that it will break even in 30 years requires four major mines to be built in the Ambler District. However, there are no actual contracts in place, and none of the mining companies have submitted plans for mining operations – only exploration. This is particularly risky speculation. Two of the four mineral deposits (Sun and Smucker) are in the earliest stages of exploration and a long way from determining whether they will be economic to develop, particularly with the added cost of the road (see recent analysis).

4. It’s widely opposed. There is widespread opposition from regional tribes, including resolutions in opposition from 74 tribes and First Nations in the Yukon River watershed, 37 member tribes of the Tanana Chiefs Conference of interior Alaska, and individual resolutions by tribes nearest to the proposed road: Evansville Tribal Council, Tanana Tribal Council, Alatna Village Council, Allakaket Village Council, and Huslia Tribal Council. It is also opposed by hunters and anglers, and local, state and national conservation organizations.

5. It conflicts with climate goals. Alaska is globally significant for its large tracts of intact habitat and its role in conserving biodiversity and storing carbon while supporting traditional and cultural uses. The construction of a private industrial haul road through these critical wildlands conflicts with our nation’s climate change goals.

6. It’s bad for fish and those that depend on them. The rivers and streams along the Brooks Range are an important source of salmon, which contribute to Alaska’s economy and are vital to local communities. These rivers also provide essential habitat and spawning grounds for sheefish, a giant member of the whitefish family and an essential food source for local communities. BLM determined that cumulatively, the project “has the potential to cause substantial, long-term impacts to fish and aquatic life that could lead to substantial impacts on subsistence use practices in the region, even with mitigation measures in place.”

7. It will disrupt one of the greatest caribou herds left on Earth. The road would fragment habitat and disrupt the migration patterns for 164,000 caribou in the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, one of our nation’s largest and most iconic caribou herds. This herd, which has already declined substantially in recent years, relies on vast tracts of undisturbed lands for its 2,000-mile annual migration, one of the longest land migrations on Earth. BLM found that the impacts from a potential road “could exacerbate or prolong population declines and hinder the herd’s ability to naturally recover from low population levels.”

8. It will harm Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Lying north of the Arctic Circle, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is so wild it contains no roads or trails. It is one of the largest protected parkland areas in the world. This vast and wild landscape contains major portions of the range and habitat for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, and refuge for moose, Dall Sheep, wolverines, and myriad other species. The Ambler Road will cut directly through the National Preserve for 26-miles, damaging this treasured landscape and those that depend on it.

Please join our efforts to protect communities, clean water, and wildlife against the proposed Ambler Road. Sign our petition here, and we will keep you informed about the latest developments.

The post Eight Reasons Why Biden Should Reject the Ambler Industrial Road Proposal appeared first on Earthworks.

Categories: H. Green News

The Red Nation - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 13:53

Episode 342 of The Red Nation Podcast

Maryam Jamshidi(@MsJamshidi), a University of Colorado Boulder Law Schoolprofessor, explores the meaning and political potential of the International Court of Justice ruling on the genocide in Gaza.

Check out her recent article,“Instruments of Dehuman­ization”

Watch thevideo editionon The Red Nation PodcastYouTube channel

The Red Nation Podcast is sustained by comrades and supporters like you. Power our work here:www.patreon.com/redmediapr

Listen to The Red Nation Podcast onSpotify,SoundCloud, andApple Podcasts. Listen and download for free onLibsyn.

The post The Red Nation Podcast – Unprecedented? The ICJ ruling on genocide in Gaza w/ Maryam Jamshidi appeared first on The Red Nation.

Categories: B3. EcoSocialism