Kids Are Really Worried About the Climate Crisis

Middle school student activists write their elected representatives to urge climate action.

By Reynard Loki

In 2019, Earth | Food | Life writing fellow Lucy Goodchild van Hilten, a science writer and mother of a young child, wrote a piece titled, “How to Talk to Kids About Climate Change.” Now I am pleased to report on the other side of that coin: How kids talk to adults about climate change.

It all started a few weeks ago when my friend Christine Willis invited me to speak to her seventh grade class at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn, New York. Christine and her co-teacher Allison Pariani wanted their students—who are all quite aware of the various impacts of climate change—to grasp the power and potential of persuasive writing and thought that my work as an advocacy journalist would help. At the recommendation of another friend, Megan Dyer, herself a New York-based climate activist with Mothers Out Front and mother of a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old, I had the class sit in a circle to create a space where we could exchange ideas as peers.

As Dyer told me, “Kids are so used to being talked to; so they love when they are heard.” Instead of presenting to them, I simply asked them questions to get to the activity I had in mind: Write letters to five of their elected legislators: Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, State Senator Jabari Brisport and State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon.

In the circle, I asked them what journalism was, and what advocacy meant. Through this, they were able to figure out for themselves what “advocacy journalism” was—journalism with a point of view; in my case, it’s about getting consumers, voters, community members, public officials and legislators to take action to stem the climate crisis. I told them that part of what I do as an advocacy journalist covering the environment is to provide readers not only with facts about the climate crisis but also to show them ways to get involved in solutions. One direct way to get involved is to tell our elected representatives how we would like them to vote on bills and budgets that can have a meaningful impact on the climate fight. I showed them how to look up their elected representatives via OpenStates.org.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_8092-1024x640.jpg
In session: Earth | Food | Life editor Reynard Loki with seventh grade students at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo credit: Christine Willis)

One of the questions I asked them is what concerns them about climate change. Their answers varied, but they were all legitimate fears. They are worried about rising sea levels, extreme weather events, the spread of disease, air pollution and the extinction crisis—all issues directly impacted by the climate crisis. I showed them a video about how St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan has switched from using oil and gas heating to a renewable heat source: geothermal energy.

I provided the students with letter templates urging lawmakers to support a part of the New York state budget that puts buildings on a renewable energy path, and bills on the state and federal levels aimed to strengthen our response to the climate crisis. The students reviewed the letters and added their own words to personalize them. Their parents approved these letters (below), which were emailed and tweeted to the legislators.

Mss. Christine Willis and Allison Parianis’ Seventh Grade Class

The Math and Science Exploratory School (MS447)

345 Dean Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

April 4, 2022

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon

New York State Assembly

341 Smith Street

Brooklyn, NY 11231

Dear Assemblymember Simon:

Our names are Teyo, Rose, Elsie, Adriana, Amelie, and Luolin. We are students in Ms. Willis’ seventh grade class at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn, New York. We are also your constituents. Climate action is one of our top priorities because we care a lot about the rising sea levels that are swallowing up the world. We are especially worried because we live in a coastal city.

We have no idea if this letter will make a difference. It probably won’t. We don’t really see a reason why it would. We have faith in people. We believe they are naturally good. But after everything the climate is facing and the lack of action from adults, we have very little faith in lawmakers and elected leaders who are supposed to be protecting the future for kids like us.

We are especially concerned about emissions from buildings which account for more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in New York State. We need renewable heat for our buildings now, and geothermal energy can help.

We are writing you today to urge you to support:

  • Part EEE of the Senate’s TED (transportation, economic development and environmental conservation) budget proposal, which updates building codes and appliance efficiency standards, saving New Yorkers billions of dollars, and prohibiting fossil fuels in new construction starting in 2024.
  • Gas Transition and Affordable Energy Act sponsored by Senator Krueger (S8198) and Assemblymember Fahy (A9329), which reforms our public service law and requires the state to make a transition plan for buildings.

We need fossil fuels out of new building construction by 2024 and we must stop subsidizing gas utility expansion. We must stop fossil fuel expansion in New York and implement our climate law in our state budget.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Teyo Chait, Rose Herper, Elsie Armstrong, Adriana Esposito, Amelie Miller, and Luolin Wu

Mss. Christine Willis and Allison Parianis’ Seventh Grade Class

The Math and Science Exploratory School (MS447)

345 Dean Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

April 4, 2022


Senator Jabari Brisport

New York State Senate

55 Hanson Place

The Shirley Chisholm State Office Building, Suite 702

Brooklyn, NY 11217

Dear Senator Brisport:

I am a student in Ms. Willis’ seventh grade class at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn, New York. I am also your constituent. Climate action is one of my top priorities because if people do not take action now, there would be a worldwide increase in storms, major sea-level rise, and massive ecological loss.

I am especially concerned about emissions from buildings which account for more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in New York State. We need renewable heat for our buildings now, and geothermal energy can help.

I am writing you today to urge you to support:

  • Part EEE of the Senate’s TED (transportation, economic development and environmental conservation) budget proposal, which updates building codes and appliance efficiency standards, saving New Yorkers billions of dollars, and prohibiting fossil fuels in new construction starting in 2024.
  • Gas Transition and Affordable Energy Act sponsored by Senator Krueger (S8198) and Assemblymember Fahy (A9329), which reforms our public service law and requires the state to make a transition plan for buildings.

We need fossil fuels out of new building construction by 2024 and we must stop subsidizing gas utility expansion. We must stop fossil fuel expansion in New York and implement our climate law in our state budget. If our state budget supported a quick switch to renewable energy, including geothermal power for the heating of buildings, fossil fuel emissions in New York would fall, and the government would save huge amounts of money that could be used to better the lives of our citizens. We would also be less dependent on Russian oil imports.

Geothermal systems can last over fifty years, and building them would bring lots of jobs. This would help the economy. If New York succeeds at protecting the environment and saving money, it would also inspire other states to do the same. And this would help protect the planet. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Connor Nagi-Barron

Mss. Christine Willis and Allison Parianis’ Seventh Grade Class

The Math and Science Exploratory School (MS447)

345 Dean Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

April 4, 2022

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand

780 Third Avenue, Suite 2601

New York, New York 10017

Dear Senator Gillibrand: 

Our names are Adriana Esposito and Amelie Miller. We are students in Ms. Willis’ seventh grade class at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn, New York. We are also your constituents.

Climate action is one of our top priorities because we are dedicated to making a brighter and safer future for future generations of humans and all animals. The natural habitats for our beloved animals are being continuously devastated from their past state due to climate change. Approximately 300,000 animals die every year due to climate change. We are determined to make a change for our planet so everyone and every living thing can live healthy lives.

In New York State alone, there are more than 50 endangered animal species like the gray wolf, cougar, peregrine falcon, leatherback sea turtle, the shortnose sturgeon, and the Karner blue butterfly.

As you know, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the nation’s primary law protecting endangered species. “This benchmark conservation law has saved the bald eagle, gray whale, grizzly bear, and many others and has a whopping 99 percent success record at preventing the extinction of listed species,” according to the Endangered Species Coalition, a nonprofit conservation group.

They add, “In spite of the success of this law and the urgent need for the protections it provides, Congress has taken aim at it with more than two dozen pieces of legislation that would weaken it. Bills that would transfer Endangered Species Act listing decisions from scientists to politicians, legislatively delist wolves, and block courts from reviewing these actions.”

Please support the Endangered Species Act and oppose any efforts to weaken it.

Sincerely,

Adriana Esposito and Amelie Miller

Mss. Christine Willis and Allison Parianis’ Seventh Grade Class

The Math and Science Exploratory School (MS447)

345 Dean Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

April 4, 2022

Senator Charles E. Schumer

780 Third Avenue, Suite 2301

New York, NY 10017

Dear Senator Schumer:

Our names are Jude, Christian, and Gio. We are students in Ms. Willis’ seventh grade class at the Math and Science Exploratory School. We live in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. We are also your constituents. 

Climate action is one of our top priorities because pollution is affecting the natural habitats in our city. Every day we see oil leaks, smell air pollution, and hear too many vehicle engines. We want to have healthy ecosystems in New York state so that we can go out and experience nature and the wildlife of New York can also have safe, healthy and functional habitats.

We are writing to you today to urge you to co-sponsor Senate Bill S.966, the Climate Change Education Act, which was introduced by Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts.

If passed, this bill would declare that the evidence showing that climate change is caused by humans is “overwhelming and undeniable.” This bill would help increase the level of climate literacy in the United States at a time when many Americans are in denial of the climate crisis. The bill would also provide learning opportunities about climate change to people of all ages.

Please support the Climate Change Education Act so that kids and adults across our nation will get the best, most up-to-date scientific information about the climate crisis so that we can move together as a nation to solve this problem and protect the environment for future generations.

Sincerely,

Jude Sokol, Christian Campbell, and Giovanni Escoto

Mss. Christine Willis and Allison Parianis’ Seventh Grade Class

The Math and Science Exploratory School (MS447)

345 Dean Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217

April 4, 2022

Representative Hakeem S. Jeffries

U.S. House of Representatives

55 Hanson Place, Suite 603

Brooklyn, NY 11217

Dear Rep. Jeffries:

I am a student in Ms. Willis’ seventh grade class at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Brooklyn, New York. I am also your constituent. Climate action is one of my top priorities because I care for the environment. If we continue to use fossil fuels, there will be more harmful pollution, and our natural habitats and ecosystems could become dead zones. I love New York, and I know that renewable sources of energy will help protect our beautiful state, our fellow citizens, and all the species that live here.

I am writing you today to support H.R.794, the Climate Emergency Act of 2021, which was introduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon. If passed, this bill would direct the president to declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act. Declaring a climate emergency would provide Congress and the president with access to the emergency resources necessary for a more immediate and effective response to the climate crisis.

The climate emergency is here and humans and animals and plants are feeling its effects across the globe. We are running out of time and cannot stop the climate crisis without an emergency-level response—and leaders with the courage to take serious action right now.

Please co-sponsor H.R.794 to make the climate crisis a top priority. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Adam Friedkin

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. He previously served as the environment, food and animal rights editor at AlterNet and as a reporter for Justmeans/3BL Media covering sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He was named one of FilterBuy’s Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalists to Follow in 2016. His work has been published by Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

The War in Ukraine Is Sending Russia-China Relations in New Directions

While the Ukraine crisis may put some strain on the Chinese-Russian relationship, it has also spurred deeper collaboration between them. Based on a shared desire to undermine the United States’ global order, their constructive partnership will not only endure the blowback from the Ukrainian invasion but is likely to expand.

By John P. Ruehl

With the world’s attention focused on Ukraine in the weeks since Russia began its invasion of the country on February 24, there has been fervent debate among foreign policy experts on how Russia’s relations with the West will be affected. Officials in Moscow and Western capitals have traded barbs at each other in the media, while sanctions and counter-sanctions have already begun to bite.

But the effects of Russia’s invasion on Chinese-Russian relations have been far less discussed. In recent years, both Russia and China have publicly promoted their increasingly strong partnership. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called Russian President Vladimir Putin his “best friend,” while both Xi and Putin have described the current state of Chinese-Russian relations as “the best they’ve been in history.”

This has been reflected in collaborative military drills, increasing weapons and energy deals between China and Russia, and public support for one another across their state-run media outlets and their dealings within international organizations like the UN. Since the previous Ukraine crisis in 2014, Moscow has been particularly eager to promote these developments in its relationship with Beijing to limit the effects of diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions imposed by the West.

The current crisis in Ukraine is prompting further efforts by China and Russia to confront the U.S. While Russia’s core interest in doing so is in preventing Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), China is keen to exploit any opportunity that arises during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that challenges American influence.

The additional sanctions placed on Russia by the West in recent weeks to “cripple Russia’s financial system and hurt its wealthiest citizens” are likely to spur greater investment by China and Russia in developing their own alternatives to U.S.-dominated financial institutions, like the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment verification system. Russia and China both began to invest in their own international payments systems after several Russian banks were blacklisted from SWIFT in 2014.

These new international payments systems include Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) and the National Payment Card System (now known as Mir), as well as China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and UnionPay. Russian and Chinese banks are active across these platforms, and the number of banks utilizing these alternative systems in Russia and China will only increase as the two countries seek to maintain and “deepen” their business ties and bypass the sanctions by the West.

Encouraging the development of separate financial systems outside Western control will also result in increased participation by so-called “rogue states” in global finance, which are often accustomed to conducting business on the black market.

In early February, just weeks before Russia’s Ukrainian invasion, China and Russia also agreed to a 30-year natural gas deal through a new pipeline. Transactions will be conducted in euros for this deal, which is part of wider efforts by both Russia and China to lower their vulnerability to the U.S. dollar and the threat of sanctions.

After hundreds of Western companies declared their intention to “pull out” from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow stated it is looking at nationalizing the infrastructure of these foreign companies and will strip them of patent protections. Western assets and intellectual property rights may be of use to China, which is similarly wary of Western firms operating domestically, and the Chinese also seem intent on challenging these firms globally.

The current escalation in Ukraine has also reinforced diplomatic support between Beijing and Moscow, including a Chinese abstention from the UN General Assembly vote on March 2 to condemn Russia for its Ukrainian invasion. China’s state-run media outlets have also promoted Russia’s views on the war on Facebook and Instagram after Russia’s media outlets were banned by several Western countries, and it has also supported Russia’s claims of the U.S. “financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine.”

While still short of an official alliance, the announcement by Moscow and Beijing of a “no limit[s]” partnership made on the opening day of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in February has shown that Russian and Chinese interests have increasingly converged. China also “endorsed a Russian security proposal” to exclude Ukraine from joining NATO through a statement made by Xi with Putin on February 4, according to the New York Times, and there is no doubt that China received a warning from Moscow that it was planning an invasion of Ukraine within the coming weeks after this statement was made.

However, the current flareup in Ukraine has exacerbated larger global economic instability, and several immediate and longer-term consequences stemming from the Russian invasion may cause some strain to the China-Russia partnership.

For example, Ukraine is a major corn exporter to China. With food prices rising globally, even before the Russian invasion, the Russian offensive has already had negative effects on China’s food security. While Russia is also a major food exporter to China, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order on March 14 that banned grain exports to Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) members, indicative of the difficulty Russia is facing in meeting foreign food export demands even to close Russian allies.

China is also highly dependent on energy imports from other countries. In comparison to Russia or the U.S., it is far less able to influence the price of resources and far more vulnerable to energy disruptions. While Russia may be able to help meet the Chinese energy demand, the current spike in prices will likely accelerate China’s push for energy self-sufficiency, removing a vital pillar of the Chinese-Russian relationship.

And in a rare public display of frustration toward China, a Russian official admitted that China refused to supply Russia with aircraft parts after Russia repossessed roughly $10 billion in Boeing and Airbus planes. China’s dismissal showed a clear hesitation to risk a wider confrontation with the West despite Russia’s increasing brinkmanship.

China is also wary of being perceived as enabling Putin, and Russia’s heavy-handed approach in Ukraine has attracted more attention to Taiwan’s security. Since the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995, Beijing has been avoidant of confronting the U.S. militarily. Aside from limited skirmishes in its border regions with India, China has preferred using its economic power rather than its military to pressure other countries into submission in recent decades.

But China’s assistance to Russia will raise fears among China’s neighbors with their own disputes with Beijing. This support being provided to Russia by China could be enough to galvanize coordinated regional antagonism toward Beijing, supported by a heightened U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Despite these real and potential consequences, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has already instigated greater cooperation between China and Russia—a trend that will only continue. Russia’s need to shore up its situation may have expanded China’s leverage over it, but both Beijing and Moscow are well aware of the need to work together to undermine the U.S. dominance in world affairs—and they see the wider global instability resulting from the conflict in Ukraine as an effective way to do so.

John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications. He is currently finishing a book on Russia to be published in 2022.

You can also read the article at Asia Times.

A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines—New Book from Economy for All Fellow Alexander Zaitchik

Owning the Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines will be released by Counterpoint Press this year by IMI Economy for All fellow Alexander Zaitchik.

One of the most problematic areas in the social response to the world health crisis of COVID-19 has been the profit-seeking and opportunism of Western private businesses. Monopolistic control and no-bid contracts have been handed to pharmaceutical companies that for the most part have developed medicines based on public research. Zaitchik’s book offers the key history, context, and framework from which a general sense of a people’s politics of medicine can be projected. IMI will be working this year to distribute and amplify the careful research and reporting from Zaitchik’s book.

If you ever wondered how we went from a culture that produced Jonas Salk, who understood vaccines as a social product and a public good, to pharmaceutical executives at companies like Pfizer and BioNTech coldbloodedly negotiating the sale of their medicines while prioritizing profits over public health, Owning the Sun is the book to get answers to how we got here and how we can do better.

More Information:

Owning the Sun tells the story of one of the most contentious fights in human history: the legal right to control the production of lifesaving medicines. Medical science began as a discipline geared toward the betterment of all human life, but the merging of research with intellectual property and the rise of the pharmaceutical industry warped and eventually undermined its ethical foundations. Since World War II, federally funded research has facilitated most major medical breakthroughs, yet these drugs are often wholly controlled by price-gouging corporations with growing international ambitions. Why does the U.S. government fund the development of medical science in the name of the public, only to relinquish exclusive rights to drug companies, and how does such a system impoverish us, weaken our responses to global crises, and, as in the case of AIDS and COVID-19, put the world at risk?

Outlining how generations of public health and science advocates have attempted to hold the line against Big Pharma and their allies in government, Alexander Zaitchik’s first of its kind history documents the rise of medical monopoly in the United States and its subsequent globalization. From the controversial arrival of patent-wielding German drug firms in the late 19th century, to present-day coordination between industry and philanthropic organizations—including the influential Gates Foundation—that stymie international efforts to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, Owning the Sun tells one of the most important and least understood histories of our time.

Praise for Owning the Sun:

“A brave and timely reminder… A trenchant study of the dangers of turning medical knowledge into private intellectual property.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Journalist Zaitchik (The Gilded Rage) takes readers through the labyrinthine history of medical patents in this expansive study… Zaitchik covers a remarkable amount of ground and never gets lost in the weeds. The result is comprehensive and illuminating.” —Publishers Weekly

“Riveting. Owning the Sun masterfully explains how Big Pharma methodically gained global control over the largely public-funded ‘intellectual property’ required to manufacture new therapies (like the COVID-19 vaccines). A must-read for those wanting to understand how this unfolded.” —John Abramson, MD, author of Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It

“Highly informative and deeply troubling reading.” —Library Journal

“With so many Americans unable to afford ever soaring drug prices, Zaitchik’s important [and] insightful history of the rise of Big Pharma demonstrates the urgency of restraining pharmaceutical monopoly power.” —U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair

There’s Only One Essential Role Humans Have on Earth—A Humbler Perspective Could Save the World

This excerpt is from Urgent! Save Our Ocean to Survive Climate Change, by Captain Paul Watson (GroundSwell Books, 2021). This web adaptation was produced by GroundSwell Books in partnership with Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Click here to read the full article.

While the world’s oceans, nonhuman animals, and plants play starring roles in sustaining our ecosystem, why are we so bent on sabotaging it?

By Captain Paul Watson

I would like to introduce you to an alternative way of looking at this planet that we live on. We call it planet Earth, but in reality, it should be called planet ocean. What makes life possible on this planet is one very important element: water. This is the water planet. We have been taught that the ocean comprises the sea. However, the ocean is much more than that.

This is a planet of water in continuous circulation moving through many phases, with each phase intimately linked at every stage. It is the water in the sea, the lakes, the rivers, and the streams. It is the water flowing underground and deep, deep down inside the planet, locked in rock. It is the water in the atmosphere or encased in ice.

And it is the water moving through each and every living cell of every plant and animal on the planet.

Water is life, powered by the sun pumping it from sea to atmosphere and into and through our every living cell. Water is the life that flows through our bodies, flushing out waste and supplying nutrients. The water in my body now was once locked in ice. It once moved underground. It once was in the clouds or in the sea. Even the gravitational pull of the moon acts on the water in our bodies in the same way it acts upon the water in the sea. Water is the common bond among all living things on this planet, and, collectively, all this water in its many forms and travels forms the Earth’s collective ocean. The ocean is the life-support system for the entire planet. From within the depths of the sea, phytoplankton manufactures oxygen while feeding on nitrogen and iron supplied from the feces of whales and other marine animals. The water in rivers and lakes removes toxins, salts, and waste. Estuaries and wetlands act like the kidneys to remove further toxins, and the mineral salts are flushed into the sea. The heat from the sun pumps water into the atmosphere, where it is purified and dropped back onto the surface of the planet, where living beings drink or absorb it before flushing it through their systems. It is this complex global circulatory system that provides everything we need for food, sanitation, and the regulation of climate—for life.

Water is life and life is water. Rivers and streams are the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the Earth, performing the very same functions that they do in our bodies: removing waste and delivering nutrients to cells. When a river is dammed, it is akin to cutting off the flow of blood in a blood vessel. For example, the great Aswan High Dam on the Nile River in Egypt starved the lands below of nutrients, building up toxic water above.

Read more at Newsclick.

Captain Paul Watson is a Canadian-American marine conservation activist who founded the direct action group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977 and was more recently featured in Animal Planet’s popular television series “Whale Wars” and the documentary about his life, “Watson.” Sea Shepherd’s mission is to protect all ocean-dwelling marine life. Watson has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including Death of a Whale (2021), Urgent! (2021), Orcapedia (2020), Dealing with Climate Change and Stress (2020), The Haunted Mariner (2019), and Captain Paul Watson: Interview with a Pirate (2013).

How a Group of Starbucks Workers Emerged Victorious in Their Union Fight

The following is an excerpt of an article that was originally published on Pressenza.

Click here to read the full article.

It is hugely significant that even one café out of thousands in the iconic Starbucks coffee chain has beaten back the company’s union-busting tactics to choose collective power in the workplace.

By Sonali Kolhatkar

The iconic American coffee chain, Starbucks, employs hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 9,000 cafés nationwide. And yet, the news that a handful of Starbucks employees at one café in Buffalo, New York, recently voted to join Workers United—an affiliate of SEIU—made headlines nationally. The New York Times called it a “big symbolic win for labor,” while the Washington Post hailed it as a “watershed union vote.” Social media feeds were replete with joyous posts celebrating the vote. The café, located on Elmwood Avenue, was the only one out of three union-voting Starbucks locations in Buffalo that successfully chose to unionize.

“It is significant,” says Cedric de Leon of the Starbucks union vote. De Leon is the director of the Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is an associate professor of sociology, and he is the author of several books about labor organizing in the U.S. “The employer knows it and the workers know that establishing a beachhead in one of the largest corporations, and really an iconic brand in the U.S. hospitality market, is a major accomplishment.”

Ahead of ballots being cast, Starbucks tried to delay the vote and even stacked the Buffalo cafés with new staff to try to dilute “yes” votes. It flew in external managers to closely watch workers in what was seen as brazen intimidation. The company, which has long resisted union activity, brought its former Chief Executive Howard Schultz to Buffalo to discourage workers from unionizing, even shutting down its cafés during his Saturday visit so they could attend what was essentially a captive-audience address.

Given that Starbucks would go to such lengths to stop just a handful of stores from joining a union, it’s no surprise that it took 50 years after its founding for a single café to unionize. And it’s no wonder that commentators are shocked by what is a potentially groundbreaking event.

During his address, Schultz, who remains Starbucks’ largest shareholder, reportedly spoke of the company’s health insurance benefits and tuition assistance as reasons why a union was unnecessary. Believing he knows what is best for workers, Schultz had written in his first memoir, “I was convinced that under my leadership, employees would come to realize that I would listen to their concerns. If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn’t need a union.”

Yet there is evidence that Starbucks workers could indeed use the collective bargaining power that a union confers. A study by Unite Here of thousands of Starbucks employees working at airport locations found a racial pay gap with Black workers earning $1.85 less per hour than their white counterparts. Nearly one in five of those workers reported not having enough money to purchase food.

Read more at Pressenza.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute.

COP26: Will Humanity’s ‘Last and Best Chance’ to Save Earth’s Climate Succeed?

There is a chance we can prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis, but world leaders must hold businesses accountable and listen to Indigenous communities.

By Reynard Loki

It would be an understatement to say that there is a lot riding on COP26, the international climate talks currently being held in Glasgow, Scotland. Officially, the gathering marks the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the third meeting of the parties to the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which aims to limit the global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, preferably limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Since 1995, the countries that have signed onto the UNFCCC have met every single year (except in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), attempting to come up with an action plan to stem the climate crisis. But still, every year, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions keep going up. And for a fortnight that started on October 31, world leaders will try to come up with an action plan yet again. More than 100 heads of government and some 30,000 delegates are now gathered and deliberating in Glasgow in the most recent international attempt to implement the Paris agreement goals. CNBC called the summit “humanity’s last and best chance to secure a livable future amid dramatic climate change.”

“We face a stark choice: Either we stop it or it stops us,” said United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres in his opening remarks at the start of the World Leaders Summit of the COP26. “It’s time to say ‘enough.’ Enough of brutalizing biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves… We need maximum ambition from all countries on all fronts to make Glasgow a success.”

The summit comes just a few months after the August release of a grim report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found that climate change was “unequivocally” caused by human activity, and that within two decades, rising temperatures will cause the planet to reach a significant turning point in global warming. The report’s authors—a group of the world’s top climate scientists convened by the United Nations—predict that by 2040, average global temperatures will be warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, causing more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts and extreme weather events. Guterres called the bleak findings a “code red for humanity.”

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the summit, likened the race to stop climate change to a spy thriller, warning that “a red digital clock ticks down remorselessly to a detonation that will end human life as we know it.” He added, “The tragedy is this is not a movie, and the doomsday device is real.”

The dire assessment of the state of the planet’s climate was not lost on U.S. President Joe Biden, who called on world leaders to take aggressive action immediately to stave off the climate crisis in his remarks at the summit’s opening day. “There’s no more time to hang back or sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves,” he said. “This is the challenge of our collective lifetimes, the existential threat to human existence as we know it. And every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases.”

But despite all the troubling data and dire warnings, the summit has had a fairly inauspicious start. On October 30, the day before COP26 opened, leaders of the G20 nations—19 countries and the European Union, which together are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s emissions—sought to bolster international leadership on climate change as they concluded their own meeting in Rome just before the summit in Glasgow. But their deliberations ended with a whimper: a mere reaffirmation of the Paris agreement goals. During the G20 summit, Johnson said that all the world leaders’ pledges without action were “starting to sound hollow,” and he criticized the commitments as “drops in a rapidly warming ocean.” Adding to the disappointment was the fact that the summit was not attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping, even as both Russia and China “are among the world’s biggest polluters”: Russia and China are respectively responsible for 5 percent and 28 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, respectively. Those two nations have pushed the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 ahead to 2060.

A failure in Glasgow could have grave, cascading consequences. On October 26, the UN Environment Program released a worrying report warning that with “climate change intensifying… humanity is running out of time” due to the climate promises that have been made but have not yet been delivered. Failure to stem the climate crisis “would mean less food, so probably a crisis in food security. It would leave a lot more people vulnerable to terrible situations, terrorist groups and violent groups,” said UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa. “It would mean a lot of sources of instability… [t]he catastrophic scenario would indicate that we would have massive flows of displaced people.”

“We’re really talking about preserving the stability of countries, preserving the institutions that we have built over so many years, preserving the best goals that our countries have put together,” said Espinosa, who took on the UN climate role in 2016. A former minister of foreign affairs of Mexico, Espinosa shares responsibility for the talks with UK cabinet minister Alok Sharma, who serves as the COP26 president. “What we need to get at Glasgow are messages from leaders that they are determined to drive this transformation, to make these changes, to look at ways of increasing their ambition,” Espinosa said.

In a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology, a group of international scientists found that if the world continues “business-as-usual” emissions, the impacts of the climate crisis could triple across 45 different “life zones”—distinct regions representing broad ecosystem types—across the planet. “The likely future changes in the world’s life zones is likely to have a substantial impact on [people’s] livelihoods and biodiversity,” said Dr. Paul Elsen, a climate adaptation scientist at Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and lead author of the study. “Large areas of the world are getting hotter and drier and this is already impacting the earth’s life zones,” added Elsen. The researchers predict that more than 42 percent of the planet’s land area will ultimately be affected if emissions are not significantly reduced. Dr. Hedley Grantham, director of conservation planning at WCS and a co-author of the study, said, “COP26 is our best chance of countries committing to reducing emissions and putting us on a better future pathway for climate change and its impacts.”

There have, however, been a few bright spots in the early days of the summit. On November 2, world leaders announced new plans to reduce the emissions of methane, a powerful global warming gas that “has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.” President Biden welcomed the methane agreement, calling it a “game-changing commitment,” while also announcing that for the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was going to enforce limits on the methane “released by existing oil and gas rigs across the United States.”

The Biden administration said that the government’s vast spending bill would mark the “largest effort to combat climate change in American history.” But with this critical climate legislation stalled on Capitol Hill, Biden’s aggressive target of reducing the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions by about half of its 2005 levels by the end of this decade will likely have to be pursued through executive actions such as regulations.

And on November 2, more than 100 nations, which together are responsible for about 85 percent of the world’s forests, agreed to a landmark $19 billion plan to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Prime Minister Johnson said that it is critical for the success of COP26 “that we act now and we end the role of humanity as nature’s conqueror, and instead become nature’s custodian,” adding that “[w]e have to stop the devastating loss of our forests, these great teeming ecosystems—three-trillion-pillared cathedrals of nature—that are the lungs of our planet.”

​​In other welcome news, 14 nations including the United States, working on the sidelines of COP26, backed a Denmark-led initiative to reduce global maritime emissions to zero by 2050. “With around 90 percent of world trade transported by sea, global shipping accounts for nearly 3 percent of global CO2 emissions,” according to Reuters.

Indeed, non-state actors, i.e., businesses, are key participants in the world’s climate goals. UN chief Guterres said that the private sector has a critical role to play in this fight—and the UN will judge the performance of businesses’ pledges to achieve net-zero emissions. “I will establish a group of experts to propose clear standards to measure and analyze net-zero commitments from non-state actors,” which will go beyond mechanisms that have been established by the Paris climate accord, he said.

In the U.S., businesses are trying to influence Biden’s massive spending plan. “Across industries, business groups successfully pushed lawmakers to make significant changes to key sections of the original $3.5 trillion bill. Their lobbying efforts revolved around Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who ultimately sided with the business community on several issues… The White House plan does not raise tax rates on corporations—keeping a central part of the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts intact—in a stunning win for business interests,” stated an article in the Hill.

“This growing call for action can’t be underestimated,” writes EFL contributor Patti Lynn, executive director of Corporate Accountability, a consumer advocacy group, in Truthout, referring to the surge in climate activism across the world in recent years. But she also offered a caveat: “We need great social and economic change to fully and justly solve the climate crisis, and no change on this scale happens without public engagement fueling the political will to create such changes. But we also must be clear-eyed about what stands in the way of achieving such transformative change.” She added that for the world to move “from visions to actual policies that are just and effective, we must address the largest obstacle that lies between today’s status quo and a livable future for all: the influence of the fossil fuel industry on climate policy.”

Rainforest Action Network, a nonprofit environmental group, also trained their sights on the private sector, tweeting, “World leaders… must meet the climate crisis by holding brands and banks accountable to end fossil fuel expansion and deforestation.” But the COP26 homepage suggests a different story: Unilever, Scottish Power, Sainsbury’s, National Grid, Microsoft, Hitachi and GSK are some of the many corporations that COP26 thanks as “principal partners.”

And while many private firms, including several of the COP26 partners, have made significant climate commitments, they are often met with criticisms of “greenwashing”—appearing that they are climate-friendly when in fact, the promises are often not regulated by governments and actually not making a dent. “Businesses are the big polluters,” said Kristian Ronn, CEO and co-founder of Normative, a Swedish startup that has launched a carbon emissions tracker that he says can help end corporate greenwashing. The private sector is “responsible for two-thirds of the total emissions,” he said. “So they need to account for the footprint and mitigate that footprint, because essentially what gets measured gets managed.” He added, “There are no mechanisms in place to ensure the completeness of the information.”

COP26 partner Microsoft, for example, has formed Transform to Net Zero, a new initiative with several other companies, including Nike and Starbucks, to help the private sector achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But as Emily Pontecorvo reports in Grist, “There’s one gaping hole that persists in Microsoft’s climate action, one that the company has been repeatedly criticized for: How can it expect to pull more carbon out of the air than it puts in if it’s actively helping fossil fuel companies find and pull more oil and gas out of the ground?”

As world leaders attempt to hammer out a path to achieve the Paris climate accord goals, they would do well to listen to the world’s Indigenous people, who have been successful caretakers of their ecosystems for many generations—including 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity, though they represent just 5 percent of the global population—but who are suffering on the front lines of the climate fights, from deforestation to rising seas.

Nemonte Nenquimo, leader of the Waorani tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon, co-founder of the Indigenous-led nonprofit organization Ceibo Alliance, and an EFL contributor, wrote an open letter to world leaders in 2020 that is even more important today. “When you say that the oil companies have marvelous new technologies that can sip the oil from beneath our lands like hummingbirds sip nectar from a flower, we know that you are lying because we live downriver from the spills,” writes Nenquimo, who was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world. “When you say that the Amazon is not burning, we do not need satellite images to prove you wrong; we are choking on the smoke of the fruit orchards that our ancestors planted centuries ago. When you say that you are urgently looking for climate solutions, yet continue to build a world economy based on extraction and pollution, we know you are lying because we are the closest to the land.”

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. He previously served as the environment, food and animal rights editor at AlterNet and as a reporter for Justmeans/3BL Media covering sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He was named one of FilterBuy’s Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalists to Follow in 2016. His work has been published by Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Arizona Republic Cites Voting Booth’s Steven Rosenfeld and His Extensive Reporting on the Cyber Ninja 2020 ‘Audit’

Steven Rosenfeld’s critical work in the Arizona elections cited by Arizona’s newspaper of record—shedding light on the reality of the GOP Senate in Arizona’s election “audit.”

Cyber Ninjas was never required to deliver definitive report on election results, contract shows

By Robert Anglen / Arizona Republic

Cyber Ninjas never had to deliver a definitive report about its review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results — it only had to try.

The deal between the Arizona Senate and its contractor used soft language and didn’t list clear-cut expectations, a review of contract documents shows.

There is also little in the paperwork that would hold Cyber Ninjas accountable for producing inaccurate or incomplete results.

The key language requires the Florida-based cybersecurity firm to attempt to do little more than outline facts, according to a March statement of work signed by Senate President Karen Fann and Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan.

“This audit will attempt to validate every area of the voting process,” the contract states. “The final report will attempt to outline all the facts found throughout the investigation and attempt to represent those facts in an unbiased and non-partisan way.”

Read the rest at AZ Central.

The IMI Journal—Pushing for Sane U.S. Diplomacy and Bringing Art Into Environmental Media

Anyone who has lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union—despite the decades of hype that it was on the verge of global dominance, the lies and failures of the 9/11-era wars, the warmongering, and the Cold War hyperbole about Russia and China during the past few years—may perk up and celebrate the arrival of new Globetrotter Writing Fellow James W. Carden. Carden is a former adviser to the U.S. State Department. Previously, he was a contributing writer on foreign affairs at the Nation, and his work has also appeared in the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft, the American Conservative, Asia Times, and more.

Carden’s coverage of world events and analysis are a dose of sanity in a U.S. media environment that is marked by an absence of critical thought, historical context, or grounding in diplomacy—and a superabundance of self-interested business and government narratives and apologies for short-sighted behavior. Read his latest interview with scholar Anatol Lieven on the failure of 20 years of U.S. occupation in Afghanistan, and the political future the country faces.

Additionally, I am also excited to announce the arrival of Rachel Gugelberger as a media fellow to the Independent Media Institute’s Earth | Food | Life project. She has been a mainstay in the contemporary art world for more than two decades, and her interest in the potential of art to shift attitudes around key environmental themes including food justice and nonhuman animal rights will fill a big area of social need—and help IMI continue in its mission to be media pioneers. Look for her first works appearing this fall!

As always, we depend on readers like you to keep us in motion, and make an impact in a world in need of so much change. Please support us now.

And if you aren’t up to date, please catch up with our recent work:

What Next After 20 Years of War in Afghanistan? Anatol Lieven on the U.S. Legacy and the Taliban’s Rise

James W. Carden – Globetrotter

A Climate Disaster Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes—And Politicians Still Refuse to Take Action

Sonali Kolhatkar – Economy for All

Extreme Weather Devastating U.S. Raises Calls to Pass Biden’s Infrastructure Bill

Reynard Loki – Earth | Food | Life

Afghanistan and the Purdue Pharma Case Are Reminders That the U.S. Is a Failed Narco-State, Too

Richard J. Eskow – Economy for All

You’ll Know an Economic and Social Justice Plan Is Serious If It Includes Money for the Arts

April M. Short – Local Peace Economy

Is America Doomed? Or Is This Just a Huge Opportunity for the Progressive Agenda?

Thom Hartmann – Economy for All

Why the Discovery of Natural Gas in Mozambique Has Produced Tragedies, Not Economic Promise

Vijay Prashad – Globetrotter

Taxpayers Are Funding Cruel and Outdated DOJ Training Programs That Kill Animals

Stephen R. Kaufman – Earth | Food | Life

Most Virginia Counties Won’t Offer Sunday Voting This Fall

Steven Rosenfeld – Voting Booth

In Minnesota’s ‘Most Diverse City,’ Schools Are Addressing the Community’s Deep Trauma

Sarah Lahm – Our Schools

Could California End Up With a Trump-Like Governor?

Sonali Kolhatkar – Economy for All

Growing Chorus of Republicans Criticize Arizona Senate’s 2020 Election ‘Audit’

Steven Rosenfeld – Voting Booth

Medicare for All Will Stop Political Bosses from Playing Games with Deadly Diseases

Thom Hartmann – Economy for All

Thanks, from Jan Ritch-Frel and the rest of the IMI team.

Climate Crisis Putting a Billion Children at ‘Extremely High Risk,’ Warns New UN Report

Almost half of the world’s children are seriously threatened by the rapidly deteriorating global climate.

By Reynard Loki

“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope,” said Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2019. “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.” Now the famed young eco-warrior and Nobel Peace Prize nominee might get her wish as she, along with other youth activists, has collaborated with UNICEF—a United Nations agency working in more than 190 countries and territories to provide humanitarian and developmental aid to the world’s most disadvantaged children and adolescents—to launch an alarming new report that has found that a billion children across the world are at “extremely high risk” from the impacts of climate change.

Released ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in November in Glasgow, Scotland, and on the third anniversary of Fridays for Future (FFF), the youth-led global climate strike movement founded by Thunberg, “The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis”​​ is the first climate report to combine high-resolution geographic maps detailing global environmental and climate impacts with maps that show regions where children are vulnerable due to an array of stressors, including poverty and lack of access to education, health care or clean water. The report introduces the new Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), a composite index that ranks nations based on children’s exposure to climate shocks, providing the first comprehensive look at how exactly children are affected by the climate crisis, offering a road map for policymakers seeking to prioritize action based on those who are most at risk. Nick Rees, a policy specialist at UNICEF focusing on climate change and economic analysis and one of the report’s authors, told the Guardian that “[i]t essentially [shows] the likelihood of a child’s ability to survive climate change.”

“For the first time, we have a complete picture of where and how children are vulnerable to climate change, and that picture is almost unimaginably dire. Climate and environmental shocks are undermining the complete spectrum of children’s rights, from access to clean air, food and safe water; to education, housing, freedom from exploitation, and even their right to survive. Virtually no child’s life will be unaffected,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s executive director. “For three years, children have raised their voices around the world to demand action. UNICEF supports their calls for change with an unarguable message—the climate crisis is a child’s rights crisis.”

In addition to finding that approximately 1 billion children—nearly half the world’s child population—live in countries that are at an “extremely high risk” from climate impacts, the report found that almost every single child on the planet has been exposed to at least one climate or environmental stressor, such as air pollution, flooding, heat waves, tropical storms, flooding or drought. Moreover, the report found that 850 million children—approximately one-third of the world’s child population—are exposed to four or more stressors.

Read the rest at Pressenza.

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. He previously served as the environment, food and animal rights editor at AlterNet and as a reporter for Justmeans/3BL Media covering sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He was named one of FilterBuy’s Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalists to Follow in 2016. His work has been published by Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, CounterPunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Photo Credit: The Left/Flickr

Remembering the Great Scientific Crusader Who Showed That No Biological Basis for Race Exists—Richard Lewontin

Lewontin fought a lifelong battle against racism, imperialism and capitalist oppression.

By Prabir Purkayastha

On July 4, Richard Lewontin, the dialectical biologist, Marxist and activist, died at the age of 92, just three days after the death of his wife of more than 70 years, Mary Jane. He was one of the founders of modern biology who brought together three different disciplines—statistics, molecular biology and evolutionary biology—that mark the discipline today. In doing so, he not only battled crude racism masquerading as science, but also helped shed light on what science really is. In this sense, he belongs to the rare group of scientists who are equally at home in the laboratory and while talking about science and ideology at a philosophical level. Lewontin is a popular exponent of what science is, and more pertinently, what it is not.

Lewontin always harked back to what being radical means: going back to fundamentals in deriving a viewpoint. This method is important, as it makes radical inquiry a powerful tool in science, compared to lazier ways of relating positions to certain class viewpoints. What is the relation between genes and race, class, or gender? Does social superiority spring from superior genes, or from biological differences between the sexes? As a Marxist and activist, Lewontin believed that we need to fight at both levels: to expose class, race and gender stereotypes as a reflection of power within society, and also at the level of radical science, meaning from the fundamentals of scientific theory and data.

Richard Lewontin and the population geneticist and mathematical ecologist Richard Levins shared a passion for biology, social activism and Marxism. It is not so well known that Lewontin’s close friend Stephen Jay Gould—the paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and popular science writer—was also a fellow Marxist. All three of them fought a lifelong battle against the racializing of biology and, later, sociobiology, which sought to ‘explain’ every social phenomenon as derived from our genes. Evolutionary biologists E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins—and many others—believed that humans are programmed so that society merely expresses what is already embedded in our genes. Through their eyes, white races are superior because of their genetic superiority; as are the rich. In India, there is also a genetic theory of caste to explain the supposed differences between caste groups. And as long as there are significant differences between groups of people—based on class, race, gender or caste—biological ‘explanations’ for these differences will be offered.

One of Lewontin’s pathbreaking works was to find out how much genetic diversity exists within species. This was at a time when we did not know how many genes humans had. Lewontin’s inspired guess was 20,000, far smaller than what most biologists thought then and remarkably close to what is known today. Most biologists then also believed that races had significant biological differences, which was one of the reasons why they thought that there was a much larger number of genes carrying different traits. Lewontin and geneticist John Hubby used a technique, protein gel electrophoresis, developed by Hubby, to quantify the genetic diversity in fruit flies. At that time, fruit flies were the favorite target for testing genetic theories in the laboratory. This pathbreaking exercise traced evolution at the species level to changes at the molecular level—a foundation for the field of molecular evolution—using statistical methods. The result was startling. Contrary to what most biologists believed, the exercise showed a surprising amount of genetic diversity within a given population and further revealed that evolution led to stable and diverse populations within a species. Later on, Lewontin used this method on human blood groups, to show that the result of stable genetic diversity held true for humans as well. The other result of the human blood group study was that it showed that 85.4 percent of the genetic diversity in humans was found within a population, and only 6.3 percent between ‘races.’ Race was not a biological construct but a social one.

Read the rest at Pressenza.

This article was produced in partnership with Newsclick.

Prabir Purkayastha is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement.

Photo Credit: Gringer/Wikimedia Commons