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Reality Winner, Whistleblower on Russian Hacking, Is Released From Prison
Peter Maass, The Intercept
Maass writes: "Reality Winner, the most prominent and harshly punished whistleblower of the Trump era, has been released to a halfway house after serving most of her five-year sentence for leaking a classified document on Russia's effort to hack the 2016 U.S. presidential election."
Winner, who received the longest-ever prison sentence for serving as a journalistic source, has moved to a federal halfway house in Texas.
Court filings make clear that Winner had wanted to make Americans aware that the government had concluded that Russia secretly tried to gain access to U.S. voting systems in 2016, contrary to what the Trump administration said in 2017. Winner was a contractor for the National Security Agency when she disclosed the document, which was published by The Intercept in June 2017. The NSA document described phishing attempts by Russian military intelligence against local U.S. election officials — and was the most convincing evidence to emerge of the Russian effort.
Winner was prosecuted under the Espionage Act, even though election officials in the U.S. indicated that it was her action, rather than warnings from their own government, that had made them aware they were targets of Russian hackers. While the Obama administration had used the draconian Espionage Act against a record number of leakers, none received a sentence as long as Winner’s, who pled guilty rather than face what could have been an even longer sentence if she had gone to trial.
The injustice of her case was highlighted when Marina Butina, a Russian national, received an 18-month sentence in 2018 for trying to influence American political figures without registering as a foreign agent. It struck many observers as dumbfounding that an actual Russian agent would receive a lighter jail sentence than an American trying to reveal a secret Russian effort to alter the outcome of an election. Winner was even denied compassionate release during the Covid-19 pandemic — and subsequently contracted the disease.
Although Winner was prosecuted by President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, the decorated Air Force veteran has not received any favors from President Joe Biden. She has been released according to a normal schedule that takes account of her good behavior while behind bars, her lawyer said in a statement. Winner’s request for a pardon and commutation of her sentence has not been granted.
“It is wonderful news that Reality Winner is finally out of prison,” said Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept. “Her arrest and 63-month sentence, the longest in federal court history for the alleged crime of being a journalist’s source, was a massive injustice meant to silence other whistleblowers and threaten the practice of national security journalism. The Trump Justice Department should never have prosecuted her, and President Biden should have pardoned her.”
The Press Freedom Defense Fund, which is part of First Look Institute, The Intercept’s parent company, supported Winner’s legal defense.
Winner was serving her sentence at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, and is now in a halfway house in the state. She remains formally incarcerated. According to a statement from her lawyer, Alison Grinter Allen, “Reality and her family have asked for privacy during the transition process as they work to heal the trauma of incarceration and build back the years lost. Her release is not a product of the pardon or compassionate release process, but rather the time earned from exemplary behavior while incarcerated.”
President Joe Biden. (photo: Tom Brenner/Reuters)
White House Backs Repeal of 2002 Military Force Authorization
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Efforts to repeal a 2002 US authorization for use of military force against Iraq got a boost Monday when the White House backed the idea, saying ending the AUMF would have 'minimal impact' on current operations."
The House voted in 2020 and 2019 to do away with the AUMF, but it was never taken up in the Senate, which was under Republican control.
fforts to repeal a 2002 US authorization for use of military force against Iraq got a boost Monday when the White House backed the idea, saying ending the AUMF would have "minimal impact" on current operations.
The development comes as the House of Representatives prepares to vote this week on bipartisan legislation that would repeal the longstanding AUMF, which authorized force against Saddam Hussein's regime.
"The administration supports the repeal of the 2002 AUMF, as the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis," the White House said in a statement of administration policy.
"Repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations."
The House voted in 2020 and 2019 to do away with the AUMF, but it was never taken up in the Senate, which was under Republican control.
The latest White House statement opens the door to a likely Senate vote on repeal, as Democratic leadership apparently has been waiting for a signal from President Joe Biden's administration.
Supporters of the repeal say the AUMF has long outlived its purpose, but opponents argue that ending such authorization would hamstring US counterterrorism missions.
The 2002 AUMF, for example, was claimed as the legal backstop for the Trump administration's killing of Qassem Soleimani, a senior Iranian military official, in Baghdad in 2020.
A broader AUMF, passed by Congress just days after the September 11 attacks of 2001, also remains on the books.
It authorizes force against perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the text has been used as justification for US military action in more than a dozen countries against associated forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
But the White House signaled that, too, could be repealed or modified.
"The president is committed to working with Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats," the statement said.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine called the White House statement "an important first step in working together on war power issues."
The War Powers Resolution, enacted in 1973 over Richard Nixon's veto, was a way for Congress to claw back its authority following a massive, undeclared war in Vietnam.
It states that "the president in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States armed force into hostilities," and forbids troops from remaining for more than 90 days without congressional authorization for use of military force.
Mitch McConnell. (photo: CNN)
McConnell: 'Highly Unlikely' I Would Let Biden Fill Supreme Court Seat in 2024
Martin Pengelly, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "I think it's highly unlikely - in fact, no, I don't think either party, if it were different from the president, would confirm a supreme court nominee in the middle of an election,' McConnell told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host."
he Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Monday it was “highly unlikely” he would allow Joe Biden to fill a supreme court vacancy arising in 2024, the year of the next presidential election, if Republicans regained control of the chamber.
“I think it’s highly unlikely – in fact, no, I don’t think either party, if it were different from the president, would confirm a supreme court nominee in the middle of an election,” McConnell told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host.
McConnell blocked Barack Obama from filling a vacancy in 2016, denying Merrick Garland, now attorney general, even a hearing after he was nominated to fill the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia.
McConnell said that was because no new justice should be seated in an election year – a position he reversed with alacrity in 2020, on the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg two months before polling day.
Ginsburg, a liberal lion, was replaced by the conservative Amy Coney Barrett, tipping the court 6-3 to the right. Major cases are coming up on abortion rights, gun control, affirmative action and more.
McConnell claimed then, and repeated to Hewitt, that no new justice should be seated in an election year when the White House and the Senate are controlled by different parties.
“I think in the middle of a presidential election,” McConnell said, “if you have a Senate of the opposite party of the president, you have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy was filled.
“So I think it’s highly unlikely. In fact, no, I don’t think either party if it controlled, if it were different from the president would confirm a supreme court nominee in the middle of an election. What was different in 2020 was we were of the same party as the president. And that’s why we went ahead with it.”
Asked what would happen if a vacancy arose in 2023 with Republicans in control of the Senate, McConnell said: “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
He also said keeping Scalia’s seat open – to be filled under Donald Trump by Neil Gorsuch – “is the single most consequential thing I’ve done in my time as majority leader of the Senate”.
McConnell’s hardball tactics have contributed to his status as a hate figure among progressives. On Monday, much online reaction to his remarks focused on beseeching Stephen Breyer, a liberal and at 82 the oldest justice on the current court, to retire while Biden is in the White House and Democrats hold the Senate.
Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, said: “Exactly as I wrote last week. McConnell will NOT fill a Breyer seat if he’s majority leader, even if he has to wait two years with the seat open.”
Jeet Heer, a columnist for the Nation, wrote: “Can someone send this to USA supreme court justice Stephen Breyer. Thanks!”
The conservative hold on the court was strengthened in 2018 when Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote on civil rights issues, stepped down and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, once an official in the White House of George W Bush.
Kavanaugh faced and denied allegations of sexual assault during a stormy confirmation but McConnell said he was “stronger than mule piss” in support and the process was duly completed.
Breyer, appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994, has shown little inclination to follow Kennedy’s example and step aside for a younger justice.
Last month, he angered some on the left by telling high school and middle school students the key to working with conservatives was to talk to them more.
Among progressives, support is growing for countering conservative dominance of the court by increasing the number of justices. Republicans are stringently opposed.
McConnell told Hewitt he wanted to give Breyer “a shout out, though, because he joined what Justice Ginsburg said in 2019, that nine is the right number for the supreme court, and I admire him for that. I think even the liberal justices on the supreme court have made it clear that court packing is a terrible idea.”
The number of justices on the court is not fixed in the constitution.
Boeing briefly swore off political donations in the wake of the Capitol riot. (photo: Guardian UK)
Boeing Restarts Donations to Members of the So-Called 'Sedition Caucus'
Roger Sollenberger, The Daily Beast
Sollenberger writes: "After briefly swearing off political donations in the wake of the Capitol riot, Boeing is now throwing cash at officials who fought to overturn the results of the 2020 election."
The aerospace and defense giant paused political contributions after Jan. 6. But only for a little bit.
fter briefly swearing off political donations in the wake of the Capitol riot, Boeing is now throwing cash at officials who fought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In a recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, the defense contractor’s political action committee reported major contributions to three Republican members of Congress who voted to challenge the results of the Electoral College: Rep. Steve Scalise; Rep. Vicky Hartzler; and Rep. Jack Bergman.
The report, Boeing’s first to show political contributions after the assault on the Capitol, also disclosed a $25,000 gift to the Republican Attorneys General Association, whose fundraising arm helped promote the Jan. 6 rally to “stop the steal.” Boeing contributed less than half that amount to the organization’s Democratic counterpart.
Boeing gave Scalise and Hartzler each a $5,000 donation, the maximum limit for an election. Bergman, a Michigan conservative who in December pushed erroneous claims of election fraud in his home state, got half that amount. (Boeing has previously donated to all three.)
Boeing also gave money to Democratic officials like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as well as to Republicans who voted to certify the election results. The aerospace and defense giant also gave the maximum $105,000 to both parties’ House and Senate campaign committees.
The three other representatives, however, have continued to challenge the factual election narrative after the insurrection. Scalise promoted the Big Lie in the media a month after Biden’s inauguration. In May, two weeks after his Boeing contribution rolled in, the House minority whip pushed his GOP colleagues to oppose the creation of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission. Bergman and Hartzler also voted against the commission, and received their checks five days later.
Scalise—who survived a gunshot wound during a June 2017 attack on a group of Republican House members—was also among the first names attached to an amicus brief filed last December in support of a doomed attempt to persuade the Supreme Court to toss the election results. Bergman and Hartzler also put their names on the brief, as did two other Republicans who got max donations from Boeing last month—Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy.
That lawsuit was authored by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a RAGA member and former chair. Seventeen Republican state attorneys general joined the quixotic effort, which the high court shot down in a pithy unsigned ruling three days after it was filed. Last week, the State Bar of Texas reportedly launched an investigation into Paxton, citing his efforts to overturn the election, and the Supreme Court filing specifically.
RAGA had thrown its weight behind similar court challenges almost immediately after the election. Its fundraising affiliate, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, helped organize Jan. 6 protests in DC and blasted out robocalls encouraging Republicans to join what became an insurrection against Congress. RAGA’s involvement in those events has led to the resignation of at least three officials, including its director at the time. The group’s new chair, former finance director Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, said he would order an internal investigation, but the probe’s status is unclear.
Boeing did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
In response to public outrage following the insurrection, hundreds of corporations declared they would halt or curtail political giving. Most, but not all, followed through on those pledges, which ranged from total bipartisan abstention to suspensions targeting the so-called “sedition caucus” of members who challenged the Electoral College outcome.
Boeing joined the ranks on Jan. 13, when it announced its PAC would pause all political donations indefinitely. “Boeing strongly condemns the violence, lawlessness and destruction that took place in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Given the current environment, we are not making political contributions at this time,” the company said in a statement.
It was joined at the time by other aerospace giants, including Lockheed and BAE Systems, both of which have also resumed donations.
Boeing was the 77th largest political donor in 2020, having given roughly $7.6 million between its PAC and individual employees, according to data compiled by Open Secrets. Its top recipient was the Senate Majority Fund, a super PAC connected to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who decried the events of Jan. 6 and voted to confirm Biden’s victory. Neither McConnell nor the super PAC has received money from Boeing this year.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. (photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
Haaland Urges Biden to Fully Protect Three National Monuments Weakened by Donald Trump
Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
Eilperin writes: "Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has recommended in a confidential report that President Biden restore full protections to three national monuments diminished by President Donald Trump."
nterior Secretary Deb Haaland has recommended in a confidential report that President Biden restore full protections to three national monuments diminished by President Donald Trump, including Utah’s Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and a huge marine reserve off New England. The move, described by two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was not yet public, would preserve about 5 million acres of federal land and water.
A broad coalition of conservationists, scientists and tribal activists has urged Biden to expand the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which were established by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, respectively, to their original boundaries. Trump cut Bears Ears by nearly 85 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante almost in half, in December 2017. A year ago, he permitted commercial fishing on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which removed most of the monument’s protections.
The White House is still deliberating, according to these people, but Biden favors the idea of overturning Trump’s actions. Employing the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad latitude to protect threatened land and water, ranks as one of the easiest ways for Biden to conserve areas unilaterally.
Neither the White House nor the Interior Department would comment when asked about the matter Monday. But Justice Department lawyers confirmed in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this month that the Interior Department submitted its recommendations to the White House on June 2.
Conservationists celebrated Haaland’s recommendation.
“These sites are sacred spaces that provide healing and sustain life,” Theresa Pierno, president and chief executive of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email. “They preserve troves of ancient fossils and artifacts and hold centuries of human history. And they border some of our most iconic national park landscapes in the country.There’s no question that these treasured lands and waters deserve the utmost protections.”
Pierno called Haaland’s recommendation “a testament to the Tribal nations, local communities and businesses, conservation organizations and countless people across the country who spoke out and fought tirelessly to protect” the monuments, and urged Biden to accept it.
All three areas have been embroiled in legal fights for years. Fishing operators challenged Obama’s 2016 decision to restrict commercial activities for 4,913 square miles off Cape Cod, Mass., which banned seabed mining and some fishing activities immediately while giving lobster and red crab operators seven years to stop fishing there. The region is home to many species of deep-sea coral, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds and deep-diving marine mammals, as well as massive underground canyons and seamounts that rise as high as 7,700 feet from the ocean floor.
“This area is very important to us,” Jim Budi, an official with the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters, said in an interview. He added that his members brought in about 25 percent of their annual catch from the region last summer after Trump lifted commercial fishing restrictions. They’ve sustainably caught swordfish by staying below limits set by federal regulators, he said.
Reviving the Obama-era limits, Budi said, “doesn’t do any conservation good, whatsoever.”
In Utah, many ranchers and Republican politicians pressed Trump to scale back the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, both of which boast dramatic slot canyons, stunning mesas and unspoiled terrain for wildlife to roam. They also hold treasures that could yield significant profit, including coal, uranium and gas. Looters have targeted Bears Ears’s archaeological sites, which are sacred to several tribes that trace their roots to the area, as well as the myriad fossils buried within Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has recommended in a confidential report that President Biden restore full protections to three national monuments diminished by President Donald Trump, including Utah’s Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and a huge marine reserve off New England. The move, described by two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was not yet public, would preserve about 5 million acres of federal land and water.
A broad coalition of conservationists, scientists and tribal activists has urged Biden to expand the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which were established by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, respectively, to their original boundaries. Trump cut Bears Ears by nearly 85 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante almost in half, in December 2017. A year ago, he permitted commercial fishing on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which removed most of the monument’s protections.
The White House is still deliberating, according to these people, but Biden favors the idea of overturning Trump’s actions. Employing the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president broad latitude to protect threatened land and water, ranks as one of the easiest ways for Biden to conserve areas unilaterally.
Neither the White House nor the Interior Department would comment when asked about the matter Monday. But Justice Department lawyers confirmed in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this month that the Interior Department submitted its recommendations to the White House on June 2.
Conservationists celebrated Haaland’s recommendation.
“These sites are sacred spaces that provide healing and sustain life,” Theresa Pierno, president and chief executive of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email. “They preserve troves of ancient fossils and artifacts and hold centuries of human history. And they border some of our most iconic national park landscapes in the country.There’s no question that these treasured lands and waters deserve the utmost protections.”
Interactive: See what remains of native culture in Bears Ears
Pierno called Haaland’s recommendation “a testament to the Tribal nations, local communities and businesses, conservation organizations and countless people across the country who spoke out and fought tirelessly to protect” the monuments, and urged Biden to accept it.
All three areas have been embroiled in legal fights for years. Fishing operators challenged Obama’s 2016 decision to restrict commercial activities for 4,913 square miles off Cape Cod, Mass., which banned seabed mining and some fishing activities immediately while giving lobster and red crab operators seven years to stop fishing there. The region is home to many species of deep-sea coral, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds and deep-diving marine mammals, as well as massive underground canyons and seamounts that rise as high as 7,700 feet from the ocean floor.
“This area is very important to us,” Jim Budi, an official with the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters, said in an interview. He added that his members brought in about 25 percent of their annual catch from the region last summer after Trump lifted commercial fishing restrictions. They’ve sustainably caught swordfish by staying below limits set by federal regulators, he said.
Reviving the Obama-era limits, Budi said, “doesn’t do any conservation good, whatsoever.”
In Utah, many ranchers and Republican politicians pressed Trump to scale back the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, both of which boast dramatic slot canyons, stunning mesas and unspoiled terrain for wildlife to roam. They also hold treasures that could yield significant profit, including coal, uranium and gas. Looters have targeted Bears Ears’s archaeological sites, which are sacred to several tribes that trace their roots to the area, as well as the myriad fossils buried within Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Advocacy groups have been fighting Trump’s orders to lift those protections at all three sites.
The five tribes that make up the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition — the Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe and Pueblo of Zuni — spent the Trump years “hunkering down” and organizing the effort to restore the national monument on land in southeastern Utah they view as central to their culture and history, Pat Gonzales-Rogers, the group’s executive director, said in an interview.
Told about Haaland’s recommendation to the White House to restore Bears Ears, Gonzales-Rogers said, “If that is indeed the case, we certainly stand in support.”
He added: “We were optimistic all along. And I think for me this is the fruition of a lot of the efforts of the leadership as well as the staff of the coalition. It is the thought, the vision, as well as the articulation from all of our tribal leaders. It would be a great and fantastic day.”
On his first day in office, Biden ordered the Interior Department to review the three monument designations, in consultation with other key agencies, as part of a broader executive order aimed at expanding environmental protections. The president also has instructed the department to take the lead in fulfilling his pledge to protect 30 percent of U.S. land and water by 2030, although the administration has offered few details about how it will execute that plan.
In April, Haaland visited the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in her first trip as interior secretary. She met with Republican politicians including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who have warned Biden against using an executive order to restore the monuments. Utah Republicans say they want federal legislation that would define the two sites’ boundaries so that subsequent administrations couldn’t keep changing them.
“We reiterate our request that the president publicly release the Secretary’s report recommendations and meet with our delegation before making a final decision on the monuments’ boundaries,” Utah’s congressional delegation said in a joint statement. “We also urge the administration to work with our delegation, as well as with state, local, and tribal leaders, to craft a permanent, legislative solution, which we believe is the only path to resolving this longstanding issue and providing much-needed certainty to our communities.”
Cox, in statement, said: “I’m disappointed by this recommendation. I think there’s a better way, and I look forward to talking with the president about how to find a lasting solution that’s better for the land and everyone involved.”
The past year of the coronavirus pandemic put national parks and monuments to the test nationwide, as Americans in great numbers took refuge in outdoor spaces. More than 420,000 people are estimated to have visited Bears Ears last year. Volunteers in the area have been dismayed by tourists leaving behind trash, scribbling over ancient rock art and looting the remnants of Native American settlements.
The tribal coalition had initially asked the Obama administration to protect 1.9 million acres around Bears Ears, but it established boundaries spanning 1.35 million acres. The tribes also have been asking the Biden administration for the larger boundary as well as more authority to help manage the monument along with the federal government. Although Trump shrank the site to encompass 228,784 acres in two separate parcels, his declaration added about 1,200 acres that were not in Obama’s initial designation.
Haaland’s recommendation to restore the Obama-era boundaries was a “good place” to start, Gonzales-Rogers said, although he added that there should be more discussion to define how tribes and the government could manage the monument in a collaborative way.
Even if Biden accepts the secretary’s advice, a protracted court fight probably would follow.
Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a phone interview that he is confident that the administration could defend expanding the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments. In 2004 the Utah Association of Counties and the Mountain States Legal Foundation lost a lawsuit challenging the original size of Grand Staircase-Escalante, a ruling that was upheld on appeal.
“We know that presidents have the authority to do this,” Bloch said. “There’s not a single instance where that’s been overturned.”
Still, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. gave some conservatives hope three months ago when he sharply criticized the expanse of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Noting that the law was initially aimed at protecting Pueblo artifacts in the Southwest, he said the accompanying protected land must “be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
“A statute permitting the President in his sole discretion to designate as monuments ‘landmarks,’ ‘structures,’ and ‘objects’ — along with the smallest area of land compatible with their management — has been transformed into a power without any discernible limit to set aside vast and amorphous expanses of terrain above and below the sea,” Roberts wrote, as the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court decision on the monument. “The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument at issue in this case demonstrates how far we have come from indigenous pottery.”
Atlantic Red Crab Company owner Jon Williams, who has intervened in an ongoing lawsuit to defend Trump’s changes to the monument, said he wouldn’t hesitate to challenge the administration should it reimpose restrictions there.
“I’m already standing by,” he said. “And we’ve already been given a road map to the Supreme Court.”
Aung San Suu Kyi. (photo: Aung Shine Oo/AP)
Trial Begins for Ousted Myanmar Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Following Military Coup
Jessie Yeung, CNN
Yeung writes: "Myanmar's ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial Monday, more than four months after the country's military seized power in a coup."
READ MORE
Suburban housing near Santa Clarita, California. (photo: halbergman/Getty Images)
The Population Conversation: Lessons From 200+ Organizations
Adoma Addo and Kelley Dennings, Center for Biological Diversity
Excerpt: "In the 50 years since the modern environmental movement was born, human population has more than doubled and our demands on the planet have skyrocketed."
n the 50 years since the modern environmental movement was born, human population has more than doubled and our demands on the planet have skyrocketed. The pressure of our growing population, along with the consumption driven by the destructive industries that monopolize food and energy production, are widely recognized as key drivers of the climate and extinction crises. Yet, according to recent research, most conservation and environmental organizations don't address population growth head-on.
The Center for Biological Diversity, where we work, conducted an online analysis of 228 organizations' websites — from climate change groups to health institutions — to study how different groups discuss population and their specific areas of focus when talking about population. The goal was to identify areas of overlap for collaboration and the common vocabulary used between these oftentimes siloed fields.
The scan revealed some interesting takeaways useful to all organizations working in the environmental, climate change and conservation fields. Chief among them: We found that incorporating the rights and justice goals of health organizations can help environmental organizations speak directly about how population dynamics affect the environment, which will improve ecological resilience and support the rights and health of people.
We also found that while many climate change organizations' websites discuss the population pressure solutions noted in Project Drawdown (namely, advancement in agricultural, carbon capture and transportation technologies), they often leave out the health and education solutions that affect population growth rates.
Conservation organizations similarly give a nod to population growth as a driver in the extinction crisis but do not discuss solutions-oriented, people-centered approaches to reducing the impacts of human-caused environmental pressure. Many of these groups seem to see population growth as inevitable, offering adaptation-focused solutions aimed at increasing sustainable use of natural resources.
Health organization websites adopt human-centric approaches to reproductive health, highlighting the social, economic and health benefits of improved access to voluntary family planning services. But they do not talk about population pressure.
Population-focused organizations do address the issue head-on because it's core to their mission, but their efforts to educate the public about the effects of population growth often fail to mention the importance of consumption behaviors and systemic inequalities.
When rapid population growth was represented on websites, the most commonly proposed solutions were advocating for voluntary family planning, gender equity and empowerment (usually explicitly for women), youth empowerment, and advocating for and improving access to comprehensive sex education.
Although the topic is often perceived as being controversial, the impacts of population growth are widely recognized across different sectors. Population pressure is not excluded from the present discourse about environmental changes and human/nature interactions, but it also is rarely addressed in a direct or comprehensive way.
While many organizations may support adaptation policies and technologies and/or recognize population growth as an inevitable burden, they fail to acknowledge the structural barriers and inequalities that create unmet needs for family planning and suppress women's voices and autonomy.
Environmental groups that ignore population pressure miss an opportunity to discuss upstream climate mitigation and adaptation solutions — like universal access to family planning — that highlight the intersections of health, justice, equity and choice.
Simply mentioning population growth as a threat to the environment can be reductionist — focusing on numbers alone without considering the oppression of people and the responsibility of wealthy polluters can open the door to eco-fascism. But rather than ignore this important issue, organizations can appropriately campaign around population growth in ways that align with their values:
- Conservation organizations should incorporate solutions-oriented, people-centered approaches to reducing the impacts of human-caused environmental pressure to their work. Such approaches focus on reproductive health, rights and justice and women's empowerment.
- Building cross-sectoral collaborations would support the work of all groups involved and could enhance environmental, social, economic and health benefits.
- All organizations should acknowledge how both patriarchy and capitalism affect people and the planet. These larger systems are impacting the work of all organizations reviewed.
- Given the appeal of technological adaptation to many organizations, environmental groups could extend the use of the term "technology" to contraception (i.e., modern contraception is a climate change mitigation technology) ensuring that the most vulnerable populations are included and empowered in climate action.
- Recognizing how universal access to family planning and comprehensive sex education relate to climate change resiliency may resonate well with other groups across different disciplines.
Because population pressure is a potentially polarizing topic that many groups are averse to discussing, focusing on these rights-based solutions can be helpful when connecting with these different fields.
Reproductive rights and the full ability to decide if and when to start a family vary greatly across the United States. There are differing levels of access to quality health and family planning services, as well as different sexual education standards across states. With the unmet need for family planning ranging from 9% to 13% across various demographic groups and intensifying restrictions on abortion and healthcare coverage, there is a wealth of opportunity for environmental groups to support reproductive justice and human wellbeing while advancing environmental resiliency.
For example, the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act would permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule, which cuts off funding to health care providers that perform, counsel or refer patients on abortion care, interfering in client/health care provider relationships. Or the Health Equity and Access Under the Law (HEAL) Act, which will help immigrants get the health care they need by removing the restrictions that prevent them from being insured; these restrictions disproportionately harm Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander and other immigrants of color.
By advocating for reproductive freedom through universal family planning access through the support of the aforementioned acts and increasing comprehensive sex education while supporting gender equity within the United States, we can work for a future in which people and the planet can not only survive but thrive.
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