Friday, February 5, 2021
Data & Picard
A Pogo remix of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Details below.
Temba, his arms wide! In Tamarian this signifies the giving of a gift, first heard in the excellent episode Darmok. Data & Picard is my tribute to one of the greatest TV series of all time. It is an original track featuring the voices of Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Commander Data (Brent Spiner), accompanied by a music video I shot entirely in my living room with a green screen and lights.
The track opens with the Klingon Victory Song, followed by a remix of Data singing Che Gelida Manina in the episode 'In Theory'. This episode was the first ever to be directed by Patrick Stewart and I didn't realize this until after the track was finished.
I sourced the Ben Nye makeup that was used to turn Spiner into Data, and a replica of the iconic Star Fleet uniform. Unfortunately I couldn't get the contact lenses in and I could only get the uniform in red, so I spent a huge amount of time changing the colour of my eyes and uniform in post.
RSN: FOCUS: Robert Reich | We Must Stand in Solidarity With the Amazon Workers Organizing for a Union
05 February 21
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FOCUS: Robert Reich | We Must Stand in Solidarity With the Amazon Workers Organizing for a Union
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
Reich writes: "Amazon is quietly forcing warehouse workers to sign up for brutal, 10-hour graveyard shifts known as 'megacycles' or risk losing their jobs."
Management at a Chicago warehouse gave workers two weeks’ notice that their warehouse was being shut down, and that workers could either sign up for megacycle shifts that run from 1:20am to 11:50am at a new warehouse or lose their jobs. The Chicago warehouse being shut down is one of the best-organized in the country, and has seen a surge in worker activism during the pandemic that has successfully changed Amazon’s nationwide policies in warehouses.
There is no bottom to Amazon’s cruel anti-worker exploitation. More than half of Amazon’s last-mile delivery network has already been transitioned to the brutal megacycle format. How are parents supposed to work this shift? Workers caring for elderly family members? Workers who rely on public transportation? In addition to being inflexible, the 10 hours of the megacycle shift take a brutal toll on workers and increase the risk for workplace injuries, which is already high in Amazon warehouses. A megacycle worker summed it up: “Jeff Bezos doesn’t just own your time at work; he owns your entire weekend that you’re in bed recovering so you can go back to the warehouse.”
This is why we must stand in solidarity with the Amazon workers organizing for a union in Bessemer, Alabama. Amazon has been busting unions, quashing labor activism, and exploiting workers for far too long. A successful union in Alabama will set the stage for Amazon workers across the country to organize and fight back against Amazon’s exploitation.
POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: POLICE COMMISSIONER SAGA continues — AUCHINCLOSS Q&A — Smooth sailing at WALSH hearing
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RSN: Bill McKibben | Biden Needs to Combat Zombie Trumpism
05 February 21
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04 February 21
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Bill McKibben | Biden Needs to Combat Zombie Trumpism
Bill McKibben, The New Yorker
McKibben writes: "The blizzard of federal climate initiatives last week (a blizzard that might help allow actual blizzards to persist into the future) is without precedent."
For the first time in the thirty-plus years of our awareness of the climate crisis, Washington roused itself to urgent action; veterans of the cautious Obama Administration—the domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy and the global climate czar John Kerry chief among them—were suddenly going for broke. In fact, only one branch of the Cabinet seemed conspicuous by its muted presence: the Department of Agriculture, which has responsibility for the nation’s farms and for many of its forests—that is, for the natural features that will either speed or slow the flow of carbon into the atmosphere.
The new (and returning) Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, has been regarded among activists as one of Joe Biden’s less inspiring Cabinet choices: a confrère of Big Ag. But who knows—the spirit of possibility in D.C. might be contagious in the best sense of the word. We may see how far it’s spreading in the next few weeks, by watching the fate of the remote Yaak Valley, on Montana’s Canadian border. The Forest Service—an arm, somewhat anomalously, of the Agriculture Department—is about to decide on a timber sale in the Yaak area of the Kootenai National Forest. The Black Ram Project, if approved, would consign a vast swath of old-growth forest and grizzly-bear habitat in the Yaak to clear-cutting, and would run roads through one of the wildest places remaining in the lower forty-eight states. As it happens, I’ve had the chance to hike that wilderness: the writer Rick Bass, who lives in the area and has made it his life’s work to try to keep this region ecologically intact, took me over hill and dale years ago, and I can still remember the squelching, buzzing beauty of the place.
By all accounts, the Forest Service is on the brink of approving the Black Ram Project. It’s a holdover from the Trump years, when the ex-President (for whom a forest is the place your golf ball goes when you slice it) mandated huge increases in timber cuts in national forests. He explained them as necessary to reduce the risk of forest fires. But, as many biologists pointed out, if there’s any worth to such plans, it comes from thinning the smallest trees, not chopping down the old-growth ones that timber companies prize—and which are on the block in the Yaak. Indeed, if you’re interested in averting catastrophic global warming (and the fires that it sparks), one of the easiest, cheapest ways to do it is to leave large old trees standing. That’s why Bass has been calling for a “climate refuge” in the Yaak. He says that we need to “protect the great lungs of our country, the northern tier of inland rainforests, which still offer some hope for sequestering carbon in the old spruce and subalpine fir forests, which can hold 80 percent more carbon in the soil than the drier pine forests.”
In a statement, Randi Spivak, the Public Lands Program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is helping fight the proposed clear-cut, described the project as “the last gasp of Trump’s horrifying mismanagement of our national forests and protected wildlife habitat,” adding that “what little old-growth forests remain after decades of clearcutting must be protected. We’ll fight to stop this destruction, and we hope the Biden administration will reverse it.” Like the Line 3 and Dakota Access pipelines, the plan to gut the Yaak would almost certainly not be proposed in today’s political climate. But tomorrow’s actual climate depends on stopping these examples of zombie Trumpism; we’re so close to the climate cataract that we can’t afford to let inertia and interest carry us any farther down the river.
It’s clear that John Kerry has one of the harder jobs on the Biden team, restoring world confidence in America’s willingness to take on the planet’s most difficult challenge—one that we did more than almost any other country to cause. As he labors to get other nations working in harmony, he’ll need as pristine a record as possible back home to underscore his credibility. Cancelling the Black Ram timber sale would make it that much easier to persuade other countries to do the right thing. It would send a deeper message, too. The most important statement that Kerry ever made in his public career came very early. When he was still in his twenties, and a leader of the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he said this to a congressional committee: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” That’s where we are circa 2021 in the climate fight: we’re acknowledging the stupidity of standard ways of doing business. So we should just stop. Right now, before any more damage is done.
Passing the Mic
Much of the most important work of the climate movement is done by local groups and by local chapters of national groups—they’re the ones who know how to work the state houses and city halls to get legislation passed. One of the most impressive operations in the country is the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), where, for almost two decades, Mike Tidwell, the executive director, has helped make the states surrounding the national capital some of the most progressive in the country on climate and energy issues. One of his newest lieutenants is Kim Jemaine, who was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and now lobbies the Virginia legislature. On February 13th, like all CCAN recruits, she’ll join the organization’s annual Polar Bear Plunge fund-raiser. The plunge is usually into the icy Potomac, but this year it’s going “brrr-tual.” (Our conversation has been edited for length.)
How did you get involved in climate-change work?
I started my career working on election campaigns. Climate change was always part of my candidates’ platforms. After some time in the electoral world, I decided I wanted to effect change on a systemic level, through policy development. I have a daughter with ambitious goals, and I want to insure that children like her have a habitable earth and enough time to live out their dreams. I also think that climate impacts highlight systems of injustice at work. Black and brown people bear the burden of poor air quality, exploitative fossil-fuel projects, and the legacies of systems like redlining, which have placed them at higher risk for the deadly impacts of rising temperatures. We often talk about the intersections of injustice, but I’ve started to see them as layers that encumber certain communities. I care deeply about doing what I can to lift some of those layers of injustice.
We’re used to thinking of climate change as a tough issue in the South, but, in Georgia’s recent U.S. Senate races, voters went for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, who both talked a lot about climate change. Do you think it will be an issue in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial election?
Climate change has become an increasingly relevant issue for voters. Like you said, Warnock and Ossoff both campaigned on it, and we saw Biden run multiple climate-focussed ads. I absolutely think it will be a significant issue in Virginia’s gubernatorial election. Virginians in Hampton Roads are already facing the impacts of recurrent flooding and rising sea levels. Communities like Montgomery and Giles Counties are fighting off unnecessary pipelines that represent the death throes of the fossil-fuel industry. Previously redlined areas in Richmond are being disproportionately affected by dangerously high summer temperatures. The impacts of climate change are not far off. For many Virginians, they are real and they are current. Folks will be looking to gubernatorial candidates for tangible plans to tackle this issue and secure a livable climate for future generations.
Big utility players like Dominion Energy have been a dominant force in Virginia politics. Is that beginning to fade? Describe what the climate-justice movement looks like in your region.
I think Dominion’s influence is fading slowly but surely. Close to fifty state legislators have already sworn off Dominion money, including a number of the gubernatorial candidates. However, certain legislators still gladly accept Dominion contributions and champion its causes. It will be an uphill battle to loosen its grip on Virginia politics. The climate-justice movement in Virginia is, and has been, community-led. Virginians in places like Union Hill and Montgomery County have organized and mobilized to protect their communities and public spaces. They have catalyzed policy to codify and operationalize environmental justice, increase inspection and enforcement of environmental standards for fossil-fuel projects, and protect historically significant spaces for Black and brown communities. While environmental and climate organizations have a hand in policy development and legislative input, the climate-justice victories on the ground have been secured by the people.
Climate School
Robin Kimmerer is one of the wisest ecologists I know. In this essay for Orion Magazine, she reflects on nature and language, asking why plants and animals are always referred to using the pronoun “it.”
Lloyd Austin, the new Secretary of Defense, came out as a climate hawk in one of his earliest pronouncements last week. “The Department of Defense will also support incorporating climate risk analysis into modeling, simulation, wargaming, analysis, and the next National Defense Strategy,” he said. “And by changing how we approach our own carbon footprint, the Department can also be a platform for positive change, spurring the development of climate-friendly technologies at scale.”
Anand Giridharadas used his newsletter, “The.Ink,” for an interview with Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, who served on the climate task force established by Biden and Bernie Sanders after the 2020 Democratic primaries. “Now we are in a full-blown emergency, and we don’t have the luxury of time or of watering down any kind of plans that we have,” Prakash told Giridharadas. “We will constantly have to push Joe Biden at every step of the way to ensure that he doesn’t just meet these goals, but goes beyond them.”
Writing in Atmos, Whitney Bauck provides one of the deepest accounts I’ve read of how Pope Francis’s remarkable encyclical “Laudato Si’ ” is slowly diffusing out through the vast world of Catholicism, and proving particularly powerful in the Amazon. In the words of Patricia Gualinga, a Kichwa leader in Ecuador, “The changes have been felt since the moment the pope chose the name ‘Francis,’ who within the Catholic faith is a saint who loved all creation as a work of God. [Saint Francis] spoke with nature, understood Brother Wind and Sister Rain, and had this connection to communicate with them just like our Indigenous wise men and women. . . . At that moment, without knowing him, I knew there would be good surprises.”
James Gustave Speth is among the most important environmentalists of our time. A founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, he went on to serve as the chair of Jimmy Carter’s Council on Environmental Quality, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, and the dean of Yale’s famous School of the Environment. He’s now co-edited “The New Systems Reader,” a collection of important visions about how we might rethink our economy. (I first heard him lecture about these ideas in a D.C. jail cell, to a group arrested in the first Keystone XL-pipeline protests; the quiet force of his thoughts cut through the din of that barren place.)
Scoreboard
United University Professions, the nation’s largest higher-education union, which represents the faculty and the staff of the State University of New York system, is urging T.I.A.A., the giant asset manager that handles most professorial pensions, to divest from fossil fuel.
Last year, for the first time, renewable energy provided more power to the European Union’s electrical grid than fossil fuel did. Bloomberg reported, “Wind and solar generation increased about 10% compared to 2019. Coal production fell 20%, to about half the level it was five years ago.”
The professional scoreboard keepers at the Washington Post are keeping careful track of how many Trump environmental attacks are being rolled back.
There’s been a big victory in the Netherlands, where a court ruled that a Nigerian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell bears responsibility for the oil that spilled from company pipelines across the Niger Delta for decades. Donald Pols, the head of Friends of the Earth in the Netherlands, said, “This is fantastic news for the environment and people living in developing countries,” pointing out that the legal ruling “creates grounds to “take on the multinationals who do them harm.”
Oh, and General Motors has pledged to stop building passenger cars, vans, and S.U.V.s that run on gasoline by 2035.
Warming Up
Here’s the literary voice of the Yaak Valley, Rick Bass, alongside the veteran Montana musician Caroline Keys: words and music from a special place.
Lloyd Austin arrives at the Pentagon for his first day as Defense Secretary in January. (photo: Sarah Silbiger/Getty)
Biden's Secretary of Defense Is Moving to Purge the Military of White Supremacists
Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair
Lutz writes: "Last month's attack on Capitol Hill intensified concerns about extremism within the United States military." VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Lloyd Austin ordered a stand down across all branches of the armed forces to have a “deeper conversation” about the problem. But actually solving it will likely require more direct action.
ast month’s attack on Capitol Hill intensified concerns about extremism within the United States military. Though the number of current or former members of the armed forces who participated in the deadly MAGA riot is unknown, an NPR analysis in late January found that as many as one in five of those charged in the wake of the insurrection had a record of military service. During his confirmation hearing for the role of Joe Biden’s secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin vowed to root out white supremacy and right-wing radicalism in the ranks, though he provided little detail as to how that would be accomplished. “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies,” he said. “But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.”
Austin, the first Black Pentagon chief, took his first major step on Wednesday toward addressing the issue, ordering a “stand down” across all branches of the armed forces over the next two months for leaders to have a “deeper conversation” about the problem. “It comes down to leadership,” he wrote. “Everyone’s.”
But the order, delivered at a meeting with military leaders and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also underscores the challenge of purging extremists from the armed forces: While Lloyd and Biden recognize the threat and have resolved to tackle it—a major and welcome change from the last administration—there isn’t a clear blueprint for how to do so. “We don’t know how we’re going to be able to get after this in a meaningful, productive, tangible way, and that is why he had this meeting today and that is certainly why he ordered this stand down,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday, per NBC News.
The first task for Austin, like Biden, has been cleaning up the mess left by Donald Trump and his cronies—including by clearing out the hundreds of Trump loyalists his predecessor, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, installed in the final days of the previous administration. That’s a significant undertaking on its own. But the new administration has promised not just to return things to where they were the day before Trump took office; it has vowed real progress on multiple fronts. The military stand down is a good start, demonstrating that Austin and the administration as a whole take the issue seriously. But until there are more tangible actions toward addressing it, it’ll remain unclear how much the administration can deliver.
There have been some concrete measures proposed. Jackie Speier, chair of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, called on Biden, Austin, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to direct agencies to screen the social media histories of military recruits and those seeking security clearances for extremism. “The screening processes for servicemembers and others in critical national security positions are outdated,” Speier wrote in a letter last week. “Modernizing background investigations to bring them in line with these new realities should be among your highest priorities as the new administration commences.” Implementing such a policy could go a long way toward keeping white supremacists and other radicals out of the military. But, of course, it doesn’t fully address the threat posed by those already in the ranks. “There wasn’t one being in the room that didn’t agree that there [was] a problem,” Kirby said of Austin’s meeting with Pentagon leaders Wednesday.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. (photo: AP)
Biden to End US Support for Saudi-Led War in Yemen
Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press
Knickmeyer writes: "President Joe Biden will announce an end Thursday to U.S. support for a grinding five-year Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen that has deepened humanitarian suffering in the Arabian peninsula's poorest country, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said." VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
The move would fulfill a campaign pledge by Biden, whose administration plans to pursue diplomacy to end the overall conflict in Yemen. Biden sees the United States “playing a more active and engaged role” to end the war through talks, Sullivan said at a White House briefing.
Biden also is announcing the choice of Timothy Lenderking as special envoy to Yemen as soon as Thursday afternoon, when the president is due to speak at the State Department. A person familiar with the matter confirmed the selection, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. The Gulf-based newspaper The National first reported the pick.
Lenderking has been a deputy assistant secretary of state in the agency’s Middle East section. A career foreign service member, he has served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Saudi Arabia began the offensive in 2015 to counter a Yemeni Houthi faction that had seized territory in Yemen and was launching cross-border missiles at Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led air campaign since then has killed numerous Yemeni civilians, despite U.S. assistance with the Saudi military’s command and control that U.S. officials say was meant to minimize civilian casualties in the bombing campaign. The Obama administration initially greenlighted the Saudi-led offensive. Some of the U.S. officials involved have since said they regret that decision, and are now in the Biden administration as it moves to stop U.S. involvement and end the multiparty conflict.
Survivors display fragments showing the bombs to be American-made. The conflict also has deepened hunger and poverty in Yemen, and international rights experts say both the Gulf countries and Houthis have committed severe rights abuses.
The death of husband and wife Jesse 'Jay' and Cheryl Taken Alive - both due to Covid-19 - delivered a major blow to the clan and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. (photo: Richard Tsong-Taatari/Getty)
Indigenous Americans Dying From Covid at Twice the Rate of White Americans
Nina Lakhani, Guardian UK
Lakhani writes: "Covid is killing Native Americans at a faster rate than any other community in the United States, shocking new figures reveal."
One in every 475 Native Americans has died since the pandemic began: ‘Families have been decimated’
American Indians and Alaskan Natives are dying at almost twice the rate of white Americans, according to analysis by APM Research Lab shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Nationwide one in every 475 Native Americans has died from Covid since the start of the pandemic, compared with one in every 825 white Americans and one in every 645 Black Americans. Native Americans have suffered 211 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 121 white Americans per 100,000.
The true death toll is undoubtedly significantly higher as multiple states and cities provide patchy or no data on Native Americans lost to Covid. Of those that do, communities in Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas have been the hardest hit.
The findings are part of the Lab’s Color of Coronavirus project, and provide the clearest evidence to date that Indian Country has suffered terribly and disproportionately during the first year of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
The losses are mounting, and the grief is accumulating.
“Everyone has been impacted. Some families have been decimated. How can we go back to normal when we’ve lost so many after so many layers of trauma? It’s unbearable,” said Amber Kanazbah Crotty, a tribal council delegate in the Navajo Nation.
On Tuesday, the former Navajo president and Arizona state representative Albert Hale died from Covid, bringing the tribe’s death toll to 1,038, the equivalent of losing one in every 160 people on the reservation.
The figures show that even though multiple more infectious variants are yet to take hold in the United States, the situation has already wrought a devastating toll on Native communities and may get worse.
Last month was the deadliest so far in the US, with 958 recorded Native deaths – a 35% increase since December, a bigger rise than for any other group. For white Americans, deaths rose by 10% over the same period.
“Not only do Native people have the highest rate of Covid deaths, the rate is accelerating and the disparities with other groups are widening. This latest data is terrible in every way for indigenous Americans,” said Andi Egbert, senior analyst at APM Research Lab.
There are 574 federally recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Native Villages in the United States. The Navajo Nation, the second largest by population, has suffered the greatest number of deaths, but smaller tribes are facing insurmountable losses.
In Montana, the Northern Cheyenne tribe has lost about 50 people to Covid so far – which is 1% of the reservation population of 5,000 people.
“Our collective grief is unimaginable. Losing 1% of our people is the equivalent of losing 3 million Americans. Native Americans are used to dying at disproportionate rates and we’re used to scarcity but Covid is different, there’s a growing sense of hopelessness,” said Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, an assistant professor of sociology and American Indian studies at the University of California.
Rodriguez-Lonebear added: “I fear the long-term impacts on mental health, our children, community resilience and cohesiveness. We’re in the middle of a massive storm and we’re not prepared for the aftermath.”
About a quarter of those who have died were native Cheyenne speakers. The tribal clinic is currently receiving 100 vaccine doses a week, at which rate it will take almost a year to vaccinate everyone.
“Our language, culture and traditions is what makes us Cheyenne, but we’re losing our teachers. How am I going to teach my son when I still have so much to learn? Indigenous communities are facing a cultural crisis that other communities are not.”
In Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation, the country’s biggest tribe, has suffered a relatively low death count thanks to a well-functioning tribe-led health service and a public health system that has pushed testing, contact tracing and consistent science-led messaging from day one, according to Chief Chuck Hoskin.
“We have one of the best public health systems in the country, which allowed us to be nimble when the worst crisis in modern memory struck … We’re a society, unlike the wider US, which believes in our citizens having access to healthcare at no costs,” said Hoskin.
Still, there have been significant losses. At least 35 of the remaining 2,000 fluent Cherokee speakers have died from Covid, undermining an ambitious programme launched in 2019 to stop the language dying out.
As a result, tribal leaders decided to prioritize fluent speakers, alongside frontline workers and elders, and about half have now been vaccinated. Overall, almost one in 10 citizens on the reservation have been vaccinated.
“So far we’ve led this country in getting the vaccine out in an efficient and effective way. The only question now is whether the US can keep up with the Cherokee Nation,” Hoskin added.
Anecdotal evidence from across the country suggests that tribal vaccination programs, which can include mobile clinics, home visits and drive-throughs, appear to be running more efficiently and effectively than in many states, though shortages are widespread.
Amid growing debate and concern about vaccine hesitancy in communities of color, the Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI) conducted the first ever national survey to better understand Native Americans’ knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs.
About 75% of participants said they would be willing to receive a Covid vaccine – compared with just 56% of the general US population according to one large survey in December 2020. The vast majority view getting the vaccine as a community responsibility, even though three-quarters have safety concerns. The survey included American Indians and Alaska Natives across 46 states – representing 318 different tribal affiliations.
“The results show the danger in grouping all people of color together when deciding on public health messaging to overcome Covid vaccine hesitancy,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the national tribal epidemiology centre based in Seattle.
The findings, published last week, have since been incorporated into a public health campaign called “Be a Good Ancestor”, focusing on community responsibility over individualism.
Joe Biden’s national Covid strategy lays out plans to bolster federal resources to speed up the vaccine rollout in Indian Country, as part of the administration’s efforts to improve equity.
Overall, there is no race data for about 42,000 of America’s Covid deaths, which means we do not know the ethnic background of one in 10 people killed by the virus so far, according to the researchers. Perhaps 700 or more Native Americans are likely to be missing from the data.
“The structural racism in the data collection systems makes us invisible by hiding deaths, which perpetuates inequalities and leads to further deaths in our communities, as this information is used to allocate resources,” said Echo-Hawk. “The maze of missing data is part of the genocide that continues to be perpetrated against our people. Their final stories are being lost.”
The data issues have not been fixed over the past year. Instead, the same gaps are now hampering our understanding about the vaccine rollout: almost half the race and ethnicity data is missing from the vaccine recipients, according to the CDC, thwarting efforts to ensure equitable access and accountability.
In states with patchy or no data, it is extremely hard to know whether states and counties allocated vaccine doses for indigenous residents are using them appropriately.
Tribal leaders and health experts agree that while the excessive death toll is shocking, it’s hardly surprising given the chronic structural, economic and health inequalities – such as overcrowded housing, understaffed hospitals, lack of running water and limited access to healthy affordable food – resulting from the US government’s failure to comply with treaty obligations promising adequate funding for basic services in exchange for vast amounts of tribal land.
After centuries of broken promises, expectations are high given that Native American voters helped Joe Biden win crucial swing states including Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada to take the White House.
On Wednesday, Biden approved the Navajo Nation’s disaster declaration, which will result in additional federal resources for the tribe as Covid rates again climb.
But longstanding inequalities require transformational changes, and experts are calling on Biden to fully fund the Indian Health Service, for the first time in history, which would enable the yet-to-be-nominated new director to reduce chronic health disparities that have contributed to the high death toll.
“Native people showed up for Biden-Harris. Now it’s time to show up for them,” said Echo-Hawk.
Gerber baby food at a supermarket. (photo: James Leynse/Getty)
New Report Finds Toxic Heavy Metals in Popular Baby Foods. FDA Failed to Warn Consumers of Risk.
David Shepardson and Susan Heavey, Reuters
Excerpt: "U.S. congressional investigators found 'dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals' in certain baby foods that could cause neurological damage, a House Oversight subcommittee said in a report released on Thursday." VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
The panel examined baby foods made by Nurture Inc, Hain Celestial Group Inc, Beech-Nut Nutrition and Gerber, a unit of Nestle, it said, adding that it was “greatly concerned” that Walmart Inc, Campbell Soup Co and Sprout Organic Foods refused to cooperate with the investigation.
The report said internal company standards “permit dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals, and documents revealed that the manufacturers have often sold foods that exceeded those levels” and it called on U.S. regulators to set maximum levels of toxic heavy metals permitted in baby foods and require manufacturers to test finished products for heavy metals, not just ingredients.
Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat who chairs the panel that released the report, said it found “these manufacturers knowingly sell baby food containing high levels of toxic heavy metals ... It’s time that we develop much better standards for the sake of future generations.”
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesman said it was reviewing the report.
The agency noted toxic elements are present in the environment and enter the food supply through soil, water or air. “Because they cannot be completely removed, our goal is to reduce exposure to toxic elements in foods to the greatest extent feasible,” the FDA said.
Campbell said in a statement on its website that its products are safe and cited the lack of a current FDA standard for heavy metals in baby food. The company said it thought it had been “full partners” in the study with congressional researchers.
Walmart said it submitted information to the committee in February 2020 and never received any subsequent inquiries. The retail giant requires private label product suppliers to hew to its own internal specifications, “which for baby and toddler food means the levels must meet or fall below the limits established by the FDA.”
Hain Celestial, which makes Earth’s Best, said it had not seen the report and did not have a chance to review it.
A Gerber representative said the elements in question occur naturally in the soil and water in which crops are grown and added it takes multiple steps “to minimize their presence.”
The report was critical also of the administration of former President Donald Trump, saying it “ignored a secret industry presentation to federal regulators revealing increased risks of toxic heavy metals in baby foods.”
The report said “in 100% of the Hain baby foods tested, inorganic arsenic levels were higher in the finished baby food than the company estimated they would be based on individual ingredient testing.”
It said that in August 2019 the FDA received a secret slide presentation from Hain that said “corporate policies to test only ingredients, not final products, underrepresent the levels of toxic heavy metals in baby foods.”
The report said the FDA took no new action in response. “To this day, baby foods containing toxic heavy metals bear no label or warning to parents. Manufacturers are free to test only ingredients, or, for the vast majority of baby foods, to conduct no testing at all,” the report said.
The FDA has declared that inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury are dangerous, particularly to infants and children, the report noted.
The FDA in August finalized guidance to industry, setting an action level of 100 parts per billion inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal.
“We acknowledge that there is more work to be done, but the FDA reiterates its strong commitment to continue to reduce consumer exposure to toxic elements and other contaminants from food,” the FDA said Thursday.
More protesters took to the streets in Yangon. (photo: Getty)
Myanmar Coup: Military Blocks Facebook in Opposition Crackdown
BBC
Excerpt: "Myanmar's military rulers have blocked access to Facebook, days after they overthrew the democratic government." VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
fficials said the social media platform - for many in Myanmar the main source of online information - would be blocked for the sake of "stability".
Facebook has become a key rallying point for opposition to Monday's coup.
In further civil disobedience, lawmakers are refusing to leave their compound in the capital, and more pot-banging was seen in Yangon.
The coup, led by armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing, installed an 11-member junta, ending a short period of majority civilian rule.
The military said an election in November had been fraudulent - though the country's election commission said there was no evidence to back up such claims.
The elected civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, along with President Win Myint, were detained and on Wednesday police filed charges against them.
The charges against her include possession of unlawful communication devices - walkie-talkies used by her security staff.
President Myint is accused of breaching Covid rules while campaigning for last November's election, which was won decisively by Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).
What is Facebook's role?
The Ministry of Communications and Information said access to Facebook would be blocked until 7 February. However, it was still reported to be accessible sporadically.
Anthony Aung, who runs a tour agency in Yangon, the main city, told the BBC at one point he still had access to the site through wifi but not cellular data.
He said "people around me are all rushing to download alternative apps and VPN" - virtual private networks, which allow users to get round internet restrictions.
Hours later, Mr Aung said Facebook had stopped working completely.
Yangon student Min Htet said her education had already been suspended due to the Covid pandemic. "Blocking Facebook today means that the freedom of young people is restricted from now on," she told Reuters.
Half of Myanmar's 54 million people use Facebook and activists have set up a page to co-ordinate opposition to the coup.
Facebook became popular in Myanmar - also known as Burma - as the company initially allowed its app to be used without data costs so that consumers could avoid paying expensive telecoms charges.
The social media giant acknowledged the disruption, saying "we urge authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with their families and friends and access important information".
Telecoms company Telenor Myanmar, which is part of the Norwegian Telenor Group, said it would comply with the order to block Facebook, but suggested in a statement that this breached human rights law.
What is happening on the streets?
A small protest has taken place in front of a university in Myanmar's second city, Mandalay, with reports of four arrests.
In Yangon, residents banged cooking pots for a second night running.
A woman in the city told the BBC: "We bang drums as we want the military government and the world to know that we don't agree with this military coup... I want our leader Aung San Suu Kyi back."
At least 70 lawmakers with the NLD are refusing to leave a government guest house in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and have declared what they are calling a new parliamentary session, BBC Burmese reports.
The lawmakers are among hundreds who were confined by the military to guest houses before being told they were free to leave.
The streets are for the most part calm with no sign of major protest and a night-time curfew in force.
However, hospitals have seen protests. Many medics have either stopped work, or continued while wearing symbols of defiance.
But a rally by thousands in support of the military, known as the Tatmadaw, took place in Nay Pyi Taw. Some waved banners saying "Tatmadaw that loves people".
'Absolutely unacceptable'
UN Secretary General António Guterres has meanwhile called for constitutional order to be re-established in Myanmar.
"It's absolutely unacceptable to reverse the result of the elections and the will of the people," he said.
The Security Council adopted a resolution expressing "deep concern" and calling for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
"The members of the Security Council emphasized the need for the continued support of the democratic transition in Myanmar," the 15-member council said in a statement agreed by consensus.
On Wednesday, the council failed to agree on a statement condemning the coup, after it was blocked by China, which - as one of five permanent members - has a veto.
Beijing has long played a role of protecting Myanmar from international scrutiny, and has warned since the coup that sanctions or international pressure would only make things worse.
Alongside Russia, it has repeatedly shielded Myanmar from criticism at the UN over the military crackdown on the Muslim minority Rohingya population.
Myanmar at a glance
Myanmar is a country of 54 million people in South East Asia which shares borders with Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand and Laos.
It was ruled by an oppressive military government from 1962 to 2011, leading to international condemnation and sanctions.
Aung San Suu Kyi spent years campaigning for democratic reforms. A gradual liberalisation began in 2010, though the military still retained considerable influence.
A government led by Ms Suu Kyi came to power after free elections in 2015. But a deadly military crackdown two years later on Rohingya Muslims sent hundreds of thousands fleeing to Bangladesh and triggered a rift between Ms Suu Kyi and the international community.
She has remained popular at home and her party won again by a landslide in the November 2020 election. But the military have now stepped in to take control once more.
A construction worker walks along a dirt road at the Avangrid Renewables La Joya wind farm in Encino, New Mexico, on August 5, 2020. The complex will eventually be equipped with 111 turbines. (photo: Cate Dingley/Getty)
This Popular and Proven Climate Policy Should Be at the Top of Congress's To-Do List
Leah Stokes and Sam Ricketts, Vox
Excerpt: "Last year, presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigned on a bold climate plan that included cleaning up America's electricity system by 2035 with a federal Clean Electricity Standard (CES). A national CES, which would require utilities increase their share of renewable and carbon pollution-free electricity, is an old idea. But the ambition - 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 - was new."
The case for a national clean electricity standard.
ast year, presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigned on a bold climate plan that included cleaning up America’s electricity system by 2035 with a federal Clean Electricity Standard (CES). A national CES, which would require utilities increase their share of renewable and carbon pollution-free electricity, is an old idea. But the ambition — 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 — was new.
By the end of the campaign, whenever he brought up climate change, which he did constantly, Biden had one year on his mind: 2035.
The new deadline reflects the scientific facts and the economic opportunity. The US must cut emissions by about half this decade to give the world a shot at limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Doing this will create millions of good-paying jobs in the American clean energy economy. But to make progress at the pace and scale that’s necessary, it’s Congress who must focus on building a 100 percent clean electricity system.
That’s why we released a major report Thursday, with Evergreen Action and Data for Progress, which shows how Congress can get this done. As two policy experts and advocates who have focused on cleaning up the electricity sector, we think we have the best shot yet to get this policy passed this year.
Clean electricity is the backbone of the energy transition — the critical piece that all the other sectors will slot into. Not only will getting to 100 percent clean electricity directly cut more than a quarter of US carbon pollution, it will also enable large parts of our transportation, building, and industrial sectors to run on clean power. Powering as much of these sectors as we can with carbon-free electricity would allow us to cut US emissions 70 to 80 percent. It would, in short, solve a huge chunk of our climate challenge.
The climate demands it. The president campaigned on it. And 81 million Americans voted for it. It’s now time for Congress and the administration to deliver. Here’s how they can do it.
A proven, practical, and popular approach
Over the past three decades, 30 states — red and blue alike — have passed laws requiring electric utilities to use more clean energy. Since 2015, 10 states have adopted 100 percent clean electricity standards, requiring the transition to fully 100 percent carbon-free power. And six more have committed to that goal. State laws are popping up so fast, it’s hard to keep track. Across the country, 170 cities have policies to get to 100 percent clean. As a result, more than one in three Americans already live in a place that’s committed to reaching 100 percent clean power.
We know this approach is technologically possible. Wind, solar, batteries, transmission lines, and other technologies can replace dirty fossil fuels. Google, one of the largest electricity consumers in the country, is aiming for 100 percent clean power, real-time at all its facilities by 2030.
With all this state and local leadership, it’s not surprising that this approach is popular with the public. In independent polls from both Data for Progress and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, run over the past few months, more than two-thirds of voters support the federal government moving the country to 100 percent clean power by 2035.
And once we implement this policy nationally, it should stay popular because clean energy saves customers money.
Researchers from UC Berkeley, GridLab, and Energy Innovation have shown that we could dramatically clean up our electricity system by 2035 and lower electricity bills. Why? Many utilities continue to operate old, uneconomic coal plants. In just three years, these plants cost customers an additional $3.5 billion to keep open — and that’s before we add in all the extra hospital bills for folks breathing in their pollution day after day. Or the cost of destabilizing our climate. Replacing these dirty plants with clean power is not only good for our health; it’s also good for our wallets.
Clean electricity standards are proven, practical, and popular. What’s missing is federal policy, to ensure that every state and utility is switching from dirty energy to clean sources at the accelerated pace that’s necessary. Without a national CES, we know that utilities will not move fast enough — their own plans show that they won’t. This policy must be at the top of Congress’s to-do list this year.
How Congress can pass a CES through the budget reconciliation process
With the election last month in Georgia, Democrats took control of the Senate. However, their majority is slim. The Democrats and Republicans each have 50 seats, and Vice President Kamala Harris can cast tiebreaking votes in Democrats’ favor.
To pass meaningful legislation, Democrats have two options. They can get rid of the filibuster, an arcane Senate rule that prevents consideration of a bill without 60 votes. Or they must rely on a unique parliamentary process known as budget reconciliation, which allows some bills to pass with a simple majority.
Most voters think Congress should ditch the filibuster, and we certainly agree with them. But so far, some moderate Senate Democrats have expressed reluctance to do that. That means, at least for the time being, we’re talking a lot about option B.
Reconciliation is complicated. Essentially, it’s a legislative process that allows Congress to expedite bills that relate to federal government revenues (like taxes), outlays (spending), or the debt limit. This process allows legislation to pass with a simple majority in the Senate — just 51 votes. However, there are limits to what types of legislation can be included in this process. The criteria are written in the “Byrd Rule.” And this can’t be done all the time; historically, Congress has only used budget reconciliation once each fiscal year.
In our research for our report, we spent months talking with congressional offices, parliamentary experts, think tanks, climate advocates, and others, and have concluded that it is possible to pass a CES through the budget reconciliation process. In our report, we identify several ways a CES can fit with the Byrd Rule.
Most state clean energy laws create a system of credits that utilities and other power producers can get by producing clean power. These “zero-emissions electricity credits” — or ZECs — allow us to measure progress. Through reconciliation, the federal government could create a system of ZECs that live “on the books,” inside the federal budget. Utilities would earn ZECs by continuously increasing the amount of carbon-free electricity they deliver to customers, or else purchase the credits from the federal program.
Another approach would involve the federal government regularly buying a quantity of ZECs from power companies, through auctions. Essentially, companies would submit bids for how much they would like to be paid for the clean power they are producing. The federal government would set the quantity needed that year — for example, 80 percent clean power by 2030 — and purchase ZECs until that target was fulfilled. This approach would keep the costs of the policy low. Auctions have been used successfully in New York state.
A third approach could involve a twist on either of the first two, but with utilities earning clean energy credits for every ton of carbon pollution that they reduce, rather than for every megawatt-hour of clean electricity that they deliver. This is similar to policy recently adopted in Arizona’s new 100 percent clean electricity standard.
There are other alternatives that come close to approximating a federal CES and could also fit within the Byrd Rule. The federal government could provide funding to states with strings attached to ensure they are adopting carbon-free electricity requirements with the ambitious timelines necessary. Another option is a carbon-intensity standard that penalizes power utilities for failing to reduce their emissions. We could also continue to use the tax code to penalize and incentivize utilities, pushing them toward 100 percent clean electricity by 2035.
Each of these approaches can put us on a path to 100 percent clean electricity, even under the constraints of the Byrd Rule. We are confident there are other CES designs that could fit within reconciliation.
On the road to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035, we need to hit 80 percent clean in 2030. This is a critical target for several reasons. It places the emphasis where it should be: on urgent and immediate progress. And it’s doable with the technology we have now.
Some utilities are already aiming for 80 percent clean by 2030, including practically all the ones in Colorado. These utilities, and others, recognize that it’s time to move off of fossil fuels. NIPSCO, in Indiana, has committed to retiring all its coal by 2028 and will not build new gas.
Focusing on 80 percent clean will ensure that we are not distracted by how to squeeze the last, and most difficult, 10 to 20 percent of pollution out of the electricity system. This target is also important because of congressional rules — the budget reconciliation process typically limits a law’s budgetary impact to 10 years. For all these reasons, a federal CES must include this 2030 target.
Congress and the Biden administration must pass other policies alongside a CES, to drive environmental justice and equitable economic opportunity, and promote good union jobs. We outline a number of them in our report, including long-term federal clean energy investments through tax incentives, grants, and public financing; energy transition support through debt retirement for coal plants and financial resources for fossil fuel communities; speeding up electrification of other sectors, including vehicles and buildings; streamlining clean energy siting and permitting; promoting electricity market competition; intervenor compensation to ensure transition costs remain as low as possible; and policies to address the technology innovation gap.
Realistically, Congress will first tackle Covid-19 relief using budget reconciliation, and only turn to Biden’s clean infrastructure agenda in the months to come, during a second budget reconciliation process. Because Congress didn’t pass a budget resolution last year, there are two opportunities to use reconciliation this year.
The Biden administration cannot wait for Congress to act. In the meantime, it must use existing laws to begin making progress toward 100 percent clean electricity right away. Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency already has a clear legal requirement to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, because these pollutants endanger Americans’ health and well-being. It must also act on other dangerous pollution from fossil fuel power plants, advancing regulations that the Trump administration sat on, and reversing rollbacks made over the past four years.
Clean electricity is the way forward
President Biden and Vice President Harris ran and won on a bold plan for climate action.
As the country faces a terrible economic crisis, and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, a clean energy recovery is our best opportunity for economic recovery. A CES can create millions of good jobs and drive environmental justice. With a big push on clean power, we could see a net increase of 500,000 to 1 million more good-paying jobs in the energy sector this decade, reaching 2.2 million in the 2030s. If we worked on energy efficiency at the same time, we could get twice as many jobs.
Imagine what it will feel like in 2035, looking back on this moment 15 years from now. If we act now, all of us — everyday people, utility executives, and senators alike — can reflect on this moment and know that when we were called to act, we answered. Solving the climate crisis is possible, if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to do it.
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