Monthly Archives: July 2020

2020-07-09: News Headlines

Staff (2020-07-09). How to Stop the Next Pandemic: U.N. Report Links Outbreaks to Climate Crisis & Industrial Farming. democracynow.org As the unprecedented global health emergency continues to unfold, a new United Nations report says humans must lower stress on the natural environment to prevent the next pandemic. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has a zoonotic origin, meaning it jumped from animals to humans, and the U.N. report finds that such diseases are spreading with greater frequency due to human activity, including industrial farming and the climate crisis. "Rather than focusing on the symptoms, we were looking at the causes," says Delia Grace, lead author of the report, veterinary epidemiologist at the Internationa…

CEWPAPH (2020-07-09). Alternative "Declaration of Independence Day" on July 4. indybay.org On the fourth of July, a CodePink caravan declared independence from racism, war, and climate devastation – all interconnecting systems of death. | Top Photo: Demonstrators use stencils to paint a message on the street in front of Nancy Pelosi's Pacific Heights Home. It reads, Pelosi Defund War $.

_____ (2020-07-09). Supreme Court Rejects Effort To Greenlight Keystone XL Construction. popularresistance.org The Supreme Court late Monday upheld a federal judge's rejection of a crucial permit for Keystone XL and blocked the Trump administration's attempt to greenlight construction of the 1,200-mile crude oil project, the third such blow to the fossil fuel industry in a day—coming just hours after the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the court-ordered shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline. | While the ruling was not a total victory for the climate—the high court said other pipeline projects can proceed as environmental reviews are conducted—green groups applauded the delay of Keystone…

_____ (2020-07-09). Historic Climate Liability Case In Colorado Against Exxon And Suncor. popularresistance.org Washington, D.C.—Today, the United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit ruled that a case launched by Boulder County, San Miguel County, and the City of Boulder will proceed in state, rather than federal court. Marco Simons, General Counsel of EarthRights International, which is representing the municipalities in the case, issued the following statement in response: | "We applaud today's decision as an important step forward in our lawsuit against Suncor and Exxon. Federal courts have consistently ruled that these climate cases belong in state courts — which makes sense because these cases are about…

Ramona du Houx (2020-07-09). Newsom helps the failing fracking industry — a business that endangers our health. indybay.org Amid a global health pandemic, Californian residents may soon be exposed to compounding respiratory threats from the result of more fracking operations. More than 310 Elected Officials from across the state demand that Governor Newsom stop issuing fracking permits immediately.

WSWS Repost (2020-07-09). United Airlines threatens to axe 36,000 jobs. indybay.org In the interest of profit, United Airlines seems to be taking former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's infamous words to heart: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

Tina Gerhardt (2020-07-08). Environmental Justice Wins, Pipelines Lose. commondreams.org Thousands of water protectors and allies spent weeks at the Oceti Sakowin camp in North Dakota in 2016 to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo: Reuters) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/oceti-sakowin-camp_1.jpg

Tracy Keeling (2020-07-08). Trophy hunters' core argument for killing is laid to waste in a staggering new book. thecanary.co To say trophy hunting is controversial would be a gross understatement. The question of whether the practice has any validity in an ecological sense has

news.un (2020-07-08). Rising global temperature shows 'enormous challenge' of meeting climate goal. news.un.org Annual global temperature is likely to be at least 1 ∞C warmer than pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, putting globally agreed climate change targets in jeopardy, new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reveals.

commondreams (2020-07-08). Sunrise Movement Co-Founder Varshini Prakash Comments on the Biden-Sanders Climate Task Force Final Recommendations. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Alec Connon (2020-07-08). What Do the Racial Wealth Gap, Police Brutality, and the Climate Crisis Have in Common? Wall Street. commondreams.org "The fossil fuel corporations funded by Wall Street cause vast harm to black communities," writes Connon, "yet, black communities reap almost no benefit from the industry." (Image: Flood Wall Street) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/image.jpg_0.jpg

The Canary (2020-07-08). Rare gorillas with babies in Nigeria captured on camera. thecanary.co Conservationists have captured the first images of a group of rare Cross River gorillas with multiple babies in Nigeria's Mbe mountains, proof that the subspecies once feared to be extinct is reproducing amid protection efforts.Only around 300 Cross River gorillas were known to be alive at one point in the isolated mountainous region in Nigeria and Cameroon, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which captured the camera trap images in May. More colour images were recovered last month.John Oates, professor emeritus at City University of New York and a primatologist who helped establish conservation effo…

Julia Conley, staff writer (2020-07-08). In Latest Blow to Fossil Fuel Industry, Appeals Court Sends Colorado Municipalities' Climate Case Back to State Court. commondreams.org The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled late Tuesday that a lawsuit filed by three Colorado municipalities against two powerful fossil fuel companies will proceed in state rather than federal court—a blow to the oil giants. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-1180054273_1.jpg

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-07-08). New Report Finds Economic Benefits of Protecting 30% of Planet's Land and Ocean Outweigh the Costs 5-to-1. commondreams.org "Protecting nature halts biodiversity loss, helps fight climate change, and lessens the chance of future pandemics. This is sound public policy, economically, ecologically, and morally." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-12226592511.jpg

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-07-07). As Arctic Burns, New Data Shows June 2020 Capped Off Year Tied for Hottest on Record. commondreams.org European researchers revealed Tuesday that July 2019 to June 2020 effectively tied with another recent 12-month period as the hottest year on record based on global surface temperatures, bolstering calls from activists for international bodies and governments across the globe to take immediate action to tackle the climate crisis. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/hot-world.jpg

_____ (2020-07-07). Atlantic Coast Pipeline Canceled Following Years Of Protests. popularresistance.org The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), which would have carried fracked natural gas through 600 miles of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, will never be completed. | Pipeline owners Dominion and Duke Energy announced Sunday they were cancelling the fossil fuel project due to mounting delays and uncertainty. They said the many legal challenges to the project had driven up the projected costs by almost half, from $4.5 to $5 billion when it was first announced in 2014 to $8 billion according to the most recent estimate. | Environmental and community groups, who have long opposed the project on climate, conserv…

_____ (2020-07-07). As U.S. Police Forces Are Threatened With Extinction, American Gun Owners Under Attack for Protecting Themselves. strategic-culture.org With alarming frequency, law-abiding citizens who attempt to defend themselves and their private property with the use of guns are being portrayed as villains, while trespassers, looters and rioters get bailed out of prison. Have the liberals found a backdoor method for trashing the Second Amendment? | Last month, Mark and Patricia McCloskey were about to sit down for a dinner at their home in St. Louis, Missouri when members of Black Lives Matter smashed through the front gate and began marching through the private property. The McCloskeys, with memories of the violent protests that rocked their city just weeks…

Staff (2020-07-07). "A Dream That Comes True": Standing Rock Elder Hails Order to Shut Down DAPL After Years of Protest. democracynow.org Following years of resistance, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous organizers across the country scored a massive legal victory Monday when a federal judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to be shut down and emptied of all oil, pending an environmental review. "You ever have a dream, a dream that comes true? That is what it is," responds LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, an elder of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and founder of Sacred Stone Camp, where resistance in 2016 brought tens of thousands of people to oppose the pipeline's construction on sacred lands. We also speak with Ojibwe lawyer Tara Houska, fou…

Staff (2020-07-07). Stir Crazy! Episode #63: No More Whitewashed History. therealnews.com On today's show: Sociologist Taure Brown, Chinatown Collective founding member Leandro Lagera, and climate and housing organizer Rachel Eve Stein. Hosted by Kim Brown If you have comments/questions/suggestions email us at stircrazy@therealnews.com

RT (2020-07-07). Specter of the most dangerous tropical storm season since Hurricane Katrina looms for US, Caribbean. rt.com The Gulf of Mexico and US East Coast should brace for a heavy slate of hurricanes, after a top US climate researcher predicted one of the most active years on record for tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Basin. | The Atlantic tropical storm season runs from June through November and has 30-year averages of 12 named storms and six hurricanes, but the Colorado State University climate research center on Tuesday raised its "We anticipate…

Binoy Kampmark (2020-07-07). Killing Koalas: the Promise of Extinction Down Under. counterpunch.org The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was "the most boring of animals". Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its slow metabolism. But the spectacle of these singed, toasted animals was a terrifyingly cruel one to behold. As good stretches of Australia burned over the

Robert J. Burrowes (2020-07-07). Deadly rainbow: Will 5G precipitate the extinction of all life on Earth? nationofchange.org 'You cannot contaminate the global electrical circuit with millions of pulsed, modulated electronic signals without destroying all of life.'

Ted Glick (2020-07-07). A Climate Movement Turning Point? zcomm.org It makes sense that this fresh and hopeful wind of change sweeping across Turtle Island is impacting some of those who have some power, like federal judges, and unnerving the "them" in "them and us."

commondreams (2020-07-07). Historic Climate Liability Case in Colorado Against Exxon and Suncor to Proceed in State Court. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Sierra Club Loma Prieta (2020-07-07). Wednesday 7/8: Why Radical Interventions are Needed Now to Stop the Climate Apocalypse. indybay.org Online…

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-07-06). 'Monumental Victory': Tribes and Climate Activists Celebrate Court-Ordered Shutdown of Dakota Access Pipeline. commondreams.org A U.S. district court on Monday delivered a major win to local Indigenous organizers and climate activists—and a significant blow to the fossil fuel industry and the Trump administration—by ordering the Dakota Access Pipeline to be shut down and emptied of oil by Aug. 5 while federal regulators conduct an environmental review. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/dapl.jpg

commondreams (2020-07-06). To 'Build Back Better,' We Must Ditch Public Financing of Fossil Fuels. commondreams.org Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Sandrine Dixson-Decl—êve, and Bas Eickhout | An Extinction Rebellion protester holds up a placard saying "Divest from climate change" on October 14, 2019 in London, England. (Photo: John Keeble/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-11809997791_0.jpg

Paul Buchheit (2020-07-06). The Protests We Should Be Having to Make the Super-Rich Very Afraid. commondreams.org "As the climate crisis worsens and the surging global population overruns our depleted living spaces," writes Buchheit, "the world's super-rich will increasingly become the targets of undervalued and desperate human beings." (Photo: Unsplash/Pixabay/CC0) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/the_rich_are_winning_on_entitlements_0.jpg

commondreams (2020-07-06). With New Permits, Newsom Ramps Up Fracking in California. commondreams.org ______________________________…

2020-07-08: News Headlines

Tracy Keeling (2020-07-08). Trophy hunters' core argument for killing is laid to waste in a staggering new book. thecanary.co To say trophy hunting is controversial would be a gross understatement. The question of whether the practice has any validity in an ecological sense has

The Canary (2020-07-08). Rare gorillas with babies in Nigeria captured on camera. thecanary.co Conservationists have captured the first images of a group of rare Cross River gorillas with multiple babies in Nigeria's Mbe mountains, proof that the subspecies once feared to be extinct is reproducing amid protection efforts.Only around 300 Cross River gorillas were known to be alive at one point in the isolated mountainous region in Nigeria and Cameroon, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which captured the camera trap images in May. More colour images were recovered last month.John Oates, professor emeritus at City University of New York and a primatologist who helped establish conservation effo…

Ramona du Houx (2020-07-08). Newsom helps the failing fracking industry — a business that endangers our health. indybay.org Amid a global health pandemic, Californian residents may soon be exposed to compounding respiratory threats from the result of more fracking operations. More than 310 Elected Officials from across the state demand that Governor Newsom stop issuing fracking permits immediately.

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-07-07). As Arctic Burns, New Data Shows June 2020 Capped Off Year Tied for Hottest on Record. commondreams.org European researchers revealed Tuesday that July 2019 to June 2020 effectively tied with another recent 12-month period as the hottest year on record based on global surface temperatures, bolstering calls from activists for international bodies and governments across the globe to take immediate action to tackle the climate crisis. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/hot-world.jpg

_____ (2020-07-07). Atlantic Coast Pipeline Canceled Following Years Of Protests. popularresistance.org The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), which would have carried fracked natural gas through 600 miles of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, will never be completed. | Pipeline owners Dominion and Duke Energy announced Sunday they were cancelling the fossil fuel project due to mounting delays and uncertainty. They said the many legal challenges to the project had driven up the projected costs by almost half, from $4.5 to $5 billion when it was first announced in 2014 to $8 billion according to the most recent estimate. | Environmental and community groups, who have long opposed the project on climate, conserv…

_____ (2020-07-07). As U.S. Police Forces Are Threatened With Extinction, American Gun Owners Under Attack for Protecting Themselves. strategic-culture.org With alarming frequency, law-abiding citizens who attempt to defend themselves and their private property with the use of guns are being portrayed as villains, while trespassers, looters and rioters get bailed out of prison. Have the liberals found a backdoor method for trashing the Second Amendment? | Last month, Mark and Patricia McCloskey were about to sit down for a dinner at their home in St. Louis, Missouri when members of Black Lives Matter smashed through the front gate and began marching through the private property. The McCloskeys, with memories of the violent protests that rocked their city just weeks…

Staff (2020-07-07). "A Dream That Comes True": Standing Rock Elder Hails Order to Shut Down DAPL After Years of Protest. democracynow.org Following years of resistance, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous organizers across the country scored a massive legal victory Monday when a federal judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to be shut down and emptied of all oil, pending an environmental review. "You ever have a dream, a dream that comes true? That is what it is," responds LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, an elder of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and founder of Sacred Stone Camp, where resistance in 2016 brought tens of thousands of people to oppose the pipeline's construction on sacred lands. We also speak with Ojibwe lawyer Tara Houska, fou…

Staff (2020-07-07). Stir Crazy! Episode #63: No More Whitewashed History. therealnews.com On today's show: Sociologist Taure Brown, Chinatown Collective founding member Leandro Lagera, and climate and housing organizer Rachel Eve Stein. Hosted by Kim Brown If you have comments/questions/suggestions email us at stircrazy@therealnews.com

RT (2020-07-07). Specter of the most dangerous tropical storm season since Hurricane Katrina looms for US, Caribbean. rt.com The Gulf of Mexico and US East Coast should brace for a heavy slate of hurricanes, after a top US climate researcher predicted one of the most active years on record for tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Basin. | The Atlantic tropical storm season runs from June through November and has 30-year averages of 12 named storms and six hurricanes, but the Colorado State University climate research center on Tuesday raised its "We anticipate…

Robert J. Burrowes (2020-07-07). Deadly rainbow: Will 5G precipitate the extinction of all life on Earth? nationofchange.org 'You cannot contaminate the global electrical circuit with millions of pulsed, modulated electronic signals without destroying all of life.'

Binoy Kampmark (2020-07-07). Killing Koalas: the Promise of Extinction Down Under. counterpunch.org The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was "the most boring of animals". Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its slow metabolism. But the spectacle of these singed, toasted animals was a terrifyingly cruel one to behold. As good stretches of Australia burned over the

Adam Carlesco (2020-07-07). Why Trump Wants To Kill The Biggest Environmental Law You've Never Heard Of. commondreams.org NEPA requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their actions, including direct action by an agency or the permitting of private activity. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/climate_bernie_sanders.jpg

commondreams (2020-07-07). Historic Climate Liability Case in Colorado Against Exxon and Suncor to Proceed in State Court. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Ted Glick (2020-07-07). A Climate Movement Turning Point? zcomm.org It makes sense that this fresh and hopeful wind of change sweeping across Turtle Island is impacting some of those who have some power, like federal judges, and unnerving the "them" in "them and us."

Sierra Club Loma Prieta (2020-07-07). Wednesday 7/8: Why Radical Interventions are Needed Now to Stop the Climate Apocalypse. indybay.org Online…

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-07-06). 'Monumental Victory': Tribes and Climate Activists Celebrate Court-Ordered Shutdown of Dakota Access Pipeline. commondreams.org A U.S. district court on Monday delivered a major win to local Indigenous organizers and climate activists—and a significant blow to the fossil fuel industry and the Trump administration—by ordering the Dakota Access Pipeline to be shut down and emptied of oil by Aug. 5 while federal regulators conduct an environmental review. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/dapl.jpg

commondreams (2020-07-06). To 'Build Back Better,' We Must Ditch Public Financing of Fossil Fuels. commondreams.org Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Sandrine Dixson-Decl—êve, and Bas Eickhout | An Extinction Rebellion protester holds up a placard saying "Divest from climate change" on October 14, 2019 in London, England. (Photo: John Keeble/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-11809997791_0.jpg

Paul Buchheit (2020-07-06). The Protests We Should Be Having to Make the Super-Rich Very Afraid. commondreams.org "As the climate crisis worsens and the surging global population overruns our depleted living spaces," writes Buchheit, "the world's super-rich will increasingly become the targets of undervalued and desperate human beings." (Photo: Unsplash/Pixabay/CC0) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/the_rich_are_winning_on_entitlements_0.jpg

commondreams (2020-07-06). With New Permits, Newsom Ramps Up Fracking in California. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Kate Aronoff (2020-07-05). The Democrats' New Climate Plan: Improved But Weirdly Isolationist. zcomm.org Shaped by mass demand, Congressional Democrats' June 30th report on the climate crisis is a welcome improvement. But, in addition to its weak response to fossil fuel expansion, the report adopts an America First strategy to solve a global problem.

_____ (2020-07-05). The Democrats' Disastrous, Militarist Climate Plan. popularresistance.org Don't believe for a minute that the Democrats climate plan even means what it says. Its solutions include disastrous scams like "biofuels" and nuclear energy. It proposes no fundamental change in lifestyle, no reduction in personal consumption, and no halt or reduction in eating meat (but renewable energy production on land used for livestock, so that the same land can mitigate the unacknowledged damage it is doing). It offers no proposed federal budget with any major moving of the money to where it's needed, and no plan to extract any resources from billionaires and corporate giants. | This plan has been critici…

Elana Sulakshana (2020-07-04). Who's Insuring the Trans Mountain Pipeline? commondreams.org NO PIPELINES ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND: Climate campaigners and Indigenous peoples across Canada have spent the past several years protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline. (Photo: Mark Klotz/flickr/cc) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/kinder-morgan-protest-955px.jpg

yenisafak (2020-07-04). Tunisia MPs reject motion to blacklist Brotherhood. yenisafak.com The Bureau of Tunisia's House of Representatives (parliament) has rejected a petition to blacklist the Muslim Brotherhood group.The opposition Free Constitutional Party (PDL), which holds 10 seats in the 217-member parliament, had submitted the petition to classify the Brotherhood as a "terrorist" organization.The petition, however, was turned down by the parliament's bureau, which is consisted of the parliament speaker, his deputies and 10 lawmakers representing all parties in parliament.Ennahda party, which holds 54 seats in parliament, earlier described the PDL draft as a "waste of time".Ennahda lawmaker Sayyi…