“From picking to processing, growing coffee is labor intensive, and the ongoing climate crisis has led to widespread drought and disease, making it a risky financial endeavor. Similar to farming in the United States, children of coffee farmers often don’t want to inherit the farms.”
— Oregon Public Broadcasting
“On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the historic Amazon Labor Union victory at the JFK8 warehouse in New York, KCVG workers flew to Seattle to rally with Workers Strike Back at Amazon HQ to demand an end to Amazon’s union busting.”
Of possible interest: Workers Strike Back vs. the Duopoly
Climate Defiance shut down a Biden administration climate advisor’s event this week. Status Coup has the interview:
Climate Defiance has announced its intention to blockade the White House Correspondents’ Dinner later this month. The event is often characterized as speaking truth to power. Roy Wood, Jr. is scheduled to host.
“It’s an honor to be a part of a long-running tradition of celebrating those members of the media, who work so hard to uncover the truth, and hold our government accountable,” Wood said in a statement.
Of possible interest: The Climate Activist Bad-Faith FAQ
All non-indictment news will likely get buried today, but climate activists need to know what happened in Australia this week.
A third party (The Greens) played climate hardball, and pushed for a bigger win than the two major parties alone would have considered: A hard cap on fossil fuel polluters. In the process, establishment environmental groups showed that they are too chummy with the “liberal” (Labor) party to be effective.
After the legislative win, Australian Green Party Senator Nick McKim had advice for those trying to reform the Labor Party from within:
“He said the idea within the movement that Labor could be changed from within was “1980s thinking”, dating back to before the Greens were a third political force, and would not shift the dial quickly enough in “the critical decade for climate and nature”.”
In the US, well-intentioned reformers remain committed to an inside-outside strategy for reforming the Democratic Party, even as it breaks climate promise after promise.
People are noticing those broken promises. Voting people.
”Despite our generation saving Democrats year after year at the ballot box, despite the more than 650 million views on TikTok of mostly young people screaming to #StopWillow, the White House made a decision to throw a middle finger to our generation.”
— The Sunrise Movement, in In These Times
Merely withholding its endorsement is likely insufficient to sway an administration that has proved it doesn’t care about climate policy consistency. Even getting millions of people in the streets, as the movement has vowed to do, might not be enough; consider that 2020’s unforgettable protests failed to produce meaningful police reform legislation. What other options are left? Organized vote withholding? Aligning with a new party?
Increasingly, U.S. electoral politics and the four-year presidential cycle feel ill-suited to the type and pace of change needed. At a time when fossil fuel infrastructure sabotage is in the zeitgeist, how long do our institutions have left to prove that they can rise to the moment?
Of possible interest: The “Inflation Reduction Act” Is Not the Green New Deal, The Climate Activist Bad-Faith FAQ
Jonathan Pie translates climate science for punters.
Climate science by Professor Emeritus Joanna Haigh.
“An amazing lecture by the great Rachel Donald — founder of — at the OST-OstschweizerFachhochschule on March 22, 2023.”
“It’s Ok To Be Angry About Capitalism is the title of the new book by the US politician Bernie Sanders. In it he castigates a system that he argues is fuelled by uncontrolled greed and rigged against ordinary people. He tells Tom Sutcliffe it’s time to reject an economic order and a political system that continues to benefit the super-rich, and fight for a democracy that recognises that economic rights are human rights.
Read the article on BBC
“The Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times Martin Wolf looks more closely at how and why the relationship between capitalism and democracy appears to be unravelling. But despite the failings – slowing growth, growing inequality and widespread popular disillusion – he argues in The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism that the relationship remains the best system for human flourishing.
“But the economist Kate Raworth believes that mainstream economics has had its day. Its failure to predict and prevent financial crises, while allowing extreme poverty, inequality and environment degradation to persist, means its contributing to, not solving, societal unrest. She argues that her theory – Doughnut Economics – offers a new model for a green, fair and thriving global economy.”
“The goal of Workers Strike Back is to build an independent workers’ movement that fights for the interests of the working class, rather than the agenda of either corporate party.” The Real News Network
We desperately need new electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure, both nationwide and (especially) here in Oregon.
That said, is the Cascade Renewable Transmission Project a good idea?
Sidebar: Is expertise for this type of project only available in Connecticut?
“Great change does not happen if you just go along to get along.”
