COMMON DREAMS: Weekend Edition: Palestinians Mark Land Day Amid Genocide

TO THE FEW RIGHT WINGERS WHO ENLIGHTEN THEMSELVES, YOU MIGHT 
CONSIDER READING BILL MCKIBBEN'S COMMENTS ABOUT THE NATIONS 
THAT ARE LEADING....WERE AMERICANS NOT SO POORLY INFORMED,
THE US SHOULD BE LEADING THE WORLD!

Sunday, March 31, 2024 ■ Today's Top News  Conservative Texas District Court Won't Implement Anti-Judge Shopping Policy The chief judge of the Northern District of Texas indicated the court will not follow new guidance, while a lower court judge called out a pro-business group's use of "judge shopping." By Julia Conley Right-Wing Court's PFAS Ruling Will Impede Regulation of Harmful Chemicals, Advocates Say Public health groups are "fully committed to taking all steps available to assure that the Inhance fluorination no longer produces dangerous PFAS which put workers, consumers, and communities at risk." By Julia Conley 'Every Year It Is More Relevant': Palestinians Mark Land Day Amid Genocide "We honor those who rose up in 1976 and all who have risen up to fight for justice in Palestine," said one advocacy group. By Julia Conley WHY WOULD ANY REASONABLE AMERICAN SUPPORT THIS? In GOP's Latest 'Clear Call to Genocide,' Lawmaker Calls for Nuclear Bombing of Gaza "To so casually call for what would result in the killing of every human being in Gaza sends the chilling message that Palestinian lives have no value," said one Palestinian rights advocate. By Julia Conley U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg became the latest Republican lawmaker to openly call for the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza, saying at a town hall that instead of sending humanitarian aid to starving civilians there, the U.S. should "get it over quick" by dropping a nuclear bomb on the besieged enclave. The Michigan Republican was asked by a voter why taxpayer money was being spent to build a port off the coast of Gaza at an event in the town of Dundee, in a video that was apparently recorded on March 25 and posted to social media on Saturday. "We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima," said Walberg, referring to the two Japanese cities where the U.S. detonated two atomic bombs in 1945, killing an estimated 214,000 people and leaving survivors with the effects of radiation, including chronic and deadly diseases. Walberg's comments were made public a day after it was reported that the Biden administration had approved the transfer of new weapons to the Israel Defense Forces, including 2,000-pound bombs like those that have already made Israel's bombardment one of the deadliest and most destructive in modern history. The White House has called on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, where at least 31 people—including 27 children—have already died of starvation as a result of Israel's near-total blockade on aid since October. Parts of northern Gaza are now experiencing famine, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative (IPC), after months of warnings from experts that a man-made famine would eventually take hold unless humanitarian aid increased significantly. The Israel Defense Forces' U.S.-backed bombardment of the enclave has killed at least 32,705 Palestinians so far. Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Walberg's "clear call to genocide... should be condemned by all Americans who value human life and international law." "To so casually call for what would result in the killing of every human being in Gaza sends the chilling message that Palestinian lives have no value," said Walid. "It is this dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the ongoing slaughter and suffering we see every day in Gaza and the West Bank." Mitchell Rivard, chief of staff to Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), said Walberg's comments illustrate "the Republican position on Gaza." Earlier this month, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) told a group of Palestinian rights advocates, "Goodbye to Palestine"—leading Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) to say he had called "for the genocide of the Palestinian people." Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) in February told an activist, "I think we should kill 'em all," when asked about Palestinian children who have been killed by Israel with U.S. military support, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called for Israel to "level the place" soon after the war started. WHO Chief Demands Swift Medical Evacuations for 9,000 Injured, Sick Patients in Gaza Israel is currently attempting to send several patients back to the besieged enclave from East Jerusalem, where they have been receiving cancer treatment. By Julia Conley 'Obscene': Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel "Arming a war criminal makes you a war criminal," one critic admonished the U.S. president. By Brett Wilkins

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■ More News Working Families Party Urges New York Voters to 'Leave It Blank' for Gaza AIPAC-Funded Challenger to Jamaal Bowman Has a Very Narrow Definition of Genocide Green Groups Secure Deal to Clean Up Coal-Polluted West Virginia Streams Advocates 'Crushed' That Biden Import Rules Don't Ban Elephant Trophies

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■ Opinion Hey Biden, Give Peace a Chance Public dissatisfaction with the dictatorial decision-making by the White House and the absence of congressional action is growing rapidly. By Ralph Nader The Next Few Years Will Decide What Kind of Future We Leave for My Grandchild Everyone’s job this decade is to arrest the sudden and sickening lurch upward in temperature, so that there’s somewhere at least a little stable for young people to stand as they build that new world that must come. By Bill Mckibben Asa Caleb Crane was born over the weekend; he came into the world with a full head of hair, and on first impression an undeniable charisma, a full array of important moral virtues, and a calm but determined approach to the new world in which he found himself. And I found myself both entirely agog at his general niftiness, and bowled over by the fact that I now know, very intimately, someone who God willing is going to exist in the 22nd century. I can compass the passage of time; my grandmother, who I knew well, was born in the latter part of the 19th century, and I can imagine most of the changes of her life—feel in some visceral way the increase in mobility, in communication, in opportunity, in ease. My parents were born in the Depression and came of age in the great postwar boom; my daughter was born just as the internet was getting off the ground. It all makes more or less sense to me; but of course the future is harder, and the future now is harder than ever. In fact, there have been a spate of stories this week pointing out that even our greatest climate scientists are having a hard time explaining the rapid rise in global temperature over the last 12 months—and others explaining just how hot it has become. Here’s a compelling Guardian account of the record heat across much of Africa in recent weeks. Tarly in Ivory Coast explained: “All I can do is open the windows and the door to let the air flow, but even the air doesn’t move.” He lives with a one-year-old child, who cries at night because he is hot, and his two teenage daughters, who wake up in the middle of the night to shower before returning to bed where they lie in front of the fan. Still, the heat clings; it does not go away. “At four in the morning, it’s when it’s least hot and you can sleep better, but I have to wake up to go to work,” Tarly said. “When it’s this hot, mixed with humidity, time stands still.” Of course time in the larger sense, rushes on—and right now the very real-time acceleration of warming scares me more than I want to admit. It also makes me think—as you might guess from the title of this newsletter—that the next few years may be the crucial ones between now and 2100, maybe even between now and 5100. Because if we don’t break the momentum of the warming then it will build unstoppably on itself—and that will foreclose all kinds of options. It’s keeping those options open that matters to me. I don’t think we can reasonably plan all that far into the future—new technologies, new politics, new attitudes will inevitably shape how things happen 20 or 60 years from now. But I do think we can see the outline of our politics through the end of the decade, and I think it basically involves a single choice: Do we go all-in on the energy transition as the world pledged in December at the last global climate talks, or do we back off, following the advice of, say, the (wildly applauded) Saudi Aramco CEO who said last week at a Houston energy conference that “we should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them.” The first option—going all-in on the energy transition—doesn’t get us where we need to go, and certainly not by 2030. I don’t see any chance that the temperature won’t still be rising then. But done with vigor it keeps possibilities open: Politico this week reported, for instance, on the growing competition among blue-state governors to come up with more renewables and more efficiency, and the remarkable Kingsmill Bond at the Rocky Mountain Institute reported on the growing competition between the superpower blocs for green energy supremacy. China, Europe, and the United States make up 80%–90% of deployment of key clean technologies. China dominates the supply chain, but change is happening. China has outspent the United States and Europe 10-fold in the past five years to achieve market share in manufacturing of over 90% in solar and 70% in batteries. But United States and European capital expenditure is set to increase 16-fold by 2025, and opportunities for leadership abound; only 20% of final energy demand has been electrified; and technologies to enhance flexibility are still in the early stages. Europe leads in solar and wind share of generation. Europe has the largest share of electricity from solar and wind, and all three regions are moving rapidly up the S-curve towards solar and wind dominance. What I’m trying to say is, we have the chance to move over the next five years to establish a counter-momentum to the rising temperature. If we do, by 2030 we’ll be in a place to weigh the options going forward; if we don’t then nature will be making decisions for us, and we’ll be reacting. For those like me of a certain age we have no real business telling young people what kind of world to build—that will be their opportunity and their responsibility, and my sense is that they have the savvy to do a good job of it. But our job—everyone’s job these next five years—is to arrest the sudden and sickening lurch upward in temperature, so that there’s somewhere at least a little stable for those young people to stand as they build that new world that must come. The best proxy for that stability is the number of solar panels and wind turbines and batteries we install between now and the end of the decade. I’ve always thought this to be true; it’s why this newsletter is called what it is, and it’s why I do the work I do at places like Third Act. It’s just that all of a sudden I take it even more personally. Hi Asa!  Environmental activists rally during the U.K. Student Climate Network’s Global Climate Strike protest action in central London, on September 20, 2019.  (Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images) Protecting Forests Can Help Us Combat the Climate Crisis–If Done Right If we are to restore old growth, combat climate change, and preserve wildlife habitats and have forests for future generations to experience, we must change the way that we manage our public forest lands. By Ellen Montgomery

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These are extremely difficult times for our country.

 

It goes without saying that these are extremely difficult and trying times for our country, and for the entire planet. The good news is that all across the country working people are standing up and fighting for economic justice and against corporate greed.

Never give up. Never.

 

CAMPAIGN | BUILD BACK BETTER Give Up on Climate Action? Never. It's extremely hard to pass legislation when it is strongly opposed by deep-pocketed corporate interests such as the fossil fuel industry and their allies in Congress. But as President Obama proved with the Affordable Care Act, sometimes the need is so great and the action so overdue that giving up is simply not an option. Remember, after a very tough slog through the House and Senate, Obamacare was eventually signed into law in during his 15th month in office, changing lives by adding tens of millions of Americans to the ranks of those with health insurance. Make no mistake, President Biden's Build Back Better agenda is transformative. The policy ideas contained in it will create jobs for the millions of Americans who will work to modernize and electrify our transportation systems, build new wind and solar energy plants, and retrofit buildings across America to make them more efficient. These investments will strengthen our economy, help lower costs for families, clear the air in polluted communities, and lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy. And they will serve as a huge down payment on America's commitment to help solve the climate crisis for the generations to follow. Negotiations around the Build Back Better Act up to now have been unusually public, playing out in the media as much as in private meetings, and that type of public brinksmanship led to a very public crash at the end of 2021. But the policy ideas contained in it live on, and neither the president nor his party leadership on Capitol Hill are giving up. We won't give up, either. As of this writing, negotiators are working to create a path forward. And while that dealmaking process is likely to be more muted, it remains vitally important that we continue to pressure lawmakers to keep their promises to pass bold climate action as soon as possible. The NRDC Action Fund's ongoing advocacy campaign to pass the Build Back Better agenda is the largest in our history—part of an extraordinary effort by numerous climate and environmental groups to amplify the voices of the people in the face of an onslaught from the oil, gas, and coal industries. Those industries are counting on us growing weary of the fight, which is exactly why we cannot and will not.

Read More Killer tornadoes in Kentucky and a winter firestorm in Colorado are the latest signs of climate chaos that demand federal action.

VOTE | 2022 MIDTERMS Climate and the 2022 Elections Midterm elections are always a referendum on the new president, and the 2022 elections will be no exception. Inflation and the COVID pandemic are currently top of mind in the polls and threaten the razor-thin pro-environment majorities in the House and Senate, but no outcome is set in stone at this point. Even though we don't know what the election results will be, one thing we know for certain is if we don't show up, we are guaranteed to lose. That's why the NRDC Action Fund is committed to defending climate champions this year and defeating candidates who want to take our country backward. This isn't going to be easy, but we can't leave the arena now—not after years of building up the political power of the climate and environmental movements. In 2020, that power helped defeat Donald Trump, perhaps the most anti-environment president in American history. It helped elect two Democratic senators from Georgia, who today are strong advocates for climate action. It's why serious climate legislation is even on the table in this Congress, and it's how we will ultimately win the climate action we need to secure a brighter future. Our time, energy, and passion will be even more important this fall if we are to defend democratic values and demand that our lawmakers work for us instead of Big Oil. The climate crisis is solvable, and our democracy can be strengthened, but only if people like you and me—members of the NRDC Action Fund and like-minded people everywhere—stay engaged, informed, and determined. Soon, we'll be rolling out our first slate of candidate endorsements for 2022, and we'll be asking you to stand with the NRDC Action Fund in this fight...because we need you.

ROUNDUP | STATE & LOCAL ACTION Powering Our Priority Policy Campaigns The NRDC Action Fund helps to power NRDC's most important policy campaigns at the state and local levels. Recent highlights include: Save the Bees...and Our Food: In a huge victory for the environment, New Jersey lawmakers finally passed landmark legislation that bans the use of a harmful and toxic class of pesticides called neonics that are widely used in landscaping and lawn care. Neonics are a leading cause of staggering declines in bees and other insect pollinators—and we need healthy pollinator populations to ensure a robust food supply. NRDC Action Fund members and activists repeatedly sent messages to state lawmakers urging passage of the bill. Denver Passes New Limits on Buildings Emissions: The city council voted to reduce climate-wrecking emissions from buildings by 80 percent by 2040. NRDC Action Fund activists sent hundreds of letters in support of this legislation. Virginians Decry New Governor's Pick to Safeguard the Environment: The NRDC Action Fund amplified the voices of Virginians who opposed Governor Glen Youngkin's choice of former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to lead the commonwealth's environmental agency. Wheeler, a onetime coal lobbyist who tried to substantially weaken enforcement of our national environmental laws during the Trump administration, was rejected for confirmation by a closely divided Virginia legislature.

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RSN: FOCUS: Juan Cole | Biden's Moonshot: Announces Green Race With China for Electric Vehicle Dominance as MSM Misses Story

 

 

09 February 22

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FOCUS: Juan Cole | Biden's Moonshot: Announces Green Race With China for Electric Vehicle Dominance as MSM Misses Story
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "The president of the United States announced a Green Race with Beijing for dominance of the electric vehicle manufacturing sector, in which the US is way behind."

President Biden admitted on Tuesday that, regarding electric vehicles, “China has been the — leading that race up to now. But this is about to change . . .” The president of the United States announced a Green Race with Beijing for dominance of the electric vehicle manufacturing sector, in which the US is way behind.

As a Middle East specialist, I’m deeply interested in this budding US-China EV Race because it holds the prospect of reconfiguring the economies and geopolitics of the Middle East. Oil giants like Saudi Arabia and Iran face a steep decline, while it could be that energy-poor countries like Turkey and Egypt will reemerge as regional hegemons on the strength of their populations and manufacturing.

So back to Biden’s plans to green US transportation:

Biden said that the Australian maker of electric vehicle chargers, Tritium, is opening a plant in Tennessee to produce 30,000 chargers a year, creating 500 jobs.

The President pledged, “They’ll use American parts, American iron, American steel. And they’ll be installed up and down the highways and corridors in our communities all across the country by union workers from the IBEW and the electric work- — and the electrical workers union.”

He continued, “these jobs will multiply in steel mills, small parts suppliers, construction sites all over the country in the years to come. And it’s going to help ensure that the American — America leads the world in electric vehicles.”

Biden said Tuesday, “When we wrote the — and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we included $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers.”

He added, “later this week, we’re going to announce a state-by-state allocation for $5 billion of the funding for these chargers. So states can start making plans to build out what will become a national network of electric vehicle chargers.”

Biden has embraced some key elements of the Green New Deal as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez conceived it, expecially the notion that the rebuilding that confronting the climate crisis entails can be used to help the American working class. He said Tuesday, “In my first full year as President, the economy created 6.6 million new jobs. 6.6 million. That’s never happened before in American history. And that includes 375,000 manufacturing jobs. 2021 saw the highest increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs in nearly 30 years.”

Emphasis added. All the dreary reporting on the Biden economy by the for-profit press conveniently neglects these significant achievements. Sometimes I think it would be too cynical to argue that they miss the constant trolling of Trump and are hoping he gets back in for the sake of their bottom line. Sometimes I think it is the only explanation for how they always foregrounded Trump when mentioning good economic news but seldom even mention Biden in that context.

So here’s why the EV chargers of the sort Tritium will make in Tennessee are so important. Jarrett Renshaw and Nandita Bose report at Reuters that since Biden assumed the presidency in 2021, some $200 billion worth of domestic US investments in electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors and aircraft have been announced.

Nives Dolsak and Aseem Prakash at Forbes point out that 28 percent of US carbon dioxide emissions come from the transportation sector. Most of that is automobiles and trucks burning petroleum. To cut C02 output by 50% by 2030, Biden will have to shift America into electric vehicles and improve public transport.

Dolsak and Prakash point to what is widely seen as a drag on EV adoption, which is the lack of fast public charging stations. Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), passed last fall, contains incentives for the public to buy more electric vehicles but also the billions Biden just mentioned for a nationwide network of fast charging stations.

Biden underlined of his charging stations and attempt to boost EVs, “That’s also going to help save hundreds of billions of gallons of gasoline over time, serving — saving an average driver who chooses an electric vehicle up to $1,000 every year on fuel; making our country more economically competitive, lowering air pollution, and keeping families healthier as we tackle climate — the climate crisis.”

Biden is right about the cost savings, but why state the numbers on an annual basis? Most people keep a car for about 12 years or so once they buy it. Yahoo Finance confirmed last fall that the savings on fuel of an EV amount to nearly $12,000 during those twelve years.

Biden’s remarks on Tuesday did not get much TV coverage beyond the event itself, and I fear that their significance was not fully appreciated by the inside-the-beltway reporters. The Chinese bought over 3 million EVs last year, while Americans bought 434,879. The goal Biden set, of outstripping China in the electric vehicle field, is a moonshot aspiration.

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