Category: Uncategorized

“Former NASA scientist James Hansen says the litigate-to-mitigate campaign is needed alongside political mobilisation because judges are less likely than politicians to be in the pocket of oil, coal and gas companies.

“‘The judiciary is the branch of government in the US and other countries that is relatively free of bribery. And bribery is exactly what is going on,’ he told the Guardian on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Bonn…

“He does not mince his words. The international process of the Paris accord, he says, is ‘eyewash’ because it fails to put a higher price on carbon. National legislation, he feels, is almost certainly doomed to fail because governments are too beholden to powerful lobbyists. Even supposedly pioneering states like California, which have a carbon cap-and-trade system, are making things worse, he said, because ‘half-arsed, half-baked plans only delay a solution.’

For Hansen, the key is to make the 100 big ‘carbon majors’ – corporations like ExxonMobil, BP and Shell that are, by one account, responsible for more than 70% of emissions – pay for the transition to cleaner energy and greater forests. Until governments make them do so by introducing carbon fees or taxes, he says, the best way to hold them to account and generate funds is to sue them for the damage they are doing to the climate, those affected and future generations.

Hansen is putting his words into action. He is involved in a 2015 lawsuit against the US federal government, brought by his granddaughter and 20 others under the age of 21. They argue the government’s failure to curb CO2 emissions has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/17/we-should-be-on-the-offensive-james-hansen-calls-for-wave-of-climate-lawsuits

“Simons, who is now 76, had been a pioneer in computer science at IBM Research at a time when few women not in the secretarial pool walked its halls. In her retirement, however, she was coming off as a crank. Fellow computer scientists might have heard her out, but to the public officials she needed to win over, the idea that software could be manipulated to rig elections remained a fringe preoccupation. Simons was not dissuaded. ‘They didn’t know what they were talking about and I did,’ she told me…

“Simons was called a Luddite. At times, she was treated as just short of raving. At a League of Women Voters convention, she took a turn at the microphone to challenge the league’s president. The moderator tried to yank the mic from her hand…

“‘It’s not that I don’t like computing or I don’t like computers. I mean, I am a computer scientist,’ she said. ‘Many of the leading opponents of paperless voting machines were, and still are, computer scientists, because we understand the vulnerability of voting equipment in a way most election officials don’t. The problem with cybersecurity is that you have to protect against everything, but your opponent only has to find one vulnerability.'”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/guardian-of-the-vote/544155/

“The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment made the decision in July.

“The agency said Wednesday it followed proper procedures in listing the herbicide and ‘stands by its decision.’

“California’s Proposition 65, a ballot initiative passed in 1986, requires the state to protect drinking water sources ‘from being contaminated with chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.’

“It also requires businesses to warn California users about their chemicals’ dangers…

“Monsanto sued the California agency in 2016 to block glyphosate’s potential listing. The case was dismissed in March, but the seed and chemical company is appealing the ruling.”

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/2017/11/15/iowa-farm-groups-monsanto-sue-california-roundup-glyphosate-cancer-causing-chemical/866446001/

“Organic food is in danger of losing its meaning, so farmers and activists rallied today to stop corporate interests from destroying the last vestiges of ethical organic farming.
Corporate lobbyists are pushing the National Organic Standards Board to include hydroponic production in the Organic label. While the details can seem esoteric, the implications are already rippling through the food system…

“’For over one hundred years, organic farming has been synonymous with nurturing the soil and thereby providing the success of organic farmers in growing strong, healthy plants and nutritionally superior food. Soil-less, artificial production, regardless of how politically powerful Industrial Hydroponics may be, has no place in honest organic. And it never will’ – Jim Gerritsen, ME organic farmer, Wood Prairie Family Farm; President, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, Bridgewater.”

http://halalfocus.net/usa-nationwide-rallies-to-fight-for-organic-food/

“Amazon recently sent state and city officials across the country scrambling to respond to its announcement that it was seeking enticements to build a second headquarters, promising 50,000 new jobs and $5 billion in investment to the winning location. Governments are mobilizing to devise lucrative incentive packages. I know how this works, because I spent eight years supporting these types of incentives as the governor of Delaware.

“Amazon’s public encouragement of a bidding war highlights a competition that state and local governments engage in every day. I became very familiar with this process: A big business promises thousands, hundreds or even dozens of jobs and waits for offers from mayors and governors eager to demonstrate to voters that they are bringing them jobs. In Delaware, our economic development office, with my full approval, was busy calculating direct subsidies to corporations through grants and tax breaks.

“I was as guilty as any elected official at playing this game. But it’s a game that should stop. There’s a better way to compete for business.

“A New York Times investigation in 2012 found that states, counties and cities were handing out more than $80 billion a year in incentives to attract and retain companies. Amazon, for example, has already benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies as it expanded its warehouse network around the country, according to a report last year by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance…

“The solution is straightforward: Congress should institute a federal tax of 100 percent on every dollar a business receives in state or local incentives that are directed specifically to that company. This would not include investments in public infrastructure, work force development or other investments that can attract employers while also providing a significant long-term benefit to taxpayers.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/opinion/incentives-businesses-corporations-giveaways.html

“One of the wealthiest men in the world is thinking of ways to give back. But he’s still taking from the very people who helped him build his fortune…

“But as Bezos, whose worth now exceeds $80 billion, loosens his pockets, it’s important to put his charitable giving — and the philanthropy of the super-rich — into perspective: Many people worked hard for Bezos to help make him so rich, and he has a record of treating them poorly…

“Amazon’s history of dodging taxes, its mistreatment of workers, and its ruthlessness toward even the smallest competitors have been well documented. It put ambulances outside distribution centers rather than install adequate air conditioning. It broke up a union organizing effort by closing the call center and dismissing everyone who worked there. The New York Times documented its punishing work environment in a front-page exposé. The company’s actions, as Forbes put it, hark back to an earlier time when workers were treated as ‘replaceable cogs in the machine’…

“No wonder Bezos would prefer to turn people’s attention toward philanthropy. It’s nothing new. The Rockefeller family perfected the strategy more than a century ago…

“But as with other multi-billionaires, Bezos should remember that his vast wealth came in part from labor, and he should do more to share that wealth with workers. As the owner of an institution that’s critical to democracy, he should go out of his way to set a tone of progressive stewardship toward employees in all his businesses.

Instead, Bezos has shown that he views his employees as parts in a high-tech machine, that income inequality is someone else’s problem, and that modern corporations owe little more to their employees than a paycheck.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-bezos-workers_us_59a7220fe4b07e81d354e6e3

“The company plans to present data at the summit that it says show user error was behind the damage, contrary to academics’ findings that dicamba products can vaporize and move off target under certain conditions in a process known as volatilization…

“Reuters contacted 10 scientists who were invited. Of these, three said they would attend and seven said they would not, for reasons including scheduling conflicts…

“Monsanto’s critiques of experts follows past accusations by farmers and activists that the company improperly influenced science.

“In March, farmers and others suing Monsanto claimed in court filings that Monsanto employees ghostwrote scientific reports that U.S. regulators relied on to determine that glyphosate, a chemical in its Roundup weed killer, did not cause cancer.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pesticides-monsanto/u-s-scientists-to-skip-monsanto-summit-on-controversial-weed-killer-idUSKCN1C13CK