Author Archives: TheronBanner

Hurricane Michael could help climate denier Rick Scott in the Florida Senate race

by TheronBanner Posted on October 11, 2018

As 155 mile-per-hour winds stripped roofs off buildings, and seawater surged through broken windows in the Florida panhandle, political insiders were already speculating about how Hurricane Michael might roil the November elections.

“Amazing to think with razor thin margins in FL statewide elections an October hurricane could swing it all …” Republican strategist Anthony Pedicini wrote on Twitter.

This isn’t the first catastrophe to upset Florida’s midterms. In the race for U.S. Senate, incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, the Democrat, and sitting Republican Governor Rick Scott, have been firing attack ads accusing the other of causing disgusting algal blooms. (Who’s right?  Read this).

Climate change can influence both hurricanes and algal blooms. Algae thrives in warm water, so hotter weather can mean bigger blooms. And while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that warming won’t cause more tropical storms, it does project that they’ll be more intense.

So with the environment already taking a leading role in electoral politics, could Hurricane Michael provide the updraft Florida climate hawks need to soar to victory?

Floridians are right in line with the rest of the country when it comes to climate change, with 70 percent agreeing that it’s a thing, according to the most recent survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. But Michael made landfall in deep-red MAGA country.

If anything, the hurricane is likely to give voters the warm fuzzies for Scott (who censored the words “climate change” government officials weren’t even allowed to say the words, which made for some funny press conferences), because it give him the chance to go out and do leaderly stuff like activating the National Guard. His campaign had just started running an ad called “Leadership,” portraying him as the guy who got Florida through previous hurricanes. Polls show that Scott got more popular after those storms.

Nelson and the Democrats are fighting back with ads pointing out that, with Scott at the helm, 11 seniors died from heat exposure, and there were charges of profiteering on the cleanup.

All of which looks like normal mudslinging, not exactly a political playing field upended by climate disasters. At least not yet.

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Hurricane Michael could help climate denier Rick Scott in the Florida Senate race

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Corporate giant Bayer just made a deal to buy Monsanto.

by TheronBanner Posted on September 14, 2016

After her husband died from lung cancer in 1969, Hazel M. Johnson started a fight against all the things making her neighbors and loved ones sick. She founded the organization People for Community Recovery, and later met a young organizer named Barack Obama. The two worked together to remove asbestos from Altgeld Gardens, her public housing community — a fight they won in 1989.

Obama later wrote about that fight in his memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. As detailed in Johnson’s Chicago Tribune obituary, Obama was criticized for leaving Johnson out of the story. Johnson passed away in 2011, leaving behind an inspiring legacy that too many people know nothing about. Chicago took a step toward changing that when it renamed 130th Street on the South Side Hazel Johnson EJ Way.

The recognition that marginalized people shoulder too much of the burden from environmental threats inspired Johnson’s life’s work. She was radically ahead of her time. “It’s all very well to embrace saving the rain forests and conserving endangered animal species,” she said, “but such global initiatives don’t even begin to impact communities inhabited by people of color.”

Link: 

Corporate giant Bayer just made a deal to buy Monsanto.

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