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European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled Earth’s climate
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
European colonization of the Americas resulted in the killing of so many native people that it transformed the environment and caused the Earth’s climate to cool down, new research has found.
Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90 percent in the century following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492.
This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation.
The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to actually cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15 degrees C (0.27 degrees F) in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.
“The great dying of the indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth system in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution,” wrote the UCL team of Alexander Koch, Chris Brierley, Mark Maslin, and Simon Lewis.
The drop in temperature during this period is known as the “Little Ice Age,” a time when the River Thames in London would regularly freeze over, snowstorms were common in Portugal, and disrupted agriculture caused famines in several European countries.
The UCL researchers found that the European colonization of the Americas indirectly contributed to this colder period by causing the deaths of about 56 million people by 1600. The study attributes the deaths to factors including introduced disease, such as smallpox and measles, as well as warfare and societal collapse.
Researchers then calculated how much land indigenous people required and then subsequently fell into disuse, finding that around 55 million hectares, an area roughly equivalent to France, became vacant and was reclaimed by carbon dioxide-absorbing vegetation.
The study sketches out a past where humans were influencing the climate long before the industrial revolution, where the use of fossil fuels for the manufacturing of goods, generation of electricity, and transportation has allowed tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere.
Widespread deforestation for agriculture and urban development has also spurred the release of greenhouse gases, causing the planet to warm by around 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) over the past century. Scientists have warned that the world has little over a decade to drastically reduce emissions or face increasingly severe storms, drought, heatwaves, coastal flooding, and food insecurity.
The revegetation of the Americas after European arrival aided declines of global carbon content in the air, dropping by around 7 to 10 parts of carbon dioxide for every million molecules of air in the atmosphere. This compares to the 3 ppm of carbon dioxide that humanity is currently adding to the atmosphere every year through the burning of fossil fuels.
“There is a lot of talk around ‘negative emissions’ approaching and using tree-planting to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to mitigate climate change,” study coauthor Chris Brierley told the BBC. “And what we see from this study is the scale of what’s required, because the great dying resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million.”
“This is useful,” he continued, “it shows us what reforestation can do. But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate.”
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European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled Earth’s climate
European colonization of the Americas killed so many it cooled Earth’s climate
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
European colonization of the Americas resulted in the killing of so many native people that it transformed the environment and caused the Earth’s climate to cool down, new research has found.
Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90 percent in the century following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492.
This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation.
The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to actually cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15 degrees C (0.27 degrees F) in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.
“The great dying of the indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth system in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution,” wrote the UCL team of Alexander Koch, Chris Brierley, Mark Maslin, and Simon Lewis.
The drop in temperature during this period is known as the “Little Ice Age,” a time when the River Thames in London would regularly freeze over, snowstorms were common in Portugal, and disrupted agriculture caused famines in several European countries.
The UCL researchers found that the European colonization of the Americas indirectly contributed to this colder period by causing the deaths of about 56 million people by 1600. The study attributes the deaths to factors including introduced disease, such as smallpox and measles, as well as warfare and societal collapse.
Researchers then calculated how much land indigenous people required and then subsequently fell into disuse, finding that around 55 million hectares, an area roughly equivalent to France, became vacant and was reclaimed by carbon dioxide-absorbing vegetation.
The study sketches out a past where humans were influencing the climate long before the industrial revolution, where the use of fossil fuels for the manufacturing of goods, generation of electricity, and transportation has allowed tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere.
Widespread deforestation for agriculture and urban development has also spurred the release of greenhouse gases, causing the planet to warm by around 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) over the past century. Scientists have warned that the world has little over a decade to drastically reduce emissions or face increasingly severe storms, drought, heatwaves, coastal flooding, and food insecurity.
The revegetation of the Americas after European arrival aided declines of global carbon content in the air, dropping by around 7 to 10 parts of carbon dioxide for every million molecules of air in the atmosphere. This compares to the 3 ppm of carbon dioxide that humanity is currently adding to the atmosphere every year through the burning of fossil fuels.
“There is a lot of talk around ‘negative emissions’ approaching and using tree-planting to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to mitigate climate change,” study coauthor Chris Brierley told the BBC. “And what we see from this study is the scale of what’s required, because the great dying resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million.”
“This is useful,” he continued, “it shows us what reforestation can do. But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate.”
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European colonization of the Americas killed so many it cooled Earth’s climate
600+ environmental orgs say this is what they want in a Green New Deal
The urgency to get to a fossil fuel-free future is growing. Now comes the discussion over just how to get there.
The Green New Deal is taking shape — not so much in Congress (at least not yet), but certainly among the nation’s environmental groups, many of which came together to outline want they do and don’t want to see in any future climate legislation.
On Thursday, more than 600 organizations submitted a letter to House representatives with a list of steps they say are required “at a minimum” for the U.S. to help keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
The message was signed by green movement heavyweights like 350.org, Greenpeace, Sunrise Movement, and Friends of the Earth — as well as many local grassroots groups, including Communities for a Better Environment in California and WE ACT for Environmental Justice in New York.
The recommendations include:
A complete shift to 100 percent renewable power generation by 2035.
An end to all fossil fuel leasing, extraction, and subsidies. That includes putting a stop to the export of crude oil and other fossil fuels.
Greater investment in renewable-energy-powered public transportation and better incentives for electric vehicles, with a goal of phasing out fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks by 2040.
More input from Native American tribes, workers, and the communities most impacted by fossil fuels. The letter says these groups should have the first say in what the transition away from fossil fuels looks like because a lot of energy infrastructure disproportionately impacts the places where they live.
Despite the sign-off from many environmental organizations, the letter may not strike a chord with all renewable energy advocates. It takes a stand on several topics that have ignited debate within the green community.
The letter demands a halt to nuclear energy, garbage incineration, and biomass energy. Such a move would throw a wrench in the green energy targets for several states which count these sources as “renewable.” Although there’s been some excitement for next-gen nuclear energy, these energy alternatives have posed health risks associated with toxic emissions and uranium contamination.
The letter also says the Clean Air Act should be used to rein in greenhouse gases. Traditionally, the act is associated with air pollution, not CO2. That said, carbon is often released with co-pollutants, and communities breathing the worst air say Congress should tackle pollution and climate change with one fell swoop.
The letter closes with a vow by the signing organizations to “vigorously oppose … corporate schemes that place profits over community burdens and benefits, including market-based mechanisms and technology options such as carbon and emissions trading and offsets, [and] carbon capture and storage.” (Carbon trading programs, like California’s popular cap-and-trade system, have been called out for making air quality worse in some communities, and critics of carbon capture say it takes the focus away from creating an economy that isn’t dependent on fossil fuels).
Browsing the 600+ organizations that endorsed the letter, there are still some big names missing, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council.
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600+ environmental orgs say this is what they want in a Green New Deal
Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, green energy, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized
Tagged 350.org, california, earth, environment, friends of the earth, g & f, green new deal, justice, king, letter, Ona, politics
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Historically black community could face a toxic facility for Atlantic Coast Pipeline
The saga continues for the embattled Atlantic Coast Pipeline. On Tuesday, a Virginia board approved a controversial plan to build a natural gas compressor station in Union Hill, a historically black community in Buckingham County. The decision was met with uproar from opponents, who vowed to keep fighting in protests and in court.
“It’s a real tragedy that the board that has been appointed to protect our air makes a decision that seals the fate and disregards the ongoing health and welfare of an entire community,” said Chad Oba, chair of the Friends of Buckingham, an organization of Buckingham citizens, and a local resident that will be impacted by the decision.
“This is just another example of institutionalized racial discrimination,” she told Grist.
The state Air Pollution Control Board voted 4-0 in favor of a station permit for the approximately 600-mile underground pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas from West Virginia into Virginia and North Carolina. The development is a joint venture from several energy companies, but Richmond-based Dominion Energy is leading the pack in building the $7 billion pipeline.
AP Photo / Steve Helber
“Today’s unanimous approval is a significant step forward for this transformational project and the final state approval needed in Virginia,” wrote Dominion spokesman Karl Neddenien in an email to the Washington Post. “We have a profound respect for this community and its history, and we will continue working together to build a better future.”
Here’s the rub: Pipeline opponents are concerned that exhaust from the compressor station will hurt the surrounding community, putting them at risk of a range of ailments including asthma. Rebecca Rubin, an air board member, was dismissed by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam less than a week after she raised concerns about the disproportionate impact of the pipeline compressor station on Union Hill (ahem, Dominion energy is the state’s biggest corporate political donor).
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Rubin writes that the compressor station’s designated location “would disproportionately affect a minority community, a classic environmental justice issue.”
Dominion Energy presented survey data based on broad Census Bureau information they say indicates the area surrounding the site is sparsely populated and made up of no more than 39 percent minority residents based on race. Company representatives argued that, based on those demographics, the neighborhood was“not an environmental justice community.”
An anthropologist working with Friends of Buckingham, however, submitted the results of door-to-door research, finding that of the approximately 200 people who live within a one-mile radius of the site, 83 percent are racial minorities.
Supporters of the station say it will boost development in the rural area. In an effort to help build local support for the project, Dominion offered community improvement package valued at $5.1 million. The offer won over some residents but was not enough of an incentive for many residents of the Union Hill community, which was settled after the Civil War by free blacks and former slaves.
“The legacy of placing toxic facilities in places where they disproportionately affect poor communities of color is unjust and unacceptable and needs acute examination,” wrote stakeholders in an open letter calling for the permit’s denial. “It is not right to look the other way while this continues.”
One thing is clear: the battle is still a long ways from over. The project’s opponents will likely challenge the decision in state court, adding to the pipeline’s hodgepodge of setbacks. Notably, the plan was stalled after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the U.S. Forest Service did not have proper permissions for the pipeline to cut across the Appalachian Trail. (Dominion plans to appeal the decision.)
Despite the board’s approval of the natural gas compression station, members of the Friends of Buckingham County say they too plan to keep fighting. “We have not given up,” Oba added. “If anything, it’s given us more resolve.”
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Historically black community could face a toxic facility for Atlantic Coast Pipeline
PG&E could face murder charges for California’s wildfires
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It’s been nearly two months since the massive Camp Fire laid waste to the town of Paradise in northern California. It destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and claimed at least 86 lives, making it the deadliest fire in the state’s history. And now the state’s largest public utility provider, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. could face murder or manslaughter charges related to the blazes.
PG&E is already under investigation for criminal wrongdoing related to California’s deadly wildfires. Though investigators have not determined what officially sparked the fire, PG&E reported “an outage” on a transmission line in the area where the blaze began around the time the blazes started.
If district prosecutors find that “reckless operation” of its power equipment caused any of the state’s deadly wildfires in the past two years, the company could be held responsible for not just the resulting property damages but the loss of life as well.
“PG&E’s most important responsibility is public and workforce safety,” the utility, which provides electricity to about 16 million Californians, said in a statement. “Our focus continues to be on assessing our infrastructure to further enhance safety and helping our customers continue to recover and rebuild.”
On Friday, California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra submitted a legal brief to a federal judge who is considering how the wildfires could affect PG&E’s probation from a criminal case born out a 2010 explosion at a natural gas pipeline operated by PG&E. The judge will have to gauge PG&E’s “mental state” — meaning, its employees’ degree of negligence and recklessness — before determining which charges to bring, if any.
Potential charges range from minor misdemeanors related to poor maintenance of trees along power lines to involuntary manslaughter or murder if the company is found to be the cause of the wildfires.
In addition to possible criminal charges, PG&E could be found liable for billions of dollars in civil damages. But it’s not just the company that will bear the burden of any resulting settlements. In September 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill which permitted PG&E to pass on some of the costs related to utility’s role in the 2017 wildfires on to their customers.
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Green New Deal has overwhelming bipartisan support, poll finds. At least, for now.
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This story was originally published by the HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The Green New Deal is the most popular policy hardly anyone has heard of yet.
Eighty-two percent of Americans say they have heard “nothing at all” about the sweeping proposal to generate 100 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean sources within the next 10 years, upgrade the United States’ power grid, invest in energy efficiency and renewable technology, and provide training for jobs in the new, green economy.
But when asked “how much do you support or oppose” the aforementioned suite of policies, 81 percent of registered voters say they either “somewhat support” or “strongly support” the plan, according to new survey results shared exclusively with HuffPost from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University.
Ninety-two percent of Democrats supported the idea, including 93 percent of liberal Democrats and 90 percent of moderate-to-conservative Democrats. But 64 percent of Republicans ― including 75 percent of moderate-to-liberal Republicans and 57 percent of conservative Republicans ― also backed the policy goals outlined in the Green New Deal. 88 percent of independents endorsed the policies as well.
“Given that most Americans have strong support for the components and ideas of the Green New Deal, it becomes a communication strategy problem,” Abel Gustafson, a postdoctoral associate at Yale who co-authored a report on the findings, said by phone Sunday. “From here, it’s about how you can pitch it so you can maintain that bipartisan support throughout the rest of the process.”
The survey’s description of the Green New Deal’s tenets did not mention that more than 40 progressive members of Congress are championing the policy. The group includes Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a Democrat from New York), Representative John Lewis (a Democrat from Georgia) and Senator Jeff Merkley (a Democrat from Oregon).
Study after study shows Americans evaluate policies more negatively when they are told politicians from an opposing party back the ideas, and more positively when they are told politicians from their own party are in support. The findings therefore indicate that although most Republicans favor the Green New Deal in principle, they are not yet aware that the plan is proposed by the political left.
The survey ― administered online to 966 registered voters, with a margin of error of +/- three percentage points ― was performed from November 28 to December 11.
Support could erode if debate over the policy becomes more partisan, which seems likely. No Republican lawmakers have backed the Green New Deal. Most moderate and conservative Democrats have not said they support the idea, either.
“It matters how the Green New Deal is communicated in the future,” Gustafson said. “If it becomes more partisan and right-versus-left, we could see support drop from Americans on the right.”
The findings mirror survey results released Monday that found major support for a green jobs program across political ideologies, including party loyalists and those who move between parties. Those who say they support a green jobs program include:
98 percent of loyal Democrats
66 percent of loyal Republicans
96 percent of voters who cast ballots for President Barack Obama in 2012, President Donald Trump in 2016, and Democrats in the 2018 midterms
93 percent of voters who cast ballots for Obama, then Trump, then Republicans in 2018
The polling, published in The New York Times, came from Data for Progress, the left-leaning think tank behind the most comprehensive blueprint for a Green New Deal to date.
Polling also finds that Americans consider global warming a real issue and support policy changes to address it. Yale survey data from August found:
70 percent of Americans recognize global warming is happening
57 percent understand humans are causing the temperature rise
85 percent support funding research into renewable energy
77 percent support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant
63 percent support requiring utilities to generate one-fifth of their electricity from renewables
That made the latest findings on the Green New Deal ― one of the first major national surveys to use that term specifically ― “exciting but not necessarily surprising,” Gustafson said.
“The way we described the Green New Deal in our survey was by emphasizing the qualities that resonate with both sides, that it creates jobs and strengthens America’s economy and also accelerates the transition from fossil fuels,” he said. “We’re not surprised that conservatives support those things.”
Other polls show strong support for guaranteeing green jobs to unemployed Americans, a policy increasingly discussed as a vehicle for a Green New Deal but one that the Yale survey did not explicitly cite. In September, Data for Progress released polling that found 55 percent of eligible U.S. voters supported a jobs guarantee, while 23 percent opposed. When the jobs are green, that support remained the same, but the share of those outright opposed fell to 18 percent.
“Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike understand that they live on the same planet, the same country,” Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, said when read the Yale survey results over the phone. “We need highways, jobs, and improved infrastructure, and we need a 100 percent renewable-energy economy.”
The Green New Deal barreled into mainstream political discourse a little over a month ago after languishing for more than a decade on the fringes of policy debates. A new wave of progressive Democrats reclaimed the term ahead of November’s midterm election to describe the type of large-scale economic mobilization scientists say is required to keep global warming within 2.3 degrees F, beyond which sea-level rise and extreme weather are forecast to be catastrophic.
In November, protesters with the left-wing groups Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats occupied top Democrats’ offices to demand party leadership make climate change a top priority in the next Congress. Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned on a democratic socialist vision of climate action, proposed establishing a select committee in Congress to shape a Green New Deal. Thirty-seven incoming or sitting House members pledged to support the plan.
On Friday, more than 300 state and local elected officials voiced their support for a Green New Deal in an open letter.
The legislative path forward remains unclear, but the Green New Deal is shaping up to be a major 2020 issue. Richard Ojeda, the failed West Virginia congressional candidate now running for president, said he supports the policy. Two likely contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination ― Senators Bernie Sanders (an Independent fom Vermont) and Cory Booker (a Democrat from New Jersey) ― came out in support of a Green New Deal. Merkley, another potential 2020 hopeful, was among the first to back the plan.
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Green New Deal has overwhelming bipartisan support, poll finds. At least, for now.
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Tagged alo, climate & energy, democratic, green new deal, justice, november, policy, politics, radius, united
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This is what a government shutdown over climate change would look like
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What issues are “worth” shutting down the government for? That, annoyingly, is the question America finds itself tackling again and again in recent years.
Our president was elected on a controversial platform of building a border wall to limit immigration. Now, he says he’s willing to shut down the government within days of Christmas in order to secure billions of dollars in funding for its construction.
On Sunday morning, Trump’s advisor, Stephen Miller, said the president would do “whatever is necessary” in order to build the wall — despite the fact that the general public feels that a government shutdown is pretty drastic. Still, one seems nearly inevitable and would begin this Friday — senators and representatives have already left for their home districts without a plan to avert it.
This seems as good a time as any to offer an important reminder: Climate change is an existential threat to human civilization and without radical action, we’re committing to irreversible destruction of the biosphere — the evolutionary equivalent of a meteor strike.
Which makes me wonder: What would it take for the Democrats to shut down the government — to do whatever is necessary — over climate change?
The first step would be making climate change a core and unrelenting talking point of the party’s platform — and then winning elections specifically with a populist mandate to take immediate, large-scale action on it.
We already have a glimpse of what that world looks like: Recently elected Justice Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and 2016 Grist 50 member Ayanna Pressley spoke incessantly about climate change in the runup to their midterm campaigns, rightly framing it as an intersectional justice issue.
The policy platform that has emerged from those electoral wins — the Green New Deal — has already pushed the larger Democratic Party to quickly consider positions that would have been deemed outright radical just a few months ago, like a nationwide 100 percent renewable energy mandate by 2030 and a green jobs guarantee. This kind of rapid shift in dialogue is consistent with the “moon shot” approach that scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophic warming.
And those ideas have a lot of support: A recent New York Times poll shows that 98 percent of loyal Democrats and 66 percent of loyal Republicans would back a green jobs program.
Highly visible groups of young people, led by the Sunrise Movement, have already made clear that they’re not going to go easy on Democratic leadership if it ignores climate change. If the group’s protests escalate — if its members continue speaking with clear, moral language inspired by past civil rights struggles — there could suddenly be a hint in the air that transformative policy change could be imminent, also.
There are already signs that mainstream Democrats are listening. Likely incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised dialogue with Sunrise protesters, though she’s yet to agree to the protesters’ request to direct a special committee explicitly to develop a Green New Deal plan.
On the Senate side, where the rules ensure that the Democrats — still in the minority — could block the president’s infrastructure plans, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already made clear that a Green New Deal is the only way forward. (It remains to be seen how insistent he’s going to be on that point.) And just this past Friday, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey became the second likely Democratic presidential contender (along with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders) to endorse the idea of the sweeping program. “We must take bold action on climate change & create a green economy that benefits all Americans,” he tweeted.
In the months ahead, it’s not inconceivable that a few dozen Democrats could form a progressive bloc and effectively commandeer the House, refusing to pass legislation on anything until a Green New Deal is signed into law. That, of course, would require a massive push from voters at the same time. It would need to be obvious to Democrats that they’d risk losing elections by not supporting it.
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This is what a government shutdown over climate change would look like
That green study you shared may have been funded by fossil fuels
The Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s wealthiest private philanthropies, has funded multiple studies in the field of environmental science. With $29.3 billion in assets, you’d think the United Kingdom-based organization could even afford to take fossil fuel companies to task for contributing to climate change…right? Wrong.
Though the Wellcome Trust touts itself as a philanthropy that supports research to investigate “what makes cities healthy and environmentally sustainable,” its offshore investments tell a different story. According to an investigation published today in Science, a significant chunk of the Wellcome Trust’s $1.2 billion handouts in recent years has come from “companies that contribute to the same problems the philanthropy wants to solve.”
For example, the Trust funded a study on the sobering reality of air pollution in Hong Kong that found elderly residents exposed to smog and especially soot were more likely to die of cancer than people who breathed cleaner air. Science found that some of the money that the philanthropy used to fund the air pollution research was tied to Varo Energy, a company that sells bunker fuel (an oil refining residue that is a major source of soot pollution) to shipping firms. These particulates billow from ship stacks and can have deadly outcomes, such as those found by the Wellcome Trust-funded study. Researchers estimate soot pollution contributes to the premature deaths of 250,000 people annually.
This funding revelation comes from a trove of documents called “The Paradise Papers,” which were leaked to Science by a law firm that managed some of the deals. Large foundations and other nonprofits commonly use offshore companies and undisclosed investments to maximize returns, and yet the nature of these accounts controversially obscure exactly how organizations’ tax-exempt dollars are flowing.
“Many of the best-performing funds have offshore domiciles,” Wellcome Trust wrote in a statement to Science. “Our successful long-term investment strategy is based on exposure to a globally diversified range of asset classes.”
It goes to show that even do-good organizations are not immune from the Machiavellian principles of investing. Like other businesses, they need the highest return possible when looking for money to invest in the myriad of social and environmental issues facing the world today. And although it could be argued that, unlike unscrupulous gazillionaires, foundations will likely use their offshore dollars to do some greater good, critics say that by lending their pristine reputations to offshore strategies, these organizations are “helping to legitimize tactics that others widely use to bend or break the law.”
The thinking that “if you invest for social good you’re going to lose return is no longer valid,” Dana Lanza, who heads the nonprofit Confluence Philanthropy, which encourages foundations to align philanthropic mission with investment choices, told Grist. But there are other options. Even though fund managers (not foundations) choose investments, some organizations opt to bar certain types of investments that could pose conflicts of interest. According to Lanza, research shows that when companies invest with a climate risk lens, they tend to outperform over time compared to a non-green strategy.
“Given the urgency and the severity of the climate crisis, it’s really important that foundations pay attention,” Lanza told Grist. “They have a moral imperative to align their investment strategy around climate risk and sustainability outcomes, given where we’re at right now.”
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That green study you shared may have been funded by fossil fuels
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Tagged according, anchor, climate, given, justice, lanza, paradise papers, philanthropy, wellcome-trust
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What were Ocasio-Cortez and 150 young activists doing in Nancy Pelosi’s office?
Democrats successfully flipped the House last week, and they’ve set their priorities for January: reforming voting, government ethics, and campaign finance laws. Surprise! Climate change isn’t on the list. Not exactly a shocker considering that Democrats don’t even have an economy-wide plan to tackle climate change yet.
Guess who does? Young people and newly elected Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A group of 150 youth activists held an hour-long sit-in in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office in D.C. on Tuesday. Their goal was to get Democrats to embrace a sweeping plan called the Green New Deal, and they came prepared with a draft resolution.
The protestors are members of a climate group called the Sunrise Movement and a progressive organization called the Justice Democrats. Two of Sunrise Movement’s leaders, Evan Weber and Varshini Prakash, have been on the Grist 50 — our annual list of up-and-coming changemakers. The activists were joined by Ocasio-Cortez, who voiced support for the Green New Deal — a plank of her campaign platform. But what is this “Green New Deal,” anyway? This video tells all:
It’s unlikely such legislation would fare well in the Republican-controlled Senate. Even some Democrats might hesitate to back it: After all, many of them are still taking oil money to try and win elections, as representative-elect Lizzie Fletcher did in Texas’ 7th District.
Nancy Pelosi was quick to respond to the protestors, saying that her office was “inspired” by their advocacy. Pelosi has indicated she intends to revive a committee on climate change that was established back in 2007 and disbanded in 2011. Unimpressed, the Sunrise Movement tweeted that Pelosi’s plan is akin to “bringing a squirt gun to a wildfire.”
There is new evidence that a Green New Deal would be embraced by voters, according to a new nationwide poll from survey group YouGov. As Alexander Kaufman of HuffPost reports, around half of folks who cast ballots in the midterms either “strongly” or “somewhat” support charging companies pollution fees and giving unemployed Americans green jobs.
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What were Ocasio-Cortez and 150 young activists doing in Nancy Pelosi’s office?
Posted in alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized
Tagged climate, cortez, democratic, democrats, house, justice, leader, news, ocasio, office, pelosi, sunrise movement
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