Tag Archives: national

Underpaid, overworked farmworkers set to get liberal labor protections. Farmers grumble.

by LovieHealey106 Posted on September 2, 2016

A United Farm Workers march to City Hall in San Francisco REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

No justice, no peas

Underpaid, overworked farmworkers set to get liberal labor protections. Farmers grumble.

By on Sep 2, 2016 4:30 amShare

California’s legislature just passed a bill that’s a big win for farmworkers but a big defeat for farmers.

The bill, which comes after decades of campaigning by the United Farm Workers union, would make farms subject to the same rules for overtime pay as other businesses. If Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill into law, it would set a precedent for other states to follow. Farmworker advocates are cheering, along with green groups like the Sierra Club and the NRDC, but many farmers — including organic farmers who rely on manual labor in place of chemicals and mechanization — worry that the bill will push agriculture abroad.

The United Farm Workers union has argued that the bill corrects the injustice written into the federal Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938, which gave workers a minimum wage and a 44-hour work week but excluded farmworkers.

Farmworker Jose Adolfo Casares and his daughter at a migrant farm labour housing center in Bakersfield, Calif.REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

“The fact that the Fair Labor and Standards Act excluded farmworkers from collecting overtime pay is astounding considering the amount of outdoor physical labor they do,” said Julie Taylor, executive director of National Farm Worker Ministry, a faith-based organization that supports farmworkers.

“The whole world eats the food provided by California farmworkers, yet we don’t guarantee fair overtime pay for the backbreaking manual labor they put in to keep us fed,” said California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, in a statement.

Farmworkers aren’t totally unprotected. In the decades after passing the Fair Labor Standards Act, Congress ushered in laws extending them some protections. Agricultural workers are currently eligible for overtime pay after putting in 10 hours a day, and the California bill would lower that to eight hours. That may seem like a small change, but it has a lot of farmers scared.

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

“I’m down in Santa Cruz talking to farmers, and people are pretty freaked out,” said Dave Runsten, policy director for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a group that promotes small farms and sustainable food systems.

Worker pay is usually the biggest expense for the farmers Runsten works with, representing as much as half of their their costs. That’s likely to go up as California’s minimum wage rises to $15 an hour over the next six years. Some farmers will shift to less labor-intensive crops like almonds, some will replace workers with machinery (like these tomato harvesters), and some will move operations to Mexico, he said. But all those options are too expensive for many of the smaller farmers. “Those people are really looking down the barrel of a gun,” Runsten said.

Whenever we pass new regulations on farmers there’s always a danger that it will drive up food prices, and consumers will start buying from farmers elsewhere. That’s what happened in Sweden. The government passed sweeping animal welfare laws for pigs and in response Swedes started buying their pork from countries without those high standards. On the other hand, California farmers have managed to remain competitive despite the fact that the state has more agricultural regulations than others.

If we bring farming up to the same labor standards as other industries, it’s likely to follow the same trajectory as, say, the textile industry — the path of globalization and industrialization. Some agriculture will follow cheaper labor to other countries, and some will remain in the United States by going high tech and producing more with fewer workers. It’s all driven by our preference for the lowest price.

There’s another option: We could opt to pay more for better labor conditions. People tend to say they want small farms that rely on well-paid manual laborers, but when the time comes to pay the grocer we generally choose the cheaper tomato.

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Underpaid, overworked farmworkers set to get liberal labor protections. Farmers grumble.

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California Considers a "Brock Turner" Bill. Should Progressives Support It?

by EstherSWCxjumqj Posted on August 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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The California legislature has passed a bill that would increase the penalties for raping an unconscious victim. Eric Levitz applauds the motivation for the bill, but takes issue with the overall message it sends. You should really read the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:

If we accept the premise of California’s law — that combating rape culture requires imposing longer prison terms on rapists — then progressives will be forced to choose between their commitments to achieving gender equality and ending mass incarceration.

….The primary reason for America’s exceptional incarceration rate is that its voters are more comfortable with condemning their fellow citizens to cages for long periods of time than are those in other democracies….The most harmful thing about California’s bill may be the way it encourages this culture of incarceration.

If one focuses narrowly on the law’s immediate effects, a reasonable case can be made for its virtues: A three-year minimum sentence for raping an unconscious person is not wildly out of step with global standards….And, anyway, California’s bill contains a provision allowing judges to exercise discretion in “unusual cases where the interests of justice would best be served if the person is granted probation.”

On the other hand, it is unlikely that many judges would take on the political liability of exercising such discretion. And the specter of a minimum three-year jail sentence has the potential to intimidate innocent defendants into plea agreements — a phenomena that is more likely to disadvantage the most-vulnerable members of our society, who can least afford to mount a compelling defense.

….Nonetheless, the problem with California’s law lies less in its immediate, legal implications than in its cultural and political ones. To end mass incarceration, progressives will need to persuade their fellow citizens that we can reduce penalties for violent crime without reducing our concern for its victims….In calling for Judge Persky’s repeal, the movement fostered social and political stigma against the exercise of judicial leniency. People who look like Brock Turner will not be the ones most affected by such stigmas.

….If there were strong evidence that longer prison sentences make a critical difference in deterring violent crime, then California’s law might still be worthwhile. But there isn’t. According to the 2014 findings of the National Research Council, applying a mandatory minimum to a given offense does not reduce its prevalence.

Progressives have recently taken the position that America operates a prison-industrial complex that vastly oversentences its millions of victims. This cruel and unfair system needs to dialed way back—unless the crime in question happens to be one that progressives are especially concerned about. In those cases, we should show no mercy.

There’s nothing logically contradictory about this. It’s possible that we do vastly oversentence for most crimes but undersentence a few particular crimes. Nonetheless, this is something more people should stop to ponder. Do we believe that locking up criminals for long periods of time is an effective deterrent, or don’t we? Do we believe in mandatory minimums, or don’t we? If we don’t, why are certain crimes an exception?

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California Considers a "Brock Turner" Bill. Should Progressives Support It?

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The US Just Met Its Goal of Admitting 10,000 Syrian Refugees

by EloisaBastow Posted on August 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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It’s been one year since President Barack Obama announced that the United States would take in 10,000 Syrian refugees by this September. After much criticism from Republican politicians and a slow start, the administration picked up the pace of resettlement and met its goal a month ahead of schedule. Today, the United States is resettling its 10,000th Syrian refugee.

In a statement, National Security Advisor Susan Rice welcomed the newcomers. “On behalf of the President and his Administration, I extend the warmest of welcomes to each and every one of our Syrian arrivals,” Rice said.

The newest group of Syrian refugees are arriving in California and Virginia from Jordan. Among them is Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh, a 49-year old former construction worker from Homs. He, his wife Rajaa, and their four children are being resettled in San Diego. Jouriyeh told the Associated Press that in anticipation of his journey, he feels “fear of the unknown and our new lives, but great joy for our children’s lives and future.”

Most of the 10,000 Syrian refugees who have been granted asylum in the United States look a lot like the Jouriyeh family. According to the State Department, approximately 80 percent are women and children. Roughly 60 percent are under the age of 18. The vast majority of male refugees are fathers, grandchildren, or older siblings. Only 0.5 percent are adult men unattached to families.

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In the last year, Syrian refugees have been placed in 39 different states, with California and Michigan hosting the largest numbers. More than half of have been resettled in eight states—California, Michigan, Arizona, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, and New York.

Although the goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians in this fiscal year marked a six-fold increase over last year, the number of refugees resettled this year only accounts for about two percent of the total number of Syrian refugees the United Nations says are in need of resettlement. Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has proposed a target of admitting 65,000. Donald Trump has ridiculed that proposal. In April, he told supporters in Rhode Island to “lock your doors” to stay safe from Syrian refugees. “We don’t know who these people are. We don’t know where they’re from,” he warned. In December 2015, Trump tweeted that a Syrian family who crossed the US-Mexico border were “ISIS maybe?”

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security told Mother Jones that the Syrian refugees it is currently vetting are subject to the same stringent security and medical requirements as other asylum-seekers. Those applying for refugee status must go through a 21-step vetting process that includes security screenings by the National Counterterrorism Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Obama plans to increase the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States by “a few thousand more” next year. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to put the administration’s proposal before Congress in the coming weeks. Any increase is likely face opposition from Republican lawmakers who have resisted the introduction of more Syrian refugees to the United States. “The president would like to see a ramping-up of these efforts but he’s realistic,” said Earnest.

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The US Just Met Its Goal of Admitting 10,000 Syrian Refugees

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Your favorite national park is about to get a lot hotter

by WinifredK29 Posted on August 28, 2016

Human/Nature

Your favorite national park is about to get a lot hotter

By on Aug 28, 2016

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

Summertime is prime time for national parks. As snow melts, wildflowers bloom, and waterfalls roar, generations of visitors have flocked to the natural wonders that dot the American landscape (to say nothing of all the amazing cultural sites the National Park Service protects).

The National Park Service was created a century ago — Aug. 25, 1916, to be exact — to keep an eye on the growing treasure trove of national parks. It’s been a good century as more and more land has been set aside and annual visitors now number more than 300 million, but it’s also not been without challenges. Chief among them is climate change, which will drastically alter national park landscapes in the coming decades including cranking up the heat.

As part of Climate Central’s ongoing States at Risk project, we analyzed just how much hotter parks are projected to get later this century. We looked at the future summer temperatures in all the parks in the Lower 48 states except Dry Tortugas National Park (sorry, Fort Jefferson lovers!) assuming greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trend. To put it in clearer context, we mapped out what places today are most comparable to park’s climates of tomorrow.

The results could make you sweat. Parks are projected to have summers that are 8 to 12 degrees F hotter by 2100. That means currently cool mountainous parks could be as hot as the plains. Parks in the Southeast, already a pretty hot place, will face even more extreme temperatures with a climate more like southern Texas. And otherworldly Joshua Tree National Park in southern California will face the greatest geographical climate shift, with temperatures more like Abu Dhabi by 2100.

We also analyzed how many more days with extreme heat the parks could face. Extreme heat is a hallmark of global warming, and its impact will be most arresting in the national parks where people go, by design, to be outside in the summer. Like the rest of the country, parks are going to be seeing more dangerously hot days above 90 degrees F, 95 degrees F, and 100 degrees F.

By 2100, the glaciers of Montana’s Glacier National Park will be long gone and rising temperatures will be one of the big reasons why. Visitors will not only have to contend with an ice-free landscape, but also hotter temperatures. Today the park sees an average of only one 90 degrees F day each year. It could see 27 days with temperatures above 90 degrees F by the end of the century.

Yosemite National Park, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, currently sees about two weeks of 90 degrees F weather every year. By 2050, it could see nearly a month of those temperatures, and by 2100 it could get nearly 50 such days each year.

And the Great Smoky Mountains, currently the most visited National Park, could go from fewer than 10 days above 90 degrees F each year, on average now, to three months with those scorching temperatures.

In numerous other parks, the number of days above 100 degrees F is projected to skyrocket. Big Bend National Park in Texas could see more than 110 days above 100 degrees F each year, on average. And Great Basin National Park in Nevada, which currently doesn’t have any days above 100 degrees F in a typical year, could see a month of those temperatures each year by 2100.

It’s likely that parks on the more extreme end of the temperature scale will see a drop in summer visitation, but more visitors are likely to show up in fall and spring when it won’t be fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot. That may stretch park resources thin as most parks are set up to handle summer crowds and quieter shoulder seasons. How parks will deal with the change in visitation season is an open question.

And all this is to say nothing about the impacts extreme heat will have on the natural resources around which we created national parks in the first place. Joshua Tree could become too hot for its namesake trees, and there’s evidence that extreme summer days could create more rockfalls in Yosemite, which could change the face of the stunning valley at the center of the park. Wildfire risk will also skyrocket across the West and could make summer park vacations not only more hot but more smoky.

Those are just the most visible changes. Whole ecosystems are likely to be disrupted and there are consequences scientists probably haven’t even uncovered yet (those are the ones that could be the worst since we’ll be least prepared).

Despite the daunting situation facing the National Park Service in its second century, there are signs it’s up for the challenge. It’s already addressing climate change from the coast to the high mountains and has an A-Team team of experts to help parks answer the gnarly questions they face.

There’s no denying that national parks will look a lot different by the end of the century, but that won’t make them any less a part of the fabric of American identity.

Analysis by James Bronzan and Alyson Kenward, PhD.

Methodology: Future temperatures for 47 National Parks were calculated based on the median of 29 spatially downscaled climate models (CMIP5) at 1/8 degree scale, then averaged within park boundaries. National parks in Alaska and Hawaii, along with Dry Tortugas National Park, were excluded because projections at this resolution were unavailable. Temperatures for 2050 are based on the 20-year average of 2041-2060 and for 2100 are based on the period 2080-2099. Projected temperatures assume that greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate (RCP8.5). The interactive map features the average summer daily high temperature (June-August), while days over 90oF, 95oF, and 100oF were counted annually. The current period values for parks and climate divisions are based on the 1991-2010 average calculated using a gridded observational dataset by Ed Maurer of Santa Clara University. 

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More stories in this series:

If you think technology has no place in the national parks, think again

From smartphones to webcams, technology could help us understand — and appreciate — parks in the coming century.

People of color are fans of national parks, despite obstacles that keep them out

Only 57 percent had ever set foot in the parks, but 85 percent want more of them — especially in cities.

The uncertain, hopeful future of the National Park Service

“The goal of our centennial is not to scare everyone to death about climate change.”

More in Human/Nature: National Parks and the Humans Who Use ThemElection Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox

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Your favorite national park is about to get a lot hotter

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See how Earth is fast approaching a red hot mess

by TheoParnell Posted on August 26, 2016

See how Earth is fast approaching a red hot mess | Grist

planet out

See how Earth is fast approaching a red hot mess

By on Aug 26, 2016ShareEd Hawkins

Scientists are getting better at producing visualizations that make climate change, a pretty heady topic, simple enough to take in at a glance. This image charts global temperature changes each year since 1850, using the period from 1961 to 1990 as a baseline. The color scale ranges from dark blue (-2.5 degrees C) to dark red (+2.5 degrees C).

It was created by climate scientist Ed Hawkins, the same person who brought us the popular hypnotic GIF of global temperatures spiraling out of control.

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See how Earth is fast approaching a red hot mess

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Obama designates world’s largest protected area — it’s underwater

by DorisNewhouse Posted on August 26, 2016

Obama designates world’s largest protected area — it’s underwater

By on Aug 26, 2016Share

President Obama, who marked the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service by designating a whole new land monument in Maine, is giving oceans some love, too.

On Friday, he expanded the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, also known as Papahānaumokuākea, to 582,578 square miles. At nearly three-and-a-half times the size of California, the monument is now the world’s largest protected area.

Papahānaumokuākea encompasses 10 islands and atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, which supports over 7,000 species — a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii.

Native Hawaiians urged for the monument’s expansion back in January and consider the place a “the boundary between Ao, the world of light and the living, and Pō, the world of the gods and spirits from which all life is born and to which ancestors return after death,” according to the White House.

Protecting this area means it will be closed for the extraction of oil, gas, minerals, and other energy development. You can learn more about it from this video by Pew:

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Obama designates world’s largest protected area — it’s underwater

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Time to Follow Teddy Roosevelt’s Advice: ‘Drop Politics’ and Enjoy a Park

by Myrna Posted on August 24, 2016

In 1903 Teddy Roosevelt dropped politics and took a hike. One result was the National Park System. Continued here:  Time to Follow Teddy Roosevelt’s Advice: ‘Drop Politics’ and Enjoy a Park ; ; ;

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Time to Follow Teddy Roosevelt’s Advice: ‘Drop Politics’ and Enjoy a Park

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As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns

by Myrna Posted on August 21, 2016

A growing homeless population on public lands has brought with it increases in emergency calls, drug overdoses, illegal fires and trash, which have put nearby residents on edge. Read original article:  As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns ; ; ;

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As Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns

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English Village Becomes Climate Leader by Quietly Cleaning Up Its Own Patch

by AngelesZGS Posted on August 21, 2016

green4us

Codex: Deathwatch – Games Workshop

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English Village Becomes Climate Leader by Quietly Cleaning Up Its Own Patch

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Texas is still gunning for your reproductive rights

by TKXEdythebk Posted on August 18, 2016

y’all things considered

Texas is still gunning for your reproductive rights

By on Aug 18, 2016Share

One might think that when the U.S. Supreme Court sends a clear message — like, “no, it’s still not at all chill to mess around with a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion” — state legislatures would take that and run with it. But this is America! And never one to be bossed around, Texas continues to try to flout the June Supreme Court ruling that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade.

As we’ve established before, reproductive rights are a key sustainability issue. Around the world, women are disproportionately threatened by climate change. Ensuring that women are able to decide when, how, and even whether to have children is pretty much the best means of empowering them to face the coming challenges.

And that means keeping a close eye on what’s going on with those rights in Texas, both our third-most populous state and one severely threatened by climate change (being both southern and coastal), where an antiquated-at-best, misogynistic-at-worst mentality still holds sway with way too many legislators.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that Texas’ highly restrictive abortion clinic regulations (known as HB2) were unconstitutional. The rules, which required facilities that provide abortions to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, would have closed all but eight abortion clinics in the entire state.

The court ruling was a wonderful moment for the pro-choice movement — and, indeed, for women in general. But as we wrote at the time, it only addressed part of the problem. Since 2011, Texas women have had to endure a slew of restrictive legislation surrounding their reproductive rights. June’s ruling, while a promising step in the right direction, may have intensified that flood.

In July, Gov. Greg Abbott published new rules regarding the disposal of fetal remains, dictating that they would have to be cremated or buried to “affirm the value and dignity of all life,” as Texas Monthly reported. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) then awarded a massive contract to an anti-abortion organization as a provider in the state’s already much-weakened Healthy Texas Women program, which is the state’s publicly funded healthcare program for low-income women.

As the Houston Chronicle reported, $1.6 million of the meager $18 million chunk of state cash for the Texas Healthy Women program this year will go to the Heidi Group — an organization behind “crisis pregnancy centers” that work to steer pregnant women in need away from abortions. As Nancy Cardenas with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health puts it: “The Heidi Group does not provide health services.”

And yet its share of program funding is now the second-largest (after the Harris County Public Health Department). That’s more or less the equivalent of asking your weed dealer to take over the legal team handling your divorce.

We asked the HHSC why, exactly, it provided this contract to the Heidi Group, and got the following response:

“The Heidi Group has partnered with healthcare providers across the state to offer quality women’s healthcare services including family planning and birth control. The group’s proposal was one of the most comprehensive of any of the applicants that applied for the grants. The group’s services will cover more than 60 counties in seven regions through approximately 20 clinic sites. The Heidi Group is a Medicaid provider.”

That doesn’t assuage the concern of activists like Cardenas, who told me: “If we just look at basic facts, they are not licensed medical providers. [The Heidi Group’s founder] Carol Everett has a history of being very disingenuous when it comes to reproductive health access.”

Everett has publicly made the following claims: 1) That she can’t condone “killing babies” after “coming to Christ”; 2) that disposal of fetal tissue could disseminate HIV and other STDs into the water supply; and 3) that abortion  in the United States is a profit-based industry that attempts to trick young girls into getting knocked up. She actively and destructively spreads misinformation about reproductive health.

The Heidi Group’s inexplicable role in Texas’ public health program is a slap in the face to both women’s rights and sustainability. The women who will be most disadvantaged by the decimation of reproductive health services are exactly those most affected by climate change (which, let’s remember, is already hitting Texas hard): low-income women, women of color, and women in rural areas.

“We have to keep in mind that when cuts are made to reproductive healthcare services, they don’t affect groups the same way,” Cardenas told me. “And this rings especially true when we’re talking about the Latinx community in Texas.”

Latina women in Texas suffer from some of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the nation. And regular gynecological exams and cervical cancer screenings are some of the invaluable reproductive health services that end up falling by the wayside when money allotted for public health is given to an organization that traffics in ideology instead.

Says Cardenas: “I think the state is angry. I think our governor is angry … [and] I think they are trying to overcompensate at this point.”

The Supreme Court decision was a boon for women in Texas by saving them from having just a handful of abortion providers sprinkled across the largest state in the lower 48. But as events of this summer have shown, it’s hardly been a solution to all their problems.

The obstacles that Texas has hurled in the way of reproductive healthcare access are not dissimilar to a herd of raccoons: Even if you (say, Ruth Bader Ginsburg) can pick one off with a shotgun, there are plenty more to hurl garbage around your yard.

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Texas is still gunning for your reproductive rights

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