Tag Archives: national

The Despicable Way That Insurance Companies Screw Over Lesbians

by ZacCissell Posted on August 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Last week, four lesbian women in New Jersey sued the state after being denied insurance coverage for infertility treatments because they couldn’t prove they had tried to conceive naturally.

A New Jersey law from 2001 requires that insurance companies cover infertility treatment as well as in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technology (ART). But there’s a catch: The patient must prove that her infertility has extended for up to “two years of unprotected sexual intercourse.” Since that law was enacted, though, two important things happened. The Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal, and Obamacare prohibited insurance policies from discriminating again patients based on their sexual orientation. In the first lawsuit of its kind since marriage equality and the passage of Obamacare, the New Jersey women are arguing that the law discriminates against same-sex couples because they obviously can’t get pregnant through unprotected sex with their partners.

“These women are already going through what can be a difficult experience, and they have the added stress of affording it financially and the added insult of being treated like a second-class citizen,” Grace Cretcher, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, told the New York Times. “The specific wording of the New Jersey mandate is particularly egregious and one of the most specific and exclusionary.”

Despite progress on a national level, the New Jersey couples’ experiences might not be unusual. Only 14 states require that insurance companies have at least one plan that covers infertility treatments, which can include intra-uterine insemination, drug therapies, and IVF. But many of them use language similar to the New Jersey law and define infertility as the inability to become pregnant after a certain period of unprotected sex, as opposed to only a medical diagnosis indicating infertility or sexual orientation that excludes intercourse. Even in states like California where laws have been updated to protect insurance discrimination against LGBT people, not all policies are in compliance, according to Shannon Minter, the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. As a result, same-sex couples no matter what their medical circumstances may be, are often told they don’t qualify for coverage.

In the 36 states that don’t have laws related to fertility coverage, insurance policies can enforce provisions that effectively exclude same-sex couples. Minter says that even though many of those policies cover infertility treatments, many also require heterosexual sex as evidence. Sometimes, plans will allow patients to prove their infertility through failed artificial insemination, but that’s expensive: One cycle of IVF can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and cheaper methods still range from the hundreds to thousands.

The insurance company involved in the New Jersey case told the New York Times that it covers “infertility services equally, regardless of sexual orientation,” and that it interpreted the law “in a gender- and orientation-neutral manner.” It added that “our coverage standard complies with federal nondiscrimination requirements.”

LGBT rights advocates also say the fact that cases like the one in New Jersey are gaining traction shows some movement toward the ultimate goal: protecting the insurance coverage rights of same-sex couples who want to have biological children regardless of their medical circumstances, because ART is their only option.

“If you have a policy that on its face requires a certain kind of sexual intercourse in order to demonstrate infertility, I would argue that’s discrimination,” Minter says. And because of the barriers to pregnancy that same-sex couples face, assisted reproductive technology is an important option. “It’s a very, very common situation.”

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The Despicable Way That Insurance Companies Screw Over Lesbians

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These Stats Show Why Milwaukee Was Primed to Explode

by FredricSkeats Posted on August 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Milwaukee’s mayor imposed a 10 p.m. curfew on Monday and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker activated the National Guard in response to weekend rioting sparked by Saturday’s fatal police shooting of an armed black man, 23-year-old Sylville Smith. The unrest, in which protesters torched multiple businesses and police cars and at least one person was shot, was the second wave of major protests since December 2014, when a county prosecutor declined to file charges against police in the fatal shooting of another black man, Dontre Hamilton. But while anger over such police shootings may have set off the mayhem, decades of unemployment, segregated housing, substandard schools, and racist policing set the stage for Milwaukee to blow. Indeed, the city has earned itself a reputation as the worst place to be black in America. Here’s why:

Concentrated poverty: Milwaukee is one of the nation’s most segregated cities, with black residents—40 percent of the population—living almost exclusively on the city’s north side. Milwaukee is also America’s second poorest major city, in a state that in 2014 had the nation’s highest black unemployment rate. A third of its black residents live in “extreme poverty,” defined as a household with an income less than half that deemed appropriate by the federal government for a family of its size—and 40 percent live below the poverty line. This is partly because the region’s jobs are concentrated in three white suburbs that are all but inaccessible by public transportation. The WOW counties, as these suburbs are known, are at least 94 percent white, and just 1 to 2 percent black.

Failing schools: Milwaukee’s public schools are doing a poor job of educating their students. During the 2013-14 academic year, Milwaukee had the nation’s largest black-white gap in graduation rates, and K-12 test scores were abysmal.

Most black kids in Milwaukee attend highly segregated public schools. According to University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Mark Levine, roughly three out of four attends a high-poverty institution where 90 percent of the students are black. And when those kids misbehave, schools are quick to dole out suspensions. In 2011-12, Wisconsin led the nation in suspending black high schoolers, thanks largely to excessive suspension rates in Milwaukee. (If you want to understand why suspensions are bad, and how children can be disciplined more effectively, read this piece.)

Mass incarceration: Black men in Milwaukee are incarcerated at the highest rate in the nation. In 2013, according to UW researchers, one in eight were locked up, and by the time the men hit their 30s and 40s, more than half have served time. Two-thirds of the incarcerated men came from six of the city’s poorest zip codes, including those for Sherman Park, the neighborhood where the most recent police killing took place. Another of the zip codes (53206) has the highest black male incarceration rate in America—62 percent, according to another UW study. (A documentary on that community is due out later this year.) So many Milwaukeeans have criminal records, one ex-offender told NPR, that police routinely ask the people they pull over whether they’re on probation. Wisconsin spends more on corrections than on higher education. And to top it off, just 10 percent of black men with a criminal record in Wisconsin have a valid drivers license—which makes it tough to secure jobs and services. (The sheriff of Milwaukee County recently called the Black Lives Matter movement a terrorist organization.)

How it got this bad: Black people moved to Milwaukee in large numbers beginning in the 1960s—later than many blacks who left the South inhabited other Rust Belt cities such as Chicago and Detroit during the Great Migration. White immigrant communities in Milwaukee fiercely resisted integration in housing and schools, and when the city’s manufacturing industry collapsed shortly after blacks arrived, massive racial disparities sprang up in employment, housing, and education. Milwaukee also was hit harder by globalization and by the disappearance of manufacturing jobs than other major urban centers, an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found. Black men suffered a drop in employment during this period that was more than twice what the nation endured during the Great Depression. White residents fled to the suburbs, taking their resources with them, and little has improved since. Decades of tensions between police and the city’s black communities helped fuel this latest flareup.

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These Stats Show Why Milwaukee Was Primed to Explode

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Coal lobbyists are the loneliest lobbyists

by CedricGWXofk Posted on August 16, 2016

sad!

Coal lobbyists are the loneliest lobbyists

By on Aug 16, 2016Share

The lifeboat keeping the coal industry afloat is getting a little lonely these days, as everyone abandons ship.

According to a report released Tuesday by Climate Investigations Center, coal lobbying groups American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, National Mining Association, and World Coal Associate have been hemorrhaging member companies in recent years.

At least nine companies confirmed they left ACCCE, and another seven left NMA; additional companies have been removed from the groups’ website but did not confirm their status.

As they shrink in members, the groups’ revenue and spending have shrunk, as well. Take ACCCE, which lost $27 million in revenue from 2008 to 2014:

American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity IRS filings, 2008-2014

Many of the groups cited the lobbying groups’ opposition to climate change legislation for quitting. Last December, the automaker Volvo left the National Mining Association, calling the lobby’s efforts to oppose the Clean Power Plan “crazy.” Other companies to flee the groups since 2014 include Wells Fargo, Chevron, and Michelin.

“Coal mining companies continue to promote climate denial and oppose any serious effort to reduce carbon pollution,” Joe Smyth, the author of the report and a researcher at the Climate Investigations Center, told Grist. “So it makes sense that these companies are departing.”

The shrinking political might of coal country can be felt in other ways, too. More than 50 coal companies, including heavyweights like Peabody, have filed for bankruptcy since 2012.

Maybe someone should start handing out life preservers.

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Coal lobbyists are the loneliest lobbyists

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Vote of a Lifetime

by Myrna Posted on August 16, 2016

This Alaskan town is voting on whether to stay or go in the face of climate change. In this December 2006 photo, Nathan Weyiouanna’s abandoned house at the west end of Shishmaref, Alaska, sits on the beach after sliding off during a fall storm in 2005. Diana Haecker/AP This story was originally published by Fusion. “What’s special about Shishmaref is that we’re all family,” said Esau Sinnok, an 18-year-old climate activist from Shishmaref, a native village in western Alaska that might have to relocate because of climate change. “All 650 people there are my family and not being able to see them every day like I’m used to — if I had to move to the city — I’d be heartbroken and sad not seeing all of their faces,” he said. Shishmaref is a barrier island about 130 miles north of Nome on the Chukchi Sea. Rising seas and more ice-free months are causing erosion that is eating away at the island. Residents fear it will be completely submerged within decades. Over a dozen homes have already been relocated, and sea walls 15-feet high have been built to protect others. Faced with the potential loss of their island, residents will vote on August 16 to decide whether or not to relocate to the mainland. The cost of moving, estimated at nearly $200 million, is a major hurdle for any effort to up and move. But residents worry just as much about the cultural cost of leaving the island and the seaside setting their lifestyle depends upon. Sinnok has traveled around the world to advocate for his Inupiaq native village and others threatened by climate change in western Alaska. He became an Arctic Youth Ambassador for a program lead by the U.S. Interior and State Departments, and is currently a participant in the Sierra Club’s Fresh Tracks program. In December 2015, Sinnok attended the United Nations COP21 in Paris, France. At the conference, a global climate treaty was signed by 195 nations in an effort to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Sinnok’s village is on the front-lines of that change, and has already experienced dramatic impacts. “I remember my grandpa telling me that the ice used to freeze in October, and this past year it wasn’t safe enough to go out on the ice until late November or early December,” Sinnok said. “That puts a hold on our winter diet.” Residents of Shishmaref depend on familiar weather in order to be able to hunt seals for meat and oil, fish for food, and gather traditional plants in the summer. But warming temperatures could make the lifestyle their people have lived for thousands of years unsustainable. “My family didn’t catch any ugruts (bearded seals) this year, so we didn’t have any ugruts to eat,” Sinnok said. Longer breaks in sea ice also means that ship traffic has increased in the area, leading to pollution, said Johnson Eningowuk, president of the Shishmaref City Council. The ship traffic through the Bering Strait — including fishermen, shipping, and even cruise ships — has impacted the marine wildlife and could be why there are fewer seals and fish around, Eningowuk said. The village’s other key source of food comes from gathering plants, a practice that’s also being impacted by the drier, warmer temperatures. “We don’t get enough snow in the winter time and that really affects what grows on our mainland,” Eningowuk said. Western Alaska has seen dramatic, large-scale climate change impacts, according to Austin Ahmasuk, a marine advocate at Kawerak, an organization that advocates for Bering Strait communities like Shishmaref. “Without question our climate is dramatically warmer — we have a two month longer ice-free season which is causing region-wide erosion,” Ahmasuk said. It’s also causing marine life to move northward, including microbial species that lead to harmful algae blooms, Ahmasuk said. Trees like willows and cottonwoods are moving north to colonize new areas, and Shishmaref — which has only ever had knee-high shrubbery — is now experiencing an explosion in willow. Overall, these changes have made Shishmaref residents’ subsistence lifestyle increasingly difficult to maintain, and some of the village’s youth have decided to leave for the cities, Eningowuk said. “Our culture is really hard, we’re up here near the Arctic circle, and we enjoy it — it’s what we’re used to,” Eningowuk said. “But our children, the younger generation are the ones who are not too excited about it,” he said, adding that all of his children have moved away from Shishmaref. “Other children are also already looking for other places to live…they’re finding other professions that will keep them in the cities,” Eningowuk said. The internet and television have shown them that there are easier ways to live, Eningowuk added. “It’s hard to stay alive here, to stay alive off of the ocean,” Eningowuk said. Despite the challenges, Sinnok is determined to save his community and their way of life. He even plans to run for mayor of Shishmaref in time to lead the relocation to the mainland. “I want to run for mayor to find the available grants to relocate,” Sinnok said. Nine villages, mostly in western Alaska, have been identified by the Army Corps of Engineers to be at imminent risk because of erosion and rising seas, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). All have been recommended to relocate. Between 200 and 300 villages will be at similar risk in the coming decades, according to the Corps. The native village of Newtok, 370 miles south of Shishmaref, is the first to have agreed to move to a new location. The move will be funded by state and federal funds, according to Maria Gonoa, a spokesperson for HUD. A complete overwash of Newtok is predicted to hit as early as next year, Gonoa added. As threatening as the climate impacts are, the cultural impact of leaving the village was also hard to think about, Eningowuk said. “At my age, I hope to not relocate from here,” Eningowuk said. Eningowuk said their lifestyle — dependent on the sea — would have to change if they went to the mainland. “That’s why we’re kind of reluctant to move,” he said. Ahmasuk said that Eningowuk’s reluctance is similar to many of the other affected villages in western Alaska. “In some of these communities there are very strong ancestral connections to the place and that connection is very important,” Ahmasuk said. “That’s also another matter that the community has to decide — kind of uprooting that connection.” Ahmasuk said that even if Shishmaref residents vote to leave the island, they will have to find the money to fund the relocation. If they are unable to do so, they have to consider other options that include moving to a city like Nome where their close-knit community would likely grow distant over time. Sinnok hopes to avoid that possibility by continuing to advocate for his village and others in western Alaska threatened by climate change. He wants to help create a safe place for future generations to live together. “Back in 2007, my uncle and my dad and a few friends went out on the ice to go to the mainland to go duck and geese hunting. On the way back, my uncle fell through the ice,” Sinnok said. His uncle lost his life that day, and Sinnok said his death has been a driving force behind his activism for small villages. He wants the problems of the rural, small villages — not just the big cities — to get solutions to climate change and other pressing challenges so they can live safely and happily. Even if residents of Shishmaref are forced to relocate to the mainland, Sinnok says the community can survive as long as they stay together. “We have to move close to the island so we can still live our lifestyle,” Sinnok said. “Some things might possibly change but having the actual community of Shishmaref as a whole is what’s important.” Originally posted here: Vote of a Lifetime ; ; ;

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Vote of a Lifetime

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Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

by FranceODowd1081 Posted on August 15, 2016

Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

By on Aug 15, 2016Share

Historic rainfall and flooding in Louisiana this weekend have led to at least six deaths and thousands of damaged homes. Over a foot of rain fell in Kentwood, La. in just 12 hours, and five different cities in the region have reported rainfall totals of over two feet. The amount of rain is being called “scarily high” by the National Weather Service.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Sunday that more than 20,000 people had been rescued in the flood, including himself: The Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rogue flooded in the deluge, and the Edwards and his family were evacuated to the Louisiana State Police Joint Emergency Services Training Center in Zachary.

“It’s not over,” Gov. Edwards said at a press conference. “The water’s going to rise in many areas. It’s no time to let the guard down.”

Indeed, rainfall of this magnitude is increasingly common. Why? Warming temperatures from climate change cause additional water vapor in the atmosphere, which leads to heavy precipitation. As Eric Holthaus points out in Pacific Standard: Statistically, we should only see rainfall of this magnitude occurring once every 500 years, but this is the eighth 500-year rainfall in the U.S. in just over a year.

Clearly, something has fundamentally changed — and that something is the climate. The silver lining for Louisiana? Gov. Edwards is more promising than his predecessor, former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), with regard to acknowledging the threat that climate change poses to his state. Granted, that bar was extremely low.

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Disastrous flooding in Louisiana is now normal flooding

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I Just Texted With the DNC Hacker…

by FinlayYgqh Posted on August 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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The hacker or hackers working under the pseudonym “Guccifer 2.0” released another set of documents Friday, this time posting a series of documents that appear to have been stolen from the internal Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee network. The latest dump includes personal contact information for dozens of members of Congress, along with memos related to a campaign in Florida’s 18th Congressional District, and other internal DCCC documents, and is titled “Guccifer 2.0 Hacked DCCC.”

The hacker(s)’ site had been dormant for nearly a month before the DCCC documents were posted Friday evening, and over the last several weeks multiple news outlets have cited anonymous US government officials as saying that they believe the hacks are not the work of a lone hacker—as the hacker claimed in interviews with Vice News’ Motherboard and Mother Jones, among others—rather they’re the work of Russian intelligence groups or hackers working with the Russian government in an alleged effort to divide Democrats and aid Republican nominee Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that US government officials believe the hack, which was first publicly acknowledged by the Democratic National Committee on June 14, was much wider than initially thought, and could have targeted several Democratic political organizations along with the private email accounts of more than 100 Democratic Party officials and other groups.

Shortly after the documents were released Friday, Guccifer 2.0 answered a series of questions for Mother Jones via Twitter direct messaging. Here’s our semi-casual exchange:

At that point, the hacker(s) stopped communicating with me.

The initial release of hacked documents from the DNC, and the subsequent release of nearly 20,000 DNC emails and thousands of attachments by Wikileaks, showed signs that some Democratic Party officials did not like Bernie Sanders and discussed ways to undermine his campaign. The controversy led to the resignation of then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and several other top party officials, and cast a shadow over the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The DNC later publicly apologized to Sanders for “inexcusable” behavior of those officials.

The hacker(s) included a message about US elections along with the stolen documents posted Friday: “As you see the U.S. presidential elections are becoming a farce, a big political performance where the voters are far from playing the leading role. Everything is being settled behind the scenes as it was with Bernie Sanders. I wonder what happened to the true democracy, to the equal opportunities, the things we love the United States for,” the hacker(s) wrote. “The big money bags are fighting for power today. They are lying constantly and don’t keep their word. The MSM are producing tons of propaganda hiding the real stuff behind it. But I do believe that people have right to know what’s going on inside the election process in fact.”

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I Just Texted With the DNC Hacker…

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10 Photos From Last Night’s Out-of-This-World Meteor Shower

by milla224213 Posted on August 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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The annual Perseid Meteor Shower peaked last night, and star enthusiasts who caught a glimpse of the spectacle got an extra dose of awe and wonder. Most years, Earth skirts the fringe of the Swift-Tuttle comet’s debris trail, but thanks to an extra gravitational tug from Jupiter that comes into play just a few times each century, we ventured closer to the middle of the trail where debris streams are more prolific. Thousands of meteors were observed slashing through the darkness. In prime conditions, up to 200 shooting stars an hour could be spotted without binoculars or a telescope.

If you slept through the dazzling display, or live in an area rife with light pollution, check out highlights of the brilliant shower below. (And don’t worry—you can still catch the tail end of the shower through August 26.)

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10 Photos From Last Night’s Out-of-This-World Meteor Shower

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"This Could Be the Stupidest Thing Ever Said in the History of Presidential Campaigns"

by JaninaRomilly2 Posted on August 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump and nukes. Nukes and Donald Trump. They don’t really go together, unless you are having a nightmare. Over the past few weeks a fair number of people have been understandably freaking out over the idea that if Donald Trump wins in November, he will have virtually unfettered power to fire off nuclear weapons. In June, Politico ran a frankly horrifying piece outlining exactly how presidents go about facing the nuclear question. (If the military ever detected—accurately or inaccurately—a nuclear attack against the United States, the president could have as little as 30 seconds to decide how to respond.)

Esquire has a Q&A today with John Noonan, a retired Air Force officer and former adviser to Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. Noonan doesn’t mince words about Trump being unprepared. You should read the whole thing because (1) it’s fascinating, (2) it’s terrifying, and (3) this issue really can’t be talked about enough. It’s too important.

Here’s one bit that really caught my eye:

Think of the world as a playground. Does the bully—the five-foot-tall third grader with a pituitary disorder—pick on the star athlete or the 60-pound weakling? They’re not going to punch the athlete in the nose because they’ll get socked right back, so they go for the weakling every time. In America’s case, we don’t just stand up to the nuclear-armed bullies—we also stick up for the weaker kids. Russia, to wit, could impose its will on the small Baltic democracies because Russia is big and they are small. It’s American resolve, backed by nuclear weapons, that keeps Russia in check. That’s what you call deterrence.

This is what I hear from Trump: that he wants to flip that equation and make the United States the bully. That is, We’re big and we have nukes and we can use them to kill terrorists in Raqqa and Mosul. Stop us if you dare. It’s how he’s run his businesses for decades: I can do whatever I want. In the business world, it was shady and unethical. In the national-security world, it’s downright dangerous.

I don’t think it’s empty talk either. His spokesperson said a few months ago, “what good is a nuclear triad if you can’t use it?” That could the sic stupidest thing ever said in the history of presidential campaigns, which puts it in the running for stupid thing ever said in the history of humanity. (Emphasis mine) Nuclear weapons are like an understanding between the athlete and the bully: You don’t screw with me and I won’t screw with you. It’s a way for the two biggest kids on the block to communicate with each other in no uncertain terms. That Trump allegedly believes that nukes are solutions to low-intensity problems like ISIS and Al-Qaeda is raw, unfiltered insanity.

Go read the whole thing.

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"This Could Be the Stupidest Thing Ever Said in the History of Presidential Campaigns"

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A New Climate Danger: Carbon Released by Burning Bogs

by Myrna Posted on August 8, 2016

Warming temperatures can dry out northern peatlands, increasing the risk of fires that release thousands of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere. Taken from:  A New Climate Danger: Carbon Released by Burning Bogs ; ; ;

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A New Climate Danger: Carbon Released by Burning Bogs

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A Whole Lot of Millennials See No Difference Between Clinton and Trump

by EarleneSynnot Posted on August 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

One presidential candidate says scientists who work on climate change are “practically calling it a hoax” and wants to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency. The other calls climate change “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time.” And yet about four out of 10 millennials in battleground states think there is no difference between those candidates’ views on the issue.

Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate group released polling at the Democratic National Convention last week focused on millennials in 11 battleground states, conducted by Global Strategy Group in June and early July.

According to the poll, 21 percent of millennials are Bernie Sanders supporters who are so disillusioned with Clinton that they wouldn’t plan to vote for her in a general election if there are third-party candidates, as well.

Young voters are one of the more unpredictable factors in the 2016 election, because they’re more likely than other age groups to support Sanders and less likely to vote in general. Democrats run the risk of losing Sanders holdouts to a third-party candidate. Nearly seven out of 10 Sanders supporters believe there’s no daylight between Trump and Clinton on the issues they care about.

NextGen Climate/Project New America Battleground Millennial Survey

That is alarming news for Clinton. But the numbers could change. NextGen’s findings suggest that if Democrats emphasize climate change and clean energy, they could make progress in winning over this demographic.

Young voters polled, including pro-Sanders voters, rank clean air and water and switching to renewable energy as high priorities. Three-quarters are more likely to support a candidate who wants to transition the United States away from fossil fuels. On the flip side, Trump’s position on the EPA could hurt him. Millennials like the EPA, the polling found—about as much as they like Beyoncé

NextGen Climate/Project New America Battleground Millennial Survey

But this may not help Clinton much because young voters don’t recognize how different she is from Trump. Forty-four percent say there’s no distinction between the two candidates on transitioning away from fossil fuels, and 43 percent say there’s no distinction on protecting air and water.

Maybe that’s in part because Sanders hammered Clinton over her positions on fracking and fossil fuel extraction during the primaries. “On the ground, students just don’t know the difference between the candidates,” Heather Hargreaves, NextGen’s vice president, said at a briefing on the poll.

“It’s not just ignorance,” added Andrew Baumann of Global Strategy Group. “They assume she’s more conservative than she is.” He continued, “I think part of the goal is to educate” voters and reintroduce Clinton.

But if her convention speech was any indication, Clinton isn’t interested in focusing much more on this issue, beyond the usual applause lines. She mentioned in passing how clean energy will lead to job creation, but she didn’t dwell on it. She left the task of drawing a contrast between her climate policies and Trump’s to speakers like California Gov. Jerry Brown and League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.

Even if Clinton isn’t going to be heavily focused on climate, Steyer and his group plan to press the issue on her behalf. NextGen is putting $25 million into efforts to turn out young voters who are concerned about climate change, including at more than 200 college campuses. The group’s hope is that young voters will understand that the stakes are so high for climate change that they will vote for Clinton even if they don’t love her.

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A Whole Lot of Millennials See No Difference Between Clinton and Trump

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