Driven by the United States, global demand for food-based biofuels such as corn ethanol is unsustainable, threatening the food security of some of the world’s poorest people and endangering already strained land and water resources, according to a new research published this week.
“” (pdf) was issued Tuesday by ActionAid USA, an international non-profit working to end poverty around the world. The study charges that “[b]y creating an inflexible and growing demand, mandates drive up the cost and increase the volatility of food prices.”
Government mandates to increase or maintain levels of biofuel blends in transportation fuel, with the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard and the E.U. Renewable Energy Directive being the most prominent examples, encourage biofuel production and consumption worldwide. The United States and the European Union are projected to account for at least 60 percent of global biofuel consumption in 2025.
“Farmers in poor communities around the world are being kicked off their land to produce fuel for our cars and trucks. No one should go hungry to fill our gas tanks.” —Kelly Stone, ActionAid USA
Furthermore, states the report, “Demand for biofuels is also associated with land grabs in developing countries, where smallholder farmers growing food for their families are forced off their land to make way for energy crops for export.”
In Guatemala, for instance, subsistence farmers are being forced to give up cultivation of multiple food crops for local consumption in order to cultivate just one crop that will likely be exported and used for fuel instead of food. Monoculture crops such as sugarcane or palm—both used as feedstocks for biofuels production—now take up 14 percent of the country’s land, while small land holders use only 12 percent.
“In a country where half of children under the age of five are malnourished, more land is devoted to export crops than sustenance farming,” reads the report.
Kelly Stone, biofuels policy analyst at ActionAid, painted a stark picture: “Farmers in poor communities around the world are being kicked off their land to produce fuel for our cars and trucks,” she said. “No one should go hungry to fill our gas tanks.”
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The ActionAid report was adapted from a recent working paper authored by Timothy Wise and Emily Cole of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
Their analysis “suggests the need for governments to cease the implementation and expansion of current food-based biofuels consumption mandates and to forgo the creation of new mandates,” which they say prop up demand. They also recommend eliminating incentives for biofuels that impact the fuel supply.
Such incentives, of course, are the bread and butter of Midwestern corn producers, which explains why attempts by the federal government to reduce how much ethanol must be blended into the country’s motor-fuel supply are vehemently opposed by members of Congress from that region.
“Mandates must be scaled back. Otherwise, governments are mandating not just biofuel consumption but hunger and unsustainable resource use.” —Tim Wise & Emily Cole, Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
“Regulatory and legislative efforts to weaken the Renewable Fuel Standard are misguided and fail to acknowledge the success of renewable fuels,” U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa) reportedly said at a biofuels summit in Washington, D.C.
Wise and Cole point out that the U.S. not only consumes the most biofuels, but it uses mostly corn, the source that provides “the fewest environmental benefits and most directly competes with food and feed markets.”
“Mandates must be scaled back,” they declare. “Otherwise, governments are mandating not just biofuel consumption but hunger and unsustainable resource use.”
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Janie and Jack have partnered with Harlem’s Fashion Row to help
showcase rising multicultural designers. The Gap Inc.-owned
childrenswear brand is committed to teaching kids about love, unity
and anti-racism.
The collaboration includes childrenswear designs from three
emerging designers, Kristian Lorén, Kimberly Goldson and Richfresh.
Each designer merged their signature styles with Janie and Jack’s
aesthetic, offering shoppers fashion-forward pieces for their
kids.
Retailing between 19 and 139 dollars, the collection is currently
available through the brand’s ecommerce site and in select stores
across the country.
A day after Walmart employees held the first-ever sit-in targeting the world’s largest retailer, workers promised to stage the biggest Black Friday protest in history.
“The constant struggle Walmart has created for families is not acceptable. It’s also holding back the next generation from the opportunities and fair shake they deserve,” Stephanie Ly, AFT New Mexico president and a teacher, said on a press call on Friday. Ly added that the upcoming strike will be the “largest mobilizing of working families we’ve seen in recent history,” with “tens of thousands” expected to take part.
Those employees will come from more than 1,600 stores around the country. Thousands more have signed petitions asking for higher wages and better working conditions.
Barbara Gertz, who works at a Walmart in Denver, Colorado, said that the strike is for more than their rights as workers—it is also for their right to speak out.
“Every time one of us speaks out for change, we take the risk that Walmart will fire us,” Gertz said. “That’s not right and that’s not legal. That’s why we’re going on strike.”
Venanci Lune, a worker at an L.A. Walmart store and OUR Walmart member, told Common Dreams on Thursday that employees “have no voice. Any time we have an action, or speak up for our rights, they retaliate by cutting your hours, giving you three days off, or making you stressed to the point where you want to quit.”
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In October, Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon said the company plans to upgrade its hourly pay for part-time workers until it is “in a situation where we don’t pay minimum wage at all.”
But McMillon’s claims do little to counteract the shared experiences of many of its low-income workers. Out of 1.3 million employees, only 6,000 currently make the federal minimum wage of $7.25, even as the Walton family itself accrues nearly $150 billion in wealth, and the company continues to cut the few benefits it offers—like health insurance—despite soaring profits.
“There have been many times my family can’t even afford the gas to get me back and forth to work, so my husband had to wait in the car to take me home after work,” Gertz said. Despite the company’s promises, “associates are still struggling and our stores are still understaffed.”
As Bloomberg points out, Walmart could raise the minimum wage by making small changes to its in-store prices, such as raising the cost of $16 items by a penny.
Nearly one million Walmart employees will be expected to show up at work on Black Friday and Thanksgiving and keep stores open for regular hours, with Black Friday shopping hours beginning an hour earlier than in previous years.
The Ferguson Municipal Library, a beacon of peace in a community wracked by unrest, has received a flood of donations in response to its decision to stay open following Monday’s grand jury announcement—more than $175,000, or more than half its annual budget, in just two days.
The public library, which employs only one full-time librarian and serves about 21,000 local residents, acted as an ad-hoc school and community center when other public institutions shut down, reports the St. Louis Dispatch.
Staff Tweeted Tuesday: “Lots of kids, lots of teachers, lots of knowledge at the #Ferguson library today! Thanks! Support each other & stay safe. #whatlibrariesdo”
On the day the grand jury announced its decision not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson for shooting dead unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, the staff wrote: “Many other orgs closing. But we will stay open to serve people of #Ferguson as long as safe for patrons & staff, up to 8p. Love each other;” and “Normal hours tomorrow. We will have teachers and volunteers here to help kids from 9-3 since [Ferguson-Florissant school district] is closed!”
The community-minded approach garnered online support from luminaries such as author Neil Gaiman, tv host and commentator Rachel Maddow, and the PBS program Reading Rainbow.
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“We can donate directly to the #Ferguson library through their website,” Gaiman wrote on Twitter. “They are open while schools are closed: http://www.ferguson.lib.mo.us”.
The calls are working. More than 7,000 well-wishers from around the country have clicked the “Donate” button, with the amount raised surpassing $175,000 in a matter of days, according to the facility’s Facebook page. In addition, all the books from the library’s wish list have been fulfilled.
“It doesn’t seem real yet,” the library’s director, Scott Bonner, told the Dispatch on Wednesday. “I had no idea there was anything like that coming.”
Inside the library, however, the atmosphere is still fraught, reflective of the tensions outside its brick walls. “I’m seeing a mix of moods,” Bonner told Library Journal. “Our volunteers are excited and optimistic, and here to help, and then I have patrons who come in and literally hold my hands and cry—they just needed someone to hold onto and talk to.”
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The Obama administration has less than one week to decide whether it intends to force New York Times reporter James Risen to testify at the trial of a CIA whistleblower, after a federal judge ordered on Tuesday that the U.S. “commit to a position” by 10 a.m. on December 16.
“Since June 2, 2014, the United States has had over six months to decide whether it will subpoena James Risen to testify at this trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday, January 12, 2015,” the order reads (pdf). “Because Mr. Risen’s presence or absence at the trial will have a significant impact on how the parties present their case, a decision about Mr. Risen must be made sufficiently before trial to enable the parties to prepare adequately.”
“Just as they are trying to fight to keep secret their own investigation into CIA torture, they have shown no signs that they plan on stopping their pursuit of a reporter who’s been exposing CIA wrongdoing for over a decade.” —Trevor Timm, Freedom of the Press Foundation
The Times said U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema’s order, issued “with seeming impatience,” brings to a head “the most serious confrontation between the government and the news media in many years.”
The conflict has been ongoing since 2008, when Risen was first subpoenaed by the Bush administration and ordered by the Department of Justice to testify in the prosecution of former CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of leaking information about a failed Clinton-era CIA mission to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Risen wrote about the failed operation in his 2006 book State of War.
The 2008 order expired as the reporter fought it through the courts, but it was renewed under President Obama in 2010. In 2011, Brinkema ruled that that Risen did not need to identify his source, but a federal appeals court overturned her decision. In June of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene on Risen’s behalf, despite his claim that his First Amendment rights were violated.
Politico reports:
Throughout the ordeal, journalists and free press advocates have stood by Risen, claiming that forcing the reporter to testify—or punishing him for refusing to appear in court—would set a dangerous precedent for the interpretation of press freedom under the First Amendment.
But public relations considerations may ultimately play more of a role than the administration’s view of journalism ethics.
As Trevor Timm writes for the Freedom of the Press Foundation blog: “On the heels of the CIA torture report, it’s hard to imagine the the Justice Department will want to bring more attention to another spectacular failure of the CIA. But just as they are trying to fight to keep secret their own investigation into CIA torture, they have shown no signs that they plan on stopping their pursuit of a reporter who’s been exposing CIA wrongdoing for over a decade. Risen has continued to report on the CIA torture regime this week, even while facing the Justice Department’s deadline.”
Still, some damage has already been done, Timm says. “Sadly, no matter what happens, the Justice Department has already done lasting damage to press freedom for eviscerating reporter’s privilege for all future cases in the Fourth Circuit,” he concludes. “We again call on them to do the right thing and drop their plans to subpoena Risen for doing his job.”
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Police used pepper spray and batons to break up a resurgent pro-democracy action in Hong Kong Wednesday night, as activists returned to central protest sites in Mong Kok.
According to a police statement, 12 arrests were made, allegedly on a range of charges including assault on officers and “failing to produce proof of identity.”
Protests demanding universal suffrage for Hong Kong voters began in September, after the Chinese government withdrew a promise to allow free elections in 2017. Throughout months of actions, Beijing maintained its position that candidates for the semi-autonomous city’s Chief Executive must be screened and approved by a pro-establishment panel.
The youth-led movement, which grew to take on tens of thousands of participants at its peak, saw protesters camping out in Mong Kok and other central areas of Hong Kong for months. Protesters marched through streets, blockaded main intersections and police headquarters, and disrupted political events to demand true democratic elections.
After images emerged in September that showed protesters using umbrellas to defend their camps from riot police, the movement came to be known colloquially as the Umbrella Revolution.
Activists promised to return when their final protest site was shut down in early December.
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“This is not the end,” one protester, Martin Lee, said at the time. “It is the continuation of the beginning.”
Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the massive Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia, in which a leak at a coal industry facility led to the contamination of drinking water for nine counties and hundreds of thousands of people.
While evidence of Freedom Industries’ culpability in the crisis continues to mount, local residents and environmental advocates fear that not enough has been done to prevent a similar disaster in the future.
The January 9, 2014 spill of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM)—a chemical foam used to wash coal—from a Freedom Industries chemical storage tank occurred just 1.5 miles from a water treatment and distribution plant, prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency. For 4 to 9 days, about 300,000 West Virginia residents were ordered not to use the public water supply. Noting that “one indicator of the contaminated water is the odor of the water,” Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin warned at the time: “Please don’t drink, don’t wash with, don’t do anything with the water.”
Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward Jr. recalls:
More than two dozen citizen action groups planned to host a series of events Friday to commemorate the spill, including education workshops, a candlelight vigil and the premiere of a documentary produced by a local filmmaker.
In a blog post for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, West Virginia resident Rebecca Roth writes:
In the intervening year, evidence of Freedom Industries’ role in the spill has racked up.
In July, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board determined that an egregious lack of oversight by Freedom Industries, which used tanks damaged by corrosion to hold toxic materials, caused the disastrous spill.
Federal documents unsealed earlier this week suggest that Freedom knew about serious problems with the spill-containment dikes at the company’s Elk River facility years before the leak. As Ward Jr. reports for the Gazette: “Freedom was ‘long aware’ of ‘inadequacies’ with the containment dike around Tank 396—the one that leaked MCHM and other chemicals into the Elk on Jan. 9, 2014—and also knew the tank was old, had not been properly inspected and needed to be replaced, according to an FBI affidavit made public late Wednesday in U.S. District Court.”
On Thursday, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey released a report (pdf) that outlined similar findings regarding a long history of Freedom officials knowing about problems at the Elk River site, but not taking action to fix them. For example, the state investigation found that Freedom employees and outside consultants “warned of a potential catstrophic incident due to poor tank conditions and design problems for years, and in some cases offered solutions” that were never acted upon.
Prosecutors in December accused Freedom Industries Inc.—which has since filed for bankruptcy—along with its former president Gary Southern and other officers of negligence and fraud related to the spill.
On Thursday, one day before the anniversary of the incident, three former Freedom executives plead not guilty to criminal violations concerning the leak. Their trial has been set for March.
A separate ‘After Action Review’ (pdf) conducted by the Tomblin administration and released Friday says state officials struggled to communicate effectively with the public following the spill, and notes that certain types of above-ground storage tanks were “inadequately regulated.”
Later this month, the local organization People Concerned About Chemical Safety will host “Looking Forward: Summit on Chemical Safety in West Virginia,” at which participants will “learn about successful models implemented in other states and solutions that address disproportionate impacts of chemical releases on communities of color and low-income communities” and discuss ways to prevent water contamination in the future.
“Right now, politicians, industry, and activists all share the same question: Will people stay involved?” writes Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. “Maintaining drinking water protections will depend on people showing up. The special interests who would dismantle our water protections know this. They know when the crisis has passed, and people go back to attending to their everyday lives—it’s easy to lose sight of what’s at stake. Out of sight, out of mind. We know from history, water protections will backslide when we’re not paying attention.”
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Though she has steadfastly claimed the loss of her pregnancy was a miscarriage, the 20-year prison sentence given to Purvi Patel by an Indiana court this week for the crime of ‘feticide’ is being slammed by legal experts and reproductive rights advocates who say the ruling is not only misguided and “cruel” given the facts of the case, but sets an “alarming” precedent for the rights of women both in Indiana and around the country.
Patel on Monday became the first woman in U.S. history to be sentenced to prison for losing her own fetus. She was found guilty of one charge of feticide and one charge of neglect of a dependent, after prosecutors claimed she delivered her fetus alive, rather than stillborn, as Patel told doctors.
“While no woman should face criminal charges for having an abortion or experiencing a pregnancy loss, the cruel length of this sentence confirms that feticide and other measures promoted by anti-abortion organizations are intended to punish not protect women,” said Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, in a statement on Monday.
Indiana passed its feticide law in 2009, a year after a pregnant woman lost her twin fetuses when she was shot in the stomach during a bank robbery. Supporters said the law would help prosecute in those cases where a third party harmed a pregnant woman’s fetus, but opponents warned that it could be misused to criminalize abortions.
“The prosecution and verdict in this case demonstrate that, despite their claims to the contrary, the real result of the anti-abortion movement—if not the intended goal—is to punish women for terminating pregnancies,” Paltrow wrote in an article for The Public Eye magazine. “Turning this law into one that can be used to punish a woman who herself has an abortion is an extraordinary expansion of the scope and intention of the state’s law.”
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Patel entered a hospital for blood loss in July 2013 and told doctors she had delivered a stillborn. But prosecutors accused her of taking drugs to induce an abortion based on a series of text messages on Patel’s phone in which she discussed buying the drugs online, although no drugs were found in her system or the fetus’s system. The state, having used a scientifically discredited “float test” to determine if there was air in the fetus’s lungs, then argued that Patel abandoned the fetus in a trash bin after it was born alive.
Katherine Jack, an Indiana attorney who defended another woman charged with homicide for losing a pregnancy, told the Guardian on Wednesday, “If [Patel’s case is] appealed and upheld, [the conviction] basically sets a precedent that anything a pregnant woman does that could be interpreted as an attempt to terminate her pregnancy could result in criminal liability.”
“This is quite traumatic and frightening,” Paltrow told the New York Times on Wednesday. “Many people would love to see an end to abortion, but a majority of even those people don’t want to see women locked up in prison.”
In an interview with Democracy Now!, Paltrow noted there are 38 states with feticide laws on the books. “Indiana’s law is somewhat different from other states, but it is not really about the language of the statute, it’s about the commitment of the prosecutors and the state to use it as a mechanism for depriving pregnant women of their human rights,” she said.
Kathleen Morrell, reproductive rights fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, told the Guardian, “One of the most concerning [effects] is the chilling effect on women then becoming reluctant to seek care when they need it. Anything that restricts their desire to go and see a doctor because they think something bad could happen to them is just going to be bad for public health in general.”
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Dany Kvyat blasted Alex Albon after Sunday’s Eifel GP, calling the Red Bull driver “unprofessional” for causing a collision that undermined the AlphaTauri charger’s race.
Kvyat and Albon were fighting for a spot in the points in the early stages of the race when the Russian ran wide at the final chicane.
Kvyat rejoined the track ahead of his rival but Albon’s momentum allowed the British-Thai racer to get the measure of the AlphaTauri only to move over and clip the latter’s front wing, a contact that forced Kvyat into an unscheduled pit stop and a plunge down the order.
Addressing the incident after the race, Albon, who was handed a 5-second penalty for the mishap, admitted there had been “a bit of misjudgment on my side”.
But Kvyat was anything but forgiving towards the Red Bull driver.
“I didn’t understand his manoeuvre really,” Kvyat said. “What was he doing?
“I think it was quite unprofessional of him and poor judgement, so you wouldn’t expect that from a driver of his level, who’s been racing so long.
“But anyway, the race was pretty much ruined from then on. I had to do the whole lap very slow with the damaged front wing as a consequence.
“It went under my floor, damaged my whole floor, the brake cooling, and the race from there was really a struggle because the car was massively down on downforce, and I was just really hoping for rain or something really strange to happen.”
While Albon emerged unscathed from the tussle, the Red Bull driver ultimately retired from the race on lap 23 due to a pierced radiator.
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Thousands of people took to the streets on Monday rebuking what they say is the “sanitized” version of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and calling to restore the legacy of a man whose protests, like their own, were never “convenient.”
The nationwide actions marked the birthday of the civil rights leader in a year that saw renewed calls for racial justice in the face of persistent inequality, discrimination, and police targeting of communities of color.
Capping off almost a week of demonstrations, organizational meetings, and other pledges of resistance—all done with the intent to “Reclaim MLK”—grassroots coalition Ferguson Action issued a specific call for Monday: “Do as Martin Luther King would have done and resist the war on Black Lives with civil disobedience and direct action. Take the streets, shut it down, walk, march, and whatever you do, take action.”
In Philadelphia, an estimated ten thousand people marched through the city center before holding a rally outside of Independence Hall. Organized by a broad-based coalition MLK D.A.R.E., the Philadelphia demonstrators are calling for an end to the racially-biased “Stop and Frisk” policing program, a $15 per hour minimum wage and the right to form unions, and a fully funded, democratically controlled local school system.
“Here in Philadelphia and from shore to shore, a black child is likely to be poorer, go to worse-funded schools, and more likely to go to jail than his white brother,” said Leslie MacFadyen, founder of the Ferguson National Response Network. “We are called to follow in King’s footsteps this year as we march in his legacy, and in the legacy of thousands of other men and women of his generation who stood up and said enough is enough.”
In St. Louis, Missouri, which since the protests the followed the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown has become the new touchstone in the racial justice movement, remembrances of King were attended by hundreds of people, many of whom wore “Justice for Mike Brown” T-shirts and carried signs that read, “Black Lives Matter.”
Citing King’s work, which was built upon a “bold vision that was radical, principled, and uncompromising,” Ferguson Action explained in a statement ahead of the Day of Action why the true nature and genesis of the civil rights movement is so relevant today:
In Cleveland, activists gathered at the park where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by a police officer before taking part in a four-mile march. Demonstrators in numerous cities are holding either a four-mile march or a four minute die-in at the beginning of their demonstration to highlight the four minutes Rice “lay without first aid,” and the four hours Brown “lay on the ground” after being fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
“Some people think that we’re out here just causing problems,” said Cleveland organizer Courtney Drain. “MLK marched in the streets, he blocked traffic. He wasn’t convenient.”
In Chicago, protesters participating in another four-mile march through downtown stopped outside the local ABC affiliate where they chanted “shame on you!” for not covering the week’s actions. “Black Stories Matter!” one protester declared.
Oakland, California Mayor Libby Schaaf was awakened by roughly 50 protesters chanting outside her home. According to reports, the demonstrators illuminated tall letters that spelled “Dream,” in honor of King’s famous 1963 speech. The group also projected King quotes on the mayor’s garage door and drew chalk outlines of bodies on the street. Later in the day, activists held a die-in outside a movie theater playing the civil rights film “Selma.”
According to the Ferguson National Response Network, over 50 nationwide events with images and details shared online with live streams or under the hashtags #ReclaimMLK and #WWMLKDO.
Tweets about #WWMLKD OR #ReclaimMLK
Other large demonstrations were held in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington D.C.
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