Dear friends,
There are as many ways to get things right as there are to get things wrong. On Tuesdays, we shine a light on the things that we (an inclusive, all-over we that wants justice) are getting right.
There’s a little bit of quick, time-sensitive action at the end of this post.
We’ll start with something small and bright:
Folks in Florida did not let the DeSantis administration steal their rainbow.
Jared Perdue of the Florida Department of Transportation declared that this year, bridges would be lit up in red, white, and blue all summer. This decision bars Pride lighting, Juneteenth lighting, and many other special lighting days on bridges in Florida.
Jacksonville residents put colored gels on their flashlights and lit up the Main Street Bridge with a DIY rainbow.
Claudia Scheinbaum is the newly-elected president of Mexico. She is the first woman to hold the office in Mexico and she is a bonafide climate scientist.
Climate writers for HEATED note that as mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum advanced rooftop solar power installations, bike-sharing, rainwater collection programs, reforestation, and investments in waste management.
Although she has not explicitly promised to move Mexico away from its heavy fossil-fuel dependence, her background positions her to make informed policy decisions.
Sheinbaum’s scholarly work encompasses so many sectors—cement, transportation, iron and steel, and agriculture, to name a few—that it’s hard to imagine an industry whose climate impact she hasn’t studied. She also published papers on how to expand non-fossil fuel energy, while also considering the social and economic impacts of the energy transition. In a paper published in 2000 in the journal Climatic Change, she wrote that a successful climate plan would need to “evaluate mitigation options that help advance the country’s own development priorities.”
Yesterday, I was walking with a friend in the park and we saw someone wearing a t-shirt that said
I remember when knowledge was power.
I still believe, and I’m excited when voters choose science-literate leadership.
The same friend told me about the protests at the Oberlin graduation she attended a week ago.
Hundreds of Oberlin College graduates turned their backs on the college Monday morning in protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and the college’s alleged financial ties to pro-Israel companies.
There was powerful eloquence in the simple gesture and the ceremony continued.
The student speaker, Julia Maskin, noted that hundreds of graduates had signed a pledge not to donate to Oberlin “until the college fully divests from every company that facilitates, invests in or supports the Israel occupation of Palestine.” She went on to
acknowledge the fact that we are celebrating our graduation today at a time when there are no celebrations and no commencement ceremonies in Gaza, because there are no universities left to have them.
During his lifetime, Howard Zinn wrote and spoke memorably about the vast majority of organized resistance that we never hear about and the power of our efforts when they multiply.
The outrage over the war in Gaza and the institutions that support it has continued, even though it has been underreported, especially on campuses in the Rust Belt.
Student demonstrators held protests for Gaza in 11 out of 13 states in the Appalachian region, as well as in every state in the Rust Belt. Hundreds of the more than 2,900 student protesters arrested since the encampments started this spring hailed from inland schools.
And the underreporting extends to other institutions. I live under a mile from the Brooklyn Museum, where anti-war protesters swarmed into the lobby and shut the museum down on Friday evening.
“The Brooklyn Museum was targeted in an autonomous action organized by hundreds of artists, cultural workers, and other NYC communities who came together under the banner Cultural Front for Free Palestine with demands relating to the genocide in Gaza,” an email obtained by PIX11 News read. “Today, the ongoing pillage of housing and livelihoods proceeds through the economic violence of investors and developers, many of whom sit on museum boards while the ongoing trauma comes at the hands of armed police whose primary mission is the protection of property and the repression of dissent. Free Palestine. Palestine is everywhere.”
I learned about it on Instagram and tracked down the story in the local news. Eventually, the story turned up elsewhere, but my guess is that for many of you, this is the first you’re hearing of it.
The Lever reported this week on a bill passed in Illinois that is designed to save local journalism. The law will require
local newspaper owners to notify employees and the state far ahead of time if the paper is set to be sold to an out-of-state buyer.
[M]ore than 2,900 newspapers have closed since 2005, leading to the loss of nearly 43,000 journalist jobs. . . .[B]y 2023, more than half of all counties across the country had either no local news outlet or only one remaining, resulting in “news deserts” that deprive roughly one-fifth of the U.S. population of their access to credible information.
Telling the stories of what’s happening and what we are doing to work for justice is important. It’s part of my mission, too.
“Meeting your tax obligations and claiming the credits and deductions for which you’re eligible should be easy,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said. “We will make Direct File a permanent IRS service and invite all states to participate in Direct File starting next year.”
We took action on this issue, and ‘cousin Janet’ heard us (we’re not actually related).
In the final days of the state legislative session, lots of bills just need a nudge. Luckily, our friends at NY Renews are producing quick climate actions that we can take. This one is for the Climate Superfund Act. Remember that climate change respects no borders and you can take action from anywhere!
Tell the Assembly Speaker and Ways and Means Committee to Advance the Climate Superfund Act. This is from NY Renews.
We’re also still trying to get NY HEAT Act over the finish line.
Join a call relay with Renewable Heat Now on Wednesday, June 5. There’s a script! Together we can raise our voices for climate action.
Sometimes, I get inspired when I realize how many different groups are hard at work to transform our society. Lots of little groups come together in coalitions to advance an equitable economy and a healthy and livable future.
Climate Works for All is another one of these super-groups of of labor, community, faith, environmental justice, and climate organizations working for justice. The next ready-made action on the NYC budget comes from one of their member groups.
Tell the Mayor to invest in clean buildings, green schools, and good, union jobs! This quick action is from ALIGN.
with love,
L