Dear friends,
The new 4,045,268 area will provide crucial protected wildlife corridors, enhance outdoor recreation access to the public and bolster climate resilience in southwest Florida.
The conservation area is home to a diversity of species like the Florida black bear, Everglade snail kite, Florida panther, sand skink and many other rare and endemic species, including more than 100 threatened or endangered species.
Oregon just advanced its efforts to phase out fossil fuels by passing the COAL Act, which
directs the state to drop about $1 billion in coal investments and to cease new investments in companies that mine and burn coal.
The move involves divestment of the state’s Public Employee Retirement System. A geology instructor, one of hundreds of people who wrote in support of the legislation, said that her students despair over the slow pace of climate action and that
“we must be moving all levers in this critical climate moment.”
Although the bill passed both houses in a party-line vote, there were just 8 members of the public who wrote letters in opposition to the divestment.
Help move all the levers in New York by letting the Governor know that the public supports the NY HEAT Act, which will ensure that everyone can afford to heat their home adequately as our state phases out fossil fuels.
The folks at NY Renews have organized a call relay, so that Governor Hochul hears all day, every day this week, that New Yorkers want her to budget for NY HEAT. Callers are especially needed in the afternoons.
Sign up to call the Governor about NY HEAT this week at a time that’s convenient for you. There’s a script and the call takes 1-2 minutes!
Congress averted a government shutdown. It is a relief that the machinations of Trump’s Republican Party have failed to crash the entire system, for now.
The good news is that those same bad actors failed to attach policy riders that would have banned puberty-blocking drugs and gender-affirming care, among over 40 anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans measures.
Nowhere is the hope of a dignified life more endangered, right now, than in Gaza. Finally, a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire passed. The US abstained from the vote on the resolution. Not a bold move, but an improvement.
Washington had been averse to the word ceasefire earlier in the nearly six-month-old war in the Gaza Strip and had used its veto power to shield ally Israel as it retaliated against Hamas for an Oct. 7 attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people.
Robert Reich correctly pointed out that Israel would be under tremendous pressure to change its course if the US were to withhold military aid.
The United States is by far the largest supplier of military aid to Israel. In 2022, the aid amounted to $3.3 billion. Since the war with Hamas began, the Biden administration has pushed Congress to pass $14 billion in additional aid (the funding has been stalled, mainly for reasons unrelated to the war).
Between October and around December 1, 2023, the United States also transferred about 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells to Israel. From December 1 to now, those total transfers have increased by about 15 percent.
Young people are paying attention and taking action. Asahi Ono, a junior at the Bronx High School of Science, commented that
the majority of Americans support a ceasefire to end the fighting, yet Congress continues to oppose a ceasefire and instead further aid the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
We must continue to push President Biden. The abstention on the UN resolution represents movement; if physics is any guide, bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.
Time is of the essence, of course. If there is to be life and dignity in Gaza, we need to get the president to move more quickly and effectively to stop the Israeli war on Gaza that he has called “over the top.”
Tell President Biden that the US must withhold military aid to Israel now. This action has been updated.
with love,
L