Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and California businesses shutdown, the state's farmers continue to harvest, in this case, cilantro, as viewed along Santa Rosa Road in Santa Barbara County on June 13, 2020, near Lompoc, California. George Rose / Getty Images
By Iris Figueroa and Amy K. Liebman
COVID-19 is having disproportionate impacts on our nation's two million farmworkers, who as essential workers continue to toil in the fields despite numerous deadly outbreaks and no federal COVID-related workplace protections.
<p>COVID-19 has pulled back the veil on the strikingly poor workplace conditions of these essential workers, built by decades of insufficient farmworker health and safety policy, poor immigration policy, and limited health care access. As a consequence, <a href="https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-covid-19-in-meat-and-food-processing-plants/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">at least 86,900 food workers</a> have tested positive for COVID-19 – but with uneven data collection, exacerbated by businesses' lack of transparency over workplace outbreaks and workers' avoidance of testing due to fear of losing income, the figures we have are likely an underestimate.</p><p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7556498/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A new analysis</a> does note that each additional percentage point of farmworkers per overall population in a county was associated with 5.79 more deaths from COVID-19 – but did not contribute to more deaths per 100,000 residents. The researchers concluded, "farmworkers may face unique risks of COVID-19 beyond issues of language, insurance, or economics."</p><p>The Biden Administration must issue a federal standard to protect workers from COVID-19 that includes farmworkers. But beyond COVID-specific actions for farmworkers, the Biden Administration also needs to urgently address the underlying health and workplace conditions that pre-dated COVID.</p>
A Dangerous Regulatory Rollback
<p>One key way the Biden Administration can start to correct the course is by enforcing and safeguarding the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), the main federal regulation that protects workers from pesticide exposure. Pesticide exposure weakens the respiratory, immune, and nervous systems — exacerbating farmworkers' COVID-19 risks.</p><p>Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump Administration made various efforts to weaken or eliminate key provisions of the WPS, which had been revised and improved at the end of the Obama Administration. The WPS is an outlier in occupational health standards – because pesticides, although they are a workplace hazard, are regulated by the EPA, instead of by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which covers occupational health in every other industry. This is just one example of how farmworkers are exempted from basic protections afforded to other workers.</p><p><span></span>Many of the Trump Administration's efforts to weaken the WPS were thwarted by advocacy and litigation by environmental and farmworker groups. However, one of the Trump Administration's proposed rollbacks of the WPS remains: the gutting of the Application Exclusion Zone (AEZ), which required pesticide handlers to stop applying pesticides if someone is near the area being sprayed. If the final Trump AEZ rule goes into effect, farmworkers in neighboring fields, children in school playgrounds or in their backyards, and rural residents going about their day may be in close proximity to where pesticides are being sprayed, as long as they're not on the same property, without any requirement that the applicator suspend spraying. <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/centers/oki-water/science/pesticides?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects" target="_blank">More than 1 billion pounds</a> of pesticides, designed to kill insects, weeds, and other pests, are applied to U.S. agricultural fields every year. In addition to acute poisonings, pesticides are also associated with <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety/pesticide-poisoning-handbook-section-v-chronic-effects" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">long-term health harms</a> including various cancers, developmental and reproductive harm, and neurological damage, for both farmworkers and community members who are chronically exposed to pesticides.</p><p>In December 2020, Farmworker Justice and Earthjustice, acting on behalf of a coalition of groups including Migrant Clinicians Network, <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/groups-challenge-epas-move-to-gut-pesticide-spraying-safeguards?fbclid=IwAR3Od3YPk0BSdwxys27EQkc8PKOufVywlPX8g0i852iJ-PSBkqYPW4ZbB4g" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sued the EPA to stop these changes</a>. An injunction is currently in place preventing the changes from being implemented as the case proceeds – but the Biden Administration has a responsibility to protect these workers, rather than rely on courts. And the issue of pesticide drift on nearby properties is just one of the many challenges that farmworkers face when it comes to pesticide exposure.</p>An Opportunity to Right Wrongs
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTYyOTExMS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjM2ODAzM30.szhrn2C7P9UtiBUNzlPOl4OPhcQdCAak_QA2ThsW0mQ/img.png?width=980" id="17a13" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="88f88bae616b22aae8238fa01dc075ca" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1250" data-height="732" />Pesticide spray in Utah. Pesticide exposure is associated with various cancers, developmental and reproductive harm, and neurological damage. Aqua Mechanical / Flickr
<p>These hard-working farmworkers, upon whom we all depend for the food we eat, deserve immediate and effective protections. The new Administration has a unique opportunity to take advantage of renewed public understanding of the exploitation of farmworkers, to provide long-overdue workplace protections to keep essential workers safe, and to transform our food systems to ensure healthy workplaces, neighborhoods, and the environment, by:</p><ul><li>Rejecting the Trump Administration's attempt to weaken the Application Exclusion Zone requirements;</li><li>Increasing the monitoring and enforcement of the WPS, including, but not limited to, provisions such as the minimum age of 18 for applying pesticides, adequate training for workers in a language that they understand, and worker access to information about pesticides being applied;</li><li>Requiring drift protections on pesticide labels for drift-prone pesticides, to better protect workers, bystanders, and communities;</li><li>Requiring that all pesticide label instructions be written in Spanish and/or other languages spoken by workers so they have the information they need to protect themselves and their families;</li><li>Banning highly toxic pesticides such as chlorpyrifos;</li><li>Using accurate scientific methods for determining pesticide risk, including taking into account farmworkers' potential long-term exposure, when making determinations about pesticide safety and the registration of pesticide products;</li><li>Including farmworkers and farmworker-serving organizations as key stakeholders at EPA, with a focus on environmental justice.</li></ul><p>These are just some of the essential steps the new administration can take to protect farmworkers from the extreme hazards of their workplaces. Much more needs to be done about the myriad factors that negatively impact farmworker health, like poverty, immigration status, language barriers, and fear of retaliation.</p><p>COVID-19 has shown that a strong public health system and a functional food system require basic health and human rights for all of our neighbors, especially those typically left out. The Biden Administration has a duty and an opportunity to improve our systems – and consequently improve our nation's health and well-being.</p><p><em>Amy K. Liebman is Director of Environmental and Occupational Health for </em><a href="http://www.migrantclinician.org/" target="_blank"><em>Migrant Clinicians Network</em></a><em>, a nonprofit focused on creating practical solutions at the intersection of vulnerability, migration, and health. </em></p><p><em>Iris Figueroa is the Director of Economic and Environmental Justice for </em><a href="http://www.farmworkerjustice.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Farmworker Justice</em></a><em>, a nonprofit that seeks to empower migrant and seasonal farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions, immigration status, health, occupational safety, and access to justice.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.ehn.org/farmworkers-deserve-pesticide-protections-2650404972/" target="_blank">Environmental Health News</a>. </em></p>
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This picture taken on September 16, 2015 shows 13-year-old Indonesian girl Asnimawati working at a palm oil plantation area in Pelalawan, Riau province in Indonesia's Sumatra island. ADEK BERRY / AFP / Getty Images
Tens of thousands of children in Indonesia and Malaysia work to harvest the palm oil that ends up in several beloved Western snacks, including Girl Scout cookies.
<p>An in-depth <a href="https://apnews.com/article/palm-oil-forests-indonesia-scouts-83b01f2789e9489569960da63b2741c4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Associated Press report</a> published recently used U.S. customs records and the most up-to-date information from producers, traders and buyers to link palm oil harvested using child labor to major brands including Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg's, PepsiCo and Ferrero, one of two makers of Girl Scout Cookies. </p>
<p>"I thought Girl Scouts was supposed to be about making the world a better place," 14-year-old Girl Scout Olivia Chaffin told The Associated Press. "But this isn't at all making the world better."</p><p>Palm oil took off as a global commodity around 20 years ago after health warnings about trans fats caused food manufacturers to switch to the extremely cheap oil. It is now in about half of all supermarket products and almost 75 percent of cosmetics, but appears on labels under more than 200 different names.</p><p>Campaigners in the past have raised concerns about the oil's environmental impact. Around <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/palm-oil-environmental-costs-2640781015.html" target="_self">85 percent</a> of the industry is fed by plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rainforests" target="_self">Rainforests</a> are often cleared to make way for palm oil plantations in the two countries and elsewhere, and this has a devastating impact on many species, including orangutans. A recent study found that 50 percent of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> in Borneo between 2005 and 2015 was linked to palm oil.</p><p>Child labor is another major problem for the industry, according to The Associated Press. The UN's International Labor Organization estimates that 1.5 million children aged 10 to 17 work in Indonesia's agricultural industry, of which palm oil is the dominant crop. In Malaysia, a 2018 study found that more than 33,000 children work in the industry, and that almost half of them are between the ages of five and 11.</p>
<p>Children working on these plantations face hazards like exposure to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals" target="_self">chemicals</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" target="_self">pesticides</a>, and many are denied proper healthcare and the chance at an education. In Malaysia, where the industry is mostly staffed by foreign workers, children without proper immigration papers are even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.</p><p>"For 100 years, families have been stuck in a cycle of poverty and they know nothing else than work on a palm oil plantation," Kartika Manurung, who has published reports on labor issues on Indonesian palm oil plantations, told The Associated Press. "When I … ask the kids what they want to be when they grow up, some of the girls say, 'I want to be the wife of a palm oil worker.'"</p><p>Environmental concerns first motivated then-11-year old Chaffin to investigate the source of the palm oil in the Girl Scout cookies she sold. Chaffin, who had earned a badge for selling more than 600 boxes of cookies, saw that the palm oil listed on the cookie boxes was supposed to come from sustainable sources. However, she looked closer and saw the word "mixed", which meant that sustainable and non-sustainable sources had been combined in the cookie recipe.</p><p>She swore off cookie-selling and launched a petition one year ago urging Girl Scouts to abandon palm oil.</p><p>"Some of my fellow girl scouts and I are boycotting Girl Scout cookie sales until palm oil is replaced with a completely sustainable oil," <a href="https://www.change.org/p/girl-scouts-of-the-usa-remove-palm-oil-from-girl-scout-cookies?recruiter=1073806&use_react=false" target="_blank">she wrote</a>. "Please sign my petition because the rainforest is a very important part of life."</p><p>Chaffin told The Associated Press that learning about the child labor issues made her more motivated to fight for the oil's removal.</p><p>Girl Scout cookies are made by two U.S. bakers: Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky and ABC Bakers in Virginia. Little Brown Bakers says its palm oil is from "mixed" sources, which means as little as one percent might be sustainable. ABC Bakers puts money towards promoting sustainable production. These bakeries belong to two parent companies, Weston Foods of Canada and Ferrero of Italy. Weston Foods would not provide any details of its supply chain, making it impossible for The Associated Press to determine if child labor was used by any of its suppliers.</p><p>The Girl Scouts did not respond to The Associated Press before the study was published, but did address the article on social media.</p><p>"Child labor has no place in Girl Scout Cookie production. Our investment in the development of our world's youth must not be facilitated by the under-development of some," the organization <a href="https://twitter.com/girlscouts/status/1344351388403429377" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeted</a>.</p><p>They <a href="https://twitter.com/girlscouts/status/1344351420666023936" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> that their bakers and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) should take action if standards were being violated.</p>
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Residential solar energy companies are helping more and more homeowners upgrade their properties to clean energy sources. Solar energy companies can equip you with the technology you need to harness the amazing power of the sun and reduce your need for fossil fuels. In this article, we'll review some of the most trustworthy providers and installers of solar power.
Our picks for the best solar companies
The first step in the process is researching some of the top companies in the solar industry. Here are the ones that stood out in our research.
Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.
How we chose the best solar energy companies
How did we determine which solar power companies to recommend?
To begin with, we took a deep dive into each company's offerings, assessing them for the following criteria:
- Range of services offered
- Pricing/affordability and financing options
- Extent of service area
- Solar panel efficiency
- Warranty
- Temperature coefficient (e.g., how much high temperatures affect efficiency)
Additionally, we weighed membership and certification by professional associations like the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). Affiliation with these groups is a good indicator that a solar energy company is reputable, and that their work is up to the highest standards within the industry.
The best solar energy companies
With these criteria in mind, consider our picks for the best solar panel providers and installers in the industry.
SunPower
If you're looking for a company that can walk you through the process of upgrading to solar power for an easy and convenient experience, look no further than to SunPower. The company offers:
- A "design studio" app, allowing you to safely and seamlessly design your own solar power system so that you can see a visual of what the finished product will look like once installed.
- Online calculators that make it easy for you to determine about how much electricity you will save once you upgrade to solar panels.
- Virtual consultations, allowing you to chat one-on-one with a solar power expert and to ask any questions you might have.
SunPower offers leading solar panels and energy storage technology to homeowners across dozens of states. And, they are also the preferred solar partner of many major businesses, including Walmart, FedEx, and Lowes.
Why buy: SunPower is a reliable solar energy company with an impressive tech portfolio and an extremely easy, intuitive process.
SunRun
Upgrading to solar power can seem a little intimidating, but SunRun is out to bring simplicity. Their approach makes it extremely straightforward to select a custom solar energy plan for your household. Here's what to know about SunRun:
- They offer virtual consultations with solar energy experts, making it simple to explore your options and determine which solar set-up is right for your home energy needs.
- Each system they design is completely customized to address the customer's needs. SunRun doesn't do "one size fits all" solar equipment options.
- Their guarantee, the best in the industry, offers extraordinary peace of mind that your solar system will prove durable and reliable.
- SunRun also leads in terms of flexible financing options, making solar power accessible and affordable.
Why buy: With SunRun, the name of the game is customization. This is one of the best solar installation companies to turn to for solar power solutions that are truly made with you in mind.
Tesla
You probably associate Tesla with their electric vehicles, but did you know that the company also produces high-efficiency solar panels? Depending on your needs and your budget, Tesla can hook you up with an array of solar panels or even a solar roof, making it easy to cut electricity costs and power your home via the sun's vital energy.
Some fast facts about choosing solar power from Tesla:
- They offer a price match guarantee and affordable financing options.
- Their advanced solar panel technology offers a low profile, a sleek style, and long-term durability.
- Home battery backups allow you to save solar power and then access it on demand, whenever you need it.
Why buy: Tesla offers sophisticated solar products for what the company claims is the lowest price of any national provider, which they back with a price-match guarantee. Plus, all of their solar panels come with a solid 25-year performance guarantee.
LG
LG is another well-known tech company that is also a leader in solar energy. Some of their solar panels use a bifacial solar module that captures energy from two directions to increase their efficiency. While they are a solar panel manufacturer, they can also help you with the installation process by finding an LG Pro installer in your area.
- They offer an online "solar concierge" service that allows you to evaluate your home energy needs and to compare different options for going solar.
- LG offers a 25-year warranty, not only on their technology but also on the work their of their solar installers.
- They offer a range of solar panels and supporting products, and they supply you with plenty of information to make a fully informed choice.
Why buy: LG is a company that knows technological innovation. Their award-winning solar energy products are reliably efficient, well-priced, and designed for maximum efficiency.
Panasonic
Panasonic has one of the most impressive tech portfolios in the solar energy industry. Their products boast some of the highest conversion efficiency rates, along with the lowest degradation rates. And they back everything with a generous warranty.
Some additional reasons to choose Panasonic:
- They offer a range of solar panels to choose from. With Panasonic, you'll find that you have plenty of options.
- They also provide a lot of great online support and consumer education, ensuring you'll get the most out of your solar technology.
Why buy: Panasonic is a solar panel company with products that are tough to beat. Both their pricing and warranties are very appealing, and their HIT high-performance solar panels offer some of the best power conversion rates of any product.
Vivint
Vivint is a company that offers a full spectrum of services, including solar power consultation, design, and installation. A few reasons why homeowners trust their solar power needs to the Vivint team:
- Everything Vivint does is customized. They tailor everything to fit your roof and to help you achieve your home energy goals.
- They make the entire process simple, handling all of the little details for you. This includes securing permits, filing the right paperwork, etc.
- They emphasize safety, using only the highest caliber of solar panels and backing everything with a world-class warranty.
Why buy: Vivint is noteworthy for their focus on customization, their commitment to safety, and their one-stop-shop solar power solutions. In addition to solar panel installation, they also offer other specialized technology, including solar-powered electric vehicle chargers.
Enphase
Enphase is another company that stands out, both for their robust technology as well as for their commitment to customization. Their microinverter technology makes their solar system safer by reducing the likelihood of arc fault fires.
- They design their solar technology with safety in mind, including fire safeguards that other companies can't match.
- Their solar panels are built for durability and can hold up even through the most extreme kinds of weather.
- Enphase uses smart technology to update itself; all you need to do is connect it to your home Internet.
- They also have one of the best apps in the solar industry, making it simple to monitor your home energy use.
Why buy: Enphase is a company of innovators, and their solar portfolio has a lot to offer. Their system is also modular, meaning you can easily add more panels to your system as you need them.
Canadian Solar
This solar power provider has won recognition not just for their excellent technology, but also for their sincere commitment to sustainability and to ecological stewardship. And don't let the name throw you off: Though Canadian Solar is based in Canada, they provide solar power solutions in the U.S. and other countries.
Some additional facts about Canadian Solar:
- They offer a wide range of products, from energy converters to storage solutions.
- Their solar panels boast exceedingly high energy efficiency rates.
- Canadian Solar has won a number of awards for its first-class innovations, and one of their products even set a world record for conversion efficiency in 2020.
Why buy: This company has a proven track record of technological excellence, plus a real commitment to ecological stewardship. They also closely monitor their supply chain to ensure that no goods or materials used in their products come from prohibited forms of labor.
First Solar
First Solar boasts an impressive track record of advocacy for solar power and for renewable energy sources. And, thankfully, they back their advocacy with some excellent solar technologies.
A few reasons to choose First Solar solar panels:
- Their technology offers an outstanding temperature coefficient, meaning they won't lose performance during high temperatures.
- Their solar cells are among the most reliable and most efficient in the clean energy sector.
- First Solar also offers a lot of post-purchase, post-installation help, as needed.
Why buy: First Solar is a great option for anyone who's serious about renewable energy, and who wants the best performance from their solar panels.
Go Solar
The biggest drawback to Go Solar is that, right now, their work is limited to just a few states. But if you happen to live in that part of the country, you're in luck. Go Solar's panels are uniquely calibrated to take advantage of the western region's abundant sunlight. Some additional reasons to pick Go Solar include:
- They offer free home solar assessments.
- They custom-design solar systems to meet the needs of your home.
- They have some of the most trusted installers in the solar power industry.
Why buy: For solar solutions that are tailored to the climate of the American West, definitely consider Go Solar. Plus, with their Give Solar International partnership, they give an equivalent solar panel system to a family in Uganda for each system sold.
How does a solar energy system work?
As you explore the different options for embracing solar power, it may be helpful to have a baseline understanding of how solar energy systems actually function.
Generally speaking, solar energy systems involve solar panels installed on your roof. These panels absorb the sun's energy, storing it in what are known as photovoltaic cells. These cells convert the solar energy into direct current (DC) energy, then use an inverter to convert that DC energy into alternate current (AC) electricity. AC electricity is what you need to power all your home appliances.
It's important to note that, before you purchase solar panels, it's worthwhile to meet with a solar energy consultant who can tell you more about how many panels your home will require, and also to let you know how those panels should be ideally positioned on the roof.
One more note: If you're concerned about the affordability of solar power, it's important to remember that most solar energy companies provide a host of options, including flexible financing and solar lease options for a system rather than purchase it outright. As you talk with different solar energy companies, don't hesitate to inquire about these leasing and financing options.
Benefits of solar energy
Installing solar panels on your home can yield a number of benefits. Here are just a few examples.
Cleaner energy
One of the main reasons why homeowners choose to install solar cells is that it allows them to truly embrace clean energy sources. Rather than depend on fossil fuels and power plants, you can power your home with renewable energy that comes straight from the sun. This can be a highly effective way to minimize your environmental footprint.
Solar tax credits and rebates
There are a number of ways in which choosing renewable energy can save you money, starting with the fact that there are so many rebates and tax credits available. Essentially, both the federal government and many state governments want to encourage people to "go green" as much as possible, and they will make it worth your while by allowing you to claim these important tax incentives. Some utility companies also offer rebates that can help pay for the upfront costs of solar projects.
Lower electricity bills
Of course, embracing solar power will also help you save money by slashing your electricity bills. Most solar energy companies offer online calculators that allow you to see for yourself how much money you'll save over time, simply by changing to a renewable energy source. There is also an option called a power purchase agreement (PPA) that can allow you to host a solar or renewable energy system from a utility provider in exchange for lowered energy rates. If your solar panel system generates excess energy, the utility will then purchase that energy from you in the form of a net metering credit on your bill.
Make a smart choice about solar power
There are obviously a lot of perks to choosing solar energy for your home. And yet, it can also be a rather daunting process, simply because there are so many solar energy companies to choose from.
Using our guidelines and rankings, start doing your due diligence, seeking the solar power company that's right for you. Remember to look for a company that's well-regarded within the industry and get a consultation before you buy. Always be sure to ask some direct questions about the financing options that are available to you.
Josh Hurst is a journalist, critic, and essayist. He lives in Knoxville, TN, with his wife and three sons. His writing on natural health, nutrition, and supplements has appeared in Health, Shape, and Remedy Review.
Move of Rohingya Refugees Poses Environmental and Human Rights Concerns
18 December 2020
Editor's Pick
Rohingya refugees board a Bangladesh Navy ship to be transported to the island of Bhashan Char in Chittagong on December 4, 2020. AFP / Getty Images
On December 4, about 1,600 Rohingya traveled across the Bay of Bengal in seven navy boats from Chattogram to Bhasan Char. Bangladesh plans to move 100,000 families to the island.
<p>The move poses serious concerns, both with regard to the environment and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/human-rights">human rights</a>.</p><p>Located about 18.6 miles (30 km) from the mainland, Bhasan Char is low-lying and prone to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding">flooding</a>. Therefore, it has been uninhabited. The island only formed in the past 20 years as a result of silt buildup. Bhasan Char rests at the confluence of three large rivers, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and the Meghna River, which collectively bring rich deposits of silt to the bay.</p>
<p>Bhasan Char rests in the Bay of Bengal subject to frequent cyclones, at risk of intensifying as they circle in the Bay's funnel shape. On average, three to four storms form in the basin and Bhasan Char lies in the historical path of cyclones. This year, Category 5 cyclone Amphan, one of the strongest on record, formed in the Bay of Bengal. Cyclone Amphan, as Refugees International <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2020/10/5/complex-road-to-recoverynbspcovid-19-cyclone-amphan-monsoon-flooding-collide-in-bangladesh-and-india" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a>, caused great devastation not far from Bhasan Char and such super cyclones are more likely in the future. </p><p>The move of Rohingya refugees also poses serious human rights concerns. The United Nations (UN) <a href="https://bangladesh.un.org/en/103285-press-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stated</a> it "has not been involved in preparations for this movement or the identification of refugees and has limited information on the overall relocation exercise." It added, "The United Nations takes this opportunity to highlight its longstanding position that Rohingya refugees must be able to make a free and informed decision about relocating to Bhasan Char based upon relevant, accurate and updated information."</p><p>The government asserts that the movements to the island were and will be voluntary. However, Human Rights Watch "<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/03/bangladesh-halt-rohingya-relocations-remote-island" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spoke with 12 families refugees who said their names were on the list, but that they had not willingly volunteered to relocate</a>."</p><p>One refugee told Human Rights Watch, "My name appeared on the list so now the CiC [Camp-in-Charge, camp authority] has threatened me, saying that since my name is there, I must go. He said, even if I die, they will take my body there [to Bhasan Char]. I don't want to go to that island."</p>
<p>Daniel Sullivan, Refugees International, told EcoWatch, "there are troubling indications that Rohingya 'volunteers' are being coerced or misled. When I visited the camps last year, refugees told me they believed – falsely – that they would receive money or gain Bangladeshi citizenship if they volunteered to move to Bhasan Char. Other groups have reported similar misinformation today and some people on the volunteer lists say they never agreed to be relocated."</p><p>Another refugee told Human Rights Watch that he put his name on the list because camp leaders told him that those on the list would be given priority to repatriate to Myanmar and be paid 5,000 taka (US$59). But he changed his mind about relocating when he heard that those currently being detained on the island are being held in "prison-like facilities" and don't have freedom of movement.</p><p>Freedom of movement is a key right upon which the UN insists, stating "refugees who choose to move to Bhasan Char should have basic rights and services on the island, which would include effective freedom of movement to and from the mainland, as well as access to education, health care, and livelihood opportunities."</p><p>Being sequestered on an island without freedom of movement recalls the situation of refugees imprisoned on Nauru in the Pacific.</p><p>The UN also stated that any relocations should be preceded by comprehensive technical assessments to "review the safety, feasibility and sustainability of Bhasan Char as a place for refugees to live." It continued, "the United Nations is prepared to proceed with the technical and protection assessments, if permitted by the Government."</p>
<p>Bangladesh states that it has spent $112 million fortifying embankments to counter any future flooding, building housing, schools, roads, hospitals, mosques and shelters in case of cyclones. The island will be able to house 100,000 people.</p><p>Yet refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch say they are denied freedom of movement and have no access to sustainable livelihoods or education.</p><p>Sullivan, Refugees International told EcoWatch, "Serious questions remain unanswered about the physical safety of the island and the ability to provide adequate food, health, and protection services without proper assessments and planning with UN agencies and NGOs. Some of the 300 refugees already on the island have already reported abuse by authorities and have been unable to reunite with family in the main camps."</p><p>Sullivan states, "Bangladesh should allow safety and feasibility assessments by UN agencies and by human rights groups, as Refugees International, Fortify Rights, and other groups requested earlier this year. Without appropriate assessments and adequate information for refugees about the conditions on the island, the move is nothing short of a dangerous mass detention of the Rohingya people in violation of international human rights obligations."</p><p>The refugees were sent to Bhasan Char in early December were bussed up from Cox's Bazar in coastal Bangladesh where an estimated one million Rohingya refugees live. In August 2017 armed groups attacked military outposts in western Myanmar. Allegedly, the armed groups belonged to the Rohingya. The military of Buddhist majority Myanmar began a harsh crackdown in response. An estimated 700,000 Muslim Rohingya fled. About 300,000 had fled earlier waves of the ongoing persecution in Myanmar that started in 1978 and experienced an uptick in the 1990s.</p><p>A 1982 Citizenship Law deprives the Rohingya of citizenship. Then, in 2015, during the Obama-Biden administration, the Burmese government stripped Rohingya of temporary identification cards, leading to a forcible displacement to neighboring countries.</p><p>It remains to be seen if the new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biden-administration">Biden Administration</a> will work to end the violence unleashed against the Rohingya in Myanmar and work to broker peace to facilitate their safe return to their home country. Biden's agenda acknowledges the situation and states, "the systematic discrimination and atrocities against Burma's Rohingya Muslim minority is abhorrent and undermines peace and stability."</p><p>On August 15, 2020, Antony Blinken tweeted: "Today marks 3 years since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were driven from their homes in Burma. A Biden administration will work tirelessly to support justice for atrocities committed, as well as peace, security, and equal rights for the Rohingya as citizens of Burma." Blinken is now Biden's Secretary of State nominee.</p><p>While the move of Rohingya to Bhasan Char is troubling, the bigger Rohingya crisis also needs to be resolved. Sullivan of Refugees International states, "While the root causes and long-term solution to the Rohingya crisis lie in Myanmar and Bangladesh deserves great credit for hosting some million Rohingya refugees, the world cannot allow Bangladesh to pursue policies that unnecessarily endanger the Rohingya further."</p>
<p><em>Tina Gerhardt is an environmental journalist. She covers international climate negotiations, energy policy, sea level rise and related direct actions. Her work has been published by Grist, The Progressive, The Nation, Sierra and the Washington Monthly.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Tyson Exploits Consumers Just Like Its Animals and the Workers Who Raise Them
03 December 2020
Insights + Opinion
The miserable ones: Young broiler chickens at a feeder. The poor treatment of the chickens within its supply chain has made Tyson the target of public campaigns urging the company to make meaningful changes. U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr
By David Coman-Hidy
The actions of the U.S. meat industry throughout the pandemic have brought to light the true corruption and waste that are inherent within our food system. Despite a new wave of rising COVID-19 cases, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently submitted a proposal to further increase "the maximum slaughter line speed by 25 percent," which was already far too fast and highly dangerous. It has been made evident that the industry will exploit its workers and animals all to boost its profit.
<p>The revelations continued when Tyson Foods, the world's second-largest producer of chicken, beef and pork, cooperated with the Department of Justice to avoid scrutiny into the company's role in the monopolization of the industry to <a href="https://www.fooddive.com/news/new-chicken-price-fixing-indictment-charges-6-more-with-conspiracy/586595/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fix prices</a> of chicken for both consumers and retailers. This news comes at a time when Tyson has already been <a href="https://talkbusiness.net/2020/06/tyson-foods-reports-199-positive-covid-19-cases-at-springdale-plant/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">under fire</a> for <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/04/17/tyson-foods-officials-call-plant-close-over-coronavirus-cases/5158361002/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">exposing</a> its workers to an enormous risk of contracting COVID-19. We can now add competitors and consumers to the ever-growing list of those victimized by the corporate giant. This is further evidence that it's time for our nation's food supply chain to change in a big way.</p>
<p>Tyson Foods former CEO Noel White, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/03/tyson-foods-names-new-ceo-as-coronavirus-raises-costs.html" target="_blank">replaced</a> by Dean Banks in October, rushed to cooperate under the Department of Justice's antitrust leniency program, <a href="https://stjosephpost.com/posts/5ee39382ebfb13423b279658" target="_blank">stating</a>, "I am proud to lead a company that took appropriate and immediate actions in reporting the wrongdoing we discovered to the Department of Justice." What White failed to mention is that cooperating will afford Tyson protection from public scrutiny and legal fines, at the expense of its competitors.</p><p>Unethical business practices seem to be the norm for Tyson Foods. Due to a lack of proper safety measures and harsh attendance policies, <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/news/10000-tyson-employees-positive-covid-19" target="_blank">more than 10,000 Tyson plant workers</a> tested positive for the virus, substantially more than any other U.S. meat company. Before the pandemic, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/04/interview-how-us-making-meatpacking-jobs-even-more-dangerous" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">working on a meat processing line was one of the most dangerous jobs</a> in the United States. Now, with the constant threat of COVID-19 looming over these elbow-to-elbow assembly lines, meat processing may be among the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-meatpacking-plants-have-become-covid-19-hot-spots/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">most deadly</a> jobs in the world. <a href="https://thehumaneleague.org/article/whats-more-essential-workers-lives-or-meat-on-the-table" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Workers</a> are not just getting sick from this virus—they're dying.</p><p>The pandemic has led to <a href="https://www.inddist.com/supply-chain/article/21131454/keough-pandemic-has-caused-supply-chain-disruptions-for-80-of-us-businesses" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">major disruptions in the supply chain</a>. While Tyson has not yet engaged in the mass "<a href="https://thehumaneleague.org/article/emergency-legal-petition-filed-with-usda-to-end-depopulation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">depopulation</a>" of animals that other producers resorted to, in a typical week, the company slaughters an estimated <a href="https://sentientmedia.org/tyson-foods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">37 million chickens</a>. The poor treatment of the chickens within its supply chain—including <a href="https://thehumaneleague.org/article/study-reveals-the-chicken-we-eat-live-in-agony" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">breeding</a> birds to grow at such an unnaturally fast rate that they can't even hold up their own bodies—has made Tyson the target of <a href="https://www.change.org/p/tyson-stop-neglecting-workers-animals-and-public-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">public campaigns</a> urging the company to make meaningful changes.</p><p>More than 120 labor, food justice, animal welfare and environmental organizations have banded together to <a href="https://thehumaneleague.org/article/120-organizations-target-tyson-foods-for-failing-to-protect-workers-covid19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">take action against</a> the company. Tyson must take immediate action to protect the safety and well-being of its workers, make improvements to support animal welfare and reduce its harsh impact on the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/commission-report-great-food-transformation-plant-diet-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">environment</a>.</p><p>For too long, the unethical, avaricious practices of the meat industry have been hidden from view. The scandals surrounding Tyson and other major producers are making clear that vulnerable workers, abused animals and a rigged system are the foundation of an unethical and destructive business model.</p><p>Tyson had a role in creating the industrialized system, and it must step up its role in fixing it. The meat giant has had one singular focus since its inception: profit. The company's greed has caused it to exploit anyone in its path. Tyson's disregard for human and animal life extends to its workers, animals killed in its plants, consumers and now its competitors. Tyson took ownership for rigging the system using price-fixing. It's time for Tyson to take ownership for exploiting and endangering its more vulnerable victims as well.</p><p><a href="https://www.change.org/p/tyson-stop-neglecting-workers-animals-and-public-health" target="_blank"><em>Sign the petition</em></a><em> urging Tyson to stop neglecting workers, animals and public health.</em></p><p><a href="https://actnow.thehumaneleague.org/live-shackle-slaughter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Sign the petition</em></a><em> urging the U.S. chicken meat industry to end the cruel practice of boiling birds alive.</em></p><p><em> David Coman-Hidy is president of <a href="https://thehumaneleague.org/broken-food-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Humane League</a>, a global nonprofit working to fix our broken food system and end the abuse of animals raised for food.</em></p><em><p><em>This article first appeared on </em><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/tyson-exploits-consumers-just-like-its-animals-and-the-workers-who-raise-them/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Truthout</em></a><em> and was produced in partnership with </em><a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Earth | Food | Life</em></a><em>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p></em>
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People Think the World’s Population Is Growing Too Fast – So Why Can’t We Talk About It
02 December 2020
Popular
A view from Hollywood Hills over downtown Los Angeles. 35007 / E+ / Getty Images
By Kelley Dennings
It's time to talk about something that most of us have been reluctant to face: what to do about the intensifying connection between population gain and environmental loss. A growing body of research shows continued human population growth equates to accelerating species extinction.
<p>A <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201106093027.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">new study</a> finds increasing encroachment of humans into tropical forests and other pristine habitats threatens to destroy about a quarter of the planet's remaining wildlife habitat in this century, pushing many more species to the brink. Losing these irreplaceable ecosystems would be devastating. And as our numbers continue to soar, humans are rapidly losing the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a> we need for everything from regulating pests to carbon sequestration.</p>
<p>Fifty years ago, most agricultural development was in Europe and North America. Since then, large areas of the tropics have been cleared for agriculture, and human population doubled while wildlife populations <a href="https://www.livingplanetindex.org/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plummeted 68%</a>. Last year, the United Nations reported that a <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">million species are at risk of extinction</a> in the coming decades due to human activity.</p><p>Population growth and consumption are two of the major drivers of species extinction, and they are intertwined. Humans put enormous pressure on the environment through mining, grazing, deforestation and other destructive activities, stoked by the global North's outsized consumption habits. With nearly 8 billion people on the planet and ever-increasing demand from industrialized countries and emerging economies, we're creating and accelerating twin crises of species extinction and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>.</p><p>It's a hard issue to talk about. Despite <a href="https://crowdedplanet.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scientific research</a> recognizing humans' role in driving environmental harms, the need to slow population growth to address environmental damage has rarely been acknowledged and is sometimes <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">deliberately soft-pedaled</a>, even by environmentalists.</p><p>But there are signs that this resistance may be changing, at least in the public's view. In November a <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/pdfs/Contraception-and-Consumption-in-the-Age-of-Extinction-U.S.-Survey-Results-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">national survey by the Center for Biological Diversity found</a> that three out of four Americans think the world's population is growing too fast. The same number agree that human population growth is driving other animal species to extinction. One in three agree that stabilizing population growth will help protect the environment. These numbers have all grown significantly since <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/pdfs/NationalSurveyResults2-2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2013.</a></p><p>A vast majority of respondents believe society has a moral responsibility to prevent wildlife extinctions. Sixty-five percent said population growth and consumption are responsible for the rapid loss of species biodiversity. That's a significant shift, too. It means that a majority of Americans now understand that biodiversity loss cannot be oversimplified as either a population growth or a consumption problem — it's both.</p>
<p>Although there is growing agreement about the problem, there's less understanding of solutions. That's why we need the environmental community to provide some leadership and broach the difficult discussion of how to equitably reduce humans' footprint and leave room for wildlife.</p><p>No one is suggesting we should institute human population "control" to conserve biodiversity. That would be a violation of human rights, as unethical as it would be unnecessary. But we should be able to talk about ways to advance human rights that align with slower population growth and a healthier biosphere.</p><p>For example, when people can choose freely whether and when to have children, they tend to have smaller families. That aligns with pursuing <a href="https://drawdown.org/sectors/health-and-education" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">gender equity,</a> because when girls stay in school longer and enjoy equal opportunities, they tend to delay starting a family and increase the time between births. Ultimately they choose to have fewer children during their lifetime as a matter of exercising their rights, which benefits people and the planet.</p><p>Pursuing gender equity and reproductive health and rights also lead to better conservation policy. Women are traditionally on the <a href="https://www.grida.no/publications/198" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">frontlines of environmental issues</a> because nearly 50% work in agriculture, giving them valuable insight into how to protect the land and create more resilient communities. Countries with women in leadership positions are <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/gender-and-environment-what-are-barriers-gender-equality-sustainable-ecosystem-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more likely to ratify environmental treaties</a>. But communities can only benefit from women's experience and leadership when they have equal opportunity to apply it.</p><p>The key is to align our thinking about population and conservation with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/human-rights" target="_self">human rights</a>. The reason the subject has been taboo is that historically, slowing population growth has been connected to human rights violations. Asserting and defending false claims to land and resources has led to atrocities we're still reluctant to face, from <a href="https://www.history.com/news/native-american-genocide-california-apology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Native American genocide</a> to ICE detainees being given <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/14/ice-detainees-hysterectomies-medical-neglect-irwin-georgia" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hysterectomies without consent</a>.</p><p>It's high time to face them. We can and must talk about how to slow population growth in ways that advance human rights, empower people and improve resilience and health outcomes, while reducing pressure on wildlife and the environment.</p><p>Admittedly, it won't be an easy conversation. But the environmental movement has a responsibility to conduct it. Not only is it mission-critical for fighting biodiversity loss and climate change, it's an opportunity to change systems of oppression that threaten human rights and create a more resilient, equitable world. The public increasingly understands this part of the puzzle. Now it's time for the environmental movement to put the pieces together.</p><p><em>Kelley Dennings is a population and sustainability campaigner at the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Center for Biological Diversity</a>.</em></p>
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Fisherman push their boat during low tide on oily mud in the river at Ogoniland's village of K-Dere, near Bodo, which is part of the Niger Delta region, on Feb. 20, 2019. Decades of oil spills has left the Ogoniland region in southern Nigeria an environmental disaster zone — but now hopes are high of a rebirth of farming, fishing and clean water. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP / Getty Images
By Jenna McGuire
In 2011, a ground-breaking report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on oil pollution in Ogoniland highlighted the devastating impact of the oil industry in the Niger Delta and made concrete recommendations for clean-up measures and immediate support for the region's devastated communities.
<p>Now, nearly ten years later, a new <a href="http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/extractive_industries/2020/no_clean-up_no_justice_final.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> published Thursday by Friends of the Earth Europe, Amnesty International, ERA and Milieudefensie, details Shell's failure to implement the "emergency measures" laid out by UNEP and says only 11 percent of contaminated areas in the Niger Delta have begun the clean-up process.</p>
<p>Titled "No Clean-Up, No Justice," the new report explains that for "more than five decades, the people of Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, have struggled against oil pollution, destruction of the environment and human rights violations." </p><p>According to estimates, Shell Oil has <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">dumped</a> an estimated nine to 13 million barrels of crude oil into the Niger Delta since 1958.</p><p>"Oil and gas extraction has caused large-scale, continued contamination of the water and soil in Ogoni communities," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/06/18/shells-oil-pollution-niger-delta-people-sick-waiting-justice" target="_blank">said</a> Friends of the Earth in a statement. "The continued and systematic failure of oil companies and government to clean up have left hundreds of thousands of Ogoni people facing serious health risks, struggling to access safe drinking water, and unable to earn a living."</p>
<p>As Common Dreams <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">reported</a> earlier this year, the local government has also worked with Shell to suppress the right of people in Ogoniland to fight against pollution.</p><p>"The discovery of oil in Ogoniland has brought huge suffering for its people," said Osai Ojigho of Amnesty International Nigeria. "Over many years we have documented how Shell has failed to clean up contamination from spills and it's a scandal that this has not yet happened."<br><br>The ecological damage, Ojigho added, "is leading to serious human rights impacts — on people's health and ability to access food and clean water. Shell must not get away with this — we will continue to fight until every last trace of oil is removed from Ogoniland."</p>
<p>Almost a full decade after the UNEP findings, the new report concluded that:</p><ul> <li>Work has begun on only 11 pecent of polluted sites identified by UNEP, with only a further 5 percent included in current clean-up efforts, and no site has been entirely cleaned up;</li></ul><ul> <li>Actions classified by UNEP as "emergency measures" - immediate action on drinking water and health protection - have not been implemented properly; there are still communities without access to clean water supplies;</li></ul><ul> <li>Health and environmental monitoring has not been carried out;</li></ul><ul> <li>There has not been any public accounting for how the 31 million USD funding provided since 2018 has been spent;</li></ul><ul> <li>11 of 16 companies contracted for the clean-up are reported to have no registered expertise in oil pollution remediation or related areas;</li></ul><ul><li>HYPREP has numerous conflicts of interest as Shell continues to be involved in the governing boards for the clean-up and even places its own staff in HYPREP.</li></ul><p>The report also lays out a set of demands for a rapid clean-up and funding for regional recovery, with chief responsibility for that effort aimed at the Nigerian government, Shell, and other governments — mostly in Europe — home to other major oil companies operating in the Niger Delta.</p><p>"After nine years of promises without proper action and decades of pollution, the people of Ogoniland are not only sick of dirty drinking water, oil-contaminated fish and toxic fumes," said Godwin Ojo of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria.<br><br>"They are sick of waiting for justice," Ojo added. "They are dying by the day."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/19/shell-must-not-get-away-niger-delta-still-waiting-big-oil-clean-devastating" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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Derrick Jackson
By Derrick Z. Jackson
As much as hurricanes Katrina and Maria upended African American and Latinx families, the landfall of the coronavirus brings a gale of another order. This Category 5 of infectious disease packs the power to level communities already battered from environmental, economic, and health injustice. If response and relief efforts fail to adequately factor in existing disparities, the current pandemic threatens a knockout punch to the American Dream.
<p>"There's a whole segment of society that's invisible to policy framers, and everything I'm hearing so far about how we're supposed to deal with the coronavirus assumes we all have the same level of affluence," said <a href="http://bjmlspa.tsu.edu/faculty/dr-robert-bullard/" target="_blank">Robert Bullard</a>, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University, and considered the father of environmental justice. "They're doing policy from a privileged position. If the invisible stay invisible to our policymakers, it will create a second disaster."</p><p>A major question of the hour is whether this nation can avoid the second disaster. The coronavirus gives us the opportunity to declare in our political and medical decisions that we will not drape the cloak of invisibility over historically neglected victims of disaster, as it was in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/magazine/why-new-orleans-black-residents-are-still-under-water-after-katrina.html?_r=0" target="_blank">hollowing</a> out of the black <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katrina-washed-away-new-orleanss-black-middle-class/" target="_blank">middle class</a> in New Orleans after Katrina and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/us/puerto-rico-trump-vieques.html" target="_blank">inhuman abandonment</a> of Puerto Ricans after Maria.</p><p>The early signs are not good. There are stark examples of how the privileged can get tested for the virus, stock up for landfall, and be assured of financial relief well before we hit our likely peak period of infection. But early harbingers do not have to dictate the outcome if we treat the disadvantaged equally in this crisis, medically and economically, rather than triage them away.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/derrick-jackson#.XonstpNKiu4" target="_blank">Derrick Z. Jackson</a> is a UCS Fellow in climate and energy and the Center for Science and Democracy. He is an award-winning journalist and co-author and photographer of Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock, published by Yale University Press (2015).</em></p>
Them That Have Get the Test
<p>While most Americans have been left hanging in collective anxiety over the Trump administration's abominable botching of the preparations needed to make COVID-19 tests widely available, <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/490427-chris-cuomo-is-the-latest-of-these-prominent-figures" target="_blank">actors,</a> athletes, college presidents such as Harvard's Lawrence Bacow, and politicians such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have gotten tested.</p><p>In terms of math, perhaps the most telling case was the Utah Jazz.</p><p>When it was suspected that one Jazz player had coronavirus while in Oklahoma City for a National Basketball Association road game, the state of Oklahoma conducted 58 tests on the team's entire traveling party. At the time, the United States was so short of test kits that state labs were averaging just <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-did-the-nba-push-through-58-coronavirus-tests-for-the-utah-jazz-when-almost-no-one-else-can-get-them" target="_blank">55 tests<em> per state</em></a> according to the Daily Beast.</p><p>While that testing thankfully helped trigger a national shutdown of spectator sports, music festivals, and business conventions, it also symbolized the divide between the haves and have nots. Many other <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/coronavirus-kevin-durant-marcus-smart-rudy-gobert-among-nba-players-who-have-been-infected-with-covid-19/" target="_blank">NBA teams</a> were quickly tested through official relationships with top medical centers and private services. An NBA official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/19/nba-players-celebrities-coronavirus-test-access/" target="_blank">told the Washington Post</a>, "We had, and still have, tests at the ready for our players." The official said that testing was, "One phone call away."</p><p>That level of access rightly angered New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. As he tweeted, "An entire NBA team should NOT get tested for COVID-19 while there are critically ill patients waiting to be <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1240029424394829829" target="_blank">tested</a>. Tests should not be for the wealthy, but for the sick."</p><p>Or consider the <a href="https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/03/17/hoarders-leave-little-food-for-low-income-and-snap-recipients-who-cant-afford-to-stock-up/" target="_blank">cleaning out</a> of grocery stores in panic buying, a phenomenon that clearly advantages those with <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/18/chic-hamptons-food-stores-ransacked-by-the-wealthy-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/" target="_blank">disposable income</a> while leaving empty shelves to the disadvantaged. Ironically, some of those left empty handed are the very farmworkers who picked the vegetables for the cleaned-out shelves.</p><p>In upstate New York, Luis Jimenez, head of the immigrant farmworker group Alianza Agricola, <a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/american-farmworkers-essential-but-unprotected/" target="_blank">told</a> The American Prospect magazine and Capital & Main, a California non-profit news organization, "We can't buy food until we get off work, and by then the store shelves are empty — no rice or eggs or meat."</p><p>Selfishness is already on full display in the corporate clamor for bailouts, led by the airline industry's request for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/18/trump-coronavirus-plan-bailouts/" target="_blank">$50 billion</a>. This is despite the industry being <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/airlines-bailout.html" target="_blank">notorious</a> for throwing free cash on stock buybacks to increase shareholder earnings instead of improving consumer service, worker pay or creating rainy day funds. So far, President Trump has said, "We're going to back the airlines 100 percent."</p>Who Has Workers’ Backs?
<p>There is no such pledge of 100-percent backing for workers who keep America humming with honest, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/38168029/ns/business-careers/t/lowest-paying-jobs-america/#.XnUSo257mfU" target="_blank">humble labor</a>, from cashiers to cleaners in hotels and from farm workers to restaurant servers. Far more needs to be done to take care of these workers who are the backbone of Fortune 500 profits yet are the first to have their backs broken financially in economic crisis.</p><p>The proposed one-time check of up to $3,400 for a family of four does not come close to the <a href="https://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/61-new-living-wage-data-for-now-available-on-the-tool" target="_blank">average monthly living wage</a> of $5,734 in the United States, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator. Undocumented workers do not get a check at all. The 60-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners does not cover America's 40 million renters. That is a huge consideration as close to three quarters of white families <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/28/black-and-hispanic-families-are-making-more-money-but-they-still-lag-far-behind-whites/" target="_blank">own homes</a>, while less than half of African American and Latinx families do.</p><p>In another arena<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/opinion/coronavirus-pelosi-sick-leave.html" target="_blank"> where the working poor are barely backed at all</a>, only about 20 percent of private-sector workers <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ehDeiDJBCjJublGNOrvwi__oYq2MNxBg/view" target="_blank">are covered</a> in the new coronavirus <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/paid-sick-leave-coronavirus-house-bill/" target="_blank">paid sick leave</a> legislation. According to the New York Times, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-paid-sick-leave.html" target="_blank">combined 2 million</a> people work at McDonald's, Walmart, Kroger, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Target, Marriott, Wendy's, and Taco Bell alone and all of them normally lack any paid sick time. In recent days, President Trump has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-4/" target="_blank">praised</a> many such companies for pledging to offer pick-up meals and parking lot space for drive-through virus testing.</p><p>Many of those companies have temporarily covered their public relations flanks by offering two weeks of COVID-19 sick pay. But if coronavirus is anything like the 1918 flu that killed 675,000 Americans in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2020/03/26/daily-202-government-experts-warn-of-a-second-wave-of-coronavirus-cases-as-the-health-system-struggles/5e7c543f88e0fa101a752cd1/" target="_blank">three waves</a>, we need permanent paid sick pay to account for future illness. While 75 percent of Americans receive some paid sick days, only 25 percent of fast food workers do, according to the Washington Post. The United States is also the only nation in the developed world with no form of paid family leave. In a 2013 <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/ehsnet/docs/jfp-foodworker-beliefs-working-ill.pdf" target="_blank">survey</a> by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, 60 percent of food workers said they have worked while ill and 43 percent said they came to work because there was no sick leave policy.</p><p>Congressional Republicans steadfastly refuse to consider making paid leaves permanent, even though science says we would all be better off if low-wage workers had these safety nets. Paid family leave is particularly beneficial to low-income mothers, reducing the incidence of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167629615000533" target="_blank">early birth</a>, low birthweight, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-infantmortality-maternity-leav/paid-maternity-leave-linked-to-lower-infant-mortality-rates-idUSKCN0X51S0" target="_blank">infant mortality</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29098488" target="_blank">maternal health.</a> It also results in better long-term health for disadvantaged children, with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22012" target="_blank">less obesity</a> and attention deficit. One study bluntly said, "Paid maternity leave has particularly large impacts on the children of unmarried and black mothers."</p>Disparities the Coronavirus Exploits
<p>The risk of unequal treatment is embedded in even the seemingly universal "we're-all-in-this-together" advice we are getting to protect ourselves and stop the spread of the coronavirus. One person who sees this clearly is <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/post/pediatrician-says-poisoned-accurate-description-what-happened-flint-children" target="_blank">Lawrence Reynolds</a>, a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan. He served on the 2016 Michigan task force <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/FWATF_FINAL_REPORT_21March2016_517805_7.pdf" target="_blank">which determined</a> that the Flint Water Crisis in that <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/flintcitymichigan" target="_blank">54-percent</a> African American city was "a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice."</p><p>Reynolds retired a year ago but was asked by Flint's mayor to be an advisor for COVID-19 care.</p><p>He said he already sees where daily life for disadvantaged people is not being factored into public health advisories. "Take social distancing," he said. "That is much easier to do for a family that owns a single-family home where they can spread out inside the home and have a backyard to get some fresh air in private. That is much harder for people who live in small apartments in buildings where people are always passing each other in the hallways. No one has come up with a strategy as to how those folks are supposed to 'social distance.'"</p><p><a href="https://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/faculty/ana-baptista/" target="_blank">Ana Baptista</a>, chair of the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management Program at the New School's Tishman Environment and Design Center, worries about higher rates of COVID-19 among people of color as they are more likely to have jobs that cannot be telecommuted. While 37 percent of Asian Americans and 30 percent of white Americans told the Census they <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/flex2.t01.htm" target="_blank">can work at home</a>, only 20 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Latinx respondents say they can work at home. Only 9 percent of low-wage workers in the lowest quartile of wage earners say they can <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/black-and-hispanic-workers-are-much-less-likely-to-be-able-to-work-from-home/" target="_blank">telecommute,</a> compared 62 percent of those in the highest quartile.</p><p>One of those job categories requiring workers on site, of course is hospital and nursing home care. <a href="https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bhw/nchwa/diversityushealthoccupations.pdf" target="_blank">One-third</a> of nursing, psychiatric and home health aides and a quarter of vocational nurses who work under the supervision of registered nurses and physicians are black, and a quarter of medical assistants are Latinx — well above their share of the general population. Both Baptista and Reynolds rightly point out that current shortages of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/20/coronavirus-healthworkers-cdcguidelines/" target="_blank">protective gear</a> for our health care and other frontline workers mark not only an unconscionable failure by the federal government in its preparations but also one that will disproportionately affect workers of color.</p><p>Social distancing also has created other ironies for the working poor and communities disproportionately breathing in the particulates of pollution. With retail stores closed, Amazon says it will hire 100,000 people to fill the explosion of online shopping. Reports are <a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-dangerous-life-of-amazon-worker/?emci=4a098407-206d-ea11-a94c-00155d03b1e8&emdi=ca334f38-236d-ea11-a94c-00155d03b1e8&ceid=4338874" target="_blank">widespread</a> that the frantic pace of teams moving around each other at warehouses makes it impossible for this army of the working poor to observe the dictum of staying six feet apart.</p><p>Workers at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-warehou/factbox-coronavirus-cases-reported-at-13-of-amazons-u-s-warehouses-idUSKBN21E07V" target="_blank">more than</a> a dozen<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/amazon-warehouse-workers-coronavirus-positive/" target="_blank"> Amazon facilities</a> in the U.S. have tested positive for coronavirus, and more than 1,500 workers have signed a petition demanding stepped-up safety measures. In the world of immigrant farmworkers, <a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/american-farmworkers-essential-but-unprotected/" target="_blank">Jimenez said</a> living conditions also make social distancing irrelevant. "We live 8 to 10 people in a house, so how would we isolate? Some have their own room, but I know one farm where everyone sleeps in bunk beds in a big room. At work we have to help each other all the time, like when we have to move a cow. You can't do this alone."</p><p>The ramp-up in online commerce also means increased truck traffic. Environmental justice advocates fear that the increased exhaust around Amazon facilities will <a href="https://grist.org/justice/as-amazon-speeds-up-a-warehouse-community-braces-for-a-deadly-combo-air-pollution-and-coronavirus/" target="_blank">drive up</a> air pollution in abutting neighborhoods, increasing illness and vulnerability to COVID-19. A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/13/6001.full.pdf" target="_blank">landmark study</a> last year found that while white households generate the majority of lung- and heart-damaging fine particulate pollution in the consumption of goods and services in the U.S., African American and Latinx neighborhoods disproportionately breathe it in. That study found that 83,000 premature deaths occur from such commerce.</p><p>"Essentially, all the things we do and all the things we buy are those 80,000 deaths," <a href="https://www.mndaily.com/article/2019/04/n-umn-researchers-find-racial-disparities-in-who-produces-air-pollution-and-who-breathes-it" target="_blank">said</a> study co-author Jason Hill, a biosystems engineering researcher at the University of Minnesota.</p>Drive – Through Testing – If You Have Wheels
<p>Another response that policymakers seem to assume is applicable to everyone is drive-through virus testing. While such drive-through locations seem to have proven effective in South Korea and elsewhere, this diagnostic measure of course requires you to have a car.</p><p>Vehicle ownership is nearly ubiquitous in white America, with 93.5 percent of white households having wheels. But according to the <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Pittsburgh_City,_PA/false/" target="_blank">National Equity Atlas,</a> Latinx and Native American households are twice as likely as white households to be without a car and African American households are three times as likely to be carless. The percentage of African Americans without a car ranges from around 30 percent to 50 percent in many cities, including Milwaukee, Chicago, <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Pittsburgh_City,_PA/false/" target="_blank">Pittsburgh,</a> St. Louis, Cleveland, <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Minneapolis_City,_MN/false/" target="_blank">Minneapolis</a>, <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Miami_City,_FL/false/" target="_blank">Miami,</a> Atlanta and <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/San_Francisco_City,_CA/false/" target="_blank">San Francisco</a>.</p><p>Compounding the problem, many of these drive-through testing facilities are planned for locations such as Walmart and Target parking lots. But big-box stores are often located outside of urban centers, hard to walk to, and not easily accessible by public transit. Such is the case in Southeast Chicago, said Peggy Salazar, executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. Salazar's group has pushed back against coal ash, manganese dust and lead contamination in neighborhoods squeezed between toxic industries on the Calumet River in Chicago and refineries just over the border in Indiana.</p><p>"It can take me an hour and a half to take public transportation to downtown Chicago," Salazar said. "We're so isolated down here, if you don't have a car, it's tough."</p><p>And, with social distancing, it's not like you can ask a neighbor to give you a lift. In a 2016 column for the Boston Globe, Clayborn Benson, an old friend and founding director of the <a href="http://www.wbhsm.org/about-us/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Black Historical Society</a>, told me he knows of countless African Americans in Milwaukee who "can't get jobs in the suburbs because they can't drive. Even if they can drive, they lose jobs because they can't afford good cars and they break down."</p><p>The COVID-19 crisis gives America an opportunity to avoid another response that breaks down once more along color and class lines to treat the least privileged as expendable. For instance, if the exploding levels of online shopping remain a permanent part of our economy, local and state governments must no longer place warehouses in, and run diesel-spewing trucking routes through, so-called "fenceline communities" <a href="http://www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Fumes-Across-the-Fence-Line_NAACP_CATF.pdf" target="_blank">already stewing</a> in pollution. In those communities, respiratory diseases such as asthma are often already off the charts for African Americans and Latinx, putting them at greater risk of severe illness from COVID-19.</p><p>Policymakers must find ways to assure that neighborhoods suffering from food insecurity get security. The lack of quality grocery stores and the oversaturation of fast food chains that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-racial-gap-in-fast-food-marketing/382688/" target="_blank">heavily target children</a> with advertising and free toys has already fueled levels of diabetes and obesity higher than those for the white population. Diabetes is another disease COVID-19 can exploit. Dennis Derryck, founder of the Corbin Hill Food Project, which delivers fresh produce to low-income residents in New York City, said the multitude of health issues makes a broader range of people more vulnerable to coronavirus. "We define the elderly in Harlem as easily being 55 because of health disparities," he said.</p><p>Reynolds said we should also change the way we view water. With everyone being told they must constantly wash their hands, many cash-strapped cities that imposed impossible water bills on low-income residents have said they will not shut off anyone's water for the time being. Reynolds thinks this should mark the end of cutoffs, period, saying, "Water is a human right."</p><p>Perhaps most urgently, as medical centers tell patients that they are postponing "non-urgent" care in preparation for skyrocketing COVID-19 emergency treatment, where does that leave African Americans and Latinx, who are <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fair-health-survey-viewpoints-about-er-use-for-non-emergency-care-vary-significantly-by-race-age-education-and-income-300078595.html" target="_blank">twice as likely</a> than white Americans to choose emergency rooms for non-emergency care? Will they be disproportionately displaced?</p><p>The NAACP recently issued a <a href="https://live-naacp-site.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Ten-Equity-Considerations-of-the-Coronavirus-COVID-19-Outbreak-in-the-United-States-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">resource guide</a> pointing out pitfalls for policymakers to avoid so that the nation's response to coronavirus does not exacerbate inequity. Besides access to testing, worker pay, and protecting frontline healthcare workers and those in essential transportation and service industries, the list includes:</p><ul><li>Ensuring access to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/03/05/many-districts-wont-be-ready-for-remote.html" target="_blank">quality online education</a> even in less-resourced public-school districts during long closures;</li><li>preventing the crisis from becoming an excuse for increased incidence of racist attacks (already true for Asian Americans as President Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-chinese-virus/" target="_blank">deliberately</a> calls coronavirus the "<a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/trump-notes-photo-shows-corona-crossed-out-replaced-with-chinese-virus/2247102/" target="_blank">Chinese virus");</a></li><li>halting the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/31/us-militarized-its-southern-border-once-before-it-didnt-work/" target="_blank">militarization</a> of immigration policies that have already targeted Latinx populations;</li><li>addressing virus exposure risk to inmates who are housed and herded in tight proximity to each other;</li><li>protecting our democracy from being upended by disruptions in Census canvassing, delays in primaries, or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/16/816092179/as-coronavirus-spreads-states-scramble-to-reassure-public-that-voting-is-safe" target="_blank">relocating</a> voting away from senior citizen centers and their reliable, but vulnerable voters.</li></ul><p>The Center for American Progress and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University also <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2020/03/19/481962/coronavirus-pandemic-racial-wealth-gap/" target="_blank">called upon</a> the nation to attend to the multiple layers of inequities, urging a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, penalties on late car payments and credit card debt, and covering all workers with paid sick and family leave. In making the call, the center said, "It's important to note that these communities lack wealth not because of individual choices but instead due to 400 years of collective harms by federal, state, and local governments compounding <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-black-families-have-struggled-for-decades-to-gain-wealth-2019-02-28" target="_blank">over time</a>."</p>Assuring Access to Care
<p>Finally, it is crucial that our response to the pandemic does not reverse the gains in health care access won under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed during the Obama administration.</p><p>Under the act, the uninsured rate for nonelderly Latinx people dropped from 33 percent in 2010 to 19 percent in 2016, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It dropped for African Americans from 20 percent to 11 percent, for American Indians and Alaskan Natives from 32 percent to 22 percent and for Asian Americans from 17 percent to 7 percent. But uninsured rates have either plateaued or crept up under the ongoing attacks on the ACA by the Republicans and the Trump White House.</p><p>This is the last thing that should be happening as African Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans are two to three times more likely to be in the <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Working_poor" target="_blank">working poor,</a> and are still significantly more likely to be uninsured. It is the last thing needed in communities where poor health outcomes are baked into local environments.</p><p>It is also the last thing needed for hard working, but poorly paid Americans who are forced to live in affordable housing, or who must live in <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/09/grandparents-and-grandchildren.html" target="_blank">three-generation households</a>, with grandparents caring significantly for grandchildren while the mother in the middle goes off to work. This happens more frequent in families of color <a href="https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/life-leisure/2019/aarp-grandparenting-study-african-american-black.doi.10.26419-2Fres.00289.003.pdf" target="_blank">and is especially visible</a> in many black neighborhoods badly wounded by mass incarceration and the flight of jobs in the last century. Five times more African American women than white women make it into their 40s having never married.</p><p>"Everybody is each other's lifeline," Bullard said. "The daughter may be working two jobs, but if she gets laid off, there's no paid leave, no health insurance. The grandmother may be 62 and not yet on Medicare. We know that children can be carriers without getting sick, and if the kid comes home and infects grandma . . . you kill grandma you kill childcare. The coronavirus shows what a house of cards these communities are."</p><p>The Trump administration's early complacency and confusion in its response to the pandemic led to a mixture of decisiveness and hesitance by churches, schools, concert halls and museums to close down. Who knows how much that chaos helped spread the virus? We may be all be separated by social distancing far longer than might have been necessary because of this president's distance from science.</p><p>That makes it all the more critical that the people who live the farthest from privilege and the closest to pollution not be lost in the effort to stem the pandemic and return to some sense of normalcy. An ominous sign that the White House could care less about this came in late March when the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was suspending enforcement of environmental standards during the coronavirus crisis.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-enforcement-discretion-policy-covid-19-pandemic-0" target="_blank">EPA said</a> it was trying to "protect workers." But with the EPA being run by a former coal lobbyist who wants to <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-02/documents/fy-2021-epa-bib.pdf" target="_blank">slash staff</a> down to 12,610 (the agency had as many as 17,000 employees during the Obama administration), it is likely very bad news for communities living next to industry.</p><p>A cliché among African Americans is that when white folks catch a cold, black people get pneumonia. Now that all of America faces down the pneumonia of COVID-19, America should not make the same mistakes it did in Katrina and Maria. Coronavirus is going to batter us far longer than the worst of hurricanes. We must not let environmental justice communities be flattened in the process.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Colombia Is Still the Deadliest Place to Be an Environmental Activist, Report Finds
27 February 2020
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Anti Ivan Duque's demonstrator is seen holding a placard with the photos of social leader Alirio Sánchez Sánchez and the indigenous Hector Janer Latín, both killed in Cauca, Colombia during a protest against Ivan Duque visit in London which included a meeting about fracking, environmental issues, the peace process implementation, and questioning the risk that social leaders in Colombia face. Andres Pantoja / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
Colombia was the most dangerous nation in 2019 to be an environmental activist and experts suspect that conditions will only get worse.
<p>More than 100 <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/human-rights" rel="noopener noreferrer">human rights</a> defenders <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1_kUX7g7cAMip0rckk8kI4GJVpbyQfLeA&ll=5.937417542461147%2C-76.25510382517302&z=7" target="_blank">were killed</a> across the Latin country in 2019. Community leaders, teachers and park rangers are among the <a href="http://www.indepaz.org.co/paz-al-liderazgo-social/" target="_blank">more than 50</a> human rights defenders and community leaders additionally killed since the beginning of this year.</p>
<p>In October and November, Colombia <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/05/colombia-is-having-its-largest-wave-protests-recent-decades-why/" target="_blank">experienced</a> a large wave of demonstrations following divisive elections and public opposition to large projects that posed threats to the environment. In some instances, these mass protests were met with police brutality and targeted violence against human rights defenders, according to the <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/resource-publication/global-analysis-2019" target="_blank">Global Analysis 2019 report</a> published in January 2020 by Irish human rights organization <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/" target="_blank">Front Line Defenders</a>. The report details physical assaults, defamation campaigns, digital security threats, judicial harassment and gendered attacks against global activists at the forefront of social change.</p><p>The Philippines, Honduras, Mexico and Brazil all ranked among the deadliest countries after Colombia, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/colombia-was-deadliest-place-earth-environmental-activists-it-s-gotten-n1139861" target="_blank">according to NBC</a>. Globally, at least 304 human rights defenders in 31 countries were targeted and killed for their work. </p><p>Additional findings from the report found that: </p><ul><li>More two-thirds of global killings occurred in Latin America. </li><li>Forty percent of those killed worked on matters surrounding land, indigenous rights, and environmental issues. </li><li>A majority of those killed (85 percent) had previously been threatened. </li></ul>
<p>Human rights defenders were targeted in almost all countries that saw waves of public uprisings and continues to threaten activists. Just last week, a 45-year-old Costa Rican indigenous defender was killed by an armed mob while trying to reclaim ancestral land, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/costa-rican-indigenous-land-activist-killed-by-armed-mob" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802359415/sadness-and-worry-after-2-men-connected-to-butterfly-sanctuary-are-found-dead" target="_blank">NPR reports</a> that Mexican officials are still investigating the suspicious murder of two men connected to a butterfly sanctuary found dead earlier this month in Michoacán. In Indonesia, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/indonesia-golfrid-siregar-nshe-medan-hydropower-batang-toru-walhi/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a> reports that the family of a murdered environmental activist is calling on national authorities to take over the death investigation. </p><p>"The role human rights defenders (HRDs) played in these protests ranged from organizing and mobilizing to monitoring and documenting human rights violations, and to assisting those who were injured or arrested. The causes of street protests and social unrest differed, but tended to revolve around outright rejection of deep economic inequality, rampant corruption, and calls for greater civil and political rights," Frontline Defenders said. </p><p>The report comes after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern at the "staggering number" of activists killed in Colombia, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/14/un-staggering-number-activists-killed-colombia" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. A separate UN report found that 107 human rights defenders were killed in 2019 despite a 2016 peace accord with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36605769" target="_blank">Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia</a> aimed at improving conditions in poor, rural areas where most of the murders occurred.</p>
<p>In addition to physical attacks, human rights defenders were also subject to restrictive legislation, intimidation, and threats attacking an individual's safety. Further measures were taken to hinder their ability to work online and in digital spaces, such as internet shutdowns and blocking communications systems like social media and instant messaging.</p><p>"Further conflict appears inevitable as governments in the region, regardless of political persuasion, continued to embrace mega-development projects and grant major concessions to transnational companies in order to secure such projects," reads the report.</p><p>Even in the face of life-threatening opposition, the work of human rights defenders was responsible for positive change around the world, concludes the report. Following huge pressure from human rights activists, Jordan's Parliament withdrew the Cybercrime Bill in February 2019 restricting freedom of speech and the right to privacy. In Morocco, the women of the Sulaliyat tribe were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/world/africa/morocco-sulaliyyate-lands-women-inheritance.html" target="_blank">granted</a> the right to inherit and own land and nine protestors in southern Madagascar successfully halted a mine project after the government declared that the benefits of the proposed mine were not clear. </p>
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A group of Fulani women and their daughters walk towards their houses in Hapandu village, Zinder Region, Niger on July 31, 2019. In the African Sahel the climate has long been inhospitable. But now rising temperatures have caused prolonged drought and unpredictable weather patterns, exacerbating food shortages, prompting migration and contributing to instability in countries already beset by crisis. LUIS TATO / AFP / Getty Images
At the 56th Munich Security Conference in Germany, world powers turned to international defense issues with a focus on "Westlessness" — the idea that Western countries are uncertain of their values and their strategic orientation. Officials also discussed the implications of the coronavirus outbreak, the Middle East and the Libya crisis.
<p>In the crowded Bayerischer Hof Hotel, African delegates were in the single digits. Not a single head of state from the continent attended, despite the growing threat of terrorism and the armed conflicts tearing it apart.<em></em></p>
<p>A report by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/415-million-children-grow-up-in-war-zones-save-the-children-reports/a-52359439" target="_blank">Save the Children</a>, published as world leaders convened in Munich, Germany, said at least 95,000 children had been killed or maimed across the world since 2005. Tens of thousands were abducted and millions were denied access to education.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjc3NDY5My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MTIzMzA3MH0.DT5PeUdqUJ6I-vvRKnSM6gnBXZXwuf4FGytBB0ICem4/img.png?width=980" id="d8bf5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e2a9b3165a6488ff2224c2476cb707a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1920" data-height="2251" /><p>African children were the worst affected, according to Save the Children. Some 170 million across Africa and the Middle East are living in war zones. "You will see that most of the violent conflicts do not feature," Dan Smith, director of SIPRI, an international think tank dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control, and disarmament, told DW.</p><p>Smith is disappointed the international community is not paying attention to the crisis unfolding in Africa. "They (Africans) are not part of the thinking of the security community that is gathered here," Smith adds. "That doesn't mean that this community's concerns are irrelevant, but they're not focused on the Sahel; they are not focused on the Horn of Africa."</p>
<p>Security experts say the West doesn't care because armed conflicts in the Sahel, West Africa and the Horn are far enough away that they don't directly impact EU countries. "When something happens in the Sahel, unless it affects the flow of migration towards Europe — Europe is not particularly concerned about it,"<em> </em>Smith says. </p>
Germany Makes a Case for the Sahel
<p>In the absence of African leaders, to bring the matter to the table, German Defense Minister <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/merkels-party-struggles-with-identity-crisis-in-wake-of-cdu-leaders-departure/a-52355906" target="_blank">Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer</a> called for an increased effort in the fight against Islamists in Africa. </p><p>"The Sahel is a key region for Europe, for example, when it comes to migration or the threat of terrorism," she said, adding: "That is why it is so important that Germany remains committed there, militarily as well."</p><p>Kramp-Karrenbauer's statement was encouraging to the Central African Republic's defense minister, Marie-Noelle Koyara. "I take this opportunity to thank the German government for making such a wise decision,"<em> </em>the CAR defense minister told DW<em>.</em></p><p>Koyara said this was not just about politics, but about caring for humanity. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/central-african-republic-peace-deal-violated-and-fragile/a-50039847" target="_blank">Central African Republic</a> has been stricken by civil war since 2012. A Muslim-dominated coalition of armed groups known as Seleka took over the capital, Bangui, in 2013. Since then, the country has seen thousands killed amid clashes with Christian militias. </p><p>"If you look at the million children suffering, the women who are running around to save their own lives, the women who are raped and entire villages bombarded, humanity should not tolerate it," Koyara said, supporting Germany's call for action in conflict-afflicted areas in Africa.</p>
World Bank Beefs up Support
<p>A climate change panel discussion preceded the Munich Security Conference. It reminded the security and political heavyweights in Munich that the war in Darfur 17 years ago was triggered by the effects of climate change and claimed the lives of 300,000 people.</p><p>The conflict has since exacerbated environmental degradation in Sudan, forcing more than 2 million people into refugee camps.</p><p>Today, climate change-related conflicts are spreading rapidly in the Sahel region. </p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjc3NDY5OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NTAyNjUxMX0.52CfiOXwCAA7HU0gTGnRft8d97vCkKM92mpYSbWJ088/img.png?width=980" id="c2f23" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dc825450524acfdd4b27a33cc8a690e9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1920" data-height="2789" /><p>Some 4.2 million people have been displaced as of March 2019 — one million more than the recorded number in 2018. Violence escalated in 2019, particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the areas around Lake Chad.</p><p>In response to the crisis, the World Bank is dispatching its director of operations, Axel van Trotsenburg, to the region. "We plan, in the next three years, to provide $53 billion (€49 billion) to the Africa region," he said ahead of his visit to Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Mauritania. "Special attention will be given to the fragile states like the Sahel region, the Horn of Africa and Lake Chad," van Trotsenburg told DW.</p><p>The World Bank says it has put a lot of emphasis on good governance and strict controls on the use of "our money." The Sahel countries are marred with issues of mismanagement and corruption, among other problems. "That means if there's corruption and we find out, we will go after those who are abusing the money."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/munich-security-conference-african-leaders-absent-from-sahel-talks/a-52398078?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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New Report Details How Fossil Fuel Industry's Climate Destruction Also Exacerbates Human Rights Abuses
09 February 2020
Popular
350 .org / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
By Julia Conley
In addition to having a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities around the globe which have contributed the least to climate-warming fossil fuel emissions, the climate crisis has exacerbated the human rights violations already perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, according to a new report.
<p>The grassroots climate action group 350.org examined ten global communities which have suffered from heavy pollution, deforestation, displacement, and other violations as multinational corporations like Chevron and Shell — in addition to smaller fossil fuel entities and corrupt governments — have placed profits over human rights.</p><p>"The pollution and contamination often caused by fossil fuel industry activities mainly affect the poorest populations, as well as the climate crisis," said Aaron Packard, manager of the Climate Defenders program at 350.org, in a <a href="https://350.org/press-release/as-fossil-fuel-companies-keep-driving-the-climate-crisis-the-scale-of-human-rights-violations-is-increasing-alerts-350-org-report/" target="_blank">statement</a>. "Vulnerable communities are being doubly exposed to losses or scarcity of land, fish stocks and water, for example."</p>
<div id="8a542" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="V6GOXE1581265516"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1225786293705216001" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Oil, gas and coal companies are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses committed by corporations aro… https://t.co/BhonUOcwRO</div> — 350 dot org (@350 dot org)<a href="https://twitter.com/350/statuses/1225786293705216001">1581085201.0</a></blockquote></div><p>350.org surveyed the region of Ogoniland in Nigeria, where Shell Oil has dumped an estimated nine to 13 million barrels of crude oil into the Niger Delta since 1958.</p><p>The company's activities in Ogoniland have led to polluted air and water as well as decimated natural habitats, violating the rights of the <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/disasters-conflicts/where-we-work/nigeria/about-ogoniland" target="_blank">832,000 people</a> who live there.</p><p>The local government has also worked with Shell to suppress the right of people in Ogoniland to fight against the pollution. </p><p>"Protests against widespread and persistent oil pollution have been brutally repressed, with loss of life and a series of other egregious human rights violations," the report reads. "Victims of severe human rights abuses associated with oil extraction in the Niger Delta are still awaiting for remediation of the harm caused to their lands, water, and livelihood, in spite of multiple victories before courts and human rights bodies."</p><p>Shell's activities in the Niger Delta are just one example of how the fossil fuel industry has led to an estimated 45,000 premature deaths due to pollution, crop losses resulting from drought and other climate extremes, and other environmental results of the carbon emissions.</p><p>The report also points to coal power plants in the Muğla region of Turkey, where companies have done "severe environmental harm" since 1983. Emissions from the plants have been linked to premature deaths from heart disease, respiratory disease, and cancer, while the companies have forced communities to leave the area as they ramp up their operations. </p><p>The European Court of Human Rights <a href="http://www.caneurope.org/docman/coal-phase-out/3552-the-real-costs-of-coal-mugla/file" target="_blank">recognized</a> in 2005 that the communities had a right to bring legal action against the plants, but the companies have not ceased their extraction of coal and the resulting pollution. Governments, 350.org wrote, must pass legislation to rein in the fossil fuel industry.</p><p>The recognition by courts of human rights is "no replacement for effective legislation concerning environmental harm," the report states, "and human rights remedies are no replacement for effective preventive and remedial measures against environmental harm caused by fossil fuel companies."</p><p>Other cases detailed in the report include threats to water security in Australia and the contamination of rivers and fish stocks in indigenous territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon.</p><p>"Even in the face of the clearest scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is literally setting the planet on fire, this sector continues to invest in the same old model and often misinforms society about the climate crisis and its causes," <a href="https://350.org/press-release/as-fossil-fuel-companies-keep-driving-the-climate-crisis-the-scale-of-human-rights-violations-is-increasing-alerts-350-org-report/" target="_blank">said</a> Packard. "In doing so, companies are actively disregarding the right of entire populations to a healthy environment, sufficient and quality food, and a political and social scenario of stability."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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The Diwalwal Gold Mine in Mindanao, Philippines on Feb. 1, 1988. Destruction of the environment by extractive industries is linked to significant threats to women's safety, a new study has found. Patrick AVENTURIER / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
By Julia Conley
Climate action leaders have warned for years that marginalized frontline communities in poor countries are already facing the most destructive impacts of the climate crisis, and a new study confirms those fears, detailing how women in those regions are at greater risk for violence and abuse as the environment is degraded.
<p>The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its <a href="https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2020-002-En.pdf" target="_blank">study</a> on Wednesday after conducting more than 80 case studies and speaking to more than 300 sources over the course of a two-year project.</p><p>"This study adds to the urgency of halting environmental degradation alongside action to stop gender-based violence in all its forms, and demonstrates that the two issues often need to be addressed together," <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/environmental-degradation-driving-gender-based-violence-iucn-study" target="_blank">said </a>Dr. Grethel Aguilar, IUCN's acting director-general.</p>
<p>The study is the largest and most comprehensive to ever examine the gender-specific effects of the climate crisis, IUCN says.</p><p>Of the more than 300 responses IUCN compiled from international organizations working in developing countries, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/29/climate-breakdown-is-increasing-violence-against-women?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">six in 10 respondents</a> said they had observed gender-based violence directed at female environmental defenders, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-refugees" target="_self">climate refugees</a> and migrants, and an increase in such violence in areas where the climate crisis and global heating has put a strain on resources.</p><p>Abuses the organizations uncovered include child marriage and forced marriage, forced prostitution, sexual violence and assault, and human trafficking.</p>
<p>"As environmental degradation and stress on ecosystems increases, that in turn creates scarcity and stress for people, and the evidence shows that, where environmental pressures increase, gender-based violence increases," said Cate Owren, lead author of the report.</p><p>The publication was praised by women's rights advocates on social media.</p><p>"The fight against the climate crisis will have far more of an impact if represented by those most affected," tweeted the British Women's Equality Party.</p>
<div id="f129a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="X98CWN1580407510"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1222592795996819462" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">One more illustration of the need to consider impact on #gender upfront in any policy.
Climate breakdown 'is incr… https://t.co/KzT4jytnOZ</div> — Melinda Simmons (@Melinda Simmons)<a href="https://twitter.com/MelSimmonsFCO/statuses/1222592795996819462">1580323811.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="af2d1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="UAIPSS1580407510"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1222536381462958080" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The correlation between increasing #environmental stresses and #genderviolence highlights the imminent need to elec… https://t.co/07bpOGKXFN</div> — WomensEqualityUK (@WomensEqualityUK)<a href="https://twitter.com/WEP_UK/statuses/1222536381462958080">1580310361.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The study found that both human trafficking and forced child marriage are becoming increasingly common in places where chronic drought, flooding and heatwaves have caused crop yields to suffer and brought on a scarcity of resources.</p><p>"When families struggle to meet basic needs, marrying off young daughters is seen as a way to lighten financial burdens," the report reads. "There is growing concern around reports of an increase in child marriage associated with conflict and natural disasters and environmental shocks."</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/29/climate-breakdown-is-increasing-violence-against-women?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">According to</a> The Guardian<em>,</em> about 12 million more young girls are believed to have been married off after <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a> events increased, while human trafficking increases by 20 to 30% after weather disasters.</p><p>"In most parts of the world, women are already disadvantaged and lack land rights and legal rights, so are vulnerable to exploitation," wrote Fiona Harvey in The Guardian<em>.</em> "When the additional stresses caused by the climate crises bite, they are the first to be targeted."</p>
<p>The destruction of the environment by extractive industries has significant effects on women's safety, as an influx of male miners, construction workers and security guards is linked to an increase in gender-based and sexual violence, often with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples" target="_self">Indigenous</a> women as targets.</p><p>"Mining areas, many of which are in Indigenous territories, have seen heavy military presence, resulting in various human rights violations, such as torture, psychological disturbance, destruction and divestment of properties (livestock and crops), as well as violence against women, including rape," reads the study in a section about the Mindanao region of the Philippines.</p><p>Sexual violence is also used to suppress women who attempt to defend their homes and environments from extractive industries, and to intimidate others who may come forward in protest.</p>
<p>"Environmental crimes degrade ecosystems, and also often bring new, worsening patterns of violence against women, minorities, and marginalized communities,"<a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/environmental-degradation-driving-gender-based-violence-iucn-study" target="_blank"> said</a> Jenny Springer, director of IUCN's global program on governance and rights. "Many Indigenous women in particular face gender-based and other violence as their communities act to defend their territories, resources and rights from such illegal activities."</p><p>Since women in many parts of the world are responsible for gathering water and provisions for their families, they are often at an increasingly greater risk for gender-based violence as they have to travel farther from home, as resources shrink.</p><p>IUCN surveyed the Danish Refugee Council, which conducted a study at Doro Refugee Camp in South Sudan regarding dangers faced by residents there. Women in the study identified collecting firewood outside the camp as the biggest risk they regularly took.</p>
<p>"Food insecurity and the lack of firewood forces women and girls to go outside of the camps to collect firewood despite the risks of suffering violence by militias, private forest owners, rangers or other unknown perpetrators," the report reads. "Many ... survey respondents also raised these concerns as one of the major threats in refugee camps as related to emergency responses and protracted crises."</p><p>IUCN's study was released a day after CARE International published its <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/largely-driven-climate-crisis-9-out-10-least-reported-humanitarian-crises-2019-were" target="_blank">report</a> "Suffering in Silence," showing how the climate crisis has exacerbated conflicts and economic and political instability across Africa, making the continent home to nine of the 10 most-overlooked humanitarian crises in the world.</p><p>"Environmental degradation now affects our lives in ways that are becoming impossible to ignore, from food to jobs to security," <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/environmental-degradation-driving-gender-based-violence-iucn-study" target="_blank">said</a> Aguilar. "This study shows that the damage humanity is inflicting on nature is also fueling violence against women around the world — a link that has so far been largely overlooked."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/29/new-study-details-overlooked-link-between-climate-breakdown-and-violence-against?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The climate crisis is bringing more extreme weather conditions to places like Roys Peak, New Zealand, pictured above. Aaron Sebastian / Unsplash
Consideration of the climate crisis will be front and center in all of New Zealand's major policy decisions. The new rule means that any new proposal before the government that aims either to reduce emissions or has a collateral damage effect of raising emissions will need to go through a climate-impact assessment before it can be considered, according to The Guardian.
<p>The coalition cabinet of Prime Minister <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jacinda-ardern" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jacinda Ardern</a> already takes into account the effects the government's decisions will have on human rights, the Treaty of Waitangi, rural communities, the disability community and gender equality.</p>
<p>Climate Change Minister James Shaw, also the co-leader of the Greens Party, said this goes one step further since it applies to all government decisions, not just new laws, according to <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a> in New Zealand. </p><p>"Ensuring ministers are aware of the implications a decision may have for New Zealand's future greenhouse gas emissions will be vital to ensuring we all playing our part in meeting the commitments we've made," said Shaw as <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a> reported.</p><p>Shaw spearheaded a zero-carbon bill that passed the parliament last month, making New Zealand one of the first countries to write its climate crisis targets into law. The law requires the country to produce net-zero emissions by 2050. The prime minister has made the climate crisis a top priority for her government and called it her generation's "nuclear free moment," as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/climate-change-to-steer-all-new-zealand-government-decisions-from-now-on" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>"Decisions we take now and in the future about everything from the places we live, to how we get around, to public health, to how we relate to one another will be impacted one way or another by climate change," said Shaw in a statement, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/climate-change-to-steer-all-new-zealand-government-decisions-from-now-on" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a> reported. "It's crucial therefore that when we're making big decisions climate change is at the forefront of our minds."</p><p>Shaw said that the Ministry for the Environment has developed a methodology to estimate emissions impacts, called the Climate Implications of Policy Assessment. The efficacy of its tool will be reviewed in mid-2020, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/climate-change-to-steer-all-new-zealand-government-decisions-from-now-on" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Shaw also noted that the new rule is part and parcel with a new framework for the next 30 years to reduce, similar to a series of bills 30 years ago that encouraged low inflation and low government debt, according to <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a>.</p>
<p>Touting the Climate Implications of Policy Assessment, Shaw said, "Government makes many decisions all the time. Many but not all of those decisions will have an affect on climate change. With infrastructure - you make a decision on a piece of infrastructure with a 30 or 40-year lifespan and you've suddenly locked in a certain emissions path. We want to be aware of that."</p>
<p>"It's crucial that when we're making big decisions, climate change is at the forefront of our minds," he added, as <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a> reported. "I'm delighted that we've developed a tool for the whole government to easily assess whether policies we're considering at Cabinet will increase or reduce the emissions that impact on New Zealanders' quality of life in decades to come."</p>
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