Reports that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer plans to retire prompted progressives Wednesday to urge President Joe Biden to fulfill a campaign promise and nominate a progressive Black woman who will counter the high court’s right-wing supermajority and protect democracy, human rights, and the climate. By Brett Wilkins Common Dreams CNN reports a “well-placed” unnamed source said Breyer, […]
“There is a deadly ticking clock counting swiftly down.” So says Tom Gammage, an ocean campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a United Kingdom-based group whose new report warns that only a muscular global treaty can turn the tide against the life-threatening crisis of plastic pollution. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams Published on Tuesday, Connecting the Dots: Plastic […]
Over the next two years, renewable energy sources are projected to generate a growing share of electricity in the U.S., according to a forecast shared Tuesday by the federal government, which expects a related decrease in production at fossil fuel-fired power plants. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams Based on their analysis of trends in electricity generation, researchers at […]
A new report published last week details how some of the world’s biggest corporations and banks are exacerbating the global climate emergency by fueling the destruction of the world’s tropical rainforests. Forest 500, a project of Global Canopy, asserts that “500 companies and financial institutions have the power to transform cattle, timber, soy, and palm oil supply chains.” […]
New research out Tuesday shows that the world’s oceans last year were hotter than they’ve ever been in recorded history—part of a long-term warming trend driven primarily by planet-wrecking fossil fuel emissions. According to an annual study published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, the past five years have been the five hottest for Earth’s oceans since measurements began in […]
While praising President Joe Biden for taking steps Monday to reverse a Trump administration policy that opened up millions of acres in the Western Arctic for oil drilling, environmental justice advocates argued that only a comprehensive federal ban on new fossil fuel leasing can adequately protect public lands and waters and stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis. […]
Global heating caused by human activity could warm oceans enough to fuel hurricanes and tropical storms that strike cities as far north as Boston, a new study projects. By Brett Wilkins Common Dreams “This represents an important, under-estimated risk of climate change,” Joshua Studholme of Yale University, the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “This research predicts […]
Five years after police began to brutalize activists opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump has dismissed a lawsuit accusing North Dakota law enforcement officers of excessive use of force—a decision that critics have characterized as a tacit endorsement of the violent repression of climate justice advocates. By Kenny Stancil Common […]
Progressive climate campaigners on Wednesday overwhelmingly called U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan for the federal government to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 an inadequate attempt to address the worsening climate emergency. By Brett Wilkins Common Dreams The White House said an executive order signed by Biden “demonstrates how the United States will leverage its scale and procurement […]
Progressives are sounding the alarm about a recently launched right-wing campaign that seeks to preempt green investment policies throughout the United States by portraying the financial sector’s potential turn toward clean energy as discriminatory—and introducing legislation that would punish banks and asset managers for divesting from fossil fuels. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams The Koch-funded American […]
Climate justice advocates suspended fellow activists from 15-foot-tall tripods in Toronto’s financial district on Tuesday, blocking entrances to the Royal Bank of Canada’s corporate headquarters as part of a campaign to pressure the nation’s five biggest banks to “stop funding climate chaos and injustice.” By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams “Bankers’ business-as-usual… is destabilizing the climate, destroying biodiversity, and violating Indigenous […]
While rising gasoline prices have adversely affected millions of working people in the U.S., the world’s biggest fossil fuel corporations have benefited immensely, raking in a combined $174 billion in profits during the first nine months of this year. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams In the third quarter of 2021 alone, two dozen of the […]
A global coalition of food justice advocates are urging the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to sever ties with CropLife International, a trade association representing agrochemical corporations. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams In a letter addressed to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu and attached to a petition signed by more than 187,300 people from 107 countries, nearly a dozen groups […]
Environmentalists responded with outrage to reports that oil giant Shell plans to spend the next several months conducting underwater explosions to search for deep-sea oil and gas reserves off South Africa’s coastline—a move that threatens to worsen the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, undermine the livelihoods of fishers, and harm marine life. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams “The extraction […]
After Congress lifted a ban on crude exports in late 2015, oil and gas production in the Permian Basin soared while domestic consumption remained flat—leading to a massive build-out of pipelines and other infrastructure that culminated in the U.S. “flooding global markets” with fossil fuels at the expense of humanity, in general, and vulnerable Gulf Coast communities already […]