LAURIE PARSONS – Rich countries have exported climate breakdown through extractive industries, creating a “carbon colonialism.”
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
The Curious Endurance of Atoms for Peace
HENRY SOKOLSKI – Peaceful nuclear power was a political gambit from the start. Why does it still continue?
How A Tie-Breaking Vote Fueled America’s Economy
DAVID MCCALL – IRA-funded projects are increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and shoring up supply chains, better positioning the nation to manufacture the goods needed both for domestic consumption and to trade with the world. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate in 2022 to pass the IRA and unlock billions for an advanced manufacturing economy. Not a single Republican in either chamber of Congress voted for this historic legislation, which is revolutionizing the cement, chemical, glass, and steel sectors along with other traditional core industries.
The Ghost of Hubert Humphrey Is Stalking Kamala Harris
NORMAN SOLOMON – If Kamala Harris loses to Trump after sticking with her support for arming the slaughter in Gaza, historians will likely echo words from biographer Offner, who wrote that after the 1968 election Humphrey “asked himself repeatedly whether he should have distanced himself sooner from President Johnson on the war. The answer was all too obvious.”
US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remembered amid growing threat of nuclear war
ABDUL RAHMAN – Over 50,000 people, including representatives from 109 countries, joined an event marking the 79th anniversary of the US’s bombing of Hiroshima. The main ceremony was held at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park on Tuesday, August 6.
Who Caused the Ukraine War?
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER – The question of who is responsible for causing the Ukraine war has been a deeply contentious issue since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The answer to this question matters enormously because the war has been a disaster for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Ukraine has effectively been wrecked.
Extinction Rebellion: Navigating the Great Paradox of Climate Action
GAIA MARTINO – The core characteristics of XR are all part of a strategy of political prefiguration. As a young female foreigner, Gaia Martino witnessed first-hand XR’s efforts to be as inclusive as possible and to adopt a care culture coherent with the group’s vision for change. As a participant of many organizational meetings, Marino also witnessed first-hand XR’s successful efforts to grant organizing autonomy to local chapters. Nonviolent action, inclusivity, autonomy and care culture are all coherent with XR’s design to create a paradigm shift in how people organize for environmental justice. To obtain a culture that will heal the planet as well as society, we must rise above the paradox that climate action must simultaneously be local and transcend the local. And for this, everyone must believe they can play a small part in shaping, setting up and enacting change.
Escalation and Miscalculation: How a Bigger War Might Happen in the Middle East
MEL GURTOV – In the Middle East, none of the contending parties seems to want either war or peace. Retribution seems to fit with each of their strategies. That is the latest Middle East tragedy, portending no imminent release of hostages or prisoners, no letup in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, and no movement toward a permanent cease-fire and Palestinian statehood.
Eastern Europe’s purchase of US nuclear reactors is primarily about military ties, not climate change
MAHA SIDDIQUI and M.V. RAMANA – Investments in nuclear power in Eastern Europe hide geopolitical and military motivations behind a smoke screen of fighting climate change. When these motivations result in the massive acquisition of military equipment, manufacturing and operating them will increase carbon dioxide emissions. Worse, military buildups will also increase the risk of conflict, potentially leading to a catastrophic war that could involve nuclear weapons.
How “White Dudes” May Reshape Manhood This Election
ROB OKUN – White men are coming out, but not in the way you might think. Before more than 190,000 men joined a “White Dudes for Harris” call on July 29, the common wisdom parroted by the media is that most white men support extreme right causes and candidates. Not so fast.
Blank Checks for War: Congressional Abdication from Tonkin to Gaza
CHRISTIAN G. APPY – With the U.S.- backed carnage in Gaza continuing and the threat of growing violence looming throughout the region (in Lebanon, Iran, and who knows where else), we need to think more deeply than ever about how the American people have historically been excluded from foreign policy decision-making. An upcoming anniversary should remind us of what sent us down this undemocratic path.
Crucial Election Question: What do the candidates think about nuclear weapons?
WINSLOW MYERS – How can Annie Jacobsen’s enthralling “Nuclear War: A Scenario” be a NY Times bestseller while there continues to be zero candidate conversation around fundamentally nutty U.S. policies like “launch on warning”? Why don’t we hear anything on the subject from the politicians? The silence is deafening.
Josh Shapiro Would Be a Dangerous Choice for Harris Running Mate
JEFF COHEN and NORMAN SOLOMON – Kamala Harris has gained strong support as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. Putting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on the ticket would likely fracture that support.
The ADVANCE Act: a Bipartisan Surrender to the Nuclear Lobby
MAYS SMITHWICK and JACQUI DRECHSLER – With the passing of the ADVANCE Act (S870, section B), or the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act, the nuclear lobby has seized our democratic processes and co-opted the climate movement with pervasive lies and profit grabbing. The bipartisan support of the bill arose through widespread corruption, coupled with a nearsighted fantasy of innovation. The already-underregulated nuclear industry has now obtained the legislative means to sacrifice a survivable future for all living things.
“Beat Trump” is the Wrong Message
PETER BERGEL – By now everyone who could be recruited by the “Beat Trump” message has been recruited. People who fear the autocracy and unhinged “leadership” Trump offers need to recruit to our ranks the uncommitteds and those who don’t trust the Establishment. To accomplish that, three messages must characterize the upcoming campaign. Everyone can help by steering discussions to address these points and lobbying prominent Democrats.
Trump Lied About Immigrant Violence
MATT SHUHAM – Over and over at [last] week’s Republican National Convention, politicians who know better — or who ought to — falsely said or implied that undocumented migrants and asylum seekers pose an unthinkable criminal threat to innocent, native-born Americans. The reality is the opposite
Can Humanity Repair Its Relationship With Nature? Weaving Earth Education Center Offers a Promising Path
DAMON ORION – Weaving Earth Education Center, an all-ages education center, reminds us that “we are a part of this earth, not apart from it.”
Victims Win Historic Victory Against Chiquita in Colombia Paramilitary Case
DANIELA DIAZ RANGEL and JOSHUA COLLINS – The ruling against the banana giant formerly known as United Fruit makes history in holding a U.S. company liable for abuses committed abroad. Lawyers say the case is just the beginning.
The World Is Headed Toward Nuclear War
GERRY CONDON – Nuclear War Is Imminent — Unless the U.S. Embraces Peace – and Soon!
The only antidote to election anxiety is training to confront Trump’s threat
GEORGE LAKEY – No matter the outcome in November, we need training to transform despair into action and to build the kind of solidarity that offers protection.
California Communities Celebrate ‘Massive’ Victory as Oil Industry Drops Unpopular Referendum
LIZA GROSS – The oil industry withdrew its $40 million campaign to kill a historic law to protect neighborhoods from oil drilling’s toxic effects, but is threatening to challenge the measure in court.
Donald Trump’s Reckless Infatuation with Nuclear Weapons
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Ultimately, the only long-term security for humanity lies in the global abolition of nuclear weapons and the development of a united world community.
Reaching Across the Generations to Oppose War
DONNA PARK – Relying on the force of law instead of the law of force is a better way to address conflicts among nations and, in this fashion, keep us all safe and secure.
French nuclear giant scraps SMR plans due to soaring costs, will start over
GILES PARKINSON – The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidized.
This Election’s Impact on Immigration
ANDREW MOSS – With enough engagement and the right kinds of pressure, we might just get the kind of immigration system our nation needs: not the policies that squander tens of billions on a carceral, dead-end deportation machine, but a just system that invests in enough people and the right kinds of processes to minimize backlogs, expedite asylum claims, and provide the legal pathways that will help immigrants begin working and contributing to a land that needs them.
Big Banks Break Their Climate Promises by Propping Up Big Meat
MONIQUE MIKHAIL and WARD WARMERDAM – Massive industrial livestock financing sabotages major U.S. banks’ climate goals.
Joint Statement of U.S. Government Officials who have Resigned over U.S. policy towards Gaza, Palestine, and Israel
JOSH PAUL (for himself and eleven other former U.S. government officials) – We are former U.S. Government Officials who resigned from our respective positions over the last nine months due to our grave concerns with current U.S. policy towards the crisis in Gaza, and U.S. policies and practices towards Palestine and Israel more broadly.
Why Are Conservatives Undermining the Constitution They Claim to Love?
BOB TOPPER – The right’s strategy to overturn democracy is to make people hate the country they love. For organizations like Fox News and the would-be oligarchs the motivation is financial gain. For the fundamentalists, the goal is an American theocracy, and for Trump it is self-preservation. Strange bedfellows.
One woman just brought the entire UK fossil fuels industry to its knees
THE CANARY – A landmark decision by the UK Supreme Court on Thursday June 20 has raised major barriers to all new fossil fuel projects across the UK, including the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria and the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea.
Air Pollution Is Killing Millions and Rising Exponentially—A Shift in Agriculture Can Solve It
JIMMY VIDELE – Today’s biggest epidemic is the exponential rise of CO2-equivalent atmospheric emissions. With COVID-19, the world changed protocols within weeks of the outbreak. This shows that we can change today to stop the harm inflicted on the planet, the more than 8 billion humans, and countless other Earthlings. We need to realize that there is no bigger threat facing us currently.
Minding the Debate: What’s Happening to Our Brains During Election Season
MELINDA BURRELL – Some of us are convening watch parties and others deliberately will not tune in. Either way, the June 27 presidential debate is the real start of the election season, when more Americans start to pay attention. It’s when partisan rhetoric runs hot and emotions run high. It’s also a chance for us, as members of a democratic republic. How? By setting expectations for ourselves and our leaders. A peek at our neurobiology can help us make this debate something we learn from rather than something that divides us further.
Israeli Government Funded Covert Influence Campaign Targeting US Lawmakers: NYT
EDWARD CARVER – Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs organized and paid for a digital campaign to influence U.S. lawmakers, especially Democrats who are Black, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, June 3rd.
Banal Militarism Has Infiltrated Our Entire Society
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – The term is “banal militarism” – that is to say, violence and the preparation for violence so utterly commonplace that most people don’t even notice. Banal militarism is as American as apple pie. It’s also global in scope.
27,000 Virginia Teachers Win Historic Union Election with Presidential Election Implications
MIKE ELK – June 10, 2024 This morning, it was announced that Virginia Education Unions, a joint coalition of Virginia-based AFT and NEA locals, had won a historic union election to represent over 27,000 teachers and school staff in Fairfax County, Virginia.
How Donald Trump Worked to Destroy America’s Labor Unions
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – If Trump expects significant union support this November, it’s merely another of his many illusions.
Are the prospects for Small Modular Reactors being exaggerated? Five key characteristics examined
ED LYMAN – Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being presented as the next generation of nuclear technology. While traditional plants face cost overruns and safety issues, SMRs are seen by their champions as cheaper, safer, and faster to deploy. But evidence casts these claims into doubt. In five sections of this article, the reasons why are listed and analyzed.
Facing a Surge in Wildfires, the U.S. Government Turned to Native Wisdom and Advanced Archaeology
IRINA MATUZAVA – Collaborative efforts between forest agencies and Indigenous communities are improving wildfire management by combining oral histories with long-term archaeological datasets, demonstrating the value of integrating an understanding of the past into solutions for a better future.
Republicans Claiming to Support Minority Voters Suppress Their Votes
ANDREW MOSS – There’s a breathtaking hubris at work when a political party seeks to suppress the votes of an entire people, then claims its leaders are the champions of that same people. You don’t have to look far to find such hubris in the Republican Party today.
Climate Superfund Law Enacted; Vermont Becomes First State to Hold Big Oil Financially Responsible for a Fair Share of Climate Damages
VERMONT NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL – Legislation authorizing the State of Vermont to recoup financial damages caused by climate change from major fossil fuel companies became law today (May 31, 2024) when Governor Phil Scott failed to sign or veto the bill during the constitutionally-mandated five-day consideration period.
Authoritarianism is on the Rise in Many Democracies
MEL GURTOV – Can we draw any general conclusions from these elections? Probably the most important is the authoritarian tendencies of leaders and challengers in these Official corruption, violence against critics, disrespect for domestic and international law, and disregard for public opinion are often features of democratically elected rulers as they are of rulers who are not elected. democracies. We keep learning that winning elections is not the same thing as governing democratically.
How the Military-Industrial Complex is Killing us All
DAVID VINE and THERESA (ISA) ARRIOLA – Though all too many of us will continue to believe that dismantling the MIC is unrealistic, given the threats facing us, it’s time to think as boldly as possible about how to roll back its power, resist the invented notion that war is inevitable, and build the world we want to see. Just as past movements reduced the power of Big Tobacco and the railroad barons, just as some are now taking on Big Pharma, Big Tech, and the prison-industrial complex, so we must take on the MIC to build a world focused on making human lives rich (in every sense) rather than one focused on bombs and other weaponry that brings wealth to a select few who benefit from death.
The GOP’s Stalinesque Plan 2025 to Shape the Future of U.S. Food and Agriculture
ELIZABETH HENDERSON – The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation wants to rid the USDA
of sustainability, climate change mitigation, and racial equity.
The Nuclear FREEZE Movement of the 1980s Has Lessons for Today
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – The success of the freeze movement and its anti-nuclear counterparts of the 1980’s and 1990’s provides an important lesson for our own time. If substantial popular pressure can be stirred up by advocates of arms control and disarmament, government officials can be convinced to change their nuclear policies.
We Must Face Down the Expanding Anti-Reality Industry
BRYN NELSON – Exposing the antiscience playbook reveals the antiregulatory motives of its deep-pocketed bankrollers
Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People
PALESTINIAN BDS NATIONAL COMMITTEE (BNC) – People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s #GazaGenocide. Many feel compelled to boycott any and all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The proliferation of extensive “boycott lists” on social media is a result of this. The question is how to make boycotts effective and actually have an impact in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians?
Overcoming despair and apathy to win democracy
GEORGE LAKEY – Lessons on movement building from one of the founders of the Serbian student movement that brought down dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
What conflict resolution experts wish universities knew about conflict
MELINDA BURRELL – The protests roiling our campuses reveal a great deal about us as a country. Emotions are easily triggered, many of us are comfortable being angry, and most of us need help to handle conflict constructively. And these emotions are likely to keep running high as we head towards the November election. Understanding the importance of creating forums to listen – and of reaching for help in navigating conflict – are good bets.
What Biden Could/Should Be Saying…
WINSLOW MYERS – Imagine what a U.S. president might say to the nation if he or she were willing to break ironclad political taboos and admit some self-evident truths . . .
UMass Arrests: What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do?
CHRISTIAN APPY – What would Daniel Ellsberg do in the face of the Israel-Hamas war? We can’t know with complete certainty because he died last June at the age of 92. We do know that in the 50 years after he released the Pentagon Papers, he devoted his life to principled nonviolent activism and was arrested more than 80 times for acts of civil disobedience in the struggle for peace and nuclear disarmament. When Christian Appy saw UMass students protest Israel’s way of retaliating against Hamas for Hamas’ October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, he took up with the students after asking, “What would Daniel Ellsberg do?”
Despite High-Level Encouragement, US-China Student Exchanges Are Diminishing
MEL GURTOV – The tit-for-tat warnings between the U.S. and China reflect the politics of their relations today: the “China threat” being pushed in Congress, and American public opinion now very unfavorable toward China; and Chinese upset with the US “Cold War mentality” and strategic containment of China. Sadly, students and researchers in both countries suffer from this negative dialogue.