Following what goes on with oil and gas exploitation in and around Adrian, Michigan since 2013 - and how these events in our little city connect to the global environmental situation... - with the occasional sidetrack to other related environmental issues in Lenawee county, Michigan and how those relate to global issues.
Human poisoning by pesticides has long been seen as a severe public health problem. As early as 1990, a task force of the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about one million unintentional pesticide poisonings occur annually, leading to approximately 20,000 deaths. Thirty years on there is no up-to-date picture of global pesticide poisoning despite an increase in global pesticide use. Our aim was to systematically review the prevalence of unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP), and to estimate the annual global number of UAPP.
"Extended producers responsibilities (EPRs). EPRs are based on the polluter pays principle, which simply means that manufactures of these products are responsible to help with clean-up and recycling." A good step toward paying all costs - which will move these companies to produce less or none - and in an effort of doing so, influence our consumer behavior to use less single use - or even other types of plastic...
Take action to ensure polluters pay for their role in the single-use packaging crisis
The UK Government is currently consulting on a major reform to packaging legislation in a move that could force producers to foot the bill for dealing with ever-growing mountains of single-use packaging waste.
We are urging tougher measures to clamp down on pointless packaging altogether and drive a transition away from our single-use society.
You can help by sending an email supporting these core principles for revamping the system! Just copy and paste the text at the end of this article (adding any additional points you may wish to make as to why it’s time to get tough on single-use packaging) and send it to packaging@defra.gov.uk by 13 May.
Address the root cause of the problem: A significant reduction in single-use packaging is needed to close the gulf between packaging use and recycling levels in the UK. The EPR scheme must be designed to encourage a wholescale move away from non-essential packaging, with a shift into reusable and refillable alternatives
Make sure ‘full costs’ mean full costs: Packaging doesn’t just become a problem at the point of disposal. From sourcing through to consumption, there are social and environmental costs all along its life cycle. Producers must be made to consider these under EPR requirements to properly satisfy the ‘polluter pays principle’
Set producer fees to ensure sustainable design: Non-recyclable, excessive and toxic packaging must be phased out through the ‘approved list’ for packaging design, with a fee system designed to encourage reusable and sustainable design choices
End the shameful social and environmental impacts of so-called ‘recycling’ exports: The UK must end its reliance on exporting waste overseas, focusing instead on building a circular economy in the UK. The very highest environmental and social responsibility standards must be met for any future waste exports
Implement robust monitoring and full transparency: Strong accountability and enforcement measures must be put in place, with third party audits rather than self-monitoring by producers.
Summary of Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2020
The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act will include the following elements:
Require Product Producers to Take Responsibility for Collecting and Recycling Materials
Require Nationwide Beverage Container Refunds
Source Reduction and Phase-Out Certain Polluting Products
Carryout Bag Fee
Minimum Recycled Content Requirement: Plastic beverage containers will be required to include an increasing percentage of recycled content in their manufacture before entering the market. Additionally, the EPA will be required to implement post-consumer minimum recycled content for other covered products after a review with the National Institute of Standards and Technology is completed to determine technical feasibility.
Recycling and Composting
Plastic Tobacco Filters, Electronic Cigarettes and Derelict Fishing Gear
Prevent Plastic Waste from Being Shipped to Developing Countries that Cannot Manage It
Interesting that conservative Hillsdale County goes solar while Deerfield/Riga are resisting to "destroy prime agricultural land"...
JONESVILLE - Pine Gate Renewables and Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors announced their first wave of solar energy projects into Michigan, with the closest being built near Lake Wilson Road.
Due to interest posed by local residents, Hillsdale Daily News sought answers from both companies involved and the Fayette Township Planning Commission.
Tami von Isakovics, director of communications and marketing for Pine Gate Renewables, said the company is a fully integrated utility-scale solar development company headquartered in Asheville, N.C.
“We operate 480MW of renewable energy in five states and have more than 8GW in development,” von Isakovics said. “As a leader in the industry, Pine Gate focuses on forging partnerships to expand its renewable energy footprint nationwide. It’s mission is to provide renewable power for local communities across the country through project development, financing, construction and environmental preservation.”
Good news for getting electric cars to be the standard while reducing the total number of cars.
To achieve a high recycling rate of 80% with a low-CO2 we use hydrometallurgical recycling process. The lithium-ion batteries are first made safe for mechanical treatment, with plastics, aluminium and copper separated and directed to their own recycling processes. And what is left of the battery after these processes are the chemical and mineral components, the ‘black mass’ and in our facility in Harjavalta the ‘black mass’ can be treated on an industrial scale.
The black mass typically consists of a mixture of lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel in different ratios. Of these, nickel, cobalt and lithium are the most valuable and most difficult to recover. Most of today’s recycling solutions for EV batteries are not able to recover these valuable minerals.
Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, investigating human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. FA works in partnership with institutions across civil society, from grassroots activists, to legal teams, to international NGOs and media organisations, to carry out investigations with and on behalf of communities and individuals affected by conflict, police brutality, border regimes and environmental violence.
Our investigations employ pioneering techniques in spatial and architectural analysis, open source investigation, digital modelling, and immersive technologies, as well as documentary research, situated interviews, and academic collaboration. Findings from our investigations have been presented in national and international courtrooms, parliamentary inquiries, and exhibitions at some of the world’s leading cultural institutions and in international media, as well as in citizen’s tribunals and community assemblies.
Their rationale was twofold: Michigan should never have granted the easement in the first place, Whitmer and Eichinger wrote, because allowing Enbridge to transport oil through the Straits poses a spill risk that “cannot be reconciled with the public’s right in the Great Lakes and the state’s duty to protect them.”
It could be months or years before Michiganders know for sure when or whether Enbridge must decommission Line 5, legal experts say. (Shutterstock photo by JHVEPhoto)
Second, state officials determined Enbridge has repeatedly violated the terms of its easement by failing to properly support the pipeline, allowing the pipe to bend in ways that could compromise its structural integrity, and failing to maintain the pipeline’s protective coating, among other issues.
Forgot to share this ambitious decision of a conservative government. Definitely not the same as the Trump administration.
The UK is poised to bring forward its ban on new fossil fuel vehicles from 2040 to 2030 to help speed up the rollout of electric vehicles across British roads.
Graeme Cooper, the director in charge of National Grid’s electric vehicle project, told the Guardian that fears over the UK electricity grid’s ability to cope with a boom in vehicle charging are unfounded. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
Boris Johnson is expected to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles this autumn with the announcement, one of a string of new clean energy policies to help trigger a green economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The government had hoped to set out the plans as early as this week, according to sources in the energy and transport industries, but the announcement will be delayed until later this year as it focuses on tackling the rising number of coronavirus cases.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer plans to revoke the easement the state granted in 1953 that allows Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 to cross the Straits of Mackinac.
Enbridge Energy's 67 year old dual pipeline named Line 5 lies on the bottom of the Mackinac Straits connecting Lakes Michigan and Huron. It's near the Mackinac Bridge.
Credit Lester Graham / Michigan Radio
The announcement came as the Department of Natural Resources released a review of Enbridge’s record over the 67 years the Line 5 dual pipelines have sat on the bottom of the Straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The DNR cited the Canadian pipeline company’s “historic failures and current non-compliance” as reasons to revoke the easement.
“The Notice concludes that Enbridge’s Line 5 is a grave and unreasonable risk to the state’s residents and natural resources and requires the pipeline to be shut down 180 days from now, on May 12, 2021,” a release from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office said.
Eunice Foote described the Climate Crisis more than 200 years ago!
She was the first scientist known to have experimented on the warming effect of sunlight on different gases, and went on to theorize that changing the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would change its temperature, in her paper Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in 1856.
Changing our diet can solve some of the Climate Crisis.
In this Dec. 9, 2015 file photo, cattle graze in a pasture against a backdrop of wind turbines near Vesper, Kan. A study published on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020 in the journal Science, says how we grow, eat and waste food is a big climate change problem that may keep the world from reaching its temperature-limiting goals. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
The world likely can’t keep global warming to a relatively safe minimum unless we change how we grow, eat and throw away our food, but we don’t need to all go vegan, a new study says.
Researchers looked at five types of broad fixes to the food system and calculated how much they fight warming. They found that sampling a buffet of partial fixes for all five, instead of just diving into the salad bar, can get the job done, according to a study published in Thursday’s journal Science.
Called the “greatest political novelist” of our time by the New Yorker, Kim Stanley Robinson has infused his science fiction with real-life political, sociological, and ecological concerns for decades. He’s a writer who does his research. His work is often pegged as “hard” science-fiction for the level of detail with which he writes about social and technological advances. But he’s equally known for his optimism. His 2017 novel New York 2140 depicts a New York City half-submerged by rising seas, but by the story’s end, the city’s collective action suggests that a more just and sustainable future lies ahead.
If we would practice smart polyculture, we would not need all this poison. Unfortunately, these companies make so much money of it that they fight tooth and nails to keep us poisoning the planet. Maybe we have to stop them doing so? Planet before Profits!
Stan Cox: The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can
When Stan Cox was writing his book, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, he scripted these prophetic words: “The oft-predicted national decline in use of fossil fuels is nowhere to be seen, and it is unlikely to occur on its own, at least until the next economic meltdown.” He became one of those few people who dare predict the future; but it was unfortunate for humanity that his prediction came true. Between the time that Cox foresaw the conditions under which fossil fuel usage would go down and his book appeared in print, the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, production crashed in country after country, and CO2 emissions dropped even more than they did during the 2008 financial crisis.
As states throughout the U.S. lift stay-at-home orders, reopen businesses, and relax social distancing measures, this graph shows whether cases of COVID-19 are increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant within each state.
Unfortunately we will rush back to normal - or even worse...
Concentrations of sulfur dioxide in polluted areas in India have decreased by around 40% between April 2019 and April 2020. Using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, from the European Union Copernicus program, scientists have produced new maps that show the drop in concentrations across the country in times of COVID-19.
SO2 concentrations over India from April 2019, compared to April 2020. Credit: Contains modified Copernicus data (2019-20), processed by BIRA-IASB
In a report by Greenpeace last year, India was named the world’s largest emitter of anthropogenic sulfur dioxide – a significant contributor to air pollution. Sulfur dioxide causes many health-related problems, can harm sensitive ecosystems and is also a precursor to acid rain.
How Big Dairy is heating up the planet and hollowing rural communities
Thirteen of the world’s largest dairy corporations combined to emit more greenhouse gases (GHGs) in 2017 than major polluters BHP, the Australia-based mining, oil and gas giant or ConocoPhillips, the United States-based oil company. Unlike growing public scrutiny on fossil fuel companies, little public pressure exists to hold global meat and dairy corporations accountable for their emissions, even as scientific evidence mounts that our food system is responsible for up to 37% of all global emissions.
Germany is assuming the EU presidency at a crucial moment, as the body sets a path out of the pandemic-induced financial crisis and considers key climate legislation.
Researchers at Corporate Europe Observatory have put together a really interesting report on how Germany, despite its climate bonafides, is remarkably close to many polluting industries - such as cars, gas and chemicals.
“Science shows we have barely 10 years to avoid disaster, suggesting we shouldn’t count entirely on technological innovation or self-moderation. Meanwhile, we’re all in a lifeboat with just enough space for each of us. Should we really be complaining about not getting first-class seats if doing so would bump others?” Eleanor Boyle, 2019.
Combining archival footage with testimony from activists and scholars, director Ava DuVernay's examination of the U.S. prison system looks at how the country's history of racial inequality drives the high rate of incarceration in America.
This piercing, Oscar-nominated film won Best Documentary at the Emmys, the BAFTAs and the NAACP Image Awards.
US Rating: TV-MA For mature audiences. May not be suitable for ages 17 and under.
"No one is immune to climate change," reads an "Extinction Rebellion" sign in downtown Ann Arbor on June 1, 2020. "Demand action on climate change now."Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News
Ice-core measurements suggest most of today’s methane releases are due to human activities
Using fossil fuels releases far more methane — a potent greenhouse gas — than people had thought. Possibly 25 to 40 percent more, new research suggests. The finding could help point toward ways to reduce these climate-warming emissions.
Oil and natural gas plants burn off some methane with “flaring,” as seen here. Gas also escapes into the air via leaky pipes and venting. A new study suggests that methane emissions from fossil fuels have been way underestimated. LANOLAN/ ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS
Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas. But the impacts of these gases are not the same. Methane warms the atmosphere more than CO2 does. Yet it stays around for only 10 to 20 years. CO2 can linger for hundreds of years. “So the changes we make to our [methane] emissions are going to impact the atmosphere much more quickly,” says Benjamin Hmiel. He’s an atmospheric chemist at the University of Rochester in New York. He worked on the new study.
In the 1900s, coal mining, natural gas and other fossil fuel sources raised methane levels in the atmosphere. Those emissions fell early in this century. However, beginning in 2007, methane began to rise once again. It’s now at a level not seen since the 1980s.
The CASSE position sets the record straight on the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution are just three powerful examples. And how will the next generation find jobs when the planet can’t support our overgrown economy? The CASSE position calls for a desirable solution – a steady state economy with stabilized population and consumption – beginning in the wealthiest nations and not with extremist tactics. Join the likes of E. O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, and David Suzuki; fill in the information below to sign the position and support a healthy, sustainable economy.
The European Commission today proposed a plan to transform the European Union’s agricultural system, to make it more sustainable and safer from a health perspective.
The plan includes a target of reducing the use of pesticides by 50% in the next decade. The plan would also reduce sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals by 50%, and the use of fertilizers by 20%, by 2030. The share of organic farming would also be increased by 25% by 2030 - up from the current 8%.
“The coronavirus crisis has shown how vulnerable we all are, and how important it is to restore the balance between human activity and nature,” said EU Vice President Frans Timmermans unveiling the plan.
AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
“Climate change and biodiversity loss are a clear and present danger to humanity. At the heart of the Green Deal the Biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies point to a new and better balance of nature, food systems and biodiversity; to protect our people's health and well- being, and at the same time to increase the EU's competitiveness and resilience. These strategies are a crucial part of the great transition we are embarking upon.”
The research team found that while mowing every 3 weeks resulted in as much as 2.5 times more lawn flowers (aka dandelions and clover) and greater diversity of bee species, the abundance of bees was greatest when lawns were mowed every 2 weeks. Further, the researchers documented 93 species of bees with supplemental observations reaching 111 bee species.
Victory: Federal judge rules BLM failed to consider risks to Montana’s environment and water supply before issuing 287 oil and gas leases
MAY 1, 2020
Great Falls, MT — Today, Montana landowners, farmers, and conservation groups won an important victory to protect local groundwater and the climate when a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to consider risks to Montana’s environment and water supply before issuing 287 oil and gas leases covering 145,063 acres in December 2017 and March 2018 lease sales. The court’s decision will protect Montanans, their livelihoods, clean water, public lands, and our climate by reversing the Bureau of Land Management’s recent approval of oil and gas leases across staggering swaths of Montana’s public lands. A full moon is seen above Mount Baldy in the Big Belt Mountains near Townsend, Montana, April 2019. Nearby land was recently protected by a federal judge ruling; however, the Big Belt Mountains are still at risk. JOHN LAMBING / ALAMY
Continue reading at: Rural Landowners, Farmers, and Conservation Groups Celebrate Court Victory Halting Risky Oil and Gas Giveaway of 150,000 Acres of Montana Public Lands | Earthjustice
The authors show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. They demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today.
The realized human climate niche relative to available combinations of MAT and precipitation. Human populations have historically remained concentrated in a narrow subset (A–C) of the available climatic range (G), which is not explained by soil fertility (H) or potential primary productivity (I). Current production of crops (D) and livestock (E) are largely congruent with the human distribution, whereas gross domestic product peaks at somewhat lower temperatures. Reconstructions of human populations 500 BP are based on the HYDE database, whereas those for 6 Ky BP are based on ArchaeoGlobe (https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CQWUBI, Harvard Dataverse, V4). NPP, net primary productivity. See SI Appendix, Methods.
Another legal victory against Trump's insane clear-cut of environmental regulations and protections...
A federal judge, rapping the Trump administration for its weak environmental assessments, has vacated hundreds of oil and gas leases across a large swath of Montana.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday vacated 287 oil and gas leases on almost 150,000 acres of land in Montana, ruling that the Trump administration had improperly issued the leases to energy companies in 2017 and 2018.
Custer County in Montana is predominately covered by livestock grazing and agricultural use with drilling sites and resource extraction scattered throughout.Credit...Kristina Barker for The New York Times
The judge, Brian Morris of the United States District Court for the District of Montana, said the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately take into account the environmental impacts of the drilling. In particular, Judge Morris found that the officials had not accounted for the drilling’s impact on regional water supplies and the global impact that the increased drilling would have on climate change.
What is needed = at least 30% by 2030, 50% by 2050. How can we do this with 9 Billion people?
Nations are drafting a plan to protect 30 percent of Earth by 2030 to save biodiversity. The number reflects politics more than scientific consensus.
Nature needs to be protected, scientists agree, but how best to do it is up for debate.
For millions of years, giants graced the murky depths of China’s Yangtze River. The Chinese Paddlefish (Psephurus gladius), which could reach 7 meters in length, used its swordlike snout to sense the electrical perturbations made by smaller prey, snatching them in the dark. But no more.
The fish was declared extinct in 2019, a victim of overfishing and habitat loss.
Its story is being played out across the world. From winding rivers to the windswept tundra to the dense tropical forests of Borneo, nature is in trouble.
Plants and animals are increasingly threatened by human activities and habitat encroachment. One study estimates a million species face extinction within decades (SN: 5/8/19). That’s 1 million distinct, idiosyncratic answers to the basic question of how to make a living on planet Earth, gone.
Habitat loss and such human encroachment as this clear-cutting in the Amazon (shown) are a major threat to biodiversity worldwide. The United Nations is drafting an ambitious new set of conservation targets to safeguard species and prevent further losses. LUOMAN/E+/GETTY IMAGES PLUS
Zoonotic pathogens — those which transmit naturally between non-human animals to humans — have been the subject of extensive research for decades. These pathogens originate in a host or natural reservoir which is their natural habitat for survival and reproduction. Humans, animals and even the environment (plants, soil and water) are reservoirs of different types of pathogens (infectious agents). When a pathogen is transmitted under natural conditions to humans, the process is called zoonosis.
Over the last four decades, there has been an increase in emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in humans, and nearly three-quarters of them have been zoonotic infections. Zoonosis is not a new occurrence; the origins of a wide range of human diseases, including plague, influenza, anthrax, yellow fever and tuberculosis, can be traced back to animals, with most of them originating in domestic animals (including livestock) and poultry. However, recent emergences of infectious diseases are frequently being traced back to wild animals. Some of these pathogens transmit directly from the reservoir to humans, while others transmit via an intermediate animal host.
Many infectious diseases that have emerged in our lifetime — Zika virus, MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), AIDS and Ebola, among them — have stemmed in some way from human interference with wildlife and their habitats, creating the conditions that allow new viruses, like COVID-19, to spill over from animals to people.
Victory: Court decision leaves in place vital protections for the nation’s oceans, rivers, lakes
APRIL 23, 2020
Washington, D.C. — Today the Supreme Court issued its opinion in County of Maui v. HawaiÊ»i Wildlife Fund siding with clean water advocates that point source discharges to navigable waters through groundwater are regulated under the Clean Water Act.
The following is a statement from David Henkin, Earthjustice attorney who argued the case defending clean water:
“This decision is a huge victory for clean water. The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration’s effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act’s protections for rivers, lakes, and oceans.
A turtle surfaces offshore of Kahekili Beach Park, Maui, Hawaii. COURTESY OF DON MCLEISH
In response to your article “Lawmakers criticize governor’s extended ‘stay home’ order” from April 11.
Unfortunately, our own Lenawee County state Rep. Bronna Kahle and state Sen. Dale W. Zorn are following President Donald Trump’s denial of sound science and become conspirators of unnecessary deaths by not supporting social distancing and stay home orders and attacking our Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s prudent decisions. Anybody with a minimum of common sense and some basic science education can find the relevant information, and if you compare the expected death rates of doing nothing compared to measures as the governor promotes, it takes basic math skills to realize how criminal calls for a loosening of the rules are. And if you did not realize yet, Lenawee County is not isolated from the rest of Michigan and if travel, work and gathering restrictions are softened, we can easily see hundreds if not thousands of cases and many deaths!
You may say we need to go back to work to make money so we can survive, but is it worth your life, your health, and the health and life of others? In the richest country on Earth, nobody should be forced back to work during a pandemic. What you should do is demand that the stimulus money goes to people who need it to survive instead of big corporations. What you should do is support politicians who run to change the broken system and create sick leave, unemployment benefits and health insurance for everybody as a human right.
Once a dangerous new pathogen is out, as we are seeing, it can be difficult if not impossible to prevent it going global. One as contagious as SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to infect the whole of humanity. Eighty per cent of cases may be benign, but with such a large pool of susceptible hosts, the numbers who experience severe illness and die can still be shockingly high. So the only sensible answer to the question, how do we stop this from happening again, is: by doing all we can to prevent such pathogens infecting humans in the first place. And that means taking a long, hard look at our relationship with the natural world, and particularly with the animals that sustain us.
Agricultural laborers spray against insects and weeds inside the orchards of a fruit farm in Mesa, California. Brent Stirton—Getty Images
Building on over 45+ years of groundbreaking science, EcoHealth Alliance is a global environmental health nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from the emergence of disease.
Further analyses are showing the continued low levels of nitrogen dioxide concentrations across Europe – coinciding with lockdown measures implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus. New data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, from the European Union Copernicus program, show some cities seeing levels fall by 45—50% compared to the same period last year.
These images, using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, show the average nitrogen dioxide concentrations from March 13 to April 13, 2020, compared to the March-April averaged concentrations from 2019. The percentage decrease is derived over selected cities in Europe and has an uncertainty of around 15% owing to weather differences between 2019 and 2020. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019-20), processed by KNMI/ESA
To all who compare Covid-19 to the seasonal flu and think the shutdown is not necessary.
Seasonal flues affect about 1,000,000,000 (that is 1 billion) people per year, causing 290,000 to 650,000 deaths - a death rate of 0.07%. Source: WHO March 1, 2020
The disease COVID-19 has caused a health crisis worldwide. We don't know the full and devastating reach of this pandemic yet, but we do understand how it underscores the destructive impacts of wildlife trade and consumption on human health and societies.
COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus, is a zoonotic disease, meaning it originated from an animal. The source of the outbreak is believed to have been a "wet market" in Wuhan, China, that sold live and dead wildlife and domestic animals, along with other foods for human consumption. Such markets can be a living petri dish, with viruses shed by stressed animals warehoused together mixing with other bodily fluids in unhygienic conditions. When these often new or unknown viruses jump to people, the results can be catastrophic.
A federal judge struck down permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline, even after COVID-19 precautions led to an unconventional day in court.
Tribes and allies gathered to defend Standing Rock Sioux territory from the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. After years of litigation, a court struck down the pipeline's water permits on March 25, 2020.
DUE TO PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES TO REDUCE THE CHANCES OF CONTRACTING THE CORONA VIRUS, WE HAD TO CANCEL THE 9TH SERIES. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO CLICK ON THE LINKS ON THE NAMES OF THE FILMS, MANY ARE AVAILABLE FOR PAY-PER-VIEW AT MODERATE COSTS.
All films will start Wednesdays 7:00 PM on the Adrian Campus
in the Science Building, Room SCI 131 and are free and open for
everybody. This faculty-led program and any related discussion is for
educational benefit only. A campus map can be found at: sienaheights.edu/About/Campus-Map-Parking
A
short while ago, I gave a brief statement to the press about our campaign, and
where we go from here. I want to share some of those thoughts with you today,
and to ask you, once again, for your financial support.
If you
can do that now, please use this link to contribute $27:
Let me
start by saying that last night was not a good night for our campaign from a
delegate point of view.
We
lost the largest state of the night, Michigan, but we won in North Dakota and
currently lead in the state of Washington, the second largest state of the
evening.
But
what has become more and more apparent, with each passing primary, is that
while we are currently trailing in the delegate count, we are strongly winning
the debate about the future of our country.
In
poll after poll after poll, including exit polls, a strong majority of the
American people support our progressive agenda.
The
American people are deeply concerned about the grotesque levels of income and
wealth inequality in this country.
The
American people believe it is time for the wealthy and profitable corporations
to be paying their fair share.
The
American people understand that the federal minimum wage is a starvation wage
and that it is time to raise it to a living wage of $15 an hour – nothing less.
The
American people understand that if our kids are going to make it into the
middle class, we must make public colleges, universities and trade schools
tuition free.
The
American people understand that we cannot continue a cruel and dysfunctional
health care system where we are spending twice as much per capita as any other
nation, yet 87 million of our neighbors remain uninsured and underinsured.
And
that last point is becoming more and more obvious to the American people as we
face the challenge of the coronavirus. Imagine a pandemic where 87 million
people have a difficult time going to a doctor.
The
American people understand that climate change is an existential threat to our
planet and we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels.
The
American people understand that we need to transform our broken and racist
criminal justice and immigration system that locks up four times as many people
as communist China and leaves millions here at home living in fear.
But it
is not just the ideological debate we are winning.
We are
winning the generational debate as well.
While
Joe Biden does well with older Americans, especially those over 65 years old,
our campaign continues to win a vast majority of younger people in this
country.
But
while we are winning — very clearly — the ideological debate, we are losing,
right now, the electability debate.
I
cannot tell you how many people I and our campaign have spoken to that tell me
that they like what our campaign stands for but they are going to vote for Joe
Biden because they believe he is the best candidate to beat Trump.
Needless
to say, I strongly disagree.
So, on
Sunday, I very much look forward to debating Joe Biden about these issues in
Arizona. This will be the first 1-on-1 debate of this campaign, and I am eager
for the American people to see which candidate — which agenda — is best positioned
to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American
history.
Thank
you for reading, but before you go, I must ask:
