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The Greta Thunberg Generation Pushes Harvard to Deal With Climate Crisis |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=38663"><span class="small">Bill McKibben, The Boston Globe</span></a>
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Tuesday, 05 November 2019 09:16 |
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McKibben writes: "The plural of 'privilege' is 'establishment,' and Harvard University is the greatest example on American soil - the richest private university on earth, and one that's proven too hidebound and intellectually dishonest to grapple with the climate crisis now overwhelming the planet."
Bill McKibben. (photo: Wolfgang Schmidt)
The Greta Thunberg Generation Pushes Harvard to Deal With Climate Crisis
By Bill McKibben, The Boston Globe
05 November 11
 he plural of “privilege’’ is “establishment,” and Harvard University is the greatest example on American soil — the richest private university on earth, and one that’s proven too hidebound and intellectually dishonest to grapple with the climate crisis now overwhelming the planet.
In response, fed-up alumni are finally going to do their best to effect at least a minor revolution in how things happen in the ivied Harvard Yard: This week marks the start of a campaign to elect a slate of dissident members to the Harvard’s Board of Overseers, all of them young and all of them committed to change.
The Harvard Forward campaign wants more recent university graduates on the board, reasoning that the worldview of aging hedge fund executives may be currently more powerful than is healthy. Their diverse slate of candidates includes Midge Purce, who plays professional soccer, Thea Sebastian, a civil rights attorney, and Jayson Toweh, an EPA analyst. Beyond their Harvard pedigrees, what they have in common is, as the group’s manifesto puts it, a commitment to “complete and swift divestment of all university assets from fossil fuels.”
Students nationwide began making that request seven years ago. Since then, generations of undergraduates — and hundreds of faculty — have staged ongoing protests, and they’ve decisively carried the argument: Selling off stock in coal, oil, and gas has proved to be a crucial tactic (it helped drive Peabody Coal to bankruptcy, and Shell Oil this year declared it to be a material risk to its business model) and also a smart business decision. Since the fossil fuel sector has dramatically underperformed the market for a decade (it’s been, in fact, the weakest segment of the whole economy), those that acted responsibly have profited handsomely.
The latest proof of that maxim came last month when the University of California system — the largest and arguably best public higher education system on earth — divested its entire $80 billion endowment and pension fund. As the system’s investment manager put it, “We believe hanging on to fossil fuel assets is a financial risk.” He added, “We have been looking years, decades, and centuries ahead as we place our bets that clean energy will fuel the world’s future. That means we believe there is money to be made. We have chosen to invest for a better planet, and reap the financial rewards for UC.”
UC — which supports a research mission every bit as ambitious as Harvard’s — was by no means alone. More than half the universities in the United Kingdom have divested. So have the Rockefeller charities, the World Council of Churches, and the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which is the largest single pool of investment capital on earth. They’ve all cited some mix of moral and financial reasoning, and they’ve all done just fine by the deal.
Harvard, though, has stubbornly clung to the notion that its endowment shouldn’t be used for “political” ends, a position that makes no logical sense (why is it apolitical to invest and political to divest) and not historically consistent (Harvard divested, for instance, from tobacco stocks). The fight echoes Harvard’s similar refusal a generation ago to divest from apartheid South Africa — a resistance finally overcome when alumni managed to elect South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and future vice president Al Gore to the board.
Why is Harvard unwilling to do the right thing? Does it fear that some ancient, encrusted alumnus — some Reginald Bearerbonds VI — will take umbrage at divestment and amend his will to reduce the number of squash courts that will carry his name?
Members of Havard Forward will attempt to make Harvard fear the power of committed graduates instead. Rather than trying to change the minds of the encrusted establishment, Harvard Forward is trying to empower younger people who already know the direction the world needs to go. A Harvard education is a fine thing, and many of the people who receive one don’t end up devoting themselves to endless self-enrichment. Instead they try to help the world. I bet many of them will decide they don’t want their donations to their alma mater used to buy more ExxonMobil stock.
If they’re able to carry the day, they’ll do Harvard a great favor. After all, the Greta Thunberg generation will naturally look a little askance at an institution as out of step with the times as Harvard. Everyone wants to be proud of their school. At this point in human history, that pride rests on the university’s willingness to step up and help in a time of crisis.
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California Burns Because of the Climate Crisis While Trump Undermines Efforts to Help |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=50960"><span class="small">Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch</span></a>
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Tuesday, 05 November 2019 09:10 |
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Davidson writes: "While California wrestles with increased frequency and severity of wildfires due to the climate crisis, President Trump continues to take steps to stop the nation's most populous state from taking any climate-related action."
Wildfires are burning out of control in California. (photo: NBC)
California Burns Because of the Climate Crisis While Trump Undermines Efforts to Help
By Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
05 November 11
 hile California wrestles with increased frequency and severity of wildfires due to the climate crisis, President Trump continues to take steps to stop the nation's most populous state from taking any climate-related action.
The state's leaders have tried to decrease pollution from tailpipe emissions, enter into climate agreements with Quebec and strike emission's standards deals with automakers. In response, Trump sued the state for entering into deals with automakers and with foreign governments. The administration then recruited five large automakers to take its side in rolling back California's standards, even though cars, trucks and buses are America's largest contributors to global warming, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Now the Trump administration will offer funds for the victims of wildfires, but will actively prevent action to stop the cause of them, which has exasperated California's governor, as The New York Times reported.
"We're waging war against the most destructive fires in our state's history, and Trump is conducting a full-on assault against the antidote," Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said in an interview, as The New York Times reported.
While the Trump administration has waged an assault on the environment — directing the EPA to roll back many environmental regulations and protections for threatened species — California has filed over 60 lawsuits against the administration's actions since 2017, according to the New Yorker magazine.
The hits keep coming as Trump threatened to cut off federal funding for California's disaster relief. Trump sounded off on Twitter and to the press on Sunday, blaming Newsom for forest mismanagement. However, none of the blazes that tore through California were forest fires.
"The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management," Trump tweeted early Sunday, as NBC News reported. "I told him from the first day we met that he must 'clean' his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers. Every year, as the fire's rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don't see close to the level of burn in other states."
Newsom did respond, "You don't believe in climate change," he tweeted, as NBC News reported. "You are excused from this conversation."
Trump then spoke to reporters outside the White House later in the day yesterday and said, "You've got fires eating away at California every year because management is so bad. The governor doesn't know; he's like a child, he doesn't know what he's doing. And I've been telling them this for two years. They've got to take care of it. Every year it's always California, it's rarely somebody else or someplace else."
The largest, deadliest and most destructive wildfires in the state have all occurred in the last two years. Scientific research says that global warming has increased the risks of wildfires substantially as abnormally hot temperatures dry out the trees and shrubs so they burn more quickly and easily, as Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist wrote in The New York Times.
While the Trump administration and many politicians are undermining efforts to stop the climate crisis, Californians have spent the last two weeks feeling its effects.
"The seas are rising, diseases are spreading, fires are burning, hundreds of thousands of people are leaving their homes," said Jerry Brown, Newsom's predecessor as California governor, to a hearing in Washington last week, as The New York Times reported. "California is burning while the deniers fight the standards that can help us all."
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Trump Accuses Whistle-Blower of Working for United States |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
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Monday, 04 November 2019 13:54 |
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Borowitz writes: "Escalating his war of words against the person who sparked the impeachment inquiry, Donald J. Trump on Monday accused the whistle-blower of working for the United States of America."
Trump going after the whistleblower. (image: Daily Beast)
Trump Accuses Whistle-Blower of Working for United States
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
04 November 19
 The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
 scalating his war of words against the person who sparked the impeachment inquiry, Donald J. Trump on Monday accused the whistle-blower of working for the United States of America.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said that he had evidence “directly linking” the whistle-blower to the United States government.
“This is the biggest witch hunt in the history of witches or hunts, and it was all started by someone who was in the pay of the United States,” Trump said. “It’s a disgrace.”
Expanding his attack, Trump accused his principal congressional nemeses, Representative Adam Schiff and Representative Nancy Pelosi, of being “card-carrying employees of the United States.”
“Follow the money,” he said. “Shifty Adam Schiff is cashing United States government checks every single week.”
Trump said that he was confident that his supporters would “see the impeachment inquiry for what it is: a conspiracy by people working on behalf of a country.”
“What it comes down to is, who are you going to trust, somebody who is working for the United States, or me?” he asked.
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FOCUS: Trump's Demands That We 'READ THE TRANSCRIPT!' Are Just Sleight of Hand |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=52063"><span class="small">Barbara McQuade, The Washington Post</span></a>
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Monday, 04 November 2019 11:38 |
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McQuade writes: "A magician uses a puff of smoke to misdirect an audience's focus while he performs his trick by sleight of hand. When it comes to the impeachment matter involving President Trump, the smoke takes the form of the summary of his July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the White House released in September."
'Impeach' (photo: Anna Moneymaker/NYT)
Trump's Demands That We 'READ THE TRANSCRIPT!' Are Just Sleight of Hand
By Barbara McQuade, The Washington Post
04 November 19
The president agrees with his critics on what happened on the call. But they disagree on whether it was corrupt.
 magician uses a puff of smoke to misdirect an audience’s focus while he performs his trick by sleight of hand. When it comes to the impeachment matter involving President Trump, the smoke takes the form of the summary of his July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the White House released in September.
Trump and his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani constantly focus on the record of the call as proof that Trump did nothing wrong. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has been conducting an impeachment inquiry for the past month that was initially set off by a complaint filed by a whistleblower alarmed about the call — in which Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate alleged interference in the 2016 election and corruption charges related to the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Trump and his investigators, it appears, agree on the basic facts of the matter: that Trump told Zelensky to investigate both Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden sat, and whether the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, hacked by Russian operatives in 2016, somehow wound up in Ukraine.
But it’s an illusion, and like all sleight of hand, the magic vanishes once you figure out the trick’s secret.
Trump has insisted for weeks that the summary of his call proves his innocence. “READ THE TRANSCRIPT!” he tweeted on Thursday. The day before that, he declared that there was “NO Quid Pro Quo in the Transcript of the phone call.” That same day, he asked whether a White House official who testified that he was alarmed about the call “was on the same call that I was? Can’t be possible! Please ask him to read the Transcript of the call. Witch Hunt!”
Trump himself released the summary of the call in September with some glee, claiming it showed he participated in a “perfect call.” At that time, Giuliani tweeted: “The transcript really shows how dishonest news media is. Unlike Joe Biden, no military aid was withheld, no threats, and absolutely no pressure. Zelensky introduces me into the conversations, not POTUS Trump.”
Trump’s critics, on the other hand, see the call as incriminating, noting that the summary shows that immediately after Zelensky requested military aid, Trump said, “I would like you to do us a favor, though” and then brought up his investigation request. At its worst, this call could reflect an abuse of power by Trump to request a foreign government to investigate a political rival. The call could even imply that this favor was a condition to receiving military aid that had already been approved by Congress to fight Russian aggression in Ukraine. If so, this conduct would undermine the foreign policy and national security of the United States.
Why, then, does Trump keep focusing on “the transcript”?
Although he refers to the document he released as a transcript, it is a summary, not a verbatim recitation of the conversation — and we learned this week that it appears to be missing some alarming details of Trump’s conversation. The summary was circulated and then marked up by those listening to the call. One person who listened to the call as it occurred was the witness Trump was so fired up about this week, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council staffer who focuses on Ukraine. Vindman testified that when he saw the summary, he noted two key omissions: one, a reference by Zelensky to Burisma, and two, a reference by Trump to recordings of Joe Biden discussing Ukraine corruption. Vindman further testified that when he asked that the summary be corrected, his request was denied. Leaving out this information suggests that some member of the White House team understood the troubling nature of those references and omitted them, even after the omissions were raised.
Trump also suggests that he must be innocent if he engages in conduct in plain view. This strategy is sort of a reverse theory of consciousness of guilt — a legal concept that holds that the secretive nature of someone’s conduct suggests knowledge of guilt, because it shows awareness that exposure of the conduct would be incriminating. Trump, on the other hand, argues that what he’s doing can’t be wrong because he does it so openly. By constantly pointing to the very evidence the House wants to use to impeach him, Trump thinks he’s undermining the argument that he knows he did something wrong and had to hide it. Presto!
Finally, Trump argues that the summary is exonerating because it contains no quid pro quo. Perhaps he believes that if he repeats this point enough, people will believe him without reading the summary for themselves — even though he constantly urges them to. Or maybe he simply doesn’t understand what a quid pro quo really is.
Because, in fact, the summary shows that when Zelensky raised the issue of military aid, Trump immediately asked for investigations. This is precisely a quid pro quo, or “this for that,” and it alone is sufficient to form the basis of a charge of bribery, one of the specified grounds for impeachment in the Constitution. Asking for a thing of value in exchange for performing an official act constitutes bribery. Legally speaking, a quid pro quo may be explicit or implicit, and it’s almost always expressed in vague and plausibly deniable terms. Even though Trump did not use the phrase “quid pro quo” or specifically state that he would release the military aid only on the condition that Ukraine perform the investigations he sought, one could readily conclude from the summary of the call that he implied the aid was conditional on the “favor.”
Besides that, no quid pro quo is necessary to demonstrate abuse of power. Demanding an investigation into a U.S. citizen for his own political advantage is an abuse of power on its own even without any conditions attached. Trump’s request is akin to soliciting a thing of value from a foreign national in relation to an election, a crime under campaign finance laws. U.S. law prohibits foreign influence in elections because we want American citizens deciding the outcome of American elections, and we know that foreign governments act not in the best interests of the United States but in their own best interests. For a president to request that a foreign government intervene in an election undermines those interests.
And the more Trump draws attention to the summary, the more he takes the focus off all the other activity involved in this scheme. Giuliani met with Ukrainian officials in Spain, France, Ukraine, Poland and New York to discuss his request, as executive branch officials withheld the military aid for months. State Department officials have testified about Giuliani’s shadow diplomacy and efforts to have the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, a noted foe of corruption, removed from her post.
The scheme to persuade Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was far broader than just the one phone call — which is exactly why Giuliani and Trump want the focus to remain on the call. Because maybe if we keep looking at the summary, we won’t see how Trump saws our nation in half.
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resident Trump has now fulfilled his disastrous promise to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement represents decades of work by both Democratic and Republican administrations to achieve a common goal: bringing every country of the world together to tackle the climate crisis, the existential threat of our time.
