November, 10 2015, 09:00am EDT
Ongoing Clearance by Palm Oil Industry Spurs Imminent Species Extinction and Massive Climate Impact, Says New Progress Report on Critical Leuser Ecosystem
Rampant Plantation Expansion Devastates Deep Peatlands and Major Sumatran Elephant Habitat; Fate of Region Depends on Collective Action by Industry Giants and Local, National Governments
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.
In the midst of a catastrophic Indonesian forest fire season, a new report released today by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) exposes ongoing destruction to one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. The RAN report--titled The Last Place on Earth: Tracking Progress and New Opportunities to Protect the Leuser Ecosystem--cites evidence of continued clearance by palm oil growers supplying palm oil to mills in the region. It highlights Wilmar International, Musim Mas Group and Golden Agri Resources--dubbed the "Big Three Buyers" of palm oil currently at risk of sourcing from the region--and outlines the steps that they, and government officials, need to take to protect endangered species and community livelihoods from encroaching industrial development.
The progress report defines the opportunity to find a new pathway of development for Indonesia's Aceh province--one that protects the Leuser Ecosystem, secures peace and livelihoods, and creates new economic opportunities for local communities. Indonesian President Joko Widodo is a key factor in securing this opportunity, as he has the power to reject the approval of a disastrous pending spatial plan for Aceh that may soon be subject to a civil suit in Indonesian courts.
Published a year after RAN first exposed the threats to the Leuser Ecosystem in November 2014, this latest report finds that rainforests continue to fall, peatlands continue to be drained, conflicts remain between companies and communities, and the ongoing legal protections for the Leuser Ecosystem remain under threat. The report releases new satellite images and field investigations that expose the ongoing destruction of the most valuable remaining lowland rainforests and peatlands for Conflict Palm Oil. The report also names the companies responsible for the deforestation eating away at the edges of the vast, but threatened, ecosystem--including the Indonesian Government's own plantation company PT. Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) III. From the scale of ongoing destruction in these critical areas, it is clear that if more collective action is not taken now, we risk losing the Leuser Ecosystem forever.
Gemma Tillack, Agribusiness Campaign Director for Rainforest Action Network, said:
"The Leuser Ecosystem is one of the world's most richly biodiverse landscapes, and millions of people depend on it for their food, water and livelihoods. But the fate of this natural crown jewel--including its peatlands and lowland rainforests that are home to tigers, orangutans, rhinos, elephants and sun bears--depends on critical decisions being made right now.
"The 'Big Three Buyers' at risk of purchasing Conflict Palm Oil from the Leuser Ecosystem have the buying power to halt the destruction of the Leuser Ecosystem. These buyers need to step up efforts to work with other stakeholders, and provide real incentives to their suppliers and local and provincial governments, to push forward a moratorium on the destruction of rainforests and peatlands and secure ongoing legal protection for the Leuser Ecosystem.
"A balance must be found between building a diverse economy while protecting human rights, the forests and the ecosystem services that local communities rely on. This opportunity must be seized or Indonesia's last forest frontiers, including Aceh's most valuable asset--the Leuser Ecosystem--will fall victim to the same flawed industrial scale development model that has destroyed rainforests and peatlands, led to the loss of livelihoods for communities and driven land grabbing, conflict and the abuse of workers rights across Sumatra and Borneo.
"The destruction of the Leuser Ecosystem would be disastrous for millions of Acehnese people and would push endangered species even closer to the brink of extinction," continued Tillack. "President Widodo has the power to join forces with these Big Three Buyers--and their peers in the recently launched Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge (IPOP)--to do what's best for the people of Indonesia and preserve the country's irreplaceable natural legacy. Efforts to halt the destruction of forests and peatlands--and to stop the forest fires intentionally set to aid the expansion of industrial palm oil development--will reduce Indonesia's carbon footprint, the severity of the annual haze crisis and secure the lives and livelihoods of countless communities."
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices staff in Tokyo, Japan, and Edmonton, Canada, plus thousands of volunteer scientists, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens around the world. We believe that a sustainable world can be created in our lifetime and that aggressive action must be taken immediately to leave a safe and secure world for our children.
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Did Plutocrats Like Mark Cuban and Tony West Help Sink Harris?
"We could see it happening in real-time, right after the convention, when the party consultants and the big donors got their hooks in," said one critic. "They'll be fine though."
Nov 07, 2024
While much ink has been spilled on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's relationship with the world's richest person, tech billionaire Elon Musk, the Republican's electoral victory this week has also provoked conversations about how the very wealthy plutocrats behind Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris may have contributed to her loss.
After Trump's win, The Atlantic's Franklin Foer reached out to folks in the inner cycle of President Joe Biden—who passed the torch to Harris after a disastrous debate this summer—for their postmortem. The staff writer reported Thursday that although Biden advisers "were reluctant to say anything negative about Harris as a candidate, they did level critiques of her campaign."
According to Foer:
One critique holds that Harris lost because she abandoned her most potent attack. Harris began the campaign portraying Trump as a stooge of corporate interests—and touted herself as a relentless scourge of Big Business. During the Democratic National Convention, speaker after speaker inveighed against Trump's oligarchical allegiances. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York bellowed, "We have to help her win, because we know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends."
While Harris was stuck defending the Biden economy, and hobbled by lingering anger over inflation, attacking Big Business allowed her to go on the offense. Then, quite suddenly, this strain of populism disappeared. One Biden aide told me that Harris steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer. (West did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) To win the support of CEOs, Harris jettisoned a strong argument that deflected attention from one of her weakest issues. Instead, the campaign elevated Mark Cuban as one of its chief surrogates, the very sort of rich guy she had recently attacked.
Responding on social media, Drop Site News' Ryan Grim said: "Reporters always heard that Tony West was functionally one of Kamala's most important advisers. Still galling to read this. I wonder who West even voted for."
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, declared that "we could see it happening in real-time, right after the convention, when the party consultants and the big donors got their hooks in. They'll be fine though. They're already onto their next contracts, or their next vacation home. And that should piss you off."
Progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg argued that "if we want to get out of this wilderness we need to purge every one of the Tony West crony corporatists in this party. Democrats need to be able to point to and talk about villains. Tony West is one of those villains."
Revolving Door Project founder and executive director Jeff Hauser put out a lengthy statement in response to the reporting that, as he summarized, "West convinced Vice President Harris to ratchet down her populist messaging lest it upset the Silicon Valley and Wall Street elites he was courting on her behalf."
Hauser highlighted that Foer's article also came after Cuban last month "bragged about his role in exiling a Harris surrogate" and former staffer of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "for the sin of supporting a wealth tax during a television appearance."
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Appearing on CNN this week, Kate Bedingfield, Biden's former White House communications director, suggested the issue is not confined to Harris.
"I think Democrats across the board clearly have a challenge connecting with working-class voters. This is not unique to Vice President Harris' campaign," she said. "This is a demographic shift, a realignment in this country that's happened over the course of the last 10 years."
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who ran for president as a Democrat in 2016 and 2020 but spent this cycle campaigning for Harris—said Wednesday that "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
Sanders also asserted that "the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control" the party are unlikely to "learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign" or "understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing."
Proving his point, Jaime Harrison, a former lobbyist for giant companies who now chairs the Democratic National Committee, claimed Thursday that Sanders' analysis was "straight up BS" and listed achievements of the Biden-Harris administration's achievements.
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A day after U.S. voters elected climate-denying Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race, soon ushering in an administration that is sure to expand fossil fuel drilling, the European Union's Earth observation agency announced that 2024 is "virtually certain" to be the hottest year on record and to hit a worrying temperature milestone.
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Over the past 12 months, said CCCS, global temperatures were 1.6°C warmer than the yearly average from 1850-1900.
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Last month was the second-hottest October ever recorded, with temperatures 1.65°C higher than preindustrial levels. It was the 15th month in the past 16 to be hotter than 1.5°C over preindustrial temperatures.
While a single year above the 1.5°C mark does not necessarily indicate that the Paris climate goal is out of reach, CCCS director Carlo Buontempo said the planet has "never had to cope with a climate as warm as the current one."
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Climate scientist Bill McGuire called the Copernicus report "the bleakest news possible, especially with a climate denier U.S. president in office for the next four years."
Trump has pledged to expand fossil fuel extraction and do away with climate regulations introduced by the Biden administration, telling oil executives he would do so if they contributed $1 billion to his campaign in what was described as a quid pro quo.
The CCCS—which based its analysis on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations—noted in its report that October saw numerous extreme weather events tied to the warming planet. Heavy rains led to severe flash flooding in Spain, killing more than 200 people. Above average precipitation was also seen in Norway, France, China, southern Brazil, and parts of Australia, while Florida faced Hurricane Milton just two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed more than 230 people.
The World Meteorological Organization last week announced that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are accumulating faster than at any other time in human history, rising more than 10% in the last two decades.
"The most effective solution to address the climate challenges is a global commitment on emissions," Buontempo told The Guardian.
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The Republican Party's capture of the U.S. Senate this week was made possible in part by massive spending from the nascent but increasingly influential cryptocurrency industry, which pumped more than $40 million into a successful effort to topple pro-worker progressive Sen. Sherrod Brown in favor of luxury car dealer Bernie Moreno.
Crypto industry spending helped make Ohio's closely watched Senate race the most expensive in the state's history, with Moreno's campaign boosted by around $40.1 million from the super PAC Defend American Jobs—part of what OpenSecrets described as the "triad" of allied pro-crypto groups pouring cash into the 2024 election.
The Washington Postnoted that Moreno "founded a blockchain firm called Ownum in 2018" and "has long immersed himself in blockchain technology, a registry of ownership that essentially underpins all cryptocurrency."
A spokesman for Fairshake, another member of the crypto PAC triad, took credit for Moreno's victory in a statement after the election was called in the Republican's favor and condemned Brown's
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"Sherrod Brown was a top opponent of cryptocurrency and thanks to our efforts, he will be leaving the Senate," said Fairshake's Josh Vlasto. "Senator-elect Moreno's come-from-behind win shows that Ohio voters want a leader who prioritizes innovation."
Crypto executive Tyler Winklevoss boasted in a social media post, "The crypto army is striking!"
"Sherrod Brown—crypto public enemy, Elizabeth Warren co-conspirator, and Gary Gensler crony—was just ousted by Bernie Moreno for Ohio Senate," wrote Winklevoss, the co-founder of Gemini.
Labor reporter Steven Greenhouse wrote Wednesday that it is "obscene" that Brown lost his seat because "the billionaire-backed crypto industry donated $40 million to his right-wing opponent."
"Sherrod Brown is one of the most pro-worker, pro-middle-class members of the U.S. Senate," Greenhouse added. "He truly fights for workers."
"The strategy was a brazen attempt to buy influence while keeping the public unaware of what they were supporting."
While the Ohio Senate contest was "the biggest single target of crypto money this cycle," as CNBCput it, the industry spread its money widely, backing both Republicans and Democrats in races across the country—underscoring its attempt to gain influence over future regulatory fights in Congress.
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Former President Donald Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris was also seen as a win for the industry, with Bitcoin's price
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"Tonight the crypto voter has spoken decisively—across party lines and in key races across the country," gushed Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase. "Americans disproportionately care about crypto and want clear rules of the road for digital assets. We look forward to working with the new Congress to deliver it."
But one critic, Better Markets president Dennis Kelleher, cast doubt on the industry's self-serving narrative that the 2024 results amounted to a ringing endorsement of cryptocurrency.
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