October, 07 2021, 08:28am EDT
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New Report on Formosa Plastics Group Reveals Danger of Plastics Production
From Taiwan to Texas, Cambodia to Cancer Alley; Petrochemical Giant Poses Threat to Communities and the Environment
WASHINGTON
Formosa Plastics Group's six-decade track record is riddled with environmental, health, safety, and labor violations, including devastating accidents and persistent pollution in multiple countries, according to a comprehensive new report released today. In profiling the past and present impacts of one of the world's largest petrochemical and plastics producers, the report illustrates the profound risks that the industry poses to human rights and the global climate.
Formosa Plastics Group: A Serial Offender of Environmental and Human Rights (A Case Study) reflects two years of investigation and analysis of the conglomerate's history by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), the Center for Biological Diversity, and Earthworks.
Among the findings documented in the report are:
- Decades of regulatory violations in four countries, including ongoing and unaddressed environmental violations in the United States.
- Repeated serious accidents resulting in exposures, injuries, and loss of life among workers and affected communities.
- Human rights abuses linked to multiple Formosa Plastics projects, including credible allegations of corporate inaction or complicity in the face of such abuses.
- Litigation and investigation against the conglomerate or company executives in multiple jurisdictions on grounds including fraud and improper influence of public officials.
- Disproportionate impacts on systematically exploited communities in several countries, especially Black, Brown, and low-income people perpetuate and exacerbate the history of systemic environmental racism against those communities.
The report's in-depth look at the inherent dangers posed by plastics and petrochemical production comes at a time when oil and gas companies are increasingly tying their future growth to the demand for plastics and the oil- and gas-based petrochemicals used to make them. Chemical producers aim to increase plastic output nearly 40% by 2025. Formosa Plastics Group is among the producers with major expansion plans, including proposals to extend its existing operations in several locations.
"The human rights and environmental harms associated with Formosa Plastics' operations are egregious, but unfortunately not exceptional for the industry. Plastics and petrochemical production, like the fossil fuel industry that feeds it, is a dirty business, with dire consequences for communities and the climate. Expanding petrochemical production in the midst of multiple planetary emergencies is irresponsible; allowing a company with a track record like Formosa Plastics' to do so is downright reckless," said Nikki Reisch, director of the Climate & Energy Program at CIEL. "Few plastics and petrochemical producers are household names, but they are all too familiar to the fenceline communities that bear the brunt of the pollution and the threat of accidents from their facilities."
Formosa Plastics proposes to construct one of the world's largest new production facilities for plastics and plastic feedstocks in St. James Parish, Louisiana, in the heart of Cancer Alley. If constructed, the facility would exponentially increase already dangerous levels of air and water pollution in the surrounding predominantly Black community and would be one of the largest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. In response to community-led protests, in August the Biden Administration announced it would require a full Environmental Impact Statement (review) of the Formosa Plastics "Sunshine Project" proposal.
"This report is a wake-up call that Formosa Plastics' proposed "Sunshine Project" is an environmental and human rights disaster waiting to happen. For President Biden to make good on his environmental justice promises his administration must reject Formosa Plastics' proposal," said report co-author and Earthworks' Infrastructure Campaign Manager Ethan Buckner.
"The people of Louisiana deserve a good, safe economy that is supportive of local communities and provides reliable, well-paying jobs," said Jane Patton, co-author and CIEL's Plastics & Petrochemicals Campaign Manager, based in southern Louisiana. "Our state's elected leaders should be prioritizing safe and renewable energy technologies that provide long-term support and stability. Formosa Plastics will not provide any of those things, and this company and its project are wrong for Louisiana on all fronts."
The authors/groups call on policymakers and decision makers to take immediate action to: hold Formosa Plastics Group accountable for existing harms from its operations; take the company's history of environmental, health, and safety impacts into account when reviewing applications for new permits; ending public subsidies for the plastics and petrochemical industries; and adopting a ban on new plastics and petrochemical facilities to protect communities and the planet from the rising impacts of petrochemical production.
In response to the report frontline leaders, human rights experts, and civil society organizations offered the following:
"Community members forced to continue living in close proximity to plastic production facilities play a critical role in overseeing some aspects of compliance associated with the plastic facility operations. Community members observing and documenting spills, leaks, toxic chemical releases, and the discharge of residual plastic components into the environment and reporting the events to the environmental regulatory agencies and parish/county officials, frequently serve as the basis for documenting violations and the issuance of compliance orders by state and federal regulatory agencies." -- Wilma Subra, Technical Advisor to Louisiana Environmental Action Network
"Inclusive Louisiana knows that the Formosa Resolution triples our pollution ( air,water,soil) which adds to the climate crisis. Our local, state, congressional leaders and laymen is denying the climate crisis and doing everything to support the disrespect and disregard of Mother Earth and her people. They must stop Going along to GET alone. Inclusive Louisiana knows also that the state of Louisiana and Saint James Parish should be looking to start the needed infrastructure for renewable energy, a solar panel, a car or part factory for renewable energy and this could have happened yesterday. Indeed, the Mississippi River is the gateway to the world and it's past time to use it for all our future." -- Gail LeBoeuf and Barbara Washington, Inclusive Louisiana.
"The scale of Formosa Plastics' abuse is staggering. Here in Louisiana, they are prepared to wipe a historic Black community off the face of the earth in pursuit of more profit and more plastic. This community that survived enslavement, lynching, the Jim Crow era and the theft of Black land has managed to survive and even thrive. After 150 years, it's Formosa that is the threat, now poised to push them off of their ancestral land and build its facility on the likely burial grounds of enslaved people. I can think of no company whose actions are more heinous. Formosa leads the human rights hall of shame and should be driven out of Louisiana and every other place it seeks to operate." -- Anne Rolfes, Director, Louisiana Bucket Brigade
"Communities in the United States and around the world have been contending with the toxic and abusive practices of various Formosa Plastics companies for many years. This report makes a powerful case that these are not isolated incidents, but a disturbing pattern by a highly integrated, centrally-controlled global enterprise that systematically ignores environmental protection and the rights of communities." -- Marco Simons, General Counsel, EarthRights International
"We may never be able to fully measure the magnitude and scale of the harm done by Formosa around the world - both in terms of the damage it has wrought to the environment as well as basic human rights," said Pam Spees, an international human rights attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. "This report is an important contribution to that accounting and is another wake-up call to officials in Louisiana, reeling from double disasters of historic storms that have wreaked havoc on the petrochemical infrastructure in the state, to walk away from a company one U.S. court has already found to be 'serial offender' before it's too late."
Since 1989, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has worked to strengthen and use international law and institutions to protect the environment, promote human health, and ensure a just and sustainable society.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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'Complicit in the Genocide': First Muslim Biden Appointee Resigns Over Gaza
"This administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians."
Jul 02, 2024
A political appointee at the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday became the youngest—and first Muslim American—appointee of President Joe Biden's to resign as his administration continues to "fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians."
"Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice," Special Assistant and Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Maryam Hassanein, 24, said in a statement.
"However, over the past nine months of Israel's genocide in Gaza, this administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians," she added. "I am resigning today from my position as a Biden administration appointee in the Department of the Interior."
Hassanein toldHuffPost that she decided to resign because "I came to understand that even if the agency I'm working at is not producing foreign policy, serving in the administration in any capacity does essentially make you complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians."
Palestine defenders applauded Hassanein's resignation—which made her at least the 11th American official to step down over U.S. support for Israel's war on Gaza, according to HuffPost.
"We welcome this principled resignation by another Biden administration official who took up their post believing they could help the nation, but instead realized they were becoming complicit in the administration's enabling of the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"President Biden, whose administration has lost all credibility on the issue of human rights, must reverse course and end our nation's complicity in genocide, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing," Awad added. "He must demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire, an end to the occupation, and justice for the Palestinian people."
The Biden administration has been Israel's staunchest supporter, even after 270 days of what United Nations officials, human rights experts, and countries led by South Africa in an International Court of Justice case all call a genocidal assault on Gaza's 2.3 million people. Despite this, Biden has approved billions of dollars in military assistance and provided diplomatic support for Israel.
According to Palestinian and international agencies, at least 37,925 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli forces, while upward of 87,000 others have been wounded and at least 11,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged buildings.
Israel has also been accused of deliberately starving Gazans—dozens of whom have died of malnutrition—via a crippling siege and blockade of the coastal enclave.
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A political science professor described the Maine congressman's op-ed as "one of the most irresponsible things a Democratic member of Congress has written in recent memory."
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Breaking with many of his fellow Democrats, Maine Congressman Jared Golden suggested Tuesday that former Republican President Donald Trump's return to the White House wouldn't threaten U.S. democracy—and was sharply ridiculed for that take.
"After the first presidential debate, lots of Democrats are panicking about whether President Joe Biden should step down as the party's nominee," Golden wrote in a Bangor Daily News op-ed. "Biden's poor performance in the debate was not a surprise. It also didn't rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don't plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I'm OK with that."
"Democrats' post-debate hand-wringing is based on the idea that a Trump victory is not just a political loss, but a unique threat to our democracy. I reject the premise," he continued. "Unlike Biden and many others, I refuse to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system."
Golden—who represents the "Trump-friendly" 2nd District, a priority for Republicans this cycle—also referenced the insurrection incited by the presumptive Republican nominee after his 2020 loss to Biden, writing that "pearl-clutching about a Trump victory ignores the strength of our democracy. January 6, 2021, was a dark day. But Americans stood strong."
The backlash to Golden's op-ed was swift and strong, with Fordham University assistant political science professor Jacob Smith calling it "one of the most irresponsible things a Democratic member of Congress has written in recent memory."
Veteran journalist Mark Jacob said on social media that "Congressman Jared Golden, an alleged Democrat from Maine, waves the white flag against Trump in an unconscionable surrender to fascism. Maybe he thinks he can cut a deal. The cowards and quislings are making themselves known."
Some critics highlighted that the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority—which includes three Trump appointees—ruled Monday that Trump, and anyone else who occupies the Oval Office, has absolute immunity for "official acts." In her dissent, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that "the president is now a king above the law."
Trump celebrated the ruling and reportedly is prepared to embrace his expanded powers if he wins in November. The high court decision also jeopardizes Trump's recent felony conviction and three pending cases against him, including two that stem from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
"Jared Golden's op-ed today may be one of the worst takes we've seen so far, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's decision yesterday," declared Young Democrats of America president Quentin Wathum-Ocama. "I'm astounded that the congressman has such an absurdly bad take and is apparently ready to give up on an election five months out."
Some journalists and Republicans suggested that Golden's op-ed may be politically motivated, considering the makeup of his district. His GOP challenger, former NASCAR driver Austin Theriault, said: "This is a very phony attempt to avoid accountability. Simple questions for Jared Golden: Does he support Joe Biden for president or not? Does Golden believe Biden is mentally competent or not? He won't say, because he puts politics ahead of Mainers."
Golden, who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition, has a history of voting with Republicans on various climate, military, and student debt relief policies. His new opinion piece provoked calls for members of his own party to identify and rally around a write-in candidate "so Maine Democrats have an actual Democratic option in November."
Other Democrats in Congress have contributed to mounting warnings of the threat posed by Trump, who has said on the campaign trail that he would be a dictator on "day one" and "root out" those he called "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country."
If elected this year, Trump is also expected to pursue the policy agenda of the Heritage Foundation-led 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or Project 2025—which the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has described as a "far-right playbook for American authoritarianism."
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that "Project 2025 is a threat to our nation. The conservative radical plan rolls back rights for everyone and allows blatant discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. It's sickening, and we must do everything to prevent this destructive plan and Donald Trump at all costs."
Biden's poor performance in the debate with Trump last week has prompted some supporters to reaffirm the importance of his reelection, given the alternative, and others to suggest that he should be replaced ahead of the Democratic convention next month.
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to suggest that Biden should step aside.
"Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory—too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what could not be turned around in the debate, can be turned around now," Doggett said. "President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2021. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."
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The Juneau ice field is melting at a rate of 50,000 gallons per second and is possibly heading "beyond a dynamic tipping point," a new study says.
Jul 02, 2024
The melting of Alaska's Juneau ice field—which contains more than 1,000 glaciers—is accelerating and could reach a tipping point much sooner than predicted, according to research published Tuesday.
The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that ice loss from the Juneau ice field began accelerating rapidly after 2005.
The paper's authors found that "rates of area shrinkage were five times faster from 2015-2019 than from 1979-1990," while glacier volume loss—which had remained relatively consistent from 1770-1979—doubled after 2010.
"Forty years from now, what is it going to look like? I do think by then the Juneau ice field will be past the tipping point."
"Thinning has become pervasive across the icefield plateau since 2005, accompanied by glacier recession and fragmentation," the study states. "As glacier thinning on the plateau continues, a mass balance-elevation feedback is likely to inhibit future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a dynamic tipping point."
Study lead author Bethan Davies, a glaciologist at Newcastle University in England, said in a statement, "It's incredibly worrying that our research found a rapid acceleration since the early 21st century in the rate of glacier loss across the Juneau ice field."
"Alaskan icefields—which are predominantly flat, plateau icefields—are particularly vulnerable to accelerated melt as the climate warms since ice loss happens across the whole surface, meaning a much greater area is affected," Davies continued. "Additionally, flatter ice caps and icefields cannot retreat to higher elevations and find a new equilibrium."
"As glacier thinning on the Juneau plateau continues and ice retreats to lower levels and warmer air, the feedback processes this sets in motion is likely to prevent future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a tipping point into irreversible recession," she added.
Study co-author Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts, toldThe Associated Press that the Juneau ice field is melting at a rate of about 50,000 gallons per second.
"When you go there the changes from year to year are so dramatic that it just hits you over the head," Pelto said. "In 1981, it wasn't too hard to get on and off the glaciers. You just hike up and you could you could ski to the bottom or hike right off the end of these glaciers. But now they've got lakes on the edges from melted snow and crevasses opening up that makes it difficult to ski."
As the AP reported:
Only four Juneau ice field glaciers melted out of existence between 1948 and 2005. But 64 of them disappeared between 2005 and 2019, the study said. Many of the glaciers were too small to name, but one larger one, Antler glacier, "is totally gone," Pelto said.
Alaska climatologist Brian Brettschneider, who was not part of the study, said the acceleration is most concerning, warning of "a death spiral" for the thinning ice field.
Pelto said that "the tipping point is when that snow line goes above your entire ice field, ice sheet, ice glacier, whichever one."
"And so for the Juneau ice field, 2019, 2018, showed that you are not that far away from that tipping point," he added. "We're 40 years from when I first saw the glacier. And so, 40 years from now, what is it going to look like? I do think by then the Juneau ice field will be past the tipping point."
It's not just Alaska. Glaciers around the world—from Greenland to Switzerland to Africa and the Himalayas—are melting at an alarming rate. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization warned in 2022 that glaciers in one-third of the 50 UNESCO World Heritage sites where they are found are on pace to disappear by 2050—even if planet-heating emissions are curbed.
Another study published last year by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Alaska found that even if humanity manages to limit planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures—the more ambitious goal of the Paris agreement—half of Earth's glaciers are expected to melt by the end of the century.
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