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350.org Responds to Police Murder of an Atlanta Forest Defender
The Atlanta Police Foundation — a private entity — received governmental clearance to begin destroying Weelaunee Forest to build "Cop City" over the objections of local residents. After exhausting legal channels, organizers moved into the forest, occupying trees and slowing down construction. Yesterday, police killed Manuel Teran, known as Tortuguita, who was camping in a public park to defend the Weelaunee Forest.
Jeff Ordower, 350.org’s North America Director, responded:
"With heavy hearts, we stand with the Atlanta Forest Defenders and all of those who defend the land, the water, and the planet. Tortuguita's 'crime' was defending a forest in the heart of Atlanta—yet police moved in full force to evict the encampment, using their usual litany of brutal tactics. As we’ve seen all too often with police brutality, we can expect the usual false claims of 'self-defense,' coupled with an attempt to smear the victim and movement. Our movement will continue to stand up for intersectional justice—for the people and the planet."
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
IDF Reportedly Used 2,000-Pound Bombs Supplied by US in Attack That Killed Nasrallah
The American-made bombs leveled several apartment buildings and killed dozens of people, with others still believed to be trapped under rubble.
Sep 30, 2024
Video footage analyzed by weapons experts indicates that Israeli forces used U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs in their massive attack on Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and flattened several residential buildings.
The Friday night attacks, which killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, included more than 80 bombs dropped over a period of several minutes, unnamed Israeli officials said. Footage published by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shows eight fighter jets armed with more than a dozen 2,000-pound bombs, according to munitions analysts.
The U.S. has provided Israel with thousands of 2,000-pound bombs since the Hamas-led October 7 attack but has been withholding the munitions since May after the IDF repeatedly used them to assail densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
One unnamed Pentagon official toldThe Washington Post on Sunday that "he had never seen so many bombs used against a single target as in the Nasrallah strike."
Trevor Ball, a former explosive ordnance disposal technician for the U.S. Army, told the Post that "it's possible dozens of 2,000-pound bombs were used," pointing to a video showing extensive damage from the Israeli attack.
"It is a mess of a site," said Ball.
The New York Timesreported that "at least four residential buildings on one street were destroyed" by the IDF strikes Friday night.
"All four of the destroyed structures were residential buildings along the same street," the Times noted. "Two neighboring apartment buildings that were at least seven stories tall were hit. About 100 yards away, two neighboring buildings that were also at least seven stories were also hit."
In his statement on the strikes, U.S. President Joe Biden acknowledged neither the apparent use of American-made weaponry nor the civilian toll. Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said Sunday that the U.S. was "complicit in this crime" and warned that "the countries of the region and beyond must recognize that the situation is extremely dangerous, and anything could happen at any moment."
"We are on high alert," he added.
Since mid-September, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than a thousand people and wounded more than 6,000, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Najib Mikati, Lebanon's prime minister, said Israel's large-scale bombing campaign has displaced around 1 million people.
Abbas Alawieh, a Lebanese American from Michigan and a co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, said over the weekend that "by failing to mention much less condemn the scores of civilians [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu illegally killed this week," Biden and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris' "recent Lebanon statements aren't just ignoring Arab, Muslim, and anti-war voters in Michigan—they're actively pushing them away."
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Rights Advocates Frustrated Over Harris' Messaging on Migrants
"Banning asylum and punishing people seeking safety only causes more chaos and dysfunction at the border, and more refugee deaths," said one advocacy center.
Sep 29, 2024
While fearful of what a second Trump administration would mean for immigrants, rights advocates this weekend sounded the alarm over messaging on the southern border from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
The vice president traveled to Douglas, Arizona on Friday for her first campaign trip to the U.S.-Mexcio border. There, she met with Border Patrol agents—she was photographed walking with them next to a barbed-wire-covered wall—and delivered what The New York Timescalled "one of her party's toughest speeches on immigration and border policy in a generation."
After Harris' address, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS)
expressed agreement with her that "we need to build a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system," while also warning that her "proposed border policies would do the opposite."
"Banning asylum and punishing people seeking safety only causes more chaos and dysfunction at the border, and more refugee deaths," CGRS said. "We want real solutions to the humanitarian challenges at our border, too. But these policies of cruelty and exclusion fail us, every single time."
CGRS urged Harris to embrace the #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign's policy
solutions: restore access to asylum at the border; support existing systems and launch new ones to receive and integrate people seeking safety; create a more effective and timely immigration system; and strengthen refugee resettlement programs and other pathways to the United States.
During the speech and on social media, Harris emphasized combating drugs. She said: "As attorney general of California, I prosecuted transnational criminal organizations that trafficked guns, drugs, and human beings. I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Today, I visited the U.S.-Mexico border and spoke with Customs and Border Protection officials about our progress to secure our border and disrupt the flow of illegal fentanyl into our nation."
She also took aim at her GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, for his infamous family separation policy and for killing a bipartisan border bill. While the Republican attacked the legislation so he could campaign on immigration and promise mass deportations, progressives in Congress and rights advocates opposed its "extreme and unworkable enforcement-only policies."
The Democratic nominee also vowed to strengthen asylum restrictions that President Joe Biden imposed in June, which are being challenged in court by critics including the ACLU. The administration's policy change has been followed by a drop in border numbers but also "rampant rights violations," according to migrant rights groups.
Pushing back against Harris' framing that asylum-seekers simply need to go to legal entry points rather than crossing the border unlawfully, Christina Asencio, a research director at Human Rights First, explained on Friday that the border bill would do what the June asylum ban has already done: suspend processing at ports of entry unless people obtain an appointment.
"Human Rights First has documented the life-threatening harm families with children and adults face in Mexico while forced to wait up to nine months for an appointment [through] an app that's only available in three languages," she added. "This is not a solution."
In a social media thread highlighting reports of agents "removing asylum-seekers who explicitly communicated their fear of return in violation of refugee law" since the introduction of Biden's ban, Robyn Barnard, an attorney with the group, said:
Human Rights First and others have interviewed asylum-seekers who expressly requested asylum, relayed their past persecution, explained their asylum claims, showed agents their injuries, had anxiety attacks, sobbed, and begged to be heard, but were ignored.
Other families recounted that not only were they not asked whether they had a fear of return or why they came to the United States, they were not even allowed to speak.
Harris' pledge to toughen the June policy followed Thursday reporting by CBS News that the Biden-Harris administration "is planning to soon issue a regulation to cement the sweeping asylum restrictions it enacted at the southern border" earlier this year.
In response to the reporting, the immigrant youth-led group United We Dream (UWD)
declared, "There's no other way to say this: Turning your backs on people seeking asylum is WRONG and it keeps us stuck in the past with failed policies."
"Communities nationwide agree that our immigration system must be humane, efficient, and fair above all else. Those seeking safety deserve respect and dignity," UWD said. "Our message to the Biden-Harris administration remains clear: We will organize—now and in the future—against any attempts to gut asylum and put our people's lives on the line."
UWD also pointed to a September 4 letter in which it led over 80 groups in warning Biden and Harris that the bipartisan Border Act of 2024 "would cause irreparable harm to our asylum system, our standing on the global stage, and most importantly, it would cause countless deaths at our borders and in other countries."
While many immigrant rights advocates are frustrated with both Biden and Harris, multiple groups continue to support her candidacy—given that the alternative is Trump—and even some critics praised certain parts of her Friday remarks.
"It was good to hear [Harris] recognize the need for more asylum officers and immigration judges, which are a must to tackle asylum backlogs and enable timely asylum decisions," said Eleanor Acer, director of Human Rights First's refugee protection program. "Real solutions like these are needed, NOT bans and bills that cut due process and deny access to asylum."
Immigrant rights advocate Erika Andiola, "who has lived through some of the most traumatic experiences because of our broken immigration system," said that "I was so glad to hear her talk about our undocumented community and a promise to fight for a path to citizenship."
"I'm so glad to see Harris pushing back on Trump's scapegoating of immigrants," she continued. "I wish she would have also talked about his plan for mass deportations and the consequences that could have. Consequences not only for our immigrant community, but also for millions of mixed-status families and our economy overall."
The advocate also expressed sadness over her "promise to criminalize reentries" and urged Harris to "move away from starting the conversation on this issue speaking about drugs and criminal activity at the border," stressing that "yes, those are important issues for voters, but conflating security with human migration just creates more fear in the public about our people."
"We must change the narrative about our immigrant community," she argued. "We must show the humanity, tell the stories, and detangle the problems we as immigrants face from the need of the American people to feel safe. Immigrants, we are part of the fabric of this country. We are your neighbors, classmates, and coworkers. That's where the conversation should start."
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Climate Movement Says 'Hurricane Helene Must Be a Wake-Up Call'
"To those insisting that, 'This is not the time!' to have those other conversations, I say: This is *exactly* when we need to be having them," said one climate scientist.
Sep 29, 2024
As emergency crews have worked through the weekend to rescue people and restore essential services across several southeastern U.S. states, green groups in recent days have pointed to the death and damage from Hurricane Helene as just the latest evidence of the need for sweeping action on the climate emergency.
Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds in Florida's Big Bend region late Thursday, then left a path of destruction across hundreds of miles of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee. As of early Sunday, at least 64 people are confirmed dead—including at least two people in Virginia—though that figure is expected to rise.
"Moody's Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage," The Associated Pressreported Sunday on what is now a post-tropical cyclone. "AccuWeather's preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss from Helene in the U.S. is between $95 billion and $110 billion."
The youth-led Sunrise Movementsaid Sunday that "any reporting about Hurricane Helene needs to be clear—this is not normal. This is not just a tragedy. This is a crime. Fossil fuel companies have known this would happen for the last 50 years. They lied to the public and bought out our government just to make a profit. Make them pay."
Greenpeace USA similarly declared on social media Saturday that "#HURRICANEHELENE MUST BE A WAKE-UP CALL FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE!"
"We are heartbroken," the group said, noting the dozens of people killed. "Communities have been devastated. The corporations heating the climate must be held accountable."
Dozens of communities across the United States have already
launched climate liability lawsuits against Big Oil, which knew for decades that fossil fuels would heat the planet but promoted disinformation and raked in huge profits. Recently there have been calls for legal action by the U.S. Department of Justice and potential homicide cases brought by state and local prosecutors.
"Our hearts and solidarity go out to everyone facing the devastation. Please support mutual aid relief efforts and demand oil companies #StartDrillingStartPaying!" Greenpeace said Saturday.
Sunrise executive director Aru Shiney-Aja on Sunday offered a "friendly reminder that fossil fuel companies get 20 BILLION dollars in [government] subsidies every year," while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "runs out of money to respond to disasters like Helene."
Both Shiney-Aja and Greenpeace shared footage from Asheville, North Carolina, which endured what Ryan Cole, the assistant director of Buncombe County Emergency Services, described as "biblical flooding."
Just two years ago,
The New Ledereported that "from wildfires racing through the drought-stricken West, to heavy flooding in the central and eastern regions of the United States, extreme weather events are spurring many Americans to seek refuge in more environmentally stable cities, so-called 'climate havens,'" including Asheville.
This weekend, Asheville—which is over 2,000 feet above sea level and more than 250 miles from the coast—and surrounding communities are contending with disrupted water, power, and communications services due to what officials are reportedly calling "Buncombe County's own Hurricane Katrina."
Noting Asheville's elevation and distance from the coast, Lucky Tran, director of science communications and media relations at Columbia University in New York City, said Sunday that "no place is safe from climate change. We all suffer the consequences. We must all take action. We are all in this together."
As
The New York Timesreported Sunday:
People across western North Carolina chainsawed their way to loved ones and drove for hours Saturday on dwindling gas tanks in search of food and power, in what one resident described as a "mini-apocalypse" after Hurricane Helene.
Authorities said the region was facing a historic disaster a day after the powerful storm swept through the Southeast, downing power lines and washing out highways. Landslides, spotty cellphone service, and a gas shortage complicated rescue and recovery efforts. Some stranded people were being airlifted to safety.
Antonia Juhasz, a leading climate and energy journalist and author, said Saturday that "Asheville, North Carolina is being wiped off the map by the worst storm to hit the region in a generation. This is what the climate crisis looks like: the production and use of fossil fuels changes the climate, intensifying extreme weather events and making them more frequent."
As hurricane scientist Jeff Masters detailed Friday, fossil fuel-driven climate change "makes the strongest hurricanes stronger," boosts rainfall from such storms, leads to more rapid intensification, and causes sea-level rise that increases storm surge damage.
In an effort to emphasize the climate change connection to extreme weather, from heatwaves to hurricanes, some climate campaigners have suggested naming such events after oil and gas companies.
"What did a Helene ever do to deserve getting this horrific hurricane named after her? We should be naming hurricanes after fossil fuel CEOs instead. How about Hurricane Darren?" said Fossil Free Media director Jamie, taking aim at ExxonMobil's Darren Woods.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist focused on extreme weather, said on social media Saturday, "The images and stories just beginning to emerge from eastern TN and western NC in the aftermath of widespread catastrophic flooding wrought by Helene are genuinely horrifying, and the full scale of the disaster is likely as yet untold."
"This was, by far, the most extreme rain event in observed record across much/most of the region, where reliable records date back over 100 [years]. Unsurprisingly, the flooding which resulted has also been widespread, historic, and generally catastrophic across a broad region," he explained. "These floods, which were concentrated in valleys containing rivers and typically modest creeks and streams, involved extremely large volumes of water moving downhill at high velocity. This was not a gradual or 'gentle' inundation by any means."
Swain stressed that "sometimes 'worst-case' scenarios really do come to pass, and I think we often lack the collective imagination to fully envision what that looks like. That's a problem, because being honest about risks that exist is [the] first step toward mitigating them and preventing harm!"
"Ultimately, there many folks in FL, GA, NC, and TN who are in need of urgent assistance—and that is/should be foremost priority," he added. "But to those insisting that, 'This is not the time!' to have those other conversations, I say: This is *exactly* when we need to be having them."
The AP reported that "in Atlanta, 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain fell over 48 hours, the most the city has seen over two days since record-keeping began in 1878," while "in Florida's Big Bend, some lost nearly everything they own, emerging from the storm without even a pair of shoes."
Along Florida's Gulf Coast, "Helene shoved a wall of water estimated at least 10 feet high into the lowest-lying areas of Steinhatchee," according toUSA Today.
South of there, in Pinellas County, officials have identified over 18,000 homes damaged by Helene—and at least 11,000 are "uninhabitable," as the Tampa Bay Timesput it.
Highlighting the
connection between climate change and more intense hurricanes, Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said Thursday that "the climate crisis is here. We must act to save lives."
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