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500 Groups Endorse NYC March to End Fossil Fuels
Sept. 17 March Urges Biden to Declare Climate Emergency, Phase Out Fossil Fuels
Organizers of the March to End Fossil Fuels today announced that 500 organizations have endorsed the upcoming mobilization on September 17 in New York City.
Groups including the NAACP, Sierra Club, and Sunrise Movement have signed on to support the march and its demands for Pres. Biden to take bold action on fossil fuels in the wake of a deadly, record-breaking summer of extreme heat and climate disasters. They join the key groups organizing the march, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Organizing Hub, Food & Water Watch, Fridays For Future USA & NYC, Earthworks, Greenfaith, Indigenous Environmental Network, New York Communities for Change, Oil Change International and Oil & Gas Action Network.
In addition to the 500 groups supporting the march, nationally recognized leaders including Sen. Ed Markey, Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman, Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson, Jane Fonda, Naomi Klein, Mark Ruffalo, and Bill McKibben are backing the march. More than 10,000 people from across the country are expected to attend, including Goldman Prize winners Nalleli Cobo and Sharon Lavigne, UN youth adviser Ayisha Siddiqa, scientist Peter Kalmus, Gulf Coast leaders John Beard, Jr. and Roishetta Ozane, and Mountain Valley Pipeline fighters including Crystal Cavalier from Appalachia.
The route of the March to End Fossil Fuels will begin at 52nd and Broadway, with participants marching down 52nd Street to 1st Avenue starting at 1:00 PM ET. A rally will take place on 1st Avenue, just blocks away from the United Nations, which will host the first-ever UN Climate Ambition Summit in the following days.
The New York City march is part of a mass global escalation to end fossil fuels, with mobilizations occurring around the world, which all take place just days before the UN Climate Ambition Summit. At the summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded world leaders come with a commitment to approving no new fossil fuel infrastructure and bring concrete plans to phase out existing fossil fuel production.
A full list of the 500 organizations supporting the March to End Fossil Fuels is available here.
“It’s never been more clear than now – a summer of record heat, deadly fires, and devastating floods – that we need to unite to put an end to fossil fuels. Every new fossil fuel project is incompatible with a livable future,” said Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International US Program Manager. “President Biden promised to address climate change, but he has approved fossil fuel project after project, harming our planet and communities. We demand President Biden wield his power, to usher in the end of fossil fuels so our planet and people can thrive. We join together for the March to End Fossil Fuels, not just to ask for change, but for a reckoning.”
“The current reliance on fossil fuels is literally killing Black Americans. Black elders are three times more likely to die from air quality-related issues and Black youth continue to suffer the impacts of living in communities that are more likely to house fossil fuel plants and other toxic waste incinerators. This is an emergency. For Black communities to have any hope of a just and sustainable future, we must act now,” said Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director for the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. “The NAACP is marching to demand a global and domestic emphasis on climate and racial justice, Black health, and a future that prioritizes not shortens Black life.”
“In 2020, Gen Z voters had an enormous impact on the presidential election. We turned out for Biden and Harris in larger numbers than anyone predicted. Even as someone who couldn’t vote the Biden-Harris ticket was on the forefront of my mind. We did this with the explicit promise that there would be no more oil drilling on federal land. This promise has now been broken more than once. In the past three years many of us have lost the passion and hope we originally had when fighting for Biden,” said Fridays For Future NYC Organizer Noa Greene-Houvras. “We have watched him approve pipelines and fossil fuel projects that youth have consistently pushed against. The same voices that called him to the presidency are now calling on him to take bold climate action.”
“It’s been a summer of scorching heat waves that have shattered records, relentless wildfires that have led to mass casualties, and raised sea levels that are encroaching upon our city’s edges – these are not isolated incidents, but urgent calls to action. In NYC we passed the most important city-level climate and jobs law with Local Law 97, but it won’t be enough to meet the global climate emergency. The time for complacency from so-called leaders has passed. With 500 organizations strong, the March to End Fossil Fuels isn’t a request, it’s a demand for President Biden to enact actionable solutions that match the scale of the crisis at hand,” said Olivia Leirer, Co-Executive Director of New York Communities for Change
“Ending fossil fuels is a matter of life and death for Indigenous and Appalachian communities like mine,” said Crystal Cavalier, co-founder of 7 Directions of Service. “It fills me with outrage that this summer started with Biden and Congress fast-tracking the Mountain Valley Pipeline and ends with us preparing to face supercharged Hurricane Idalia. I’m joining thousands in New York to demand that Biden halt new fossil fuel expansion and quit fueling the climate emergency.”
“People are fed up, they’re frightened, and they’re marching in the thousands to demand President Biden stop deadly fossil fuels,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The hottest summer on record is galvanizing people like never before to cry out for lifesaving climate action. Biden needs to answer those cries by declaring a climate emergency and ending new fossil fuel project approvals, starting now. As leader of the world’s largest oil and gas producer, Biden has power like no one else to lead the world off the fossil fuels poisoning our planet and communities. It’s time he starts using them and become the climate leader we need.”
“From being forced to work through extreme heat to losing homes to flash flooding, low-income communities of color are experiencing the worst effects of climate change. And if we don’t take action to stop greedy fossil fuel companies, it’s only going to get worse. The Center for Popular Democracy will be in the streets with thousands of people, including our affiliates from NYC to Alaska, to call on President Biden to declare a climate emergency and protect frontline communities. We must end fossil fuels before it’s too late,” said Vonne Martin, Deputy Chief of Campaigns, Center for Popular Democracy.
“Despite his numerous and explicit pledges to the contrary, President Biden has turned out to be a strong supporter of fossil fuels. With each passing day, Biden’s failure to lead on clean energy drives the planet deeper into the abyss of irrevocable climate chaos,” said Alex Beauchamp, Northeast Region Director, Food & Water Watch. “We’re marching to send a message that true climate leadership means halting new oil and gas drilling and fracking, and rejecting new fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines and export terminals – beginning now.”
“The devastating extreme weather events facing communities across the country this summer have made it clearer than ever that we have no time to waste in ending our reliance on the dirty fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis,” said Patrick Grenter, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. “The Sierra Club is proud to be a part of the diverse movement taking to the streets to demand bold action to stop the expansion of the fossil fuel industry.”
ABOUT THE MARCH
The March to End Fossil Fuels will be held on September 17 in New York City.The New York City march is part of a mass global escalation to end fossil fuels, with mobilizations occurring around the world. The march will be held ahead of the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit in New York City, the first-ever climate summit where countries are expected to present fossil fuel phaseout plans and commit to no new fossil fuel production.
Over 370 organizations are joining to build the largest U.S. climate mobilization since the pandemic, demanding President Biden stop all federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects, phase out production of fossil fuels on federal public lands, declare a climate emergency, and build a new clean energy future.
More information at endfossilfuels.us
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
(202) 518-9029With Media Enamored by US Presidential Race, Israeli Massacres in Gaza Get Even Deadlier
"We must not lose sight of what is happening in Gaza, where an unprecedented humanitarian crisis continues to get even worse," said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Israeli forces have massacred nearly 60 people in the Gaza Strip over just the past 24 hours, and the past week has been one of the deadliest since the war began more than nine months ago.
But you'd hardly know it by looking at the front pages of major newspapers in the United States, despite U.S. President Joe Biden fueling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assault with diplomatic support and billions of dollars worth of weaponry.
While outlets such as
Al Jazeera and Reuters have kept Israel's onslaught at or near the top of their pages, coverage of the relentless war on the Palestinian enclave has largely been supplanted in the U.S. by presidential politics, particularly in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday—the same day Israeli forces killed around 100 people in an attack on a southern Gaza town that was previously designated a "safe zone," as Common Dreamsreported.
Fresh Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Tuesday killed dozens of people—including children—but the massacres didn't receive mention on the front pages of the web versions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, or USA Today, each of which heavily featured coverage of the high-stakes U.S. presidential contest between two candidates who have backed Israel's war on Gaza.
As of Tuesday morning, Gaza was entirely absent from the website landing pages of the Journal and USA Today. The Post's home page buried a story about the potential for an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, while the Times' home page contained a piece about surging settler violence in the West Bank amid Israel's ongoing atrocities in Gaza.
In recent weeks, U.S. corporate media coverage of developments in Gaza has not reflected the extent to which Israel has intensified its aerial and ground attacks, even as recent cease-fire talks have sparked some hope of a pause.
After a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, pictures of the former president's bloodied ear and raised fist were plastered across the front pages of major newspapers in the U.S. and around the world while the far more numerous images of child victims of Israeli bombs—many of them supplied by the United States—faded from view.
Israel does not allow journalists with major U.S.-based media outlets to enter the Gaza Strip unless they are embedded with Israeli forces and agree to let the military vet their coverage.
(Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)
Al Jazeera, a Qatari-funded outlet that Israel's far-right government has repeatedly targeted, reported Sunday that "Israeli forces have attacked five separate schools in Gaza in just eight days, killing dozens of people sheltering in them."
One attack on Sunday, the outlet noted, "struck the United Nations-run Abu Oreiban school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 17 people and injuring about 80. Most of the victims were women and children, said Palestinian Civil Defense."
Reporting from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said he witnessed children "crying out in pain and agony" at the facility, which—like all of Gaza's remaining hospitals—is under-resourced and only partially functioning.
"This is the result of incinerating bombs," Mahmoud added.
The death toll from Israel's war on Gaza is nearing 40,000—likely a dramatic undercount, given how many bodies are missing under the rubble that now dominates the landscape of the enclave and could take 15 years to clear.
Those who have survived Israel's onslaught are now living amid sewage, decomposing bodies, and the ruins of their homes, shops, schools, and hospitals, with nowhere safe to flee. Famine and disease are spreading rapidly across the territory as the Israeli government continues to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has urged the Biden administration to cut off all offensive weapons assistance to Israel, said in a statement late last week that "while much of the media is focused on the drama of the U.S. presidential election, we must not lose sight of what is happening in Gaza, where an unprecedented humanitarian crisis continues to get even worse."
"We must end our support for Netanyahu's war," said Sanders. "Not another nickel to make this horrific situation even worse. I intend to do everything I can to block further arms transfers to Israel, including through joint resolutions of disapproval of any arms sales. The United States must not help a right-wing extremist and war criminal continue this atrocity."
'A Corporate CEO's Dream': Labor Unions Blast Trump-Vance Ticket
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union. It's the billionaire ticket through and through," said one labor leader.
Leading U.S. unions warned voters on Monday not to be fooled by the pro-worker facade constructed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who has opposed
congressional efforts to strengthen organizing rights, allowed corporate lobbyists to influence his legislating, and raked in donations from the elites he claims to despise.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO—the nation's largest federation of unions—said in a statement the combined records of Trump and Vance make clear that, if elected, they "would eviscerate unions and empty workers' pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors."
"Donald Trump has a miserable record of breaking every promise he's made to working people—from failing to pay his workers and crossing a picket line to his disastrous four years in the White House," said Shuler. "That betrayal would continue if he is reelected—so it's no surprise Trump chose a vice president who will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for that anti-worker vision."
Shuler continued:
Sen. JD Vance likes to play union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves that to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers’ unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts.
"A Trump-Vance White House," she added, "is a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."
Service Employees International Union president April Verrett offered a similar assessment of the Trump-Vance ticket, saying that while Vance "may portray himself as a working-class hero," his "record tells another story."
"The truth is that Senator Vance's loyalties lie with the Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley billionaires who have bankrolled his political career," said Verrett. "Together, Donald Trump and JD Vance will seek to protect the wealthy and corporations while enacting their insidious Project 2025 agenda. There's a stark contrast between Biden-Harris, who have backed workers and taken action to lower prices and raise wages, and Trump-Vance, who side with price-gouging, union-busting corporations."
BREAKING: Donald Trump has selected JD Vance as his running mate.
Vance claims that he's all about taking on elites.
But the donor list from his Senate campaign tells another story. His top donor occupation was CEO. pic.twitter.com/zFrEx9vMKY
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 15, 2024
The unions' statements came as Republican delegates at the party's convention in Wisconsin—a state that's been
described as a "laboratory" for the GOP's anti-union agenda—formally nominated Trump as their presidential candidate, shortly after an assassination attempt.
GOP delegates also approved their party's platform, which includes the vague promise to put "American workers first" but does not mention the word "union." The nation's union membership rate fell to an all-time low last year thanks to a long-running war on labor rights waged by corporate America and its GOP allies.
The Republican platform contains an ostensibly pro-worker pledge to exempt tips from taxation, a vow that—according to one critic—"appears to be a way for Republicans to change the subject if anyone questions their opposition to raising the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 for the past two decades."
Despite backlash from within his union, Teamsters president Sean O'Brien delivered a primetime address to the Republican convention Monday night, praising Trump for his supposed willingness to "hear from new, loud, and often critical voices."
But other union leaders expressed a much harsher view of the former president, given that during his first term he stacked federal agencies and courts with opponents of organized labor and worked to gut worker protections. Trump's reelection campaign is backed by at least a dozen billionaires, including the world's richest man, Elon Musk.
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union," said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, urging workers not to buy the "slick rhetoric" of Trump's running mate.
"It's the billionaire ticket through and through," Nelson added.
The Wall Street Journalreported Monday that Musk intends to commit "around $45 million a month" to a new pro-Trump super PAC. Musk, the CEO of Tesla, seemed to deny the report by posting a meme on his social media platform.
Climate Movement Sounds Alarm on Trump Picking 'Big Oil Sellout' JD Vance for VP
"JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry," said one Sunrise Movement campaigner. "That makes him dangerous."
Climate campaigners reacted to former U.S. President Donald Trump's selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate Monday by highlighting the Ohio Republican's climate denial and strong support for the fossil fuel industry—one of his top campaign contributors.
"Like Donald Trump, JD Vance has proven that he will make it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs," Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O'Hanlon said in a statement. "Vance is one of Congress' biggest recipients of donations from oil companies."
"JD Vance not only flip-flopped on supporting Trump, he flip-flopped on climate," she continued. "He went from expressing concern about climate change before running for the Senate, to voting to gut [Environmentl Protection Agency] protections and denying that there even is a climate change crisis."
O'Hanlon added: "JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous. Donald Trump was the worst president for climate in U.S. history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration."
Some of Trump's key first-term Cabinet appointees—including Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, and Ryan Zinke, who headed the Interior Department—were former fossil fuel executives or had track records of supporting the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Trump's White House tenure was also marked by an
aggressive rollback of climate and environmental regulations and protections.
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said that "just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment."
"Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represents an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe," Jones added.
JL Andrepont of 350 Action asserted that "we are facing a dire need to ward off further climate catastrophe and injustice, so let's be clear: JD Vance is another climate-denying authoritarian who poses massive danger to this country."
"He has praised the horrific Project 2025 plan and said there are 'good ideas in there,'" they continued. "He says he would be totally fine with a federal ban on abortion. And as the effects of climate change accelerate at an alarming pace right in front of our eyes, Vance is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry who claims that climate change is not a threat."
"We must reject him and all climate deniers at the polls," Andrepont stressed.