SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
aft
Biden, Listen to Students and Declare a Climate Emergency
As educators and AFT members, we believe it is time for the rest of the labor movement, as well as the Biden-Harris administration, to join students in defending the conditions for life on Planet Earth.
Mar 15, 2024
As educators we have been inspired and moved both to witness and stand alongside young people across the nation who have been at the forefront of campaigns pushing local elected officials and the Biden-Harris administration to declare a climate emergency.
We watched in awe in September when 75,000 people gathered on the streets of New York to attend the March to End Fossil Fuels, organized and driven by the call from youth for climate action. The demands from organizers were clear: stopping federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects and repealing permits for carbon bombs, phasing out fossil fuel drilling on public lands and water, providing a just transition to a renewable energy future, and declaring a climate emergency. This last fall, Oregon youth led a walk out to City Hall demanding that Gov. Tina Kotek declare a climate emergency. And recently, Sunrise Movement, a youth-led group, helped launch two campaigns focusing on a national climate emergency and a local-level Green New Deal for Schools campaign, demanding transformational change within K-12 public schools to better handle the climate crisis.
Students model to the world their passion, care, fears, and visions for our future. As then-16-year-old Greta Thunberg declared in Davos in 2019, “I want you to act as if the world is on fire. Because it is.” We, in turn, as educators, model activities, behaviors, and attitudes for students’ development and success.
Youth activists are now telling us to lobby President Biden, to push him, again, to declare a climate emergency. And so we, educators, responded.
And right now, young people are bravely asking adults to help. Which is why we were so proud of our union, the American Federation of Teachers. In October 2023, the union’s Executive Council passed a resolution “demand[ing] that President Biden take bold action by declaring a national climate emergency” stating that “climate change is a human-caused crisis brought about by the burning of fossil fuels… wreaking havoc on our planet and our daily lives.”
We believe it is time for the rest of the labor movement, as well as the Biden-Harris administration, to join students in defending the conditions for life on Planet Earth. By formally declaring a climate emergency, President Joe Biden can enable a host of executive measures, chief among them restoring the ban on exports of crude oil and halting hundreds of billions in private taxpayer dollars from funding fossil fuel projects abroad. Alongside Biden and Congress’ recent investments and green policies, we can update our infrastructure and provide funding needed to transform our public schools into climate-resilient hubs, creating thousands of safe, good-paying, secure union jobs in the process.
AFT—a union of 1.72 million teachers, para-professionals, professors, graduate workers, bus drivers, nurses, and public employees—endorsed the Green New Deal in 2020, urged our pension trustees to sell fossil fuel stocks in 2022, and pushed for a just transition to protect fossil fuel workers. With help from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), AFT began an ambitious plan to install solar panels in schools everywhere. Education, we hope, will provide reliable, resilient electricity for America’s urban communities. Youth activists are now telling us to lobby President Biden, to push him, again, to declare a climate emergency. And so we, educators, responded.
Labor unions play an important role in addressing injustices within the workplace and in workers’ communities. Black and brown communities on the frontline of the environmental crisis face disproportionate environmental burdens. School communities across the nation experience direct impacts of weather extremes that will continue to intensify and become more frequent due to climate change. Just this past August, Chicago Public Schools, the fourth largest school district in the nation that serves 80% Black and brown students, had to stop all outdoor school activities because of temperatures above 100°F. To make matters worse, fossil fuels continue to create a toxic racial justice crisis in our communities.
We—and thousands of other climate-informed teachers—feel a responsibility to act upon our knowledge and firsthand experience. When we march against fossil fuels and support youth-led green movements, we are marching for conditions that will sustain the work we love. If Biden wishes to be known as union-friendly, he has to be climate-friendly too.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration affirmed that it is listening too. The administration paused the review of new fossil gas—often called liquefied natural gas (LNG)—projects on the Gulf Coast. That is a step in the right direction. Let us continue to walk that path towards a climate resilient future and think bolder than we ever have before.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Teachers' Union Leader Hits Back After Pompeo Calls Her the 'Most Dangerous Person in the World'
"Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America," said AFT president Randi Weingarten.
Nov 22, 2022
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, defended the egalitarian legacy and aspirations of public education on Monday after former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused her of being "the most dangerous person in the world."
In an interview with Semafor, Pompeo said: "I tell the story often--I get asked, 'Who's the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?' The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten."
"It's not a close call," Pompeo, who worked in the Trump administration and is considered a potential Republican presidential candidate, continued. "If you ask, 'Who's the most likely to take this republic down?' It would be the teachers' unions, and the filth that they're teaching our kids, and the fact that they don't know math and reading or writing."
While the news outlet failed to push back on Pompeo's absurd claims, Weingarten took to Twitter to defend her union and the institution of public education.
Admitting that she wasn't sure whether to characterize Pompeo's remarks "as ridiculous or dangerous," Weingarten noted that he defended tyrants in various parts of the world during his tenure with the State Department.
Pompeo "was more focused on pleasing Trump than fighting for freedom, national security, and democracy," said Weingarten.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), by contrast, fights "for freedom, democracy, and an economy that works for all," Weingarten continued. "We fight for what kids and communities need: Strong public schools that are safe and welcoming, where kids learn how to think and work with others."
"And we fight against this kind of rhetoric and hate," she added. "Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America."
\u201cAnd we fight against this kind of rhetoric and hate. Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America\u201d— Randi Weingarten \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udfff\ud83d\udc69\u200d\ud83c\udf93 (@Randi Weingarten \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udfff\ud83d\udc69\u200d\ud83c\udf93) 1669075807
Pompeo's attack on teachers' unions and inclusive curriculum comes amid an ongoing right-wing censorship campaign and broader assault on public school students and employees.
A recent analysis by PEN America detailed how 138 school districts across 32 states have prohibited more than 1,600 titles in classrooms and libraries since July 2021. The vast majority of banned books deal with LGBTQ+ themes, address racism, contain sexual content, or are related to activism.
In addition, according to PEN America, Republican lawmakers in 42 states have introduced more than 190 bills since January 2021 that seek to limit the ability of educators and students to discuss gender, racial inequality, and other topics--including a growing number of proposals to establish so-called "tip lines" that would empower parents to discipline teachers. Nearly two dozen educational gag orders have been enacted in more than a dozen states.
In an opinion piece published before far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state's infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill, Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent argued that the GOP's tidal wave of repressive education legislation has "an obvious purpose: to make teachers feel perpetually on thin ice, so they shy away from difficult discussions about our national past rather than risk breaking laws in ways they cannot themselves anticipate."
"But there's another, more pernicious goal driving these bills that might well succeed politically precisely because it remains largely unstated," Sargent continued. "The darker underlying premise here is that these bills are needed in the first place, because subversive elements lurk around every corner in schools, looking to pervert, indoctrinate, or psychologically torture your kids."
The "combination of... vagueness and punitive mechanisms such as rights of action and tip lines" is intentionally designed to promote self-censorship, wrote Sargent. "Precisely because teachers might fear that they can't anticipate how they might run afoul of the law--while also fearing punishment for such transgressions--they might skirt difficult subjects altogether."
He added that "calls for maximal parental choice and control in schools have been used by the right for decades as a smoke screen to sow fears and doubts about public education at its ideological foundations."
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a former middle school principal, called Pompeo's comments about Weingarten "outrageous, dangerous, and asinine."
"Radical republicans hate education," he said, "because it cripples their lies and fear-mongering. I stand with Randi Weingarten and all teachers in the fight for our kids, our democracy, and our planet."
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) president Lee Saunders, meanwhile, said in a statement that "if Mike Pompeo really thinks Randi Weingarten is 'the most dangerous person in the world,' then he is the most clueless person in the world."
"More likely, though, this is just a stunt by a politician desperate to get attention for a longshot presidential run," said Saunders. "Either way, what a relief that a man who calls an educator a greater security threat than global dictators is no longer in charge of our diplomatic relations around the world. While Pompeo continues to bluster, Randi will keep working for safe, vibrant schools that enrich our children and strengthen our communities."
This article has been updated to include a statement from AFSCME president Lee Saunders.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular