EARTH ACTION IN THE NEWS - March 28, 2024

[OSC]

EARTH ACTION IN THE NEWS  

Welcome to the people who have joined recently.  This is a simple weekly newsletter.  Your participation is encouraged.  Please share information and actions about climate change, climate justice, GMOs, toxic chemicals, and Earth-related topics.
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BREAKTHROUGH!
Wisconsin to Expand Statewide EV Charging Network
https://www.ecowatch.com/wisconsin-ev-charging-network-electric-vehicles.html

LOCAL REPORTS
California’s concerning embrace of a new forest biomass industry
https://grist.org/sponsored/californias-concerning-embrace-of-a-new-forest-biomass-industry/
"Questions about environmental safety and community health loom over the greenwashed industry and proposed export scheme."

Santa Rosa bus driver shortage leads to canceled weekday trips
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/santa-rosa-bus-driver-shortage-leads-to-canceled-weekday-trips/
"Due to an “unforeseen” driver shortage, Santa Rosa’s CityBus officials said several weekday trips will be canceled from March 25 to March 29."

Officials move forward with plans for Eel River water diversions that keep Russian River flowing
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/eel-russian-project-authority-advances-plans-for-post-potter-valley-project/
"The new system will replace structures that will be taken out when PG&E removes its two dams from the Eel River area."

Winning Fossil Fuel Workers Over to a Just Transition
https://jacobin.com/2024/03/just-transition-oil-workers-unions-california/
"Among the hard problems in tackling climate change is addressing the needs of workers employed by the oil and gas industries. In California, labor and climate organizers are working together to ensure a just transition as fossil fuel production scales down."

State Farm dropping 72,000 California home, apartment insurance policies
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/north-bay/state-farm-dropping-72000-california-home-apartment-insurance-policies/
"State Farm is one of several carriers that in the past two years have back off of or walked away from property insurance coverage in the Golden State."

California insurance market ‘in chaos,’ says former insurance chief. Can this chief fix it?
https://calmatters.org/economy/2024/03/california-home-insurance-market/

California home insurance crisis: Nationwide subsidiary to leave state
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/nationwide-insurance-subsidiary-pullout-18691743.php

Population Change for US Counties
https://datacanvas.substack.com/p/population-change-for-us-counties
"Visualizing the population change between 2020 and 2023 according to Census Bureau."

GMOs, GLYPHOSATE & TOXINS

68 PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found by Scientists in Food Packaging Worldwide

https://www.ecowatch.com/food-packaging-pfas-forever-chemicals.html

Hazardous Pesticide with Reproductive and Developmental Effects Enters U.S. Food Supply through Imported Food
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/03/hazardous-pesticide-with-reproductive-and-developmental-effects-enters-u-s-food-supply-through-imported-food/

Farmers facing PFAS pollution struggle for solutions
https://www.thenewlede.org/2024/03/farmers-facing-pfas-pollution-struggle-for-solutions/

Synthetic Turf Fields, Forever Chemicals and the Safer Alternative: Organic Grass
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/03/synthetic-turf-fields-forever-chemicals-and-the-safer-alternative-organic-grass/

'Misleading': 'Eco' fake grass advert banned by ASA
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4190269/misleading-eco-fake-grass-advert-banned-asa

PLASTIC & POLLUTION

EPA Announces ‘Strongest-Ever Pollution Standards’ for Cars and Light-Duty Trucks

https://www.ecowatch.com/biden-epa-tailpipe-emissions-standards-air-pollution-evs.html

Air Pollution in Classrooms Could Be Reduced by Up to 36% With Simple Method, UK Researchers Say
https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-reduction-classrooms.html

FOSSIL FUELS
Has the White House gone green?
https://wagingnonviolence.org/cnv/2024/02/has-the-white-house-gone-green/
"Many factors played into Biden’s pause on permits for LNG exports, but it should still be seen as a victory for affected communities and the climate movement."

WAKE UP CALL
Western nations “too optimistic” on nuclear power
https://montelnews.com/news/c261e936-983a-42eb-a474-0c50445a8117/western-nations-too-optimistic-on-nuclear-power-report
"Western nations are struggling to achieve their nuclear power goals because they mishandle projects by failing to plan and trying to complete them too fast, the head of Atkins Realis, the biggest maker of reactors that run on natural uranium, told the Financial Times."

Drax: UK power station still burning rare forest wood
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68381160

‘Everybody has a breaking point’: how the climate crisis affects our brains

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/27/everybody-has-a-breaking-point-how-the-climate-crisis-affects-our-brains?CMP=share_btn_url

Einstein’s Postwar Campaign to Save the World from Nuclear Destruction
https://fpif.org/einsteins-postwar-campaign-to-save-the-world-from-nuclear-destruction/

‘An Underwater Bushfire’: Major Coral Bleaching Event in Northern Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
https://www.ecowatch.com/great-barrier-reef-major-coral-bleaching-event.html

THINK TANK & STRATEGY

Solidarity and strategy: the forgotten lessons of truly effective protest
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/14/solidarity-and-strategy-the-forgotten-lessons-of-truly-effective-protest

How Food and Farming Will Determine the Fate of Planet Earth
https://drawdown.org/news/insights/how-food-and-farming-will-determine-the-fate-of-planet-earth

DIRECT ACTIONS
To Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a Young Activist Spends 36 Hours Inside it
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17032024/activist-spends-36-hours-inside-mountain-valley-pipeline/
"Two seniors also locked themselves to a derelict car to block workers. The actions marked the end of an escalated week of pipeline opposition, including nine arrests."

How the US government began its decade-long campaign against the anti-pipeline movement
https://grist.org/protest/keystone-pipeline-fbi-government-documents/
"Newly released documents show the FBI monitoring anti-Keystone protesters much earlier than previously known. Young Native activists were among its first targets."

45 years after Three Mile Island, we need a ‘No Nukes’ comeback
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/03/three-mile-island-45th-anniversary-no-nukes-comeback-clamshell-alliance/
"As Biden sinks billions into nuclear energy, members of the historic Clamshell Alliance are reuniting to spark a new wave of anti-nuke resistance."

How this organizer is fighting the liquefied natural gas industry where she lives
https://grist.org/looking-forward/behind-one-gulf-coast-communitys-efforts-to-oppose-liquefied-natural-gas/
"The Biden administration's LNG pause won't affect projects planned in Brownsville, Texas. The community is still waging its own defense."

Healing action in the Pacific (audio with transcript)
https://wagingnonviolence.org/metta/podcast/healing-action-in-the-pacific-bedi-radule/
"Fiji-based activist Bedi Radule explains how communities in the Pacific are addressing the intersecting existential threats of climate disruption and nuclear weapons/power."

Inside the campaign to stop the largest gas projects in Africa
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/02/inside-campaign-to-stop-mozambique-lng/
"Mozambican communities and their allies are fighting to stop the multinational gas giants and financiers behind LNG projects that will cost $50 billion."

Stop All Cop Cities: Lessons For a National Struggle (video)
https://vimeo.com/914852334?emci=6343507d-89eb-ee11-aaf0-002248223794&emdi=6943507d-89eb-ee11-aaf0-002248223794&ceid=36779

Cop Cities, USA
https://isyourlifebetter.net/cop-cities-usa/?emci=6343507d-89eb-ee11-aaf0-002248223794&emdi=6943507d-89eb-ee11-aaf0-002248223794&ceid=36779
"Click on the flag to link to one source for the information on that project location."

One Year Since Tortuguita’s Killing: A Reflection on our Coverage of the Movement Against ‘Cop City’ and the First Eco-Activist Killed in the US
https://unicornriot.ninja/2024/one-year-since-tortuguitas-killing-a-reflection-on-our-coverage-of-the-movement-against-cop-city-and-the-first-eco-activist-killed-in-the-us/
Not the first: Judi Bari (tree sitter), Karen Silkwood (anti-nuke), Anna Mae Aquash (opposed uranium mining) ...

Student-led climate action is flourishing in DeSantis’s Florida
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/03/university-of-florida-student-climate-action-flourishing-green-new-deal-desantis/
"As Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to block the clean energy transition, University of Florida students are adopting Green New Deal measures and showing how public schools can lead on climate."

SUSTAINABLE LIVING
The Land Back Movement Is Also About Foodways
https://civileats.com/2024/02/12/the-land-back-movement-is-also-about-foodways/

A nursery theory of social change
https://wagingnonviolence.org/cnv/2024/02/a-nursery-theory-of-social-change/
"By working on a forest farm, I have learned that trees can teach us how to protect land and water, remove carbon from the air and create cultures of care."

Researchers Develop Self-Heating Concrete to Deice Sidewalks Without Salt
https://www.ecowatch.com/self-heating-concrete-sidewalk-deicing-salt-alternative.html

Raising Baby Chicks – Beginners Guide for the First 6 Weeks
https://melissaknorris.com/podcast/raising-baby-chicks-beginners-guide-for-the-first-6-weeks/

ENDING ON A POSITIVE
How to Make Rice Milk
https://minimalistbaker.com/make-rice-milk/

Call To Action! 
We urge all groups including schools, neighborhood associations, organizations, clubs and groups of any kind to adopt a Climate Declaration.  Adopt ours or write your own.  Share your Climate Declaration with local governments, the media, write articles, and share information. 
Occupy Sonoma County Climate Declaration

Occupy Sonoma County, along with concerned, forward thinking people all over the world, declares that climate change has reached catastrophic proportions as evidenced by the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, the melting of polar ice caps, and the continual rising of global temperatures.  This is a global emergency, and we must act immediately.  We invite all forces of life to join together for our survival.  We stand up for life.

We recognize that the root of climate change is a capitalist system run by money greedy corporations and the governments that they control.  We actively oppose greenhouse gas producers, nuclear power investors, and fossil fuel companies by boycotting their products, developing alternatives, divesting from corporations that endorse them and insisting that governments at all levels take action.  We call on all governments and corporations to adopt life-sustaining practices immediately.

The people must act now to stop this destruction from continuing and reverse the damage this has caused.  The future is in our hands.  We are the 99%!

What Earth Actions are you taking?

https://OccupySonomaCounty.org
https://OccupySonomaCounty.org/es (en español)
http://facebook.com/OccupySonomaCounty
https://twitter.com/OcSoCo
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmJoCP-ePUTPWNgHZwtBelg

Occupy Sonoma County embraces the egalitarian, deep democracy principles of the Occupy Movement with a regional strategy for effectively organizing countywide social justice campaigns that are globally relevant.