No Fracking California

We have enough water issues – we don’t need flammable water, too!

Dear Gabriel,

Fracking is the dangerous method of oil and gas drilling that’s causing poisoned water and air in Wyoming, earthquakes in Ohio, and tap water that lights on fire in Pennsylvania.

Fracking is happening here in California, too.

Yet state regulators have no idea where, or how much our state is being fracked — and even worse, California has no laws to ensure we are protected from fracking!

Last week, Vermont became the first state to pass a ban on hydraulic fracturing. As gas companies scramble to expand this risky drilling practice, Governor Brown needs to follow Vermont’s lead and stop the unregulated fracking of California, now.

Tell Governor Brown: Ban Fracking in California. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

California has some of the best environmental and public health protections in the country. And our state understands all too well the importance of our water, and keeping it clean.

But on fracking, we are dangerously behind, leaving our water at risk.

Fracking uses millions of gallons of our precious water, mixed with secret, toxic chemicals, pumped deep underground at high pressure to release trapped pockets of oil or gas — a process that has contaminated groundwater water across the country with toxic chemicals and gas.

Yet California’s Monterey shale formation — which stretches from Monterey County and the Central Valley to the Northern Los Angeles area, is a top prize for frackers. We can’t wait until a drilling disaster to take action.

Tell Governor Brown: Ban Fracking in California. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Despite the dangers, fracking also remains unregulated at the federal level. In a massive giveaway to his buddies at Halliburton, Dick Cheney exempted fracking from federal regulation in his 2005 energy bill.

Now, efforts to regulate the practice have met tremendous opposition from polluters, who appear to get the upper hand at every step.

President Obama has repeatedly caved to the gas industry, and substantially weakened new federal rules to reduce air pollution from fracking, to regulate it on federal lands, and even refused to take action to ban diesel fuel from fracking fluid.3

In California, the State Senate was considering a bill that would have set the strongest standards in the nation for companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking fluid. But pressure from the gas industry stalled the bill, and now it has been hopelessly watered down.4

Governor Brown shouldn’t continue allowing fracking to move forward as we wait for rules that may or may not be sufficient to protect our state.

Thank you for defending California from fracking.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Vote Today On Indefinite Detention

Gabriel,

UPDATE: They’re debating the NDAA even as I type. Our contacts in Congress tell us the tides are turning: It’s still an uphill battle, but we have a chance of beating indefinite detention.

Please call Congress right away and ask your member to end indefinite detention.

ORIGINAL: The timing couldn’t be any better: As Congress gets ready to vote on indefinite detention today, a judge just ruled that these provisions of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act are unconstitutional!

Congratulations to Chris Hedges and Revolution Truth — who spearheaded the lawsuit — and to the 50,000 Demand Progress members who signed on as grassroots supporters of the effort.

It’s a huge victory, but we need to keep pushing Congress to do the right thing too: The government is likely to appeal the court’s ruling, so we have to make sure we beat back indefinite detention during today’s vote.

Please click here to call your member of Congress right away — it’ll just take a minute and we’ll give you a call script you can use.

The vote is expected this afternoon, so we need calls to start pouring in first thing this morning.

Thanks!

Demand Progress

Earth’s Human Welfare

From Nation Of Change
by Bjorn Lomborg – Op-Ed
16 May 2012

The Smartest Ways to Save the World

If you had $75 billion to spend over the next four years and your goal was to advance human welfare, especially in the developing world, how could you get the most value for your money?

That is the question that I posed to a panel of five top economists, including four Nobel laureates, in the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 project. The panel members were chosen for their expertise in prioritization and their ability to use economic principles to compare policy choices.

Over the past year, more than 50 economists prepared research on nearly 40 investment proposals in areas ranging from armed conflicts and natural disasters to hunger, education, and global warming. The teams that drafted each paper identified the costs and benefits of the smartest ways to spend money within their area. In early May, many of them traveled to Denmark to convince the expert panel of the power of their investment proposals.

The panel’s findings reveal that, if spent smartly, $75 billion – just a 15% increase in current aid spending – could go a long way to solving many of the world’s challenges.

The single most important investment, according to the panel, would step up the fight against malnutrition. New research for the project by John Hoddinott of the International Food Policy Research Institute and Peter Orazem of Iowa State University focuses on an investment of $3 billion annually. This would purchase a bundle of interventions, including micronutrient provision, complementary foods, treatment for worms and diarrheal diseases, and behavior-change programs, all of which could reduce chronic under-nutrition by 36% in developing countries.

In total, such an investment would help more than 100 million children to start their lives without stunted growth or malnourishment. And comprehensive research now shows that such interventions would stay with them for life: their bodies and muscles would grow faster, their cognitive abilities would improve, and they would pay more attention in school (and stay there longer). Studies show that, decades down the line, these children would be more productive, make more money, have fewer kids, and begin a virtuous circle of dramatic development.

Such opportunities come sharply into focus when you ask some of the world’s best minds to find the biggest bang for the buck. Micronutrient provision is rarely celebrated, but it makes a world of difference.

Likewise, just $300 million would prevent 300,000 child deaths if it were used to strengthen the Global Fund’s Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria financing mechanism, which makes combination therapies cheaper for poor countries. Put in economic terms, the benefits are 35 times higher than the costs – even without taking into account that it safeguards our most effective malaria drug from future drug resistance. Later this year, donors will decide whether to renew this facility. The panel’s findings should help to persuade them to do so.

For a similar amount, 300 million children could be dewormed in schools. By not sharing their food with intestinal parasites, they, too, would become more alert, stay longer in school, and grow up to be more productive adults – another cause that needs much more public attention.

Expanding tuberculosis treatment and childhood immunization coverage are two other health investments that the expert panel endorses. Likewise, a $100 million annual increase in spending to develop a vaccine against HIV/AIDS would generate substantial benefits in the future.

As people in the developing world live longer, they are increasingly experiencing chronic disease; indeed, half of all deaths this year will be from chronic diseases in Third World countries. Here, the panel finds that spending just $122 million could achieve complete Hepatitis B vaccine coverage and avert about 150,000 annual deaths from the disease. Getting low-cost drugs for acute heart attacks to developing countries would cost just $200 million, and prevent 300,000 deaths.

The expert panel’s findings point to a compelling need to invest roughly $2 billion annually in research and development to increase agricultural output. Not only would this reduce hunger by increasing food production and lowering food prices; it would also protect biodiversity, because higher crop productivity would mean less deforestation. That, in turn, would help in the fight against climate change, because forests store carbon.

Read entire article at Nation of Change.

Rwandans Educate Harvard

From New York Times
by Stephanie Novak
13 May, 2012

Hands-On Medical Education in Rwanda

The success of Rwanda in providing health care to its poor has drawn the attention of the international community and has inspired a new program at Harvard University.

Rwanda was one of the poorest countries in the world in 1994, after a genocide claimed more than 500,000 lives and left the country with little or no access to medical services. In 2005, it began to rebuild its infrastructure. Now, according to the Rwandan Ministry of Health , the country provides health care and insurance to more than 90 percent of its population, inspiring medical leaders from around the globe to visit the African country to study its transformation.

Now, the Harvard School of Public Health is working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health to teach a course called Global Health Delivery in the village of Rwinkwavu twice a year.

“Rwanda is honestly starting to change the face of global health,” said Dr. Paul Farmer, one of the founders of Partners in Health , a nongovernmental organization that works in Rwanda and other poor countries. He is also the chairman of Harvard’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and one of the faculty members for its course in Africa.

In February, 30 African medical leaders met with Harvard faculty at the training and research center in Rwinkwavu to discuss the challenges of delivering health services in resource-poor settings. Six of these students were trained to become faculty members who will teach future classes, with the next sessions scheduled for July.

During the weeklong course, students and professors discussed case studies and conducted field visits throughout Rwanda. Because all the students are currently health workers — most are employees of the Rwandan Health Ministry — they are able to immediately apply what they learned in the Harvard course to their daily work.

Initially, the course was held only on Harvard’s campus, where students would discuss case studies on the difficulties of delivering medical services internationally.

But the course changed in February. A world away from Cambridge, Massachusetts, health professionals in Rwinkwavu discuss the same case studies. They also participate in live cases, in which students and faculty members interview doctors, nurses or other health workers, like the head of an organization working to deliver AIDS medications to the poor in Rwanda, to ask them about the challenges of their work. Visits to Rwandan clinics and hospitals allow students to see health care in action, and give them the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals to discuss solutions.

“To be a good global health provider, it’s good for students to see what others have done,” Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, who is both the Rwandan health minister and a Harvard faculty member, said by telephone.

Seeing potential for the course outside of Massachusetts, Dr. Binagwaho worked with Partners in Health to bring the Harvard curriculum to her home country.

“We hope to have students come from around the world and learn from them as well, and also have the students learning from each other, because they are all coming from countries where there are things ongoing,” she said.

Read entire article at New York Times

Reclaim Civil Liberties

Gabriel,

We can put an end to a shocking assault on our civil liberties.

Last year’s National Defense Authorization Act included language that could allow the military to detain civilian suspects INDEFINITELY without charge or trial.

This year’s NDAA could come up for a vote as soon as next week and we have a prime opportunity to reverse this travesty of justice.

Click here to fight back: Email your member of Congress right away.

Congressmen Adam Smith and Justin Amash will put forth an amendment to make it clear that the military does not have the power to arrest and indefinitely detain civilians without charging or trying them.

Please urge your lawmakers to support their efforts and help us spread word far and wide.

Just click here to email your member of Congress right away — a few seconds of effort will help us reclaim our cherished civil liberties.

Thanks.

-Demand Progress

PS: Help us reclaim our civil liberties. The vote could be next week, so please urge your friends to get involved right away.

Fly Kites for Afghan Women

Dear Gabriel,

Want to do something symbolic and meaningful for women’s rights on Mother’s Day?

Help us fly kites for women’s rights.

This Mother’s Day, Amnesty is inviting you to write a message of solidarity for Afghan women. We’ll put it on a kite — kite flying is a popular pastime in Afghanistan — and fly it during the NATO Summit in Chicago, May 20-21, where President Obama and Afghan President Karzai will be discussing Afghanistan’s transition.

Send your message of solidarity sky high. Write a note supporting Afghan women’s rights by Mother’s Day, May 13.

Why kites? Because while women and girls in Afghanistan make kites, they are not free to fly them because it’s considered socially unacceptable. Kites can therefore be a powerful symbol of discrimination against women and their exclusion from politics in Afghanistan.

Although the NATO Summit will discuss Afghanistan’s future, Afghan women won’t even be at the table! Unacceptable! That’s why Amnesty is holding a NATO Shadow Summit to bring this critical subject in front of NATO. After our event, we’ll fly your kites in front of the NATO Summit to make sure that these world leaders see our message: Don’t abandon Afghan women!

Despite modest gains over recent years, women and girls still face widespread human rights abuses including exclusion from political life, gender-based violence and discrimination. For example, President Karzai has publically endorsed a “code of conduct” allowing husbands to beat their wives.

Is this progress? We think not. There is real danger that women’s rights will get thrown under the bus as the U.S. searches for a quick exit from Afghanistan.

Women and girls in Afghanistan cannot afford to wait. Masiha Faiz, a defense attorney for Medica Mondiale, a women’s rights NGO, said that she’s been attacked for defending women accused of “moral crimes,” like fleeing abuse. The government does little to support human rights defenders like Masiha.

In 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton told women Afghan officials, “We will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.”

Yes, we will stand with Afghan women, always. This is a defining moment for the U.S. government to show that it will not abandon women. There is no peace without women’s and girls’ human rights.

Write your message of solidarity supporting Afghan women’s rights today — for Mother’s Day, for all days.

In solidarity,

Cristina M. Finch
Policy and Advocacy Director, Women’s Human Rights
Amnesty International USA

One God – Muslim and Jew

From Syracuse.com
by Sean Kirst/The Post-Standard
4 May 2012

A message for Shabbat: Love and mercy from the same God.

A quiet friendship breaks down walls: Photo (below) Imam Yaser Alkhooly (right), of the Islamic Society of Central New York, Rabbi Daniel Fellman of Temple Concord in Syracuse and Mohamed Khater (left), president of the Islamic Society. They’re pictured here at the Islamic Society; Alkhooly and Khater will speak tonight at Temple Concord.

Rabbi Daniel Fellman of Temple Concord was walking across a driveway last winter when he slipped and fell. While Fellman manages to laugh about the pain — leave it to him, he says, to find the only patch of black ice in Syracuse during an historically mild winter — the impact was no joke. It broke his back.

He soon heard from many worried friends, including Yaser Alkhooly and Mohamed Khater of the Islamic Society of Central New York. Alkhooly is imam – a religious leader and teacher – at the Comstock Avenue mosque, while Khater serves as president of the Islamic Society. Fellman was not surprised at their concern, even if that bond might be startling to Americans accustomed to supposed animosity between Muslims and Jews.

“I remember I brought some of the kids from our temple over here (to the Islamic Society) and they saw me put my arm around Yaser and Mohamed, and they were shocked,” Fellman said. “They were amazed, but I thought it’s good that we show them we can care about each other, as we want them to care about each other.”

The connection takes the spotlight tonight, when Alkhooly and Khater visit Temple Concord to speak during Shabbat, or the observance of the Jewish sabbath. Alkhooly said he intends to address the “two central components” of Islam, which involve the “oneness of worshipping one God” and the need for all Muslims to show mercy.

Those qualities, he said, provide a unifying factor for three great religions whose roots begin with Abraham — Islam, Judaism and Christianity. As for Khater, he intends to make a similar point: “We might have different laws, each of our religions might ask us to do different things, but in the end we have the same God and the values are really similar.”

Fellman said the friendship goes back for a few years, to the angry national dispute about the potential opening of an Islamic community center near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. Because the men who attacked the twin towers came from Muslim backgrounds, some Americans saw it as inappropriate to build a center for Islamic culture near a place of tragedy.

For his part, Fellman viewed those objections as baseless. He does not blame the millions of Muslims across the world for the actions of a few, any more than he would blame all Christians or Jews for the criminal actions of individuals raised within those faiths. Fellman made that point during an appearance on Central Issues, a WCNY television program hosted by George Kilpatrick. Alkhooly was a guest on the same show. Afterward, the two men found themselves sharing tales about their children.

“Yaser and I began to get to know each other,” Fellman said. The conversations became more frequent when Fellman, Khater and Alkhooly all served on ACTS, or The Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse. That coalition of local religious groups is dedicated to helping those of any faith who suffer from need or neglect.

“We live in Syracuse,” Alkhooly said, “and we all want to improve the city.”

The three friends concede they have political differences about Israel, the fate of the Palestinians and the Middle East. But political disagreements, they said, should not be enough to shatter larger commonalities. Indeed, one way toward resolving seemingly impossible global stalemates may be through small steps in faraway communities.

Work together, they agree, and it becomes impossible to see each other as the enemy.

Khater and Alkhooly noted how fear of the stranger has applied to each wave of American immigrants. Those barriers were easier to overcome, they said, when groups from different nations attended the same church. The fact that Muslims go to a mosque and Jews to a synagogue can still trigger suspicions about the motivations of each group.

What’s important to remember, Alkhooly said, is that American Muslims have the same goals as anyone else: They want peace, security and education for their children.

With Khater, Alkhooly will bring that message tonight to Temple Concord. While the three men say it will be a significant event, Fellman said it is only one result of the outreach that Khater and others within the Islamic Society have been doing for a long time.

“This is really nothing new,” Fellman said. “Mohamed has spent years and years building bridges in this community. If you ask me, for the rest of us, the real question is: Why has it taken this long?”

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard

Terror In Honduras

Dear Gabriel,

My name is Dina Meza, and I am a human rights journalist in Honduras.

I have dedicated my life to revealing the corruption and injustice oppressing Hondurans. Today I ask for your help defending the fundamental human right of freedom of expression.

Powerful people in my country wish journalists dead — because we have exposed human rights abuses, and covered issues related to corruption, state abuses and the actions of powerful groups.

Our families are also targeted. My children and I have been followed and photographed by two men not known to me.

Two weeks ago, I received three silent calls to my mobile phone. Earlier, I received a series of frightening text messages:

“We’ll burn your pussy with lime until you scream and the whole squad will enjoy it” — CAM*

“You’ll end up dead like people in the Aguan there’s nothing better than fucking some bitches”

Amnesty International is calling on Honduran officials to investigate these vicious threats against me and to protect my rights and the rights of all journalists in my country. Please take this action immediately.

These are not isolated threats. In 2006, my colleague, lawyer Dionisio Diaz Garcia, was shot and killed while on his way to the Honduran Supreme Court. Those responsible have still not been brought to justice for his murder.

Sometimes you have to kick the hornet’s nest to expose the truth. Our right to do so must be defended. The Honduran State must respect that.

Oppressors may threaten my life, but they will never deter this movement. We are stronger than fear, and we have human rights on our side.

If you believe in freedom of the press, please take this important action with Amnesty today.

In solidarity,

– Dina Meza
Director, Defenders Online
Activist with Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared, and for women’s rights

* CAM is an acronym for Comando Alvarez Martinez, a pseudonym which has been used in threats to human rights activists and journalists in Honduras.

Victoria’s Business in Zambia

From FINCA
by Paul Hamlin
27 April, 2012

Victoria Banda, Zambia

Yesterday in Zambia I visited a branch to talk to our lending staff, when Priscilla, our Lend a Hand representative, saw a client she knew and introduced me. Hearing her story made it easier for me to stay up a little longer last night to finish my work.

Victoria Banda (36, on the right of the photo standing next to her mother) did not finish primary or secondary school. She is now the main income earner for her household and lives with her parents, and two sisters. In 2001 she borrowed $20 to expand food sales through her storefront. Over the years she has managed to continually grow and improve her business, now operated out of a store in front of her home, expand the family house and even acquire a rental property. In the meantime, her younger sister was able to complete college with Victoria’s financial support.

Asked if FINCA helped her, she replied enthusiastically “Yes.” She then spoke about how slowly she was able to build up her business and that her role in her family has grown along with her business. As a single person without children her business transformed her into what she described as the ‘pillar’ of her family, supporting her mother and close relatives when they are in need.

I then asked if she could have envisioned this over ten years ago when she started with FINCA and she said “Definitely not. I’m a landlord now! Can you imagine?” Her energy and determination combined with our loans allowed her to improve her home, help her younger sister through college and acquire other property that provides her rental income.”

Read more stories at FINCA

Climate Change Science

From Nation of Change and IPS News
by Stephen Leahy
5 May 2012

Standing Up for the Planet and the Future

There’s been a general perception that climate change is a future problem but with all the extreme weather disasters and weather records the public is being to realise that climate change is here, says Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org, a U.S.-based environmental group.

“Recent opinion surveys show the more than 60 percent of the U.S. public are connecting extreme weather to climate change,” Henn told IPS.

The U.S. public is not wrong, say scientists.

“All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be,” Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, told IPS previously.

Last year the U.S. endured 14 separate billion-dollar-plus weather disasters including flooding, hurricanes and tornados.

This year, most of the U.S. and Canada experienced summer in winter with record-shattering heat waves in March. More than 15,000 temperature records were broken in the U.S. which had its first billion-dollar weather disaster of the year. In most places, the spring month of April was colder than March.

“What kind of future are we leaving for our children if we keep putting more carbon into the atmosphere?” asks Nix.

As a former scientist who used to work for the oil industry in Canada’s tar sands, he has a pretty good idea of what’s coming unless fossil fuels are phased out. Catastrophic consequences including everything from droughts, floods, forest fires, food shortages, to increases in tropical diseases and political chaos.

“Politicians are not leading. Corporations are only interested in quick profits. They are the real radicals in our society,” says Nix. This is a reference to a high-level Canadian official who accused environmentalists of having a “radical ideological agenda” in an open letter.

“There is no one left to protect the future for our children but the public,” says Nix.

Every day, six long trains each carrying up to 10,000 tonnes of coal from the U.S. and British Columbia (BC) travel the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) rail line to the Westshore Coal Terminal at Delta, BC just north of the U.S. border. It is the busiest coal export port in North America.

The climate-heating carbon in the coal exported every year is equivalent to the annual emissions for the entire province of BC of 4.5 million people and many energy-intense industries like aluminium smelting and mining, says Nix.

“We have to stop burning coal. Leading scientists like James Hansen have made that clear,” he said.

Nix and other members of British Columbians for Climate Action have asked to meet with government officials to work out a plan to phase out coal exports. Their requests have been ignored. Now they have asked U.S. billionaire Warren Buffet to take action. His company Berkshire Hathaway Inc owns BNSF, one of the largest freight networks in North America.

Buffet has previously cancelled plans to build new coal-fired plants in the U.S. In a letter to Buffet, British Columbians for Climate Action write, “…when it comes to climate change it appears that other people are doing all the suffering while you profit from the very causes of the problem.”

On Saturday, 23-year-old Brandon Cormier wants to inform her local residents in the small Canadian town of Orangeville, Ontario about one of the sources of the climate change problem, Canada’s huge tar sands operation that boils oil out sands under its northern forests.

Cormier is organizing a demo-fest event as part of International Stop the Tar Sands Day*, which is also May 5.

“I am hoping to make local people more aware of climate change, and that the tar sands are a big contributor,” says Cormier, who has never done anything like this.

International Stop the Tar Sands Day has been held annually since 2010 with events in 50 cities around the world last year. It involves playful demonstration-festivals involving music, dancing, costumes, handing out flowers and postcards as part of an awareness-raising effort.

The tar sands operations in the province of Alberta supply the US with more than 2.4 million barrels of heavy oil a day. Considered “dirty oil” because requires large amounts of natural gas and clean water to extract it from the ground, it is under growing international pressure as a major source of carbon emissions and over destruction of thousands of kilometers of forests and wetlands.

“Not many people I know want to help me with this. They think that it is silly being so far away (from Alberta)….But I won’t let that discourage me. It’s everyone’s planet.”

Read entire report at Nation of Change.