MOTHER JONES DAILY: The Jan. 6 Insurrectionists Begging for Pardons Sound an Awful Lot Like Confederate Soldiers It’s now or never for Democrats to protect voting rights, DiCaprio ylang-ylang tree among 2021's amazing new species, Trump adviser: Getting kicked off Twitter has actually helped Trump, Can lab-grown palm oil save the world’s tropical forests?, USDA Secretary Vilsack’s Son Now Works for a Controversial Ethanol Pipeline Project 10JAN22

 

 

January 10, 2022

I've been in denial about Omicron for weeks.

Maybe you can sympathize. After two pandemic years, I was sick of wearing a mask. Vaccinated and boosted, I couldn't understand why I should worry about a milder, albeit more contagious, variant that is highly unlikely to send a healthy twentysomething to the hospital. I was, as they say, "vaxxed and done."

It wasn't until I read Ed Yong's latest piece in the Atlantic that I understood that a small number of severe cases out of a large number of infected people is still a massive burden on the hospital system. On an individual level, this means that if I crash my bike and need to go to the emergency room, I'll likely have to wait hours to be treated. Societally, it means a shortage of hospital workers—because they've either gotten sick or left the profession—and the collapse of the health care system as a whole. "This is the cost of two years spent prematurely pushing for a return to normal," Yong writes. "The lack of a normal to return to."

I've been thinking a lot about what the return to "normal" looks like, especially this weekend. In October 2020, I moved from New York City to Denver, but my old roommate hung onto the apartment. On Saturday, he moved upstate. It took me a while to figure out why this positive development in his life made me so sad. And then I realized that that apartment embodied my pre-pandemic life. When I visited last spring—climbing those same carpeted steps, eating pizza on that same ratty brown couch—I could almost pretend that things were as they had always been.

Soon, a stranger will sign the lease and start sleeping in my old bedroom. Things will never go back to the way they were, and I was foolish, in those early pandemic days, to think they would. I guess Omicron isn't the only thing I've been in denial about. Nothing lasts forever. And that's just the way things go.

Onward.

—Abigail Weinberg

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The Jan. 6 Insurrectionists Begging for Pardons Sound an Awful Lot Like Confederate Soldiers

The historical resonances are astounding.

BY ANTHONY CONWRIGHT

 

It’s now or never for Democrats to protect voting rights

BY ARI BERMAN

DiCaprio ylang-ylang tree among 2021's amazing new species

BY DAMIAN CARRINGTON

Trump adviser: Getting kicked off Twitter has actually helped Trump

BY DAN SPINELLI

Can lab-grown palm oil save the world’s tropical forests?

BY JAMES DINEEN

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USDA Secretary Vilsack’s Son Now Works for a Controversial Ethanol Pipeline Project

The “Midwest Carbon Express” will rely heavily on policies that Vilsack has been pushing for his entire career.

BY TOM PHILPOTT

 

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Cindy Crawford *SUPER BOWL AD ALERT* 27JAN18

TOO bad cindy crawford is so ignorant about the environmental and labor problems pepsi is causing in Indonesia that she did this new ad. Or maybe she is greedy and doesn't care. She can let us know if she publicly calls on pepsico to adopt and practice responsible palm oil policies. Please watch this video and sign the petition from SumOfUs......

Pepsi’s bringing back that steamy Cindy Crawford ad for the Super Bowl next week.   Old school soda machine, 90’s supermodel Cindy Crawford, retro music and drinks, this ad will show it all… well almost. One thing you won’t see in Pepsi’s Super Bowl ad is the company’s old school stance on palm oil and its ties to rainforest destruction and labor abuses.    We have a solution for that -- our very own retro ad!   To crash Pepsi’s Super Bowl party, we’re bringing back a spoof ad to get under Pepsi’s skin and force it to only use responsible palm oil.   To pressure Pepsi, we need as many people as possible watching the video before Super Bowl Sunday February 4. That’s where you come in. We need you to help us compete with the second most watched sporting event in the world. Can you watch and share the Super Bowl ad Pepsi doesn’t want you to see? Pepsi buys half a million metric tons of palm oil per year to make products that we buy like Doritos, Cheetos, Quaker Granola Bars, and Lay’s potato chips. The reality of what happens on oil palm plantations is very different to Pepsi’s fun, sexy, greenwashing advertising campaigns. Pepsi’s conflict palm oil is driving rainforest destruction and the extinction of already endangered animals like orangutans, tigers, and elephants. Workers in the palm oil industry are paid unethically low wages, and many don’t have adequate health and safety protection. With the Super Bowl around the corner, now’s the perfect time to spread the word about Pepsi’s practices, by watching the video and sharing the video with your friends, family, and colleagues. Click here to watch the video and then share it with your friends. Over the past 3 years we’ve made spoof ads together, and thanks to the SumOfUs community, the Doritos and Crystal Pepsi videos went viral, clocking around 25 million views. This helped bring PepsiCo back to the negotiating table, and forced it to come up with a new palm oil commitment.   But it’s still not good enough. Even after this week's smoke screen announcement that Pepsi would partially suspend business with IndoAgri, the snack food giant’s palm oil policy does not cover its Indonesian joint venture partner and palm oil offender, Indofood.   That’s why we have to keep up the pressure. Campaigning by the SumOfUs community has already pushed big companies like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Kellogg’s to adopt responsible palm oil policies.   Our eyes are set on Pepsi and we know they’re watching us too. We know this tactic works -- but we need your help to make this ad a the real star of this year’s Super Bowl. Click here to watch the video and then share it with your friends. Thanks for all that you do, Fatah, Andrea, and the team at SumOfUs More information: PepsiCo Admits Connection to Ongoing Labor Abuse In First Public Statement Following Investigative Report, Rainforest Action Network, 24 January 2018 Cindy Crawford is re-creating her iconic Pepsi ad for Super Bowl LII, The Washington Post, 22 January 2018

INDONESIA'S JUNGLE & PEATLANDS BURN, CORPORATE AMERICA MAKES EMPTY PROMISES 7MAR16

pepsi, johnson & johnson, and colgate-palmolive are responsible for the continuing burning of Indonesia. The ceos and corporate boards might as well be lighting the fires themselves. +Greenpeace USA  is part of a petition campaign to force these companies to stop buying palm oil and paper products from plantations planted on recently burned land. They must follow Indonesia's plans for stopping rainforest and peatland destruction. Please click one of the links to sign the petition, share it with friends and be sure to stop buying these companies products until they stop burning Indonesia. 

The palm oil industry is the number one cause of rainforest destruction in Indonesia. Tell PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive and Johnson & Johnson and other major brands to take urgent action to stop the destruction.

One of the greatest environmental disasters of the 21st century happened last September.

What's even more unbelievable is that it's going to happen all over again in just a few months. And it will keep happening every year unless we take action now.

When enormous forest fires tore across Indonesia just six months ago, they reduced millions of acres of vibrant, living tropical rainforest and peatland to smoking ash. The scale of devastation was immense — the fires spewed out more C02 than the entire country of Japan, made hundreds of thousands of people sick, and destroyed precious orangutan habitat.

Unless we make those responsible take action, these fires are coming back to cause even more destruction.

Will you tell major brands like PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive and Johnson & Johnson to stop the destruction of forests and peatland for palm oil?.

Those fires were no natural disaster. Over several decades, huge areas of forest have been slashed and burned, and watery peatland has been drained for palm oil and paper plantations. That destruction is the root cause of the forest fires.

We can change this. When we act together, we make a real difference on the ground. Last year over 253,000 of us told the Indonesian president: Stop letting paper and palm oil companies destroy forests and peatlands.

And it worked — the president moved quickly to bring in ambitious new plans to protect Indonesian peatland. But now, the big brands that buy palm oil from Indonesia need to step up and make this change happen. 

Brands like PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive and Johnson & Johnson all like to talk loudly about their 'no deforestation' policies. But despite promises and pledges, more of Indonesia’s rainforest is being destroyed right now than ever before. Empty promises aren’t working, because they’re not enforced on the ground. These brands have to give us real commitments, real timelines and real action against their suppliers who destroy forests and peatlands. And you can make them do it.

A forest fire in Indonesia may seem thousands of miles away, but the everyday products that cause this suffering are in our cupboards and on our bathroom shelves. Palm oil is in everything from cosmetics and shampoo to chocolate bars and breakfast cereals. It’s hard to avoid, and sustainable alternatives are so incredibly limited.

The only answer is to change the entire industry. I hope I can count on you to be a part of protecting these last precious forests.

For the Forests,

Rolf Skar
Forests Campaign Director, Greenpeace USA

P.S. Unless we force industry to stop trashing the rainforests for this palm oil, the last home of endangered orangutans will be lost forever. Take action now!

Re: Starbucks' dirty little secret...continued 9NOV15

HERE'S and update on the +Us @ SumOfUs petition campaign to get Starbucks to set a time table to start their sustainable palm oil policy. Here is the first post, and you can click the link below if you want to sign on .....
Update: 278,603 of us have already petitioned Starbucks to stop buying conflict palm oil! 
The good news -- Starbucks has changed its palm oil policy. The bad news -- the coffee giant still hasn't told us how it will achieve net zero deforestation.
Can you help push Starbucks to do the right thing? Here's what you can do:

	Forward the email below to at least five of your friends.
	Click here to share this campaign with your friends on Facebook.

Thanks for all that you do,
Carys, Hanna, Fatah and the rest of us

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Share email: 
Friends,

Starbucks is the world's largest coffee retailer -- and a purveyor of environment-wrecking palm oil.
Your Starbucks coffee break is likely to be contributing to deforestation, extinction of endangered tigers and orangutans, and abuses of workers and communities
Starbucks is listening closely and has updated its palm oil statement after almost 200,000 SumOfUs members petitioned the company to go deforestation-free! But, the statement still does not communicate how the company will achieve net zero deforestation.
Starbucks continues to fail to meet consumer demands -- sign and share the petition now to push Starbucks to stop purchasing conflict palm oil. http://action.sumofus.org/a/starbucks-palm-oil/
Thanks,
Craig

---

More information:
Starbucks and palm oil, wake up and smell the coffee, The Guardian, August 25, 2015
Starbucks exposed, SumOfUs.org
Starbucks and sustainable palm oil, Starbucks, October 2015
Ending deforestation, Starbucks, October 2015



SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3 .

Finger lickin' good news 4APR13

THIS shows that participating to calls to action, signing on line petitions, sending e mails and tweets and making phone calls does make a difference. From Greenpeace......

	Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser
Thanks to you, KFC is committing to this monumental breakthrough in rainforest conservation! Rainforests are worth a lot more than greasy napkins and chicken buckets. And finally KFC is starting to agree. Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, has officially released new policies that – if they stick – would prevent its restaurants from using throw-away paper packaging made from rainforest destruction. It is a huge shift that will affect almost 40,000 restaurants around the world. This is a big deal for the 400 Sumatran tigers left in the Indonesian rainforest. And this breakthrough is no coincidence. It was a result of your efforts. After Greenpeace showed that wood fiber from rainforest trees was ending up in chicken buckets, you and activists around the world spoke up, telling KFC and Yum! Brands executives that trashing tiger forests was not acceptable. Thank you for lending your voice to the orangutans, Sumatran tigers and other species who call the Indonesian rainforest home. You made this change possible. Only weeks ago I got to share with you that Asia Pulp & Paper, a major rainforest destroyer, had announced its commitment to end its deforestation. Now one of the world’s biggest fast food companies is taking another huge step forward to protect the world’s forests, making two big breakthroughs for the forest in this year alone. With this momentum, imagine what is possible in the years ahead. Of course, we are watching Yum! Brands closely to ensure that it really honors the commitments it has made and fills in the details of its plan. The company also has a long way to go to phase out palm oil, which is linked to rainforest destruction. Turning a blind eye to the problems with palm oil – from pushing orangutans to extinction in Indonesia to trashing rainforests and people’s rights in Africa – is not an option, especially when solutions to those problems are beginning to grow. We will continue to push Yum! Brands and other fast food restaurants to do more to end their part in deforestation. And if there is one thing that 2013 has made clear, it’s that your emails, tweets, Facebook posts and donations can help make even the biggest corporations change their tune. Thank you for all you made possible. Now let’s get back to work and do it again.  For the forests, Rolf Skar Greenpeace Forest Campaign Director