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      Biden is right to praise the auto strike. His climate agenda depends on it | Kate Aronoff

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      Joe Biden had to choose a side in the United Auto Workers’ contract fight with the “big three” American automakers, and he did. This week, he became the first US president to walk a picket line while in office when he joined strikers in Belleville, Michigan, offering enthusiastic support for their demands. Biden should be thanking the UAW for handing him a golden opportunity: to prove that the green jobs his administration is creating will be good, union jobs, too, and that climate policy will bear dividends for the working class.Republicans cosplaying solidarity have tried to exploit the strike to score cheap political points. As Republican presidential hopefuls debated this week, Donald Trump told a rally at a non-union plant in Michigan that the strike wouldn’t “make a damn bit of difference” because the car industry was “being assassinated” by “EV mandates”. (Whether there were any union members or even autoworkers in the room isn’t clear.) Ohio senator JD Vance has similarly blamed autoworkers’ plight on “the premature transition to electric vehicles” and “Biden’s war on American cars”.These are cynical, false talking points from politicians who couldn’t care less about autoworkers – but they aren’t going away. (Although similar lines are old hat in the US, they’re finding new purchase in places like 10 Downing Street: Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, has recently taken a “U-turn” on climate goals, citing “unacceptable costs” for “hard-working British people”.) Optimistically, the UAW strike could be a chance to dismantle the rightwing myth that reducing emissions hurts working people – not by pointing to the jobs that will trickle down from the bosses of the energy transition, but by standing with the unions fighting to make those jobs better.Being willing to go on offense against automakers’ bad behavior is a great start and a big shift. The Biden administration has routinely praised car manufacturers as climate heroes poised to decarbonize the country and create millions of middle-class jobs along the way, turning the industry into a sort of mascot for its climate agenda. “You changed the whole story, Mary,” Biden told General Motors’ chief executive, Mary Barra, a frequent White House guest, in 2021. “You electrified the entire automobile industry. I’m serious.”White House climate policy will be good for Barra and her colleagues at the top. The business-side tax credits and government-backed loans furnished by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are already helping the big three retool factories to produce EVs and their component parts. The IRA’s consumer-side subsidies for American-made electric cars – worth up to $7,500 – will boost demand.Yet no one should confuse companies taking advantage of tax breaks with a commitment to the climate fight. The big three lag well behind their competition in the US and abroad; federal incentives are helping them play catch-up. They’ve lobbied to undermine fuel efficiency and clean car standards, including through front groups like the Automotive Alliance. Like oil and gas companies, GM and Ford knew for decades that their products fueled climate change, and proceeded to double down on gas-guzzling models and political attacks on laws and regulations that might hem in their emissions. They still bankroll the campaigns of Republicans dead-set on stopping climate policy.Neither is it a given that EV subsidies benefiting companies will benefit workers there, too. Automakers are already using electrification as an excuse to supercharge attempts to ship jobs to less union-friendly states, and split workers off from their master agreement with the big three.Biden’s decision to join the strike would be remarkable on its own. Beyond the obvious symbolism, his presence there lends tangible material support to workers’ demands, handing the union leverage over companies that might otherwise reasonably assume he’d have their backs.It could also usher in a broader shift in the way he and other Democrats talk about climate policy. Impressive as the IRA is, its most direct benefits accrue largely to companies and consumers with enough cash on hand to afford up-front payments for big-ticket items like solar panels and heat pumps. Like Bidenomics more generally, its goal isn’t to reduce emissions so much as to build out domestic supply chains for clean energy goods, making US companies less reliant on and more competitive against Chinese firms in sectors that will be increasingly important over the coming decades.Targeting climate policy at corporations and affluent consumers doesn’t make a great counterargument to Republicans eager to frame it all as elitist virtue signaling, and win elections accordingly. What the Republican party can be reliably expected to do, though, is side with the bosses. That’s where even self-professed “car guy” Joe Biden might be able to set himself apart – by being willing to offend the automakers so that the rewards of America’s green industrial policy aren’t hoarded at the top.Standing alongside Biden in Belleville this week, the UAW president, Shawn Fain, offered as good a framing for that approach as any. “This industry is of our making,” he said. “When we withhold our labor, we can unmake it. And as we’re going to continue to show: when we win this fight with the big three, we’re going to remake it.”
      Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at the New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet – And How We Fight Back More

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      Biden uses executive power to create New Deal-style American Climate Corps

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      President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.In an announcement on Wednesday, the White House said the program would employ about 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.Biden had previously been thwarted by Congress on creating a climate corps. The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps. The program is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by the Democratic president Franklin D Roosevelt as part of the New Deal.“This summer, our country saw heat waves, wildfires and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families and claimed hundreds of lives,” the Sunrise Movement and other organizations wrote on Monday in a letter to Biden’s White House.“While previous executive orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time,” the groups wrote.More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including the Massachusetts senator Ed Markey and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a separate letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale”.The lawmakers cited deadly heatwaves in the south-west and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.A federal climate corps would “prepare a whole generation of workers for good-paying union jobs in the clean economy” while helping to “fight climate change, build community resilience and support environmental justice”, the lawmakers wrote.The White House declined to say how much the program will cost or how it will be paid for, but Democrats proposed $10bn for the climate corps in the climate bill before the provision was removed.Republicans have largely dismissed the climate corps as a do-gooder proposal that would waste money and could even take jobs away from other workers displaced by the Covid-19 pandemic.“We don’t need another FDR program, and the idea that this is going to help land management is a false idea as well,” the Arkansas representative Bruce Westerman, chairman of the House natural resources committee, said in 2021.Congressman Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat who has co-sponsored a climate corps bill, said it was important to train the next generation of federal land managers, park rangers and other stewards of our natural resources. Neguse and other Democrats have said the program should pay “a living wage” while offering healthcare coverage and support for childcare, housing, transportation and education.A key distinction between the original Civilian Conservation Corps and the new climate contingent is that, unlike the in 1930s, the US economy is not in an economic depression. The US unemployment rate was 3.8% in August, low by historical measures.The new corps is also likely to be far more diverse than the largely white and male force created 90 years ago.The White House climate adviser, Ali Zaidi, said the administration would work with at least six federal agencies to create the climate corps and would pair with at least 10 states. California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan and Washington have already begun similar programs, while five more are launching their own climate corps, Zaidi said: Arizona, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina and Utah.The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects that tackle the climate crisis, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; deploying clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to improve health and prevent catastrophic wildfires; and implementing energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said. More

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      Climate activists block Federal Reserve bank, calling for end to fossil fuel funding

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      One day after the largest climate march since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of climate activists blockaded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to call for an end to funding for coal, oil and gas, with police making scores of arrests.“Fossil fuel companies … wouldn’t be able to operate without money, and that money is coming primarily from Wall Street,” Alicé Nascimento, environmental campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said hours before she was arrested.The action came as world leaders began arriving in New York for the United National general assembly (UNGA) gathering and followed Sunday’s 75,000-person March to End Fossil Fuels, which focused on pushing Biden to urgently phase out fossil fuels. Monday’s civil disobedience had a different but compatible goal, said Renata Pumarol, an organizer with the campaign group Climate Defenders.“Today we want to make sure people know banks, big banks, are responsible for climate change, too,” she said. “And while marches are important, we think civil disobedience is, too, because it shows we’re willing to do whatever it takes to end fossil fuels, including putting ourselves on the line.”Monday’s action was organized by a coalition of local organizations including New York Communities for Change and Extinction Rebellion NYC, alongside national groups such as Climate Organizing Hub and 350.org. Demonstrators first gathered in New York’s Zuccotti Park, in the financial district in lower Manhattan, which is partially owned by fossil fuel investor Goldman Sachs.The small concrete urban space was the base for the original Occupy Wall Street protests 12 years ago.On Monday, demonstrators then marched in the rain to the nearby New York Federal Reserve building, the largest of the network of 12 federal banks dotted around the country that make up the central bank of the United States.Protesters blockaded multiple entrances into the bank while singing, beating drums and holding up signs. Over 100 people were arrested, according to the New York City Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, with organizers estimating that roughly 150 arrests were made.“If you arrest one of us, one hundred more will come,” activists chanted.The protesters called attention to both public and private fossil fuel financing. Globally, government subsidies for coal, oil and gas reached a record high of $13m per minute in 2022 last year – equivalent to 7% of global GDP and almost double what the world spends on education – according to the International Monetary Fund.Last year, the US also ranked 16th among the G20 countries on a scorecard by the independent economic research group Green Central Banking, which the researchers say indicates US financial regulators are falling behind their international peers on climate risk mitigation.Meanwhile, since the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, major private banks have provided some $3.2tn to the fossil fuel industry to expand operations, far outstripping the amount that global north governments have collectively spent on international climate finance, an analysis from ActionAid, the Washington DC-based non-profit, found this month. Another recent analysis from the Sierra Club environmental group found that major global banks have announced climate pledges but nonetheless financed coal energy across the US.Monday’s action came after a slew of global protests last week, some of which targeted financial institutions. In New York, dozens rallied outside of the headquarters for asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels. And on Friday, protesters targeted the Museum of Modern Art over its relationship to fossil fuel investor KKR.Another protest is planned for Tuesday at New York City’s Bank of America offices, with additional actions throughout the week as the United Nations hosts its Climate Ambition Summit as part of the UNGA. More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells climate marchers to be ‘too big and too radical to ignore’ – live

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      From 1h agoThe crowd cried out in cheers for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who thanked them for showing up and highlighting the urgency of the climate crisis.“This issue is the issue, one of the most important issues of our time,” she said, adding: “We must be too big and too radical to ignore.”Climate action requires a democratic restructuring of the economy, she said.“What we’re not gonna do is go from oil barons to solar barons,” she told the crowd.The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit global network comprising 3.5 million climate activists, was one of the many organizations present at the march in New York City today.
      We are mobilizing around the summit to leverage national and international pressure to demand leaders change course.
      This is a critical moment for mass mobilization on fossil fuels that could ignite bigger and bolder climate action.
      Here is a tweet by Oil Change International of the various climate change marches that were staged around the world this week, including today’s rally in New York City.
      This is a big, beautiful climate movement & we’re calling on world leaders to #EndFossilFuels NOW. No more talk, we need action!
      Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, announced that she is working on a musical about the climate crisis.She and three cast members previewed a song from the show called Panic. “We want you to panic / We want you to act / You stole our future / And we want it, we want it back.”“Don’t let the cynics win. The cynics want us to think that this isn’t worth it. The cynics want us to believe that we can’t win. The cynics want us to believe that organizing doesn’t matter, that our political system doesn’t matter, that our economy doesn’t matter,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd of cheering protestors.“We’re here to say that we organize out of hope, we organize out of commitment, we organize out of love, we organize out of the beauty of our future. We will not give up! We will not let go! We will not allow cynicism to to prevail! We will not allow our vision of a collaborative economy, of dignity for working people, of honoring the Black, brown, Indigenous, white working class! We will not give up and that is what we are here to do today!” she added.“The United States continues to be approving record number of fossil fuel leases and we must send a message, right here today – that has got to end!”Earlier this month, AOC spoke to the Guardian and said that “there’s a very real danger here,” in reference to the presidential 2024 elections and the climate crisis.The crowd cried out in cheers for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who thanked them for showing up and highlighting the urgency of the climate crisis.“This issue is the issue, one of the most important issues of our time,” she said, adding: “We must be too big and too radical to ignore.”Climate action requires a democratic restructuring of the economy, she said.“What we’re not gonna do is go from oil barons to solar barons,” she told the crowd.Here are more images coming through the newswires from the march:World leaders have ‘forgotten’ responsibility to Mother EarthVeteran Indigenous organizer Tom Goldtooth, who is executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, attended the march. “I’m here at the request of spiritual authorities within our Indigenous network,” he said.“They said that this United Nations secretary general’s summit on climate ambition has no spiritual soul to it – that the world leaders have forgotten what the responsibility is to understand the sacredness of Mother Earth.”He decried world leaders’ focus on technological solutions like geoengineering, as well as carbon offset markets, which studies show often do not result in lowered emissions.“We’re here to renew not only our relationship but humanity’s relationship to building sustainable communities based upon regenerative economy, living economy, not a fossil fuel economy,” he said.“The fight for the planet is not a personal issue, it’s a collective issue,” said Grant Miner, a graduate student representing the labor contingent with the Student Workers of Columbia University. “The economy that we have now is structured around killing the planet for profit.”“We’re asking Biden to divest fossil fuels,” said Sincere Cheong, who marched alongside thousands of other people. “The world is being destroyed and if we don’t cut back right now we won’t be able to limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees.”Tens of thousands of people in New York City have kicked off a week of demonstrations seeking to end the use of coal, oil and natural gas blamed for climate change.“This is an incredible moment,” said Jean Su of Center for Biological Diversity, who helped organize the mobilization.
      Tens of thousands of people are marching in the streets of New York because they want climate action, and they understand Biden’s expansion of fossil fuels is squandering our last chance to avoid climate catastrophe.
      Su said the action was the largest climate protest in the US since the start of the pandemic, with organizers estimating around 75,000 protestors taking to the streets in New York City.She added:
      This also shows the tremendous grit and fight of the people, especially youth and communities living at the frontlines of fossil fuel violence, to fight back and demand change for the future they have every right to lead.
      In addition to celebrities and lawmakers, kids from across the country as well as elderly people showed up at the protests, waving climate signs and chanting alongside event organizers.New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who previously championed the Green New Deal alongside Senator Bernie Sanders, is also expected to address the crowd later this afternoon.Sunday’s demonstration comes ahead of the the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says will focus on on bold new climate pledges.In its citations for its climate journalists of the year, Covering Climate Now said:
      Manka Behl of the Times of India was praised by judges for reports “from the frontlines of the crisis in one of the world’s most climate-important countries” and for her interviews with leaders.

      Damian Carrington of the Guardian was credited for science-based reporting that “explains that politics and corporate power, not a lack of green technologies, are what block climate progress”, and cited for leading a reporting team on investigating “carbon bombs” and super-emitting methane leaks.

      Amy Westervelt was described as a prolific, multiplatform reporter for Critical Frequency whose work exposes how fossil fuel companies continue to mislead the public and policymakers alike.
      “Every news outlet on earth can learn from the engaged, hard-hitting journalism that Manka, Damian and Amy bring to the climate story,” said Mark Hertsgaard, the executive director of Covering Climate Now. “It’s reporting like this that arms the public with the power that knowledge gives.”The awards also recognized six Special Honors winners for “rigorous investigative reports, eye-opening exposes of climate injustice, and much-needed analyses of climate solutions”:Covering Climate Now, the global journalism collaboration, is announcing its media awards this week at a time when audiences need to know how and why “the planet is on fire” and what can be done, judges said.CCN’s three climate journalists of the year for 2023 are Damian Carrington of the Guardian, Manka Behl of the Times of India and Amy Westervelt, the founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network.Naomi Klein, the international bestselling author, won in the commentary category, while Ishan Kukreti of the Indian non-profit Scroll.in won for long-form writing.Covering Climate Now is a global collaboration involving some 600 news outlets with a reach of more than 2 billion people, and its media awards program was launched three years ago to spread standards of excellence in climate journalism.This year’s winners were selected from a list of finalists from more than 1,100 entries from 29 countries, and chosen by more than 100 journalists.Children showed up in droves for the march to end fossil fuels.“We’re here today because our planet deserves a future,” Ida, 12, said.Gus, a six-year-old, travelled from Boston for the march with his mother, Laura. “We’re here to end fossil fuels … so we can stop climate change,” he said.Aviva, a seven-year-old Brooklynite who attended the march with her mom and sister, spoke into the megaphone. “Hey hey, ho,” she shouted, as the crowd responded: “Fossil fuels have got to go!”As the climate rally in New York City continues, climate activists in Germany sprayed orange paint on to Berlin’s popular Brandenburg Gate on Sunday in attempts to call on the German government to stop using fossil fuels.“The protest makes it clear: it is time for a political change,” the climate activist group the Last Generation said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.“Away from fossil fuels – towards fairness,” it added.The Associated Press reports that police have blocked the area around the historic gate and confirmed that they have detained 14 activists that are affiliated with the Last Generation.Mentions of gas stoves are emerging as a theme among the many signs protesters are holding up at the march to end fossil fuels.This April, New York became the first US state to ban gas stoves in new residential building construction as research emerged about its dangers for human health.At the march, the Rev Lennox Yearwood, head of the Hip Hop Caucus, likened today’s climate movement to the US fight for racial justice.“We’re at our lunch counter moment for the 21st century,” he said.A native of Louisiana, he said he was excited to see demonstrators support environmental justice activists’ fight to end petrochemical buildout in the south-west US.“We need to end fossil fuels in all forms,” he said.Protesters chanted: “We are unstoppable, another world is possible.”Others sang Leonard Cohen’s Anthem: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”Here is video by the Guardian’s visual reporter Aliya Uteuova on the fossil fuels march in New York City this afternoon.The activists will be marching to the United Nations ahead of the UN Climate Ambition Summit that is set to take place in a few days.Veteran environmental activist Bill McKibben travelled to New York City to attend the march.“I think it’s a real restart moment after the pandemic for the big in-the-streets climate movement,” he said. “It’s good to see people get back out there.”The crowd, he said, reflected the diversity of New York City.“I’m glad to see there’s a lot of old people like me here,” said McKibben, who founded Third Act, an activist group aimed at elders. “We’ll be marching in the back because we’re slow!”Climate scientist Peter Kalmus at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab also spoke at the press conference, saying that he has two kids in high school and that he’s “terrified for their future”.“I’m terrified for my future right now,” he added.“We are so clearly in a fucking climate emergency. Why won’t Biden declare it?” he said. More

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      AOC, the change agent: inside the 8 September Guardian Weekly

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s explosive entrance on to the US political scene at the age of 29, as the youngest woman ever to be elected to the House of Representatives, was a beacon of hope for the progressive left during the dark days of the Trump presidency.Five years on, AOC is established as an influential figure in the Democratic party, known for her advocacy of green policies and efforts to engage marginalised groups. In a wide-ranging interview, she talks to Washington bureau chief David Smith about the climate crisis, misogyny in US politics and the potential – one day – for a presidential run of her own.For many school and college students, this time of year marks a new term. But in England, a major political row has been threatening to engulf the government as safety fears over a form of aerated concrete used in many public buildings have forced more than 100 schools to remain closed, as Peter Walker and Sally Weale report.For those with an eye farther afield, on the graduate jobs market, Hibaq Farah and Tom Ambrose consider the future careers most likely to withstand the coming onslaught of artificial intelligence.In Features, Matthew Bremner’s investigation into the massacre of migrants in the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla is a sobering but important read. Jay Owens changes the pace somewhat with an exploration of dust, and what it reveals about the world around us.Olivia Rodrigo is one of pop’s hottest properties – but much of the simple joys of her teenage years were lost in a previous life as a child TV actor. She opens up to Laura Snapes about her second album and trying to make sense of her life.To round off, our lifestyle pages have a Middle Eastern flavour this week, with a delicious recipe from Meera Sodha for herbed saffron rice with pistachios, and tips on how to make the perfect hummus.Get the magazine delivered to your home address More

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      ‘There’s a very real danger here’: AOC on 2024, the climate crisis and ‘selling out’

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      The campaign office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sits deep in the Bronx, across the street from a Chinese takeaway and 99-cent discount store, near enough to a railway bridge to hear the rumble of passing trains. The front window of the plain redbrick building is dominated by a big, smiling photo of the US congresswoman and notices that say: “We welcome all races, all sexual orientations, all gender identities, all religions, all abilities,” and “We say gay in the Bronx”. Inside, the words “¡AOC! ORGANIZING BASE” are printed in giant purple letters on a wall.Ocasio-Cortez, who at 29 became the youngest woman and youngest Latina to serve in the House of Representatives, is now 33, twice re-elected and comfortable in her political skin. She could hardly be described as an old hand but nor does she channel the shock of the new. She deploys social media with enviable authenticity; she grills congressional witnesses like a seasoned interrogator; she is an object of perverse fascination for Fox News and rightwing trolls; she has been around Washington long enough to draw charges of “co-option” and “selling out”.“AOC Is Just a Regular Old Democrat Now,” ran a headline on New York magazine’s Intelligencer website in July. The article’s author, Freddie deBoer, argued that Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance on the Pod Save America podcast to announce her endorsement of Joe Biden for president in the 2024 election was her “last kiss-off to the radicals who had supported her, voted for her, donated to her campaign, and made her unusually famous in American politics”.The Ocasio-Cortez who sits for an interview with the Guardian is clearly aware of the leftist’s eternal dilemma – purity versus pragmatism – and determined to navigate it with care. She makes clear that Biden cannot take progressives for granted next year but urges Democrats to unite against the bigger threat of “fascism” in America. She condemns the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, but wants the US to be clear about its aims there and acknowledge “the anxieties of our history”.And after a summer of extreme heat and wild weather, she evidently worries that incrementalism will not be enough to address a climate crisis that is crying out for revolution.Ocasio-Cortez’s first legislative proposal after arriving on Capitol Hill was a Green New Deal that envisions a 10-year national mobilisation in the spirit of President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal. That went nowhere, but last year Biden did sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law, touting its $369bn investment in clean energy and climate action as the biggest of any nation in history.However, the president also approved more oil and gas drilling permits in his first two years in office than his predecessor, Donald Trump, according to the Bureau of Land Management.It is, Ocasio-Cortez acknowledges, a mixed picture. “What is difficult is that the climate crisis does not really care about the political complexities that we very much have to grapple with in our work,” she says, wearing a blue dress with floral shoulder pattern and sitting on a long wooden seat dotted with black and yellow cushions.“We can celebrate all of these policies that result in reductions but we also can’t erase them with increased oil and gas production. I’m very concerned about where our net math is on that because we can calculate, yes, we had an enormous amount of reductions that are represented in the Inflation Reduction Act, but this is not something that can be measured necessarily in dollars and cents.“It’s measured in carbon tonnes and in emissions and there’s a lot of funny math that happens in emissions when people talk about clean coal and how fracking somehow reduces our carbon emissions, when we know that it increases methane, which is far more powerful than CO2. While on one hand we can applaud the progress, on the other hand that in no way erases the the setbacks that we’ve had.”Ocasio-Cortez has joined Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senator Bernie Sanders in introducing a bill calling on the president to declare a national climate emergency to unleash every resource available. In early August, Biden claimed that he had “practically” declared such an emergency, but in reality he has not.Even so, the congresswoman says: “I believe he understands the scale of the crisis. I think what we are up against, which perhaps should be discussed more for those of us in the climate movement, is the geopolitics of this.”She goes on to describe a challenge that is bigger than one man or one nation. “The shift in energy represents a real threat to traditional power globally. As we shift away from non-renewables, we are talking about threatening power among some of the most influential institutions in the United States, in Latin America and globally. That is something that is going to have profound ramifications, all of which I don’t even believe we can fully appreciate yet.“I think that is what drives an enormous amount of blowback and resistance. When you look at, for example, the influence of the Koch brothers in US democracy, they basically have historically purchased enormous amounts of influence over the United States Senate. They are oil barons. These are fossil fuel companies that have exerted huge amounts of influence both in US democracy and in global interests.”Ocasio-Cortez also points to the power and influence of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and Middle Eastern nations such as the United Arab Emirates. “When we talk about the transition to renewable energies, wrapped inside that is a profound challenge to the current global order and that, I believe, is something that we’re going to have to contend with in our time.”For the left, the war in Ukraine is potentially more complicated. Putin’s invasion is by any measure an affront to morality. But US support for Ukraine has put critics of the military-industrial complex (the government spends about $900bn a year on defence, around 15% of the federal budget or 3.3% of the gross domestic product) in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the Pentagon and endorsing a windfall for defence contractors. Longtime sceptics of US imperialism suddenly find themselves aligned with Republican hawks.Ocasio-Cortez articulates the uneasy accommodation: “It’s a legitimate conversation. I think on one hand, it is important for us to underscore what a dramatic threat to global order Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is and continues to be. We must defend democracy. We cannot allow this reversion into almost a late 19th-century imperial invasion order – it is so incredibly destabilising and dangerous. We must fight against that precedent. We must protect the democracy of Ukraine and the sovereignty of Ukraine 100%.“I think it’s also relevant to acknowledge that this is happening on the heels of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and how many of us were raised growing up saying this was going to be temporary, and it became a forever war. I believe that acknowledging the anxieties of our history of that is relevant.“Indicating to the people of this country what are we looking for, what are the levels of accountability, is not something that I think is an affront to democracy. I think the American people understandably want clarity about what our commitments are, to what extent they are. I think that is absolutely fair. We do not want a forever war and we also don’t want a return to a 19th-century imperial order either.”A self-described democratic socialist, Ocasio-Cortez has not been afraid to buck Democratic leadership, including by voting against a deal that Biden negotiated with Republicans in May to raise the debt ceiling. In 2020 she made the provocative comment that, in any other country, she and Biden would not be in the same party. Yet she has endorsed his re-election in 2024. Does that mean she has travelled towards him or he towards her?“I think it means that we have a US political system that’s not parliamentary, to my envy of many other countries,” she replies deftly. “There were so many people that were so up in arms about that comment, which I likely maintain to this day. But I find that parliamentary systems allow for a larger degree of honesty about the political coalitions that we must make. It’s not anything negative towards the president or towards anybody else.“It’s just a reality that we have very different political coalitions that constitute the Democratic party and being able to define that, I actually think grants us much power. It’s to say, listen, I am not defined by nor do I agree with all of the stances of this president, and I’m sure neither does he with mine.“But that does not mean that we are not in this together against the greater forces and questions of our time, and I think being able to demonstrate that ability to coalesce puts us in a position of far greater strength than, say, the Republican party who are at each other’s necks to the extent that they can’t even fund the government.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThere has been no greater rallying point for Democrats of all stripes than Trump. As Paul Begala, a former White House adviser, has observed: “Nothing unites the people of Earth like a threat from Mars.” Ocasio-Cortez, a celebrated member of “the Squad” of House progressives, regards continued solidarity as imperative for as long as the quadruple-indicted former president menaces US democracy.She warns: “We should be candid about the fact that his chances as the nominee are still the strongest, probably out of the entire [Republican] field, and what that means. There’s very real danger here because with our electoral college, we know it doesn’t matter how many millions more votes you get. It’s about the smattering of states who just represent a few thousand votes’ difference between Trump and Biden.“We are not in 2020, and seeing what that turnout may look like is something that I’m sure keeps many of us up at night. But that being said, I know that this is why, to me, support of President Biden has been very important, because this question is larger than any policy differences. This is truly about having a strong front against fascism in the United States.”But will that be enough to motivate the progressive base in 2024? Trump has no serious primary challenger, but his approval rating remains mired in the 40s. A recent Emerson College polling survey found the Green party candidate Cornel West drawing support from 7% of independents, 8% of Black voters and 7% of Hispanics – key parts of the Biden coalition. In a hypothetical presidential election, the survey found 44% support Trump, 39% Biden, 4% West and 13% undecided.Ocasio-Cortez acknowledges that, after defeating Sanders in the 2020 primary, Biden made welcome efforts to include progressives on joint policy taskforces and in his administration. But she cautions that he must now make his case to the left all over again.“In 2020 the Biden campaign, after the nomination, did work very hard to unite the party. We’re very early still in the 2024 election cycle, but I do believe that it will be very important for President Biden’s team to once again engage in that coalition-building because it is not one and done.”Likewise, she continues, Latino voters must not be taken for granted. “Republicans have been very aggressive about building presence in Latino communities, and I believe that we as Democrats can double and triple down in our efforts to communicate in a way that’s not just translations of English material, but for us to manoeuvre ourselves almost as a separate, distinct campaign that occurs in Spanish or in many of the languages and communities that constitute the base of the Democratic party.”Ocasio-Cortez was part of an all-Latino congressional delegation that recently visited Brazil, Chile and Colombia to begin redefining US relations with Latin America after decades of interventions and distrust. The group met landless workers and homeless workers who have organised popular movements while also becoming a formidable force at the ballot box.She reflects: “I think sometimes in the US, especially on the left but even across the political spectrum, there is a struggle between more grassroots movements feeling as though engaging in electoralism is a form of selling out, or the compromises required in being part of a legislative system are somehow delegitimising to an authentic relationship to advancing the working class.“I think what we’ve seen from MST [Landless Workers Movement] and MTST [Homeless Workers Movement] is that there’s actually a way to do both, that you can preserve your integrity but also understand the importance of taking a pragmatic approach and being in the game when it comes to having electoral representation.”It takes one to know one. Ocasio-Cortez, a former restaurant server and bartender who in 2018 defeated 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley for a seat that represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, faces the accusation from some that she has gone from outsider to insider, that she has become just a little too comfortable toeing the party line.She laughs. “I think I would be remiss to not mention that I’ve absolutely been subject to part of that. But just as we hear from some of these folks in Brazil, we are so underserved without having that presence in governance. To sacrifice all of that to a historically neoliberal order has not served us.“I think that when you see how even the Democratic party of the United States has changed in just the last five years alone, we’ve seen the fruits of being able to have a seat at the table … I believe that we would not have the legislation that we have today if it were not for that progressive representation in government.”Her commitment to the system, whatever its flaws, invites the question of whether Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most gifted communicators in politics today, will run for president herself some day. She does not say no. “For me personally, I’m very much just motivated by what the conditions of the present moment are and what we can do to help advance that cause.“I am not interested in running for anything – president or anything else including for re-election in my own seat – just running for running’s sake. It always comes down to the conditions of that moment and the possibilities of our time.”The first woman nominated for president by the Democratic party was Hillary Clinton in 2016. In Trump, she lost to a rival who gloried in shameless misogyny. But Ocasio-Cortez, whose gender, race, age and ideology make her as antithetical to Trump as can be imagined, refuses to be discouraged.“I do believe that the power of misogyny is very real and very potent in American politics,” she says. “But I’m very encouraged by what has happened since then. I believe women have emerged as a profound electoral force, especially with the overturning of Roe v Wade. Young women especially I think have been very animated and organised in this moment. I think we are in a moment of generational change.“We are absolutely contending with an extraordinary misogyny in our politics. The United States can go around and say what it says, but many, many, many other countries have elected female heads of state, whereas the United States has gone well over 200 years without one. Those barriers are very real, but I think the change of this time is also giving a lot of us a lot of hope.”Before getting back to work in an office of greens, purples, whites and yellows – and hundreds of colourful backpacks for constituents entering the new school year – she sums up: “Certainly the conditions have been such and the misogyny in our politics has been such that we’ve never been able to elect a woman president. But that doesn’t mean we never will.” More

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      Hurricane Idalia: Georgia declares state of emergency as severe flooding and storm surges hit south-eastern US – live

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      From 2h agoGeorgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, warned potential looters seeking to steal from people’s homes following the storm, saying: “You loot, we shoot.”“I’ve told all of our personnel at the state level, you protect people’s property and we are not going to tolerate any looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster. I mean, it’s just ridiculous that you would try to do something like that on the heels of an almost category 4 hurricane hitting this community,” DeSantis said in a press conference on Wednesday.
      “Also, just remind potential looters that even you never know what you’re walking into. People have a right to defend the property. [In] this part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates [who] are proponents of the second amendment and I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters and I would say probably here: ‘You loot, we shoot.’”
      World Central Kitchen, a non-profit founded by the celebrity chef and restaurateur José Andrés, mobilized its teams across western Florida ahead of Hurricane Idalia making landfall earlier today.WCK teams have prepared hundreds of sandwiches to provide immediate relief for residents.The Florida division of emergency management has issued a warning on hidden dangers of floodwaters.“Please do NOT walk, wade or drive through floodwaters as they can hide a variety of dangers,” the division said.Here are some graphics created by the Guardian’s visuals team on Hurricane Idalia’s path and direction:The Guardian has published an explainer on storm surges and the threat from storm surges from Hurricane Idalia.For the full story, click here:Here are some images of Hurricane Idalia coming through the newswires:The South Carolina governor, Henry McMaster, said that he does not think Hurricane Idalia will be as detrimental as other hurricanes that have swept through the state.“This is not as bad as some that we’ve seen. We don’t think it’s going to be as disruptive as some but it is going to be disruptive. There’s going to be high winds, a lot of water,” McMaster said at a press briefing on Wednesday.He added that the state is not going to have any evacuations, saying:
      “We are not going to have any evacuations. We’re not have any closing of state agencies … This does not appear to be one that requires any evacuation orders or closing of state agencies but some of the schools are closed. Some of the schools are closed, we’re urging them to try to get back open back up as quickly as possible …
      We’ve been through this before. We’ve been through a lot worse than this one appears to be, so we are ready.”
      Georgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Guardian’s Ankita Rao has tweeted photos of what she describes as “some of the worst flooding” in Tarpon, Florida, that her parents and friends have seen as a result of Hurricane Idalia.According to Rao, the access to and from one of her friend’s home has been flooded entirely.Other residents can be seen kayaking across the flood waters.Idalia has brought heavy flooding and damage to the state’s Gulf coast after it made landfall slightly before 8am ET on Wednesday as a category 3 storm.“I found them all to be laser focused on what their needs were and I asked them, but I think they’re reassured that we’re going to be there for whatever they need, including search and rescue off the shore,” Biden said of the governors of North and South Carolina, as well as Georgia, as he reffirmed federal assistance to southeastern states currently enduring Hurricane Idalia.“How can we not respond? My god, how can we not respond to those needs?” Biden said in response to whether he can assure Amricans that the federal government is going to have the emergency funding that they need to get through this hurricane season.“I’m confident even though there’s a lot of talk from some of our friends up in the Hill about the cost. We got to do it. This is the United States of America,” he added.“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage,” Biden said.He added that he has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redeploy resources, including up to 1,500 personnel and 900 Coast Guard personnel throughout the south-eastern states.Biden said that he approved an early request of an emergency declaration by Florida governor Ron DeSantis “in advance” of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival.He added that he spoke with the governors of Georgia and South Carolia and let each of them know that “if there’s anything the states need right now, I’m ready to mobilize that support.”President Joe Biden is speaking now about Hurricane Idalia.We will bring you the latest updates.Anthony White is in Perry, Florida where the small city is seeing widespread destruction as a result of Hurricane Idalia.He reports for the Guardian:Driving into Perry, a small, historic city with a population of just more than 7,000 on Wednesday morning, about 15 miles inland from the coast where Hurricane Idalia made landfall, the scene of destruction was jaw-dropping.Many residents had evacuated, especially after it was announced that some emergency shelters in the region would need to close because even they may not be able to withstand the impact of the storm.Approaching from Tallahassee, the state capital, 50 miles inland, where I left on Tuesday evening at the urging of relatives – having originally planned to ride out the hurricane – more and more streets and highways were blocked by fallen trees on the approach to Perry.There were power lines down all over the place and poles leaning, flood waters in some parts, and trees blocking even several lanes on both sides of the four-lane highway, forcing people to drive in the median. There was danger everywhere.For the full story, click here: More

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      ‘It’s a beast’: landmark US climate law is too complex, environmental groups say

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      When President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act a year ago, Adrien Salazar was skeptical.The landmark climate bill includes $60bn for environmental justice investments – money he had fought for, as policy director for the leading US climate advocacy coalition Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJA).But after much discussion, the grassroots group realized they did not have the resources to chase after IRA funding. It would have to hire new staff and develop a specific program to apply for grants to access those funds. The coalition is stretched thin as is: organizing local and state campaigns, leading community engagement, and planning youth programming. GGJA decided it would not apply to funding opportunities at all.“It is not within our capacity to try to build a program that helps our members access federal funding. We just don’t have the capacity to do that,” Salazar said. Many employees lack the time or knowhow to take on grant opportunities.“We’re a national organization. How can we imagine a small organization that’s doing neighborhood, grassroots-level door-knocking to have the capacity to also navigate the federal bureaucracy?”Indeed, many of the small, community-based organizations that would benefit from funding the most are facing hurdles to competing for these investments.Together, their experiences tell a story that echoes other environmental justice experts’ concerns about the IRA – that the monumental spending package won’t assist the communities that need the money the most.Last year, advocates speaking to the Guardian criticized the bill for its many concessions to the fossil fuel industry: “This new bill is genocide, there is no other way to put it,” said Siqiñiq Maupin, co-founder of the Indigenous-led environmental justice group Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic. Salazar felt similarly: how could he trust the federal government to allocate those billions of dollars to communities of color when it still fails to protect them from polluters?Now, a second major criticism has emerged: some groups simply don’t have the time or resources to navigate the complicated bureaucratic process of applying for funding.A year after the law’s passing, various grant deadlines for funding have already come and gone, representing key opportunities many groups may have missed.Applying for funding opportunities – which is no guarantee of success – requires local community groups that are often run by volunteers to prepare an enormous amount of documentation.Lakiesha Lloyd, an organizer who lives and works in Charleston, West Virginia, is still educating herself on how the application process works. She sees the historic climate bill as a lifeline for her predominantly Black community on the West Side where concrete highways crisscross the neighborhood and poor air quality reigns.“We’ve never seen this kind of investment toward climate in our nation’s history,” said Lloyd, who works as a climate justice organizer for the national veterans rights group, Common Defense.Still, she has a lot to learn until she can tap in herself. Instead, she’s relying on a peer partner to help navigate the federal grant-making process.Morgan King, a climate campaign coordinator in West Virginia who has worked with Lloyd, said applying for grants is often easier said than done.“It’s not something that someone can just sit down alone and write within a several-hour time gap,” she said. “The grant application, especially for federal grants, is a beast and requires basically to set aside a week or two of time just focused on it.”This year, King worked with several non-profits to prepare an application for a public health-focused grant program.They had hoped to develop a pilot program on Charleston’s West Side to provide indoor air monitors to income-eligible households. With this data, local advocates could educate community members and engage them in citizen science while also building a case for electrifying homes that currently run on gas.Ultimately, the groups working with King weren’t able to develop an application that felt competitive before the grant deadline hit.“I think had we had a grant writer or more time, we could’ve gotten it there,” King said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn light of these challenges, some critics of the IRA have said their concerns about the spending bill have only deepened.Maria Lopez-Nuñez, a member of the White House environmental justice advisory council, remains wary of whether the money set aside for environmental justice priorities will outweigh the damage done by the legislation’s further investment in fossil fuels.“On one hand, there’s incredible amounts of money out there for communities to actually deal with the issues at hand,” said Lopez-Nuñez. “On the other hand, there are even larger investments in climate scams that are going to hit communities fast and hard,” she added, referring to IRA money set aside for carbon capture and sequestration, as well as hydrogen projects.With more funding, these types environmental harms are exactly the kinds of problems locals groups would be more effective at combating – if only they could access such grants. The federal government has taken notice of this irony and proposed a solution.In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the formation of over a dozen regional hubs – better known as TCTACs (pronounced like the mint) – that will aid local community groups attempting to access IRA money.“We know that so many communities across the nation have the solutions to the environmental challenges they face,” said the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, in a statement. “Unfortunately, many have lacked access or faced barriers when it comes to the crucial federal resources needed to deliver these solutions.”In the New York and New Jersey region, for instance, the EPA is funding the national advocacy group We-Act for Environmental Justice, which plans to hire a specialist in government funds and offer grant-writing training and workshops.“Across the federal government, there is no central place you can go to [learn] about the funding opportunities that are available,” said Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy for We-Act.Although these hubs are meant to offer more specialized, regional assistance to groups, there are still some concerns as to whether they will be successful owing to the demands that will be made of them; the hub that covers the south-eastern US includes a mammoth territory of eight states.“It’s too soon to know if the IRA will be in any way successful, but it is very clear that the problems that were baked into it are very real and impacting people now,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, a national climate strategist and founder of Climate Critical, an organization working to undo the harm and trauma many climate advocates carry.For Lloyd, the work of unlocking funding sources will continue with or without additional support from the federal government.Since March, she’s been working with King to meet with West Side neighbors and inform them about the IRA – and most importantly, dream with them about the types of projects they want to see emerge from the law’s investments. Together, they have come up with ideas for LED street lights, renewable energy development, green spaces and a farm-to-market grocery store.She’s looking forward to grants opening up and connecting with the technical assistance centers to figure out how to access them. Lloyd remains an optimist. “Optimism is really all we have sometimes,” she said. More