Truck Drivers Are Grossly Underpaid and Work Under Immoral Corporate Bosses

Truckers are underpaid, overworked, endangered and even dehumanized by bosses who install surveillance cameras, sensors, and other technology to record and report every twitch a driver makes.


Container trucks arrive at the Long Beach Container Terminal at the 

Port of Long Beach on November 12, 2021 in Long Beach, California.

 (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

JIM HIGHTOWER

March 30, 2022 

by Creators.com

The recent traffic-clogging protests in Canada, Washington, D.C., Europe and elsewhere by long- and short-haul truck drivers were about them being angry over having to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates—right?

Uh... no. That's the line being put out by right-wing extremists trying to use the legitimate gripes of truckers for their own political gain. As usual, the extremists are nuts—not the truckers.

Pay today is so abysmal that most truckers on the road have to drive dangerously long shifts of well over 60 hours a week (with many topping 100 hours) to make a bare-bones living.

My Uncle Emmitt was a coast to coast, high-balling trucker in the 1960s, and would attest that back then, trucking was an honest job with decent pay, union protections, benefits and normal hours. Then came the anti-government, deregulation craze of the 1980s, pushed by corporate profiteers and right-wing ideologues. Since then, cheap-rate trucking outfits have become predominant, unions have been cast aside, driver pay has crashed and working conditions have become punishing.

Pay today is so abysmal that most truckers on the road have to drive dangerously long shifts of well over 60 hours a week (with many topping 100 hours) to make a bare-bones living. It's a grind, too—you can't stand up for hours, you travel alone, dinner is a gas station burrito, bathroom breaks mean pulling out the plastic jug you carry along... and you won't get home for days. Exhaustion is a constant companion and a real hazard, especially because you're wrangling bulky machines known as "40 tons of death."

Yet corporate, political and media elites—oblivious to all of the above—whine that America has a trucker shortage. They might ask themselves, why? After all, there are plenty of people who are licensed truck drivers, but—get this—nine out of 10 quit within a year of getting a job! That's not because of a vaccine mandate, as right-wing political manipulators want us to believe. It's because truckers are underpaid, overworked, endangered and even dehumanized by bosses who install surveillance cameras, sensors, and other technology to record and report every twitch a driver makes.

Today's explosive truck-convoy protests are not a right-wing expression—it's a rebellion against the plutocratic system that the right wing has imposed on truckers... and on America.

"Keep On Truckin" was an iconic underground cartoon of the hippie era, created in 1968 by comic master Robert Crumb. Featuring various big-footed men strutting jauntily through life, the image became widely popular as an expression of young people's collective optimism. "You're movin' on down the line," Crumb later explained, "It's proletarian. It's populist."

But today the phrase has become ironic, for America's truck drivers themselves are no longer moving on down the line of fairness, justice and opportunity. What had been a skilled, middle-class job in the 1960s is now largely a skilled poverty-wage job, thanks to the industry's relentless push for deregulation, de-unionization and decoupling of drivers from middle-class possibilities. America's trucking system has been turned into a corporate racket, with CEOs feeling entitled to arbitrarily abuse the workers who move the corporate products across town and country. Why entitled? To enable the abuse, their lawyers have fabricated a legal dodge letting them claim that their truck drivers are not their employees, but "independent contractors."

Thus—hocus pocus!—drivers don't get decent wages, overtime pay, workers' compensation, Social Security, health care, rest breaks, reimbursement for truck expenses (including gasoline, tires, repairs and insurance) ... and as "contractors" they're not allowed to unionize. This rank corporate rip-off has become the industry standard, practiced by multibillion-dollar shipping giants like XPO, FedEx, Penske and Amazon. The National Employment Law Project recently reported that two-thirds of truckers hauling goods from U.S. ports are intentionally misclassified as contractors rather than as employees of the profiteers that hire them, direct them, set their pay levels and fire them.

Of course, corporate bosses try to hide their greed with a thin legalistic fig leaf: "We believe our (drivers') classifications are legal," sniffed an XPO executive. Sure they are, sport, because your lobbyists write the laws! But might doesn't make right, "legal" doesn't mean moral and "boss" spelled backward is double-S.O.B.

© 2021 Creators Syndicate


Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.

Corporations are suppressing wages—there’s an easy fix for that

Don’t believe the optimistic hype about wages “naturally” rising. About one-third of American workers are shockingly underpaid as a result of the federal government’s continued refusal to raise the minimum wage.

By

 Sonali Kolhatkar

 -

March 30, 2022

SOURCEIndependent Media Institute

Image Credit: Common Dreams

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute.

Amid all the good news about successful labor organizing and job growth in the United States is the stark reality that wages continue to remain inexcusably low even as inflation rises. A new government report by numerous agencies including the U.S. Treasury Department came to the stark conclusion that corporate power is suppressing wages.

Two weeks later, the international aid organization Oxfam America released a report consistent with this finding, that millions of American workers continue to earn less than $15 an hour. People of color and particularly women of color are disproportionately impacted—as is always the case.

But, pro-corporate coverage paints a rosy picture about the U.S. economy—one that requires no intervention because things are apparently humming along just fine on their own.

The government report, barely noted in the media, was the result of a collaboration between the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, and the Federal Trade Commission. It concluded that wages in the U.S. are 20 percent lower than they should be and that this state of affairs is the direct result of corporations wielding their power over the labor market.

Yet, conservative think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) continue to insist that wages are “naturally rising far beyond… [the federal minimum wage] due to basic supply and demand,” and therefore government intervention to raise the floor would be a bad idea. CEI cites how Target is already paying workers between $15 and $24 an hour. It offers no solution for how underpaid workers can afford to live if inflation continues to rise. Indeed, the only problem that the organization seems to care about is how rising wages could contribute to inflation.

But the Treasury Department’s report points out that corporate power is unnaturally suppressing wages in myriad ways including the offshoring of labor to nations where wages are even lower, the imposition of so-called “noncompete” contracts that undermine workers’ ability to switch jobs within their field, and the misclassification of workers that prevents them from exercising labor rights such as joining a union.

There is nothing “natural” about that.

A decade ago, the Fight for Fifteen movement, which was born in Chicago’s fast-food industry, demanded at least $15 an hour in wages. Ten years after the campaign was launched, most states still do not require employers to pay $15 an hour. While Washington, D.C., now has a $15.20-an-hour minimum wage, it remains an exception. Large states like California and New York are inching upward in the right direction, and a total of 30 states now require minimum wages to be higher than the federal minimum wage. But that is an extremely low standard.

The federal government’s minimum wage ought to be a national shame, remaining unchanged since 2009 at an embarrassingly paltry $7.25 an hour. This is the longest that the government has gone without raising the federal minimum wage since the New Deal.

According to Oxfam America’s new report, “The Crisis of Low Wages in the US,” “more than 31.9 percent of the US labor force, or 51.9 million workers, currently make less than $15 per hour, and many are stuck at the federal minimum wage.”

Dr. Kaitlyn Henderson, a senior research adviser with Oxfam America’s U.S. Domestic Policy Program, who authored the report, told me in an interview that “it is shocking, especially considering that this is the highest [that] inflation has been in four decades.”

Even those making $15 an hour earn barely enough to get by. The supposedly high upper limit “breaks down to $31,200 a year—before taxes,” explained Henderson. This means they “have a harder time keeping a roof over their head and food on the table. This is not enough for an individual to live [on], much less a working family.”

If this crisis is not apparent to the public, we can thank institutions like CEI that spread nonsense about wages “naturally” rising, and the corporate media’s near-exclusive focus on the number of jobs over the quality of jobs and pay. Media outlets routinely obscure the catastrophe of low wages each month when the Labor Department’s jobs report generates stories that focus on employment numbers and little else.

For example, the New York Times on March 4 covered the February 2022 report signaling “a flood of new jobs and new workers last month,” which to the paper meant that “the pandemic’s vise grip on the economy may be loosening.” The story featured quotes from pro-corporate economists such as Morgan Stanley’s Robert Rosener who said, “We’ve continually been surprised by the resilience of the U.S. labor market.”

This upbeat tone continued throughout the story, even when discussing wages: “The labor force grew, unemployment fell, and average hourly earnings were virtually unchanged from January, although they are up significantly over the past year, particularly for workers in low-wage industries.”

Anyone reading the New York Times or CEI’s reports would come away feeling optimistic about the state of the economy and adopt a hands-off approach. But Oxfam America’s report, which covers wages through December 2021, arrives at a very different conclusion where nearly a third of workers are scraping by on meager wages. “In the United States, the value we attribute to shareholders is somehow greater than the value we attribute to the workers who make our society function,” writes Henderson in the report.

Another major blind spot in pro-corporate economic coverage is how income inequality is delineated along racial lines. According to Henderson, “low-wage workers are disproportionately women, people of color, and women of color especially.” Henderson referred to the “occupational segregation” that Black and Latino workers are subjected to.

“When you’re thinking about it through an intersectional lens, where you’re considering race and gender, the pay gap increases substantially,” Henderson told me. So, women of color, who are overrepresented in industries like child care, are among the hardest hit. It should not surprise us then that, as per Henderson, “Child care is one of the lowest-paid professions in the United States,” and this “reflects the value system we have in this country.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) suggested that while elite figures and institutions were celebrating Women’s History Month in March, one way to put their money where their mouths are is to support the women who work in child care and home health care. CBPP’s Diana Azevedo-McCaffrey wrote that the women of color who dominate these industries and are grossly underpaid to do so are “performing the labor that underpins the nation’s economy and maintains families’ health and well-being.”

CBPP backs myriad basic federal policies to fix this problem, including paid leave and federal funding for child care and home health care. Similarly, Oxfam America backs straightforward solutions such as federal funding boosts as well as the passage of the Raise the Wage Act, which would gradually raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour—hardly a big ask 10 years after the Fight for Fifteen movement, and already inadequate to meet working people’s needs.

The problem of low wages in the U.S. ought to shock us, in spite of the pro-corporate optimism about the economy and the media’s refusal to amplify the problem. The solutions are obvious, easy, and hardly radical

Sonali Kolhatkar

Sonali Kolhatkar is a columnist for Truthdig. She also is the founder, host and producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a radio and television show that airs on Pacifica stations KPFK and KPFA and will begin airing on Free Speech TV. She is the former founder, host and producer of KPFK Pacifica’s popular morning drive-time program “Rising Up With Sonali,” based in Los Angeles. She is also the co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S.-based non-profit solidarity organization that funds the social, political, and humanitarian projects of RAWA.

Scientists to Biden: World Needs 'Rapid Transition From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy'

"Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently said 'we are on war footing' in calling for increased oil and gas production. This is backwards thinking."

In a new letter, scientists are calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to "rally the global community around a program of energy security through a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy." 

(Photo: myLoupe/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)


JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS 

March 30, 2022

"In this moment of climate emergency," five scientists began a new open letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, "we write with utmost urgency to advise you and your administration to halt recent moves towards increasing fossil fuel production and instead take bold action to rapidly reduce fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure."

"The president's fossil fuel expansion takes us deeper into climate catastrophe."

Biologist Sandra Steingraber—who is leading the effort with Peter Kalmus, Robert Howarth, Michael Mann, and Mark Jacobson in conjunction with Food & Water Watch—shared a link to the letter on Twitter Wednesday and urged fellow scientists to add their signatures.

"We say the White House call for more drilling and fracking is a climate calamity," Steingraber said. "Sign with us!"

The letter—which its initiators plan to present to the president next month after collecting "a critical mass" of signatures—follows a similar message from October and comes as Biden works to ramp up U.S. gas shipments to Europe in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine.



Kalmus, who also shared the document Wednesday, tweeted that "the president's fossil fuel expansion takes us deeper into climate catastrophe."

The scientists' effort aligns with recent remarks from climate campaigners and other experts, who have argued since the war began last month that European nations' attempts to reduce their reliance on Russian fossil fuels—a key source of revenue for Putin's government—show the importance of a swift global shift to clean energy.

"Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently said 'we are on war footing' in calling for increased oil and gas production," the scientists' letter states, referencing the U.S. official's speech at a Houston conference earlier this month. "This is backwards thinking. Instead of fossil fuels, we must apply that level of urgency to building a renewable energy economy."

"Rather than working to increase oil and gas production," the letter adds, "we urge you to use your executive authority to redirect these massive investments, mobilize the country, and rally the global community around a program of energy security through a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy."

Recalling that when Biden ran for president, he pledged to listen to science, the five experts wrote that "as scientists who look at data every day, we implore you to keep this promise and listen to what the scientific community is saying about fossil fuels and the climate crisis."

They specifically pointed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last month, which features "a series of dire warnings about the unfolding climate catastrophe," including that "the scientific evidence is overwhelming that we must act now—we simply do not have time to waste."

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"Already millions of Americans and even more across the world are being impacted by extreme weather, drought, flooding, sea level rise, and wildfires," the letter notes. "The IPCC report highlights millions being impacted by climate change-induced food insecurity and water scarcity."

The letter warns that "these problems will only accelerate as we continue our reliance on fossil fuels. And, this is on top of the significant health and environmental justice impacts that power plants, export facilities, and other fossil fuel infrastructure have on neighboring communities."

"The United States, Europe, and the rest of the world desperately need energy independence," the document declares, "but allowing more drilling and fracking, approving more pipelines, and expanding export facilities not only fail to address short-term energy needs, they lock us into decades of reliance on fossil fuels and ensure runaway climate chaos for the long run."

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Biden Education Dept. to Codify Title IX Protections of Transgender Students

The new regulations come amid a nationwide wave of Republican-led efforts to marginalize LGBTQ+ youth.


LGBTQ+ rights supporters gather at the Texas State Capitol in Austin on September 20, 2021 to protest state Republican-led efforts to pass legislation that would restrict the participation of transgender student-athletes. (Photo: Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images)


BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS

March 30, 2022

As right-wing efforts to marginalize transgender students increase across the United States, the Biden administration is expected in the coming weeks to finalize new Education Department regulations to protect LGBTQ+ youth, according to a Washington Post report published Wednesday.

"If they are discriminating against students on the basis of gender, they could be jeopardizing their funding."

The Post cites people familiar with a draft text of the proposed Title IX regulation that would expand the definition of "discrimination on the basis of sex" to include "discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristics (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity."

David Hinojosa, director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the nonprofit Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Post that the new regulations "could very well be a game-changer."

"States accept federal moneys and agree not to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, etc., under federal laws including Title IX," he said. "If they are discriminating against students on the basis of gender, they could be jeopardizing their funding."



Title IX is the 1972 law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.  (ANOTHER NIXON ACT)

Last June, the Department of Education said that Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, reversing guidance issued by the openly anti-transgender Trump administration.

In announcing its departure from Trump-era policy, the Education Department cited Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring workplace discrimination against LGBTQ+ people unconstitutional.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said last June that the Biden administration believes "that all students—including LGBTQ+ students—deserve the opportunity to learn and thrive in schools that are free from discrimination."

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The impending regulatory revision comes as Republican-controlled states across the country pass laws banning transgender student-athletes from participating on the sports teams that match their gender identity. On Wednesday Oklahoma became the 13th state to approve such legislation.

The new Title IX regulations will also rewrite rules on how schools handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment. The Trump administration gutted protections for sexual abuse survivors while expanding the rights of the accused.

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US Rights Groups Herald Reported End to Cruel Title 42 Expulsions

"Title 42 was never about public health and safety," said Rep. Juan Vargas. "It was implemented to deny due process to people seeking refuge and protection."

Asylum-seekers prepare to be taken to a U.S. Border Patrol processing facility after crossing into the U.S. on June 16, 2021 in La Joya, Texas. 

(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL

COMMON DREAMS

March 30, 2022

Human rights defenders on Wednesday welcomed the White House's reported plans to soon end the use of Title 42, a public health measure both the Biden and Trump administrations used to turn away asylum-seekers at the southern border for the past two years.

"The decision is an overdue recognition that all people fleeing violence and persecution have the right to seek protection."

The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a draft of the order that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans to issue later this week, reported Wednesday that the agency "is taking the step because 'there is no longer a serious danger' that migrants would introduce or spread Covid-19 inside immigration detention facilities."

While praising President Joe Biden for finally moving to end Title 42—invoked in March 2020 by former President Donald Trump at the behest of his white nationalist advisor Stephen Miller, who took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to clamp down on the asylum process—immigrant rights group Never Again Action lamented that the current administration spent one and a half years embracing a policy that equates migrants with disease.

According to the Journal, "The CDC is delaying the implementation of the order until May 23 to allow the Department of Homeland Security to prepare for what the government anticipates will be a sharp rise in crossings this spring."

Immigrant rights advocate Erika Andiola, meanwhile, argued that "nothing is keeping them from ending this today. From now to May, thousands of people will be unjustly denied asylum and deported back to danger."



As the Journal reported: "Once Title 42 comes to an end, the government will once more need to consider any asylum claims made by migrants at the border, which requires briefly detaining them before they can be released into the U.S. or deported. Under Title 42, any migrant asking for humanitarian protection could still be expelled back to Mexico or deported to another country without a consideration of their claims, though in practice Mexico limited how many people it was willing to take back."

For months, progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have urged the Biden administration to stop using the Trump-era policy, which has caused migrants to be deported from the U.S. without a chance to request asylum more than 1.7 million times during a two-year period.

"This will save lives."

"Migrants have been cruelly expelled from our country under the guise of Title 42," Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) said Wednesday. "Title 42 was never about public health and safety—it was implemented to deny due process to people seeking refuge and protection."

Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) celebrated Biden's move on social media and said, "Thanks to the advocates whose tireless work made this possible."

Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the nation's largest faith-based nonprofit dedicated exclusively to serving refugees, asylum-seekers, and other vulnerable immigrant groups in the U.S., said in a statement that "we are grateful that this long and shameful chapter in our nation's history is coming to end."

"The decision is an overdue recognition that all people fleeing violence and persecution have the right to seek protection," said O'Mara Vignarajah. "The implications for thousands of extremely vulnerable individuals and families cannot be overstated, but are simple to understand—this will save lives and restore U.S. humanitarian leadership."



While welcoming the news, RAICES, the largest immigration legal services nonprofit in Texas, said that Biden's task now is to "undo the Migrant Protection Protocols and ALL of Trump and Stephen Miller's racist immigration policies."

When Biden announced in December that he was restarting the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, commonly referred to as the "Remain in Mexico" policy, human rights advocates rebuked the president for implementing an "even worse" version of the Trump-era measure, which forces asylum-seekers to wait in makeshift camps along the southern border pending legal review of their cases. His administration is now seeking to end MPP.

As the Biden White House terminates Title 42 "and restores access to asylum, there is an opportunity to do more than return to the status quo," said O'Mara Vignarajah. "The administration should be thoughtful and bold in implementing a new vision, rooted in fairness, dignity, and humanity."

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MEDICARE FOR ALL

Endocrine Society applauds House for taking action to address insulin affordability

Underlying problem of rising insulin prices still needs to be addressed

Business Announcement

THE ENDOCRINE SOCIETY

WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society applauds the House of Representatives for hearing our call to improve insulin affordability for people with diabetes as it prepares to vote on the Affordable Insulin Now Act this week. 

The bill would cap patients’ out-of-pocket insulin costs to $35 per month for people on Medicare and private insurance who rely on insulin to manage their diabetes. The Society supports an insulin co-pay cap and recommended this step in its position statement on insulin access and affordability.

While the Affordable Insulin Now Act is a promising step toward improving insulin affordability for some individuals, Congress must still address the underlying problem of soaring insulin prices, which tripled over a 15-year period, and continue to rise. Policies must be implemented to address the drivers of rising insulin prices, not just out-of-pocket costs.

An insulin co-pay cap is an important component to solving this problem. However, we caution against passing this as a standalone measure without including additional protections that address rising price, prevent premium increases, or result in a rising rate of uninsured Americans.

We look forward to continuing to work with Congress in a bipartisan manner to pass legislation that will lower health care costs and help the millions of Americans living with diabetes who rely on this lifesaving drug. The millions of people living with diabetes for whom insulin is a lifesaving medication cannot wait.

# # #
 

Endocrinologists are at the core of solving the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, and hormone-related cancers. The Endocrine Society is the world’s oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions.

The Society has more than 18,000 members, including scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 countries. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at @TheEndoSociety and @EndoMedia.

 

'Healthcare Is a Human Right': Sanders Announces Medicare for All Senate Hearing

Rep. Cori Bush, who co-chaired this week's House event on the topic, thanked the Senate Budget Committee chair and celebrated "momentum" in Congress to pass related legislation.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a rally in front of PhRMA's Washington, D.C. office to protest high prescription drug prices on September 21, 2021.

 (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)


JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS

March 30, 2022

Just a day after a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives met to discuss universal healthcare legislation, Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders announced that he plans to hold a Medicare for All hearing this May.

"The momentum to guarantee healthcare as a human right is real here in Congress."

"I'm happy to inform members of this committee that in early May we will be having a hearing—right here, in this committee—on the need to pass a Medicare for All single-payer program," Sanders (I-Vt.) said during a meeting on President Joe Biden's latest budget proposal.

Sanders, a longtime single-payer advocate, declared that "as a nation, we should understand what every other major country does: Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege."

"The function of a rational healthcare system is to provide healthcare to all in a cost-effective way—not to allow private insurance companies and private drug companies to make obscene levels of profit," he added.

The committee chair also highlighted that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "Medicare for All would save the American people and our entire healthcare system $650 billion each and every year."

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who co-chaired the House Oversight Committee's Tuesday hearing about Medicare for All, welcomed Sanders' remarks.



As Common Dreams reported, during the House event, Bush asserted that "Congress must implement a system that prioritizes people over profits, humanity over greed, and compassion over exploitation."

"This policy will save lives, I want to make that clear," she added. "I hope this hearing will be one more step forward in our commitment to ensuring everyone in this country, and particularly our Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, have the medical care they need to thrive."

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'Green New Deal Champions Pledge' 

Pushes Candidates to Embrace Bold Climate Agenda

"We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis."


Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) (L) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) rally with hundreds of young climate activists in Lafayette Square on June 28, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

March 28, 2022

Dozens of progressive advocacy organizations launched a new campaign on Monday with the goal of pushing congressional candidates and incumbent lawmakers to embrace the Green New Deal and eschew funding from the powerful fossil fuel industry.

Known as the Green New Deal Champions Pledge, the new initiative aims to set "a new bar of what it means to fight for climate justice in Congress" by pressuring candidates and current representatives to back a specific slate of legislation that includes:
The Green New Deal Resolution led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.);
The Green New Deal for Cities led by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.);
The Green New Deal for Public Schools led by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.); and
The End Polluter Welfare Act led by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The pledge also requires signatories to reject campaign contributions larger than $200 from oil, gas, and coal industry executives, lobbyists, or political action committees.

"We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis."

"The Green New Deal Champions effort provides an exciting opportunity to advance a transformative agenda to end the fossil era, help working people, and catalyze a just energy transition," said Collin Rees of Oil Change U.S., one of nearly 50 groups involved in the new campaign.

"Rejecting fossil fuel money and committing to these key bills to phase out fossil fuels and build an equitable clean energy future are now clear requirements for politicians claiming the mantle of 'climate leadership,'" Rees added. "With dozens of critical primary and general elections this year, we'll see which candidates and elected officials are truly willing to stand up to Big Oil and Gas' lies and fight for our communities."

Dozens of Democratic candidates for U.S. Congress have already signed the pledge, including Greg Casar and Jessica Cisneros in Texas, Nina Turner in Ohio, and Summer Lee in Pennsylvania. The candidates joined Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Sanders, Omar, Markey, Bowman, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), and more than a dozen other current members of Congress in backing the initiative.

"The Green New Deal is about jobs, justice, and dismantling systemic racism that's poisoning the lungs and futures of Black and Brown people in St. Louis and all across the country," Bush said in a statement Monday. "We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis. I'm proud to be part of an effort to hold people in positions of power accountable to the solutions we know are needed to address environmental racism, confront the fossil fuel industry, and realize true climate justice."

The pledge was released as President Joe Biden's Build Back Better proposal, which includes around $550 billion in renewable energy investments over the next decade, remains stalled in the Senate due to the opposition of Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a close ally of the fossil fuel industry.

Manchin, an outspoken opponent of the Green New Deal despite its popularity among U.S. voters, is reportedly pushing fellow Democrats to pursue an "all-of-the-above" approach to climate policy that includes "some concessions related to oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and natural gas exports."

The New Republic's Kate Aronoff argued in a column Monday that "the irony of this moment is that while the Green New Deal's legislative prospects look about as bleak as they ever have, the case for them has never looked better."

"More than 65 percent of likely voters support Green New Deal measures for cities, public housing, and schools despite their still minuscule support in the House and Senate, recent polling from Data for Progress found," Aronoff noted. "And in addition to the steady drumbeat of climate disasters and sobering studies released since the Green New Deal was first unveiled, the invasion of Ukraine has made a new case for massive investments in renewables and energy efficiency."

"For now, Green New Deal advocates aren't even close to calling the shots in Congress," she added. "Meanwhile, world events continue to make the case for the policies they support."

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In the 2022 midterm elections and beyond, proponents of the new pressure campaign are hoping to translate strong public support for Green New Deal policies into a larger coalition of climate champions in Congress, which is currently awash in oil and gas money and filled with lawmakers who are financially invested in fossil fuel companies.

"As fossil fuel corporations destroy our communities and profit off of working families at the gas pump, our government has yet to pass climate legislation that meets the moment of crisis," Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said in a statement Monday. "And yet, support for the Green New Deal has never been greater."

"That's why we're launching Green New Deal Champions, because we need members of Congress and elected officials to fight as hard as they can for the Green New Deal," said Prakash. "We must pass the climate bills that make the GND a reality—the GND Resolution is our North Star and the GND bills help us get there."
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Thousands of Canadians Call on Government to Scrap Carbon Capture Tax Credit

The scheme, said one campaigner, "is being used as a Trojan horse by oil and gas executives to continue, and even expand, fossil fuel production."

Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland speaks during a press conference in Ottawa on October 26, 2021. 

(Photo: Lars Hagberg/AFP via Getty Images)


JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS

March 28, 2022


"Magical thinking isn't going to solve the climate crisis."

"There is no fixing fossil fuels, we need to ditch them to protect our climate."

That's what Dylan Penner, a climate and social justice campaigner with the Council of Canadians, said in a statement Monday as advocacy organizations revealed that 31,512 people across Canada are calling on the federal government to scrap a proposed carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) tax credit expected in the upcoming budget.

Referencing The Lord of the Rings, Penner warned that "doubling down on CCUS instead of cutting downstream emissions from fossil fuels extracted in Canada is like trying to wield the One Ring instead of destroying it in Mount Doom. Spoiler warning: that approach doesn't end well."

The signatures were collected by the Council of Canadians as well as Environmental Defense, Leadnow, and Stand.earth. Their demands are directed at Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is also minister of finance.

A December 2021 briefing from Environmental Defense points out that "to date, CCUS has a track record of over-promising and under-delivering. The vast majority of projects never get off the ground. The technology remains riddled with problems, unproven at scale, and prohibitively expensive."

As the document details:

Despite five decades of research and tens of billions of dollars in subsidies globally, the current scale of CCUS is minute compared to the scale that would be required. Current global carbon capture capacity is 39 [megatonnes] Mt, or about 0.1% of annual emissions from fossil fuels. For CCS to play a significant role in achieving the global Paris climate agreement goal, gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 would need to be captured and permanently stored.

A 2021 study found that more than 80% of the CCS projects attempted in the U.S. have ended in failure. One of Canada's flagship CCS projects, Boundary Dam 3, initially promised a capture rate of 90%. It never reached that rate, so SaskPower eventually lowered its expectations to 65%—a target the facility still regularly fails to meet.

"Carbon capture is being used as a Trojan horse by oil and gas executives to continue, and even expand, fossil fuel production," Julia Levin, the group's senior Climate and Energy Program manager, said Monday. "It's a dangerous distraction driven by the same polluters who created the climate emergency."

"We no longer have time for incremental emission reductions that aren't aligned with a pathway to zero emissions," she added. "There is no fixing fossil fuels, we need to ditch them to protect our climate."

Advocacy organizations and other experts around the world have recently issued similar warnings about "false solutions" such as CCUS.

In January, more than 400 academics, energy system modelers, and scientists sent a letter to Freeland, Wilkinson, and Steven Guilbeault—Canada's minister of environment and climate change—to express their concerns about the anticipated "new fossil fuel subsidy," highlighting that "as well as undermining government efforts to reach net-zero by 2050, the introduction of this tax credit would contradict the promise made by your government to Canadians during the election period to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by 2023 as well as our international commitments under the Paris agreement."

During the COP26 summit in Scotland late last year for parties to the Paris agreement, over 700 groups told governments and global institutions that to effectively combat the climate emergency, "we need real plans, real solutions, real finance, and real zero for an urgent, just transition."

That open letter came a few months after more than 500 organizations urged U.S. President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and other key figures in both countries to reject carbon capture schemes that endanger frontline communities and are used by polluters "to justify business-as-usual operations."

Noting that later this month, the Trudeau government will unveil "its plan for how Canada will cut emissions to achieve their net-zero targets by 2050," Canada's National Post reported last week that "it is expected that details on the tax credit will follow in the federal budget, presumably in early April."

"Here's a real climate solution: Stop giving public money to the richest polluters on the planet."

According to the newspaper, "The Business Council of Canada, comprised of chief executives of major oil and gas players, such as Imperial Oil, Suncor, Shell, and Enbridge, told the National Post that a 50% tax credit is the 'the minimum that would be needed' but 75% 'would certainly increase the incentive.'"

Leadnow campaigner Jesse Whattam declared Monday that "pumping billions of public money into CCUS basically amounts to a blank check to oil and gas companies to continue fossil fuel production and expansion."

"In a climate emergency, it's irresponsible—especially when we know what the answer to solving the climate crisis actually is: funding a rapid transition off of fossil fuels and creating good sustainable jobs for all," Whattam added.

Sven Biggs, Canadian Oil and Gas Program director for Stand.earth, also called for investing in a clean energy future rather than prolonging reliance on oil and gas.

"Here's a real climate solution: Stop giving public money to the richest polluters on the planet," said Biggs. "Instead of bankrolling oil and gas companies to develop CCUS, the government should finance proven solutions which will replace fossil fuels with renewables and create sustainable jobs."

THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS SUCH AS IN THE BAKAN SHIELD IN SASKATCHEWAN
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

ALSO SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CCS

Archean versus Phanerozoic oceanic crust formation and tectonics: Ophiolites through time

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COMPUSCRIPT LTD

 

IMAGE: PLATE TECTONIC PICTURE THAT SHOWS CONTINENT-OCEAN TRANSITION, MID-OCEAN RIDGE SPREADING SYSTEM, PLUME-HEAD WITH OVERLYING OCEANIC PLATEAU, BACKARC SPREADING SYSTEM, FOREARC, AND VOLCANIC ARC SYSTEM. THE VARIOUS OPHIOLITE TYPES AND THEIR ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS HAVE BEEN PLACED IN THE POSITION WHERE THEY ORIGINALLY WERE FORMED. view more 

CREDIT: GEOGEO

Archean versus Phanerozoic oceanic crust formation and tectonics: Ophiolites through time

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geogeo.2021.09.004

Announcing a new publication for Geosystems and Geoenvironment journal. Geosystems and Geoenvironment is a quarterly international interdisciplinary journal in English that publishes high quality original research articles and timely reviews in interdisciplinary fields of Earth and Environment Sciences. Geosystems and Geoenvironment provides an integrated platform to publish breakthrough data and findings, as well as innovative concepts and models, related to the emergence and all related aspects of surface or deep Earth Systems and their planetary equivalents.

In this article researchers from the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway and Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA present a global compilation of structural, lithological, and geochemical data on a selection of Archean, Proterozoic and Phanerozoic magmatic complexes, interpreted as ophiolites. Ophiolites, based on Phanerozoic examples, can be classified into subduction-related and subduction unrelated categories. These categories can be further subdivided into several subtypes depending on the proximity to subduction zones, and on sequential development from rifting – drifting to seafloor spreading for the subduction-unrelated category.

From bottom to top ophiolites exhibit a magmatic sequence of ultramafic rocks (upper mantle units), gabbros (layered and isotropic), basaltic dikes and lavas, as well as boninites and felsic dikes and lavas in the subduction-related types. Archean greenstone belts show large variations in their construction, but Eoarchean examples display identical structure and lithology to the Phanerozoic ophiolites, attesting to the operation of seafloor spreading and subduction zone processes in the early Earth's history.

Lithological differences between the Archean and Proterozoic/Phanerozoic ophiolites are demonstrated in the common occurrence of komatiites and felsic rocks, and scarcity of sheeted dike complexes in the former, compared to the opposite situation in those ophiolites that are younger than ca. 2 Ga. Geochemically there is a concomitant decrease in the content of incompatible elements (e.g., Sr, Zr, Y, Nb) and an increase in the content of compatible elements (e.g., Mg, Cr, Ni). In terms of tectonic environment analyzes, the Archean ophiolites are more abundantly subduction-related than those of Proterozoic and Phanerozoic ages. The subduction-dominant Archean oceanic crust (ophiolites) was characterized by accretionary cycle plate tectonics, whereas for those of Proterozoic and Phanerozoic ages, a combination of both accretionary cycle and Wilson cycles plate tectonic processes was operative.

Article reference: Harald Furnes, Yildirim Dilek, Archean versus Phanerozoic oceanic crust formation and tectonics: Ophiolites through time, Geosystems and Geoenvironment, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2022, 100004, ISSN 2772-8838, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geogeo.2021.09.004.

 

Keywords: Ophiolites, Construction, Geochemistry, Classification, Plate tectonics

 

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Geosystems and Geoenvironment publishes four volumes every year [February, May, August, and November]. The article categories include high profile Review papers published together with author vitae and photographs, Research Papers, Letters, and Discussions. Additionally, selected colour figures of accepted papers will be printed free of cost in colour in the Journal, and the Journal provides gratis reprints and a complimentary journal copy. All articles in Geosystems and Geoenvironment will be free open access through Elsevier's ScienceDirect platform.

 

For more information, please visit https://www.journals.elsevier.com/geosystems-and-geoenvironment 

Editorial Board: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/geosystems-and-geoenvironment/editorial-board  

 

GeoGeo is available on Science Direct.

 

Submissions to GeoGeo may be made using Editorial Manager.

 

ISSN 2772-8838

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DOI

10.1016/j.geogeo.2021.09.004 

 

CAPTION

Selected stratigraphic columnar sections from ten Archean and seven Proterozoic greenstone belts, seven Phanerozoic ophiolite complexes, and the oceanic in-situ Izu-Bonin-Mariana sequence.

CREDIT

GeoGeo

 

CAPTION

Columnar section showing the upper mantle and crustal components of a typical suprasubduction zone ophiolite, illustrated by field photographs. (a) and (b): Banded and folded harzburgite (olivine + orthopyroxene); (c): Layered cumulates of dunite (bright yellow) and dark wehrlite (olivine + clinopyroxene); (d): Layered and folded gabbro; (e): Varitextured gabbro; (f): Gabbro cut by basaltic and felsic intrusions; (g): Sheeted dike complex; (h): Volcanic breccia set in a hyaloclasite matrix; (i): pillow lava; (j): Massive andesitic lava flow; (k): Folded chert layers. Pictures a-c, i (Leka ophiolite, Norway), d (Karmøy ophiolite, Norway), e-h (Solund-Stavfjord ophiolite, Norway, j, k (Mirdita ophiolite, Albania). Key to lettering: Chpyr- chalcopyrite, H/D- Harzburgite/dunite, H- Harzburgite, L- Lherzolite, Opx–veins- orthopyroxenite veins, Pyr- pyrite.

CREDIT

GeoGeo