It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
'We Shall Overcome': Joan Baez Embraces Tennessee Dem After Powerful Performance
The folk singer-songwriter sang the iconic protest song with Justin Jones in the wake of the GOP-led Tennessee House expelling him last week.
Joan Baez joined hands with Tennessee Democrat Justin Jones during a touching rendition of “We Shall Overcome” in the wake of the GOP-led Tennessee House’s expulsion of him for his role in a gun violence protest.
Jones, one of two Black Democrats expelled from the state House on Thursday, has referred to the expulsion as an “attack on democracy” and it’s likely he could rejoin the body following a meeting by the Nashville metro council on Monday.
Baez was friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and often sang the iconic protest song during the civil rights movement of the ’60s, notably at the March on Washington.
Baez, who was in Nashville for a discussion with Emmylou Harris this past weekend, weighed in on the expulsion and added that movements are fueled by “little victories and big defeats,” The Tennessean reported.
Jones, in a tweet, referred to meeting Baez as part of a “movement of the spirit.”
“She stands with us in our struggle in Tennessee and said she’s hopeful to see young voices leading,” Jones wrote. “‘WE SHALL OVERCOME...’ Serendipitous, indeed.”
wo later joined in a performance of the song at an airport before embracing each other with a hug.
You can watch a clip of their performance below.
After a controversial merger, Nevada Gold Mines union is back
In 2019, management abruptly stopped recognizing a union. This week, the company and the union negotiated a new contract.
March 31, 2023 This story was produced in collaboration between High Country News and The Nevada Independent.
Nearly three years after the National Labor Relations Board sued Nevada’s largest gold mining business for not recognizing a union that had been in place for decades, a collective bargaining committee reached an agreement with the company this week for a new three-year contract.
The contract provides more than a thousand workers at Nevada Gold Mines with an 8.5% increase in wages over the contract’s term, along with other protections, as the mega-company continues to hold a large amount of influence over a local economy dominated by its operations.
Local 3 Bargaining Committee members include President Steve Ingersoll, District Rep. Scott Fullerton, senior business agents Phil Herring and Dylan Gallagher, business agents Lyman Hatfield and Kevin Rains, and members Carl Peters (Underground Operations), Eli Myrick (Underground Operations), Jackulyn Kinkead (Underground Operations), Charles Gonzalez (Surface Process Maintenance), Ernie Lopez (Surface Mine Maintenance), Norm Wilson (Surface Mine Maintenance) and Olivia Sharlow (Surface Custodian). Photo courtesy of Operating Engineers Local 3
“The greatest highlight to note is that in December of 2019, we could not receive recognition… and our members faced a large amount of uncertainty and insecurity,” Scott Fullerton, a district representative for Operating Engineers Local 3, said in a press release Tuesday. Negotiating a new three-year contract, Fullerton said, “says a lot about the dedication of the membership, the determination of Local 3 and the importance of both parties communicating effectively.”
The new collective bargaining agreement covers Nevada Gold Mines’ operations that used to be managed by Newmont, including Gold Quarry, Leeville, Pete Bajo, Emigrant, Chukar, Deep Post, Deep Star, Exodus, Mill 5, Mill 6, South Area Leach, Genesis/TriStar, Rita K and parts of North Area Leach. The agreement does not cover areas previously operated by Barrick.
In an email, Fullerton said any employee covered by the agreement could join the union. As of Jan. 30, the bargaining unit consisted of 1,394 employees with 542 union members.
Nevada Gold Mines did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2019, Nevada Gold Mines was formed as a joint venture between multinational mining giants Barrick and Newmont, companies with deep histories operating massive gold mines across the Interstate 80 corridor in northeastern Nevada, from Winnemucca to West Wendover. Merging the two operations into one company led by Barrick — Nevada Gold Mines — had an immediate impact on workers. Where there were two major competing employers in the area, now there is one.
In the months following the merger, Nevada Gold Mines management stopped recognizing the union, which had represented Newmont employees since 1965, taking actions that the nation’s top labor regulator told a federal court “left many employees feeling terrified and betrayed.” “There’s no competition for labor anymore.”
In June 2020, the National Labor Relations Board asked a U.S. District Court judge to grant an injunction reinstating the union, alleging that the company had engaged in “unlawful conduct.”
Nevada Gold Mines had initially responded by calling the federal agency’s request “an extreme and draconian injunction” to force it into a labor agreement that had preceded the new company. But the case did not proceed as the company entered into settlement talks that culminated in a win for the union: Nevada Gold Mines agreed to recognize the union and restore benefits.
During the past two years, The Nevada Independent and High Country News have investigated workplace changes at Nevada Gold Mines. Through a tip form, dozens of former and current workers have shared information about policy changes at the mines, discrimination complaints and the company’s outsized influence over the labor pool. In addition, workers have reported concerns that the company placed an emphasis on productivity at the expense of safety.
After the settlement agreement, Operating Engineers continued to file additional complaints with federal regulators, alleging unfair labor practices concerning pay and worker classifications. But union officials said communication with the company improved. By March 2022, the company had agreed to issue $1.1 million in back pay and damages and a one-year contract extension with a 2.5% pay increase. The negotiations over the new contract began in February.
After the contract was negotiated Tuesday, Fullerton said that the agreement marked “positive progress” in a relationship with Nevada Gold Mines that had started on adversarial footing.
The contract, Fullerton said, also includes pension increases and addresses “safety aspects,” though he noted that the safety record of union areas is better than the record in other areas.
Mining operations at the Nevada Gold Mines mine near Elko, Nevada. Photo courtesy of Operating Engineers Local 3
Although there are several small mines in the region — and a few more are expected to come online — Nevada Gold Mines remains a regional giant, employing roughly 7,000 workers and thousands of contractors. The company’s size, workers said, gives it significant control over the local labor pool, supplies and contractors. Carl Peters, an underground miner with Nevada Gold Mines, said in a press release that he participated in the union’s volunteer negotiating committee because he felt that the union “is the only thing that holds this company in check.”
“There’s no competition for labor anymore,” he added.
Jackulyn Kinkead, an underground truck operator and a member of the negotiating committee, said in a statement that the union “came out ahead on everything.” Kinkead said that she valued having the union protection: “If something happens, I am able to make a phone call.”
Daniel Rothberg is an environment, water and energy reporter for The Nevada Independent. He is based in Reno.
CRT
Q&A: Parks Service chief historian on creating inclusion in the nation’s story
Meet Turkiya Lowe, the first Black person and the first woman to oversee history taught by the agency. Jessica Kutz
In recent years, the National Park System has exploded in popularity, with the towering granite monoliths of Yosemite National Park and the beauty of the Grand Canyon becoming bucket-list experiences for millions of Americans. In 2022, over 311 million people visited a national park.
But, like many American institutions, the parks system exists only because of the violent genocide of Indigenous peoples and their dispossession from their homelands. And for a long time, the stories told at these parks have glossed over these histories and perspectives on the founding of America.
Over the last few years that narrative has started to change. And the stories of not only Indigenous people, but also of African Americans, women and others with marginalized identities are being incorporated into how the park service tells American history.
Through the sites that receive historic designation, or the guidance given to interpretative staff who lead informational talks in the parks or at historic places, the National Park Service (NPS) plays a significant role in telling many aspects of American life.
From 1931 until 2017, the job of chief historian of the NPS, the person responsible for overseeing the history taught at parks, has been filled by White men. But in 2017, Turkiya Lowe became the first woman and first African-American person to hold the position.
Lowe, who has been a historian with the NPS for decades, views the job of the agency’s historians as akin to being the nation’s storytellers. With her background as a social historian and a Ph.D. that focused on African-American history and women’s history, she has aimed to resurface some of those histories and emphasizes the communities and everyday people whose stories have been forgotten.
The 19th spoke with Lowe about her priorities as the principal historian of the park service, the stories she’s focused on telling, and how the service is addressing an often incomplete history of America.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jessica Kutz: Can you tell me a little bit about your path to becoming a historian?
Turkiya Lowe: I actually grew up believing that I was going to be the next Supreme Court justice, and then Clarence Thomas was appointed as a justice. I'm from Savannah, Georgia, and Pin Point, Georgia, [where Clarence Thomas is from] is less than two miles away from where I grew up, and I thought, “They’re not going to appoint another person from the same area,” so I switched to wanting to become a regular lawyer.
It wasn’t until I went to undergrad at Howard University, when in the last semester of my junior year I decided to take a public history class. It was being taught by a professor at Howard who was a public historian, and two guest lecturers were from the National Park Service. I was fascinated.
Even though Savannah has one of the largest historic districts in the country, one of the oldest, I really didn’t know that was actually something that you can do, be a historian and care for the places where history happens.
I then applied for an internship to a new program with the National Park Service, the cultural resources diversity internship program. I was one of three new interns to this program and the rest just happened from there.
Turkiya L. Lowe, the chief historian of the National Park Service, stands at the Grand Canyon, one of her favorite historical sites under the agency’s purview. NPS
JK: Could you tell me more about the role the National Park Service plays in preserving history? What does it mean to be the principal historian of the National Park Service?
TL: In the National Park Service, we like to identify ourselves as the nation’s storytellers. I call us the keepers of our shared heritage, of the places and repositories and the programs that allow local and state communities to preserve their own history. We have 424 NPS units cared for by the service through our national park system.
We also have more than 72 community assistance programs that provide technical assistance for local communities to preserve their own historical, cultural and natural heritage. So we do that work and we assist our country and the globe, because we do have international programs [that allow other countries] to maintain their own history in their own culture.
The focus of the principal historian is one where I provide guidance and best practices in the practice of history for the National Park Service. Our office is one that provides technical support for individual park units to maintain their administrative histories, to inform their management and operation decision-making, as well as to provide scholarly, relevant and up-to-date information to our interpretive staff to tell American stories from multiple perspectives — the events, the impacts and legacies which informs our present and informs our future.
JK: Typically what is preserved in our nation’s history, whether it’s historical sites or in our national archives, has represented one dominant perspective. How is the National Park Service addressing the absence or misrepresentation of marginalized peoples in our history?
TL: We are always asking ourselves new questions of existing sources, right? Those of the majority, or those who have been privileged to have their voice be part of the historical record. And in those traditional sources there are a lot that talk about communities that have been marginalized, whose perspectives on events or impacts of events in history hasn't been placed at the center.
So if you look at plantation records, for example of a plantation owner, and they are listing the plantation’s property, and it has tools, and it has mules and it has human beings listed by their first name. We can ask that source, not necessarily what the wealth was of that planter, but what may have been the experience of that human being that was listed only by their first name, or only by their presumed age and gender, and ask ourselves, “What must that person’s life have been like, as only a first name, or gender and age?” and use those previously read sources to then talk about, think about and describe the lives of that person that was enslaved.
And then we do know that there are records that were generated by marginalized communities: women, Spanish-speaking immigrants, those who are working-class and poor rather than an elite status. Those records do exist, but we have to tease them out in different spaces, different archives. Oral histories are one of the tools that we use in order to do that.
We are committed to telling the multiple perspectives and impacts and legacies of historical events ...
Now for the National Park Service, we have an initiative that is called Telling All Americans’ Stories. As an agency we are committed to telling the multiple perspectives and impacts and again legacies of historical events on all of our publics and all of our citizens to be inclusive of those stories. Sometimes they are contradictory. Sometimes the perspectives are in conflict with each other and we have to acknowledge that, but then move forward in the stories that we tell, in order to talk about where we are now and allow communities to express their experiences.
JK: In your Ph.D. program you focused on African-American history and how that intersects with women. How has that informed your work at the park service?
TL: My specific professional research interest is Black women, but also Black women in social clubs and movements in the West. So even though I'm from Georgia, I was like, I’m going to go in a totally different direction and look at the history of Black people in the American West, and specifically in the Pacific Northwest.
In terms of being a principal historian, I’m always drawing on questions about what was happening in the West. A lot of our history is East Coast-centric. So that allows us to expand the questions geographically. So I always find myself asking, OK, did the patterns of our history operate this way in the American West? That allows us to draw in more perspectives of Chicano women, and Indigenous women, who have had significant impacts on what would become the United States of America, as the United States moved from the coast.
And I always challenge our historians and the work that we do to be mindful of this movement of the borders of our nation to incorporate all of these peoples and interests.
In terms of being a principal historian, I’m always drawing on questions about what was happening in the West.
JK: I’m curious how the histories of LGBTQ+ communities are being preserved in the National Park Service. Have there been any new initiatives to resurface that history in the park service?
TL: We completed a national historic landmarks theme study for LGBTQ+ history in 2017. That theme study gave the historic context for communities to nominate properties not only for National Historic Landmark status, but also for the National Register [of Historic Places]. We have properties that were designated prior to the existence of the theme study, but this was a specific effort by the National Park Service to support local communities with LGBTQ history to nominate their sites.
Of course, we received into the park system Stonewall National Monument, which we care for, and specifically tells the story of LGBTQ civil rights history. That is one of the foundational places where we undertake our interpretation and public education of this broader history. I can’t give you the numbers on how many LGBTQ sites that are extant in the National Register of Historic Places, but I know several have been added as part of the NHL study effort.
JK: Previous people in your position were military historians, and you are a social historian. How has that background, along with your own focus on African-American history and women, shaped how you view your role?
TL: I’d have to say that my best practice in terms of how the National Park Service thinks about and does the work of history is to focus on broad events, and their impacts rather than on individual, or elite persons. We highlight the lives of everyday men, women, children, or how they have been impacted by these broader patterns of history within the United States.
For example, we are undertaking right now a new handbook, which is a kind of a brief, concise examination of a topic in United States history. The audience is for our interpreters and public educators in the parks to assist them with designing new programs or adding new content to their interpretation. But it’s also one that the general public can look to, to get a general overview of historic topics.
We’re pursuing one for the history of disability in the United States, and that really is about the everyday lived experience of people [with disabilities]. And not only in the political decisions, the Helen Kellers but those activists, those advocates who are living with invisible disabilities and how they have been presented in United States history and impacted U.S. policy, the Constitution, but also labor and those broader patterns of how people live their lives.
I have to say my tenure as principal historian is one where we look at those who are well known, but also those who have created community.
JK: So my last question for you is, do you have any favorite historical sites?
TL: That’s very easy. I never choose one. I have three. This is very personal to me.
One is the Grand Canyon because as a woman of faith, it feels like God doodled in the sand in the mountain to create the Grand Canyon. The other is Harpers Ferry, because it has multiple layers of history. It has African-American history with John Brown’s raid, and African-American history with a historically black college and university. It has military history, and it has a history of civil rights. It’s the second meeting place of the group, the Niagara Falls Movement, the group that founded the NAACP. So it has this broad history of fighting physically and politically and through community education for civil rights.
And then the third is the Maggie Lena Walker National Historic Site, in Richmond, Virginia. She was the first woman and African-American woman to found a bank; she was just an extraordinary woman with a somewhat tragic life, losing her husband in a tragic way, becoming disabled later in life. But she was one of the wealthiest Black women of the late 19th and early 20th century [who had been] formerly enslaved as a child.
So every time I’ve visited these three sites, it has renewed my spirit.
Jessica Kutz is a gender, climate and sustainability reporter at The 19th. Formerly, she was an assistant editor for High Country News. We welcome reader letters. EmailHigh Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
Why a portrait artist from Ireland started making comics about U.S. police brutality
Irish artist Pan Cooke combines his love of graphic storytelling with a passion for education and advocacy to create comic strips highlighting prominent cases of police violence. Here, one of his latest strips tells the story of the beating death of Tyre Nichols, who died on Jan. 7 in Memphis, Tenn.Pan Cooke
After Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in the summer of 2020, the entire United States watched as protests against police brutality rocked cities from coast to coast. And while the U.S. was grappling with questions of race and justice, the rest of the world looked on, too.
That included the Irish illustrator Pan Cooke. As a white man who lived thousands of miles away from the ongoing protests, the racial reckoning gave him the chance to educate himself about why police brutality had been dominating headlines.
"It was a topic that I was very ignorant to and wanted to learn more about it," Cooke said.
While researching cases of police violence, he came across the story of Eric Garner, a Black man who was killed by Staten Island police in 2014. Learning about what happened to Garner, Cooke began to create and share cartoons illustrating Garner's story, as well as other cases connected to police brutality and racism, on his Instagram page.
"I did it only with the intention of just for self-education," he said. "And then, I shared it with a few friends in my WhatsApp group who said they themselves actually learned something from it."
With the recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd on his mind, Cooke began to create comics about their lives, and how they'd been cut short by violence.
"It was just something I was doing for myself because I'm more of a visual learner," he said. "I felt that I learned a lot myself just by doing this." Cooke has had a longtime passion for art
Throughout his 20s, Cooke worked as a portrait painter, illustrating portraits of celebrities that were commissioned by customers. But portrait painting was something he eventually lost passion for, he said.
It wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020 that he felt the opportunity to shift in a different direction.
"I got a break and decided to do something else. I started focusing on drawing cartoons," Cooke said.
Each of the single-panel illustrations drawn by Cooke tells the story of a specific police violence-related incident that occurred. Throughout each panel, Cooke recaps what happened during the encounter, while avoiding graphic depictions of the event.
So far, Cooke has drawn comics telling the stories of Atatiana Jefferson, John Crawford III, Amir Locke and Daunte Wright, among others.
Cooke has even drawn a comic to tell the story of Eugene Goodman, the U.S. Capitol Police officer who diverted rioters from the U.S. Senate chamber during the January 6 attack.
Once he devoted his time to the drawings, Cooke quickly realized how much of an impact he was making, as his following on Instagram grew from under a thousand to over 300,000 in a matter of weeks. The response, he says, has been overwhelmingly positive. "It kind of became apparent that people were learning from it ... it's almost like we were learning together. It grew quite quickly," Cooke said.
And while the comics began to take off across social media, Cooke says he's still continuing to learn about police violence — emphasizing that he's in no way trying to be a subject matter expert on this.
"I try not to speak too much on the actual subject of racism, as I am a white guy in Ireland...all I can do is use my talents and skills to help raise awareness," he added. Staying informed with less exposure to graphic images
Irish artist Pan Cooke combines his love of graphic storytelling with a passion for education and advocacy to create comic strips highlighting prominent cases of police violence. Here, one of his latest strips tells the story of the beating death of Tyre Nichols, who died on Jan. 7 in Memphis, Tenn.Pan Cooke
Since creating the comics, Cooke says the reception of his artwork has been more positive than negative.
"One of the main [pieces of] feedback that I get is that, through the comics, you can kind of get more a visual idea of the story without having to view the violence directly," he said.
With videos containing violence and death being incredibly stressful to watch and process, Cooke's artwork serves as a bridge between staying informed on the cases without having to directly watch the footage.
"I'm just using art to tell a story that's already available, just in a different way," he said.
The art is something he hopes to continue doing in the future, as he's balancing drawing comics and writing a memoir called Puzzled, which details his experiences growing up with obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety.
Cooke says he hopes his work will continue to bring attention to police violence.
"I just want to be a stepping stone towards people doing positive action," he said.
Can Cooperatives Save Mezcal?
A booming mezcal market, driven by imports to the US, is fueling unsustainable farming and production practices in Mexico. Collective ownership is helping growers protect agave’s genetic diversity, local biodiversity, and mezcal’s ancestral roots.
BY ANNELISE JOLLEY CIVIL EATS APRIL 10, 2023 Erika Meneses, director of Aguerrido, stands by a wild agave plant with one of the cooperative’s mezcaleros. (Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)
Erika Meneses never set out to form her own mezcal cooperative. But a series of setbacks—the pandemic, a job loss, and, most devastating, the death of her husband in 2019—pushed her to innovate. Meneses’s husband was a mezcalero, a mezcal producer. Together they worked at the cooperatively owned brand Sanzekan in Guerrero, a state on Mexico’s Pacific coast. After losing her husband and then her source of income in 2020, Meneses decided to take what she had learned at Sanzekan and apply it to her own community of Chilapa in the mountains of Guerrero.
She asked local master mezcaleros, or maestros, if they were interested in producing and selling their mezcal collaboratively. Meneses believed that if they banded together, they could reach larger markets while remaining faithful to ancestral practices. Four maestros joined her.
They named the brand Aguerrido, meaning fierce or valiant. “The cooperative is a warrior that does not give up, that fights, that defends its culture, but above all, defends traditional mezcals,” Meneses says. By “traditional mezcals,” she means agave-distilled spirits that reflect local terroir and are made in small batches according to ancestral methods, rather than mass produced. “The boom has done a lot of damage. Traditions are being lost in communities.”
The need to distinguish and defend traditional mezcal is a result of the spirit’s explosive global popularity. Over the last decade, Mexico’s mezcal production increased by approximately 700 percent, with the majority designated for international markets. In 2019, the United States surpassed Mexico to become the world’s largest mezcal market. And as with demand for other Mexican crops—such as avocados and corn—the American obsession with mezcal unleashed a host of downstream effects that impact small producers most acutely.
Many brands are no longer producer-owned, Meneses explains, but rather run by businesses with the capital to invest in flashy marketing. Some foreign-owned brands offer to buy mezcal in bulk from small mezcaleros being squeezed from the market, leading to industrialized production methods.
As a result, many mezcaleros turn to unsustainable practices to produce greater volumes in the short term at the expense of their futures. “The boom has done a lot of damage,” says Meneses. “Traditions are being lost in communities.”
Traditional mezcal production is synonymous with sustainability. Producers have historically practiced rotational agave growing, selective harvesting, and small-batch distillation. But when they try to keep up with unsustainable demand, ecological damage follows. As growers across Mexico and as far north as the Western U.S. are realizing, agave opens the door to a lucrative market.
In some cases, communities are deforesting hillsides to make room for monocultures of fast-growing agave. Meanwhile, rare agave species—which can take up to 35 years to mature—are disappearing from the wild. Overharvesting and monocropping both threaten the agave’s genetic diversity and local biodiversity.
Agave plant photo courtesy of Aguerrido.
In the face of these challenges, mezcal cooperatives are designed to protect small producers. At their best, collectively owned and cooperatively operated brands model a future in which mezcaleros can maintain ancestral and ecologically beneficial practices, while still gaining access to an exploding market.
Preserving Ancestral Traditions
Despite her entrepreneurial savvy, Meneses says that Aguerrido’s members “are not businesspeople—we are farming families looking for a market.” The collective’s core members are lifelong mezcaleros, old enough to remember a time when mezcal faced social stigma.
“They were always fighting to continue making mezcal, even though they hid it, even though it was not well paid,” Meneses says. “They feel proud to say, ‘I make a very good mezcal passed down from my grandfather.’” The four maestros—Don Refugio, Don Ciro, Don Tomás and Don Antonio—carry on their families’ traditions in their own techniques, which in turn inform Aguerrido’s ethos.
Each co-op member complies with mutually established growing, harvesting, and production regulations. Because of agave’s long lifespan, some mezcal producers succumb to the temptation of harvesting immature, unripe agave. These plants have lower sugar content, which requires more of them to produce the same volume.
Rather than “looting the hills,” Meneses says, Aguerrido’s members select only mature plants for production. They plant more agave than they harvest, and all replanting is carried out with close attention to the ecosystem as a whole. “That is another agreement, that you must reforest—but without damaging the ecosystem, removing woody trees, or damaging the soil.”
The members of Aguerrido raise their fists as a nod to the cooperative’s logo, symbolizing their desire to raise their voices and fight to preserve their traditions. (Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)
The mezcal production season runs from February to June. Then they turn their attention to cultivating other crops such as corn and squash. Meneses says this choice is part of Aguerrido’s effort to maintain soil health and biodiversity, despite the larger growing trend among producers and growers to monocrop agave. The group’s vision is “to protect our mezcal precisely from people who only seek a particular benefit for themselves.”
And instead of focusing on short-term profit, she says they’re working to produce mezcal as they always have—in small batches with ancestral techniques. Member-led Sustainable Practices
Bordering Guerrero is the state of Oaxaca, the beating heart of Mexico’s mezcal industry. Oaxaca accounts for 85 percent of mezcal production and is also where mezcal’s ecological impact is most visible. “Communities are becoming like dust bowls because of monoculture of agave,” says Niki Nakazawa, co-founder of Neta Spirits.
But this isn’t the case everywhere. In Logoche, a 110-person village in Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur region, traditional practices still rule the day. Neta Spirits represents the 12-family cooperative Grupo Productor Logoche. Neta purchases from the producers and commercializes the mezcal under the Neta brand. The 12 member families oversee everything else, from planting to distilling to bottling to labeling. An elected committee, appointed by the cooperative, organizes the bottling and labeling process.
Unlike some neighboring communities, producers in the village of Logoche prioritize the long-term health of the land. Members plant their fields with multiple varieties of agave in alternating rows to preserve genetic diversity and insulate the crops from disease and pests. They use the milpa system of rotational planting, which includes crops like corn, beans, and squash to enrich the soil and prevent erosion. Using goat and donkey manure, they prepare natural fertilizers to replenish the fields.
The cooperative also follows the indigenous custom of harvesting agave during the full moon, when they believe the plant’s heart or piña is most concentrated with sugar. Pooling their labor, resources, and profits allows the cooperative to preserve ancestral—and often more labor-intensive—methods.
Community members in the village of Logoche work collectively to roast the agave hearts that will then be crushed and fermented before distillation.
(Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)
Though much larger, Banhez Mezcal follows similar cultivation practices. A cooperative of 44 families in Ejutla, Oaxaca, Banhez adheres to a member-established code of conduct that focuses on the sustainable management of their agave fields. Its collaborative structure also incentivizes responsible production, including better waste management.
Mezcal’s distillation process produces an acidic liquid waste called viñaza, which can pollute local water sources. Not long ago, one Banhez member built his palenque—distillation site—in a location that impacted local groundwater. When the community realized that viñaza was threatening its water quality, the member took out a loan from Banhez and rebuilt the palenque elsewhere.
“When you look at the brands that are able to maintain environmental ethics, it’s really down to ownership,” says Alex Jandernoa, director of education at Banhez. “In order to move [a palenque], you have to keep producing mezcal. If you’re not part of a cooperative, you can’t move. You don’t have the money; you don’t have the safety net.” Rooted in Indigenous Values
In some cases, it’s less the cooperative business model and more a community’s cooperatively held values that insulate producers from market pressure. Nakazawa says Grupo Productor Logoche’s collective ethos is rooted primarily in traditional customs. Logoche, like hundreds of Oaxaca’s municipalities, is governed by two systems: the federal government and customary indigenous laws called usos y costumbres. Grupo Productor Logoche’s cooperation, Nakazawa says, “is rooted in older ways of participation.”
In communities governed by customary indigenous law, “people participate directly in the well-being of other members of the community and in the stewardship of the land.” Every village member participates in communal work, called tequio, in lieu of paying taxes at the local level. Because mezcal is Logoche’s main industry, everyone pitches in at some step during production, and pricing is set by community consensus. “The idea of cooperativism and collectivism is really embedded in those forms of political participation,” says Nakazawa.
The Cooperative Potential
From a commercial perspective, Meneses believes that cooperatively owned brands have an advantage in their product diversity. In the case of Aguerrido, each bottle is a unique representation of the local ecosystem, the agave, and the producer’s skill. “[Consumers] can find diversity in expressions from each producer,” she says.
Maestros del Mezcal, a nongovernmental organization representing hundreds of small producers across Mexico, provides financial and technical support to preserve traditional production practices and protect the land from exploitation. Maestros recently launched a collective brand under the label MDM Asociación Civil, exporting its first shipment to the U.S. last year.
Members of Grupo Productor Logoche gather in their cooperatively owned and managed bottling plant. (Photo courtesy of Aguerrido)
“I do think collective brands can help preserve tradition—by pooling fiscal and regulatory resources and providing easier access to the markets, which is much more costly and time consuming for just one person to do,” says co-organizer Rion Toal. He thinks it’s a model that could be applied successfully to other Mexican products for export. In the case of coffee, for example, “if small producers were able to form co-ops and roast their own beans and legally export them, they could make a lot more money per kilo.”
As pressure from foreign demand mounts, Mexico’s mezcal producers face a choice: turn to industrialized methods and damaging cultivation practices for quick economic gain or differentiate by preserving and promoting ancestral methods. The cooperative model makes the latter option easier. Collective ownership helps producers preserve mezcal’s roots, without losing a foothold in the market.
Meneses says that Aguerrido’s cooperative model looks beyond turning a short-term profit and focuses on the community’s future in mezcal production. “The idea is to be aware, to use good practices—not just right now but also for the future, for the new generations.”
The Superyachts of Billionaires Are Starting to Look a Lot Like Theft
The New York Times Opinion section By Joe Fassler April 10, 2023 Mr. Fassler is a journalist covering food and environmental issues.
If you’re a billionaire with a palatial boat, there’s only one thing to do in mid-May: Chart your course for Istanbul and join your fellow elites for an Oscars-style ceremony honoring the builders, designers and owners of the world’s most luxurious vessels, many of them over 200 feet long.
The nominations for the World Superyacht Awards were all delivered in 2022, and the largest contenders are essentially floating sea mansions, complete with amenities like glass elevators, glass-sided pools, Turkish baths and all-teak decks. The 223-foot Nebula, owned by the WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, comes with an air-conditioned helicopter hangar.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but the ceremony in Istanbul is disgraceful. Owning or operating a superyacht is probably the most harmful thing an individual can do to the climate. If we’re serious about avoiding climate chaos, we need to tax, or at the very least shame, these resource-hoarding behemoths out of existence. In fact, taking on the carbon aristocracy, and their most emissions-intensive modes of travel and leisure, may be the best chance we have to improve our collective climate morale and increase our appetite for personal sacrifice, from individual behavior changes to sweeping policy mandates.
On an individual basis, the superrich pollute far more than the rest of us, and travel is one of the biggest parts of that footprint. Take, for instance, Rising Sun, the 454-foot, 82-room megaship owned by the DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen. According to a 2021 analysis in the journal Sustainability, the diesel fuel powering Mr. Geffen’s boating habit spews an estimated 16,320 tons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent gases into the atmosphere annually, almost 800 times what the average American generates in a year.
And that’s just a single ship. Worldwide, more than 5,500 private vessels clock in about 100 feet or longer, the size at which a yacht becomes a superyacht. This fleet pollutes as much as entire nations: The 300 biggest boats alone emit 315,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, based on their likely usage — about as much as Burundi’s more than 10 million inhabitants. Indeed, a 200-foot vessel burns 132 gallons of diesel fuel an hour standing still and can guzzle 2,200 gallons just to travel 100 nautical miles.
Then there are the private jets, which make up a much higher overall contribution to climate change. Private aviation added 37 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2016, which rivals the annual emissions of Hong Kong or Ireland. (Private plane use hassurged since then, so today’s number is likely higher.)
But this misses a much more important point. Research in economics and psychology suggests humans are willing to behave altruistically — but only when they believe everyone is being asked to contribute. People “stop cooperating when they see that some are not doing their part,” the cognitive scientists Nicolas Baumard and Coralie Chevallier wrote last year in Le Monde.
In that sense, superpolluting yachts and jets don’t just worsen climate change; they lessen the chance that we will work together to fix it. Why bother when the luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is cruising around on the Symphony, a $150 million, 333-foot superyacht?
“If some people are allowed to emit 10 times as much carbon for their comfort,” Mr. Baumard and Ms. Chevallier asked, “then why restrict your meat consumption, turn down your thermostat or limit your purchases of new products?”
Whether we’re talking about voluntary changes (insulating our attics and taking public transit) or mandated ones (tolerating a wind farm on the horizon or saying goodbye to a lush lawn), the climate fight hinges, to some extent, on our willingness to participate. When the ultrarich are given a free pass, we lose faith in the value of that sacrifice.
Taxes aimed at superyachts and private jets would take some of the sting out of these conversations, helping to improve everybody’s climate morale, a term coined by the Georgetown Law professor Brian Galle. But making these overgrown toys a bit more costly isn’t likely to change the behavior of the billionaires who buy them. Instead, we can impose new social costs through good, old-fashioned shaming.
Last June, @CelebJets — a Twitter account that tracked the flights of well-known figures using public data, then calculated their carbon emissions for all to see — revealed that the influencer Kylie Jenner took a 17-minute flight between two regional airports in California. One Twitter user wrote, “kylie jenner is out here taking 3 minute flights with her private jet, but I’m the one who has to use paper straws.”
As media outlets around the world covered the backlash, other celebrities like Drake and Taylor Swift scrambled to defend their heavy reliance on private plane travel. (Twitter suspended the @CelebJets account in December after Elon Musk, a frequent target of jet-tracking accounts, acquired the platform.)
There’s a lesson here: Hugely disproportionate per capita emissions get people angry. And they should. When billionaires squander our shared supply of resources on ridiculous boats or cushy chartered flights, it shortens the span of time available for the rest of us before the effects of warming become truly devastating. In this light, superyachts and private planes start to look less like extravagance and more like theft.
Change can happen — and quickly. French officials are exploring curbing private plane travel. And just last week — after sustained pressure from activists — Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam announced it would ban private jets as a climate-saving measure.
Even in the United States, carbon shaming can have outsize impact. Richard Aboulafia, who’s been an aviation industry consultant and analyst for 35 years, says that cleaner, greener aviation, from all-electric city hoppers to a new class of sustainable fuels, is already on the horizon for short flights. Private aviation’s high-net-worth customers just need more incentive to adopt these new technologies. Ultimately, he says, it’s only our vigilance and pressure that will speed these changes along.
There’s a similar opportunity with superyachts. Just look at Koru, Jeff Bezos’ newly built 416-foot megaship, a three-masted schooner that can reportedly cross the Atlantic on wind power alone. It’s a start.
Even small victories challenge the standard narrative around climate change. We can say no to the idea of limitless plunder, of unjustifiable overconsumption. We can say no to the billionaires’ toys.
Joe Fassler is a journalist covering food and environmental issues. He is the author of “Light the Dark” and the forthcoming novel “The Sky Was Ours.”
OPINION GUEST ESSAY
I Worked at the F.D.A. The Abortion Pill Decision Is Dangerous.
April 10, 2023
By Joshua M. Sharfstein Dr. Sharfstein is a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. He was principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 2009 to 2011.
A federal judge in Texas has taken a shocking and irresponsible action: invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a medication used safely by hundreds of thousands of women each year to help terminate pregnancies as part of a two-pill regimen. For what appears to be the first time, a court has invalidated an agency drug approval — an approval that was based on extensive review of scientific evidence, earned the unanimous support of outside experts and retains, after two decades, the full backing of major professional medical organizations.
The decision is so stunning that it is reasonable to ask whether courts should have any role in reviewing the F.D.A.’s scientific decision-making at all. In fact, judges do have an important job: protecting the ability of the agency to use science and expert judgment to support the health of the American people. The Texas decision is a perversion of this role and, by undermining the F.D.A., represents a threat to the safety of millions of Americans.
There’s a name for the day of the week when the F.D.A. finds itself in court: Monday. Also, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Sometimes the weekends, too. The agency’s large stable of dedicated attorneys defends its actions on a multitude of issues. These include routine administrative matters such as whether the agency moved too fast or too slow on a generic drug approval or whether the agency has missed regulatorydeadlines.
More consequential cases challenge whether the agency has the authority under statutes or the Constitution to address serious threats. For example, the Supreme Court struck down the agency’s initial attempt to regulate the marketing of tobacco products, leading Congress to later pass legislation permitting the agency to move forward. To the chagrin of many public health advocates, an expanding constitutional doctrine of corporate speech has led courts to limit the actions that the F.D.A. can take to protect the public.
And then there are those cases that seek to overturn actual regulatory decisions, which may be brought by advocacy groups, regulated companies or other affected parties. In determining whether the agency has been “arbitrary and capricious,” the standard of review, courts have long respected the judgments of the F.D.A.’s experts, especially those that are in line with expert advice and the consensus of leading medical organizations. This respect has led courts in rare instances to intervene when inappropriate political interference has disrupted the agency’s normal processes.
Example A is Plan B. In 2009, a federal judge ordered the F.D.A. to make emergency contraception available over the counter to 17-year-olds. The decision came after investigationsfound that the leadership of the F.D.A. during the Bush administration deviated from normal procedures when it overruled the decisions of multiple staff scientists, the views of leading medical associations and the vote of advisory committees, all of which were supportive of making the product available without a prescription to people of all ages.
By 2011, the agency’s scientists had again determined that it was appropriate to permit emergency contraception to be sold over the counter without age restrictions. This time, the F.D.A. commissioner appointed by President Barack Obama supported the scientists’ position, publicly explaining that it was based on scientific findings, expert advice, and data from well-designed studies. Yet the secretary of health and human services overruled the agency and blocked approval for all ages on the basis of her own review of the evidence, a decision endorsed by the president himself.
Again, the matter headed to court. The judge found that the secretary’s decision was “obviously political” and cited expert testimony stating that the F.D.A.’s scientific decisions shouldn’t “bend to political winds.” The court ordered the F.D.A. to make emergency contraception available over the counter without age restrictions.
Political attempts to interfere in the F.D.A.’s decision-making are rare, but dangerous. During the Trump administration, concerns over political interference at the F.D.A. flared up during the Covid-19 pandemic. The White House reportedly pressured the agency to support ineffective treatments and authorize vaccines before key data on safety had been gathered. Overruling agency scientists could have led to a court battle, with the judiciary needing to step in to preserve the agency’s authority and the trust of the public.
Now, growing ideological polarization, reflected in the Texas decision’s embrace of extreme language about abortion and health, poses new risks to the F.D.A.’s integrity. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires the F.D.A. to approve medications on the basis of “substantial evidence.” Trust in the agency’s work rests on the idea that decisions that affect a nation are based on facts, not ideology or influence.
Courts should protect this principle. If a future administration attempts to evade these requirements, such as by withdrawing medications that have been appropriately studied and approved, courts should strike it down. Such a threat of legal action may have kept the Bush administration from reconsidering the approval of mifepristone back in the early 2000s. Courts should also step in, as they have done in the past, as states like Wyoming try to outlaw approved drugs.
The scientific and regulatory excellence of the F.D.A. is a point of national pride. Because of its independent, thorough and expert reviews of data, the agency remains the international gold standard for approving medications. Confidence that the F.D.A. can do its work is essential for clinicians and patients, who routinely depend on the agency’s decision-making on matters of life and death. It is also necessary for companies and their investors to develop important new therapies for devastating conditions. If judges can interfere with legitimate and well-supported F.D.A. action, there is no reason to believe that the consequences will be limited to abortion medications.
Courts can protect the work of the F.D.A. or they can destroy it. In issuing an order to keep mifepristone on the market in certain states, a federal judge in Washington State is supporting the many millions of Americans who depend on the F.D.A.’s scientific decisions. The Supreme Court will soon have to decide which side it is on.
A version of this article appears in print on April 11, 2023, Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: The Abortion Pill Decision Is Dangerous.
“My life would not have been my own. I would be a prisoner subject to a body’s whims — and not my body’s whims, but the whims of a teenage boy.” Nicole Walker, a writer and editor, in “My Abortion at 11 Wasn’t a Choice. It Was My Life.” Read the guest essay.
“It’s important that the government is in sync with the public opinion, but I don’t think they are.” Dwyarrn, one of the participants in an Opinion focus group with 12 pro-life voters. Read the focus group’s discussion.
“Sometime soon, I am going to meet a patient who has no ability to leave the state, and I am going to have to tell her that her baby has a lethal condition, and she is going to have to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.” David N. Hackney, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, in “I’m a High-Risk Obstetrician, and I’m Terrified for My Patients.” Read the guest essay.
“There are more of us than there are of them. That’s especially true if American men recognize that their way of life is also under attack. Men also have sex for pleasure. This is not just a women’s issue.” Mara Gay, a member of the editorial board, in “The Republican War on Sex.” Read the essay.
“The overturning of Roe v. Wade reveals the Supreme Court’s neglectful reading of the amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed all people equal protection under the law. It means the erasure of Black women from the Constitution.”
Michele Goodwin, a professor of law at the University of California, in “No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution.” Read the guest essay.
