A progressive entrepreneur makes the case for a $25 minimum wage so workers 'can literally survive'

 

#FIGHTFOR25 

BE REALISTIC DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE!

Joseph Zeballos-Roig 5/16/2020
Joe Sanberg. Larry French/Getty Images for Jefferson Awards Foundation


Progressive entrepreneur Joe Sanberg says it's time to pay workers a $25 minimum wage.
"[Coronavirus] has thrown everything into disrepair and uncertainty — this is the moment to rebalance things," Sanberg told Business Insider.

A $25 minimum wage won't become a reality anytime soon, but economists and researchers are starting to understand more of the effects around boosting pay for workers

A progressive entrepreneur says it's time to raise wages for workers who have been squeezed by an economy that's left many of them behind.

It's not Fight for $15. Instead, Joe Sanberg believes it should be Fight for $25.

Sanberg, a Los Angeles-based investor and co-founder of online banking service Aspiration, recently made the case for a $25 minimum wage over Twitter.

"We must protect all Americans during this pandemic, both medically & financially. Those who still have jobs & show up to do them at great risk to themselves should be able to afford life's basic needs," he said in a May 6 tweet. "This shouldn't be controversial. Plus, it's good for the wider economy."
—Joe Sanberg (@JosephNSanberg) May 6, 2020

In an interview with Business Insider, Sanberg said the US is entering a once-in-a-generation moment as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We're at a crossroads in American society unlike perhaps anything we've seen since the Great Depression," the anti-poverty advocate said. "We're gonna define the kind of economic system we'll have for the next century. [Coronavirus] has thrown everything into disrepair and uncertainty — this is the moment to rebalance things."

Read more: Buy these 13 tech stocks that are abnormally disconnected from Wall Street's expectations for profit growth and poised to rocket higher, Credit Suisse says

Nationally, the minimum wage stands at $7.25 and Congress hasn't bumped it upward since 2009 — the longest stretch without a wage increase for hourly workers from the federal government. Over much of the last decade, state and municipal governments have taken the lead to increase wages on their own, per the Pew Research Center.

Scores of states and cities have rolled out plans to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ABC News reported. New York City and Seattle are among the cities that already mandate that businesses pay the rate.

The Congressional Budget Office projected last year that raising the minimum wage would shed 1.3 million jobs from the economy, but also lift an equal amount of people out of poverty.

Opponents have attacked the idea of a $15 minimum wage as a job killer. Sanberg says he doesn't buy that. He argues that people with more money in their pockets would ultimately spend more, culminating in higher revenues for companies and more employment.

Read more: Warren Buffett calls the prospect of negative interest rates the 'most interesting question I've seen in economics.' We had 5 financial experts weigh in on how they could impact the investing world as we know it.


"The problem with that analysis is it takes a static picture of the present revenue level of businesses, but that's not what happens when everyone earns a living wage," he said. "They spend money, which generates more sales for companies, and they can hire more people."

A $25 minimum wage won't likely become a reality anytime soon, but researchers are beginning to understand more of its effects as wages for workers steadily increase across the country.

An analysis from the Boston Fed and a group of MIT economists published last year found raising the minimum wage leads consumers to spend more, particularly in areas where a greater share of workers are paid hourly.

Another study published last year in The Quarterly Journal of Economics scrutinized the effects of 130 minimum wage increases since 1979, and found that a decline in jobs that paid below the wage were counteracted by the creation of additional jobs that paid a little higher than the new minimum wage. Most of those wage increases, however, were modest.

Mail carriers say the USPS is making it hard to take sick leave in the coronavirus pandemic, contrary to its public claims

Ashley Collman MAY 16, 2020

Workers in masks and gloves at a USPS processing and distribution center in Oakland, California, on April 30, 2020. None of the workers pictured in this article are in the story.

Ben Margot/AP


On April 30, the United States Postal Service said that it had "updated our leave policies to allow liberal use of leave" during the coronavirus pandemic.
The reality looks very different. Some employees say they are finding it very hard to take sick leave, even if they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.
Business Insider spoke to two USPS mail carriers, who said managers are making workers jump through hoops to take time off. The USPS has not responded to a request for comment.

One carrier in Massachusetts said his coworker, who had direct contact with a coronavirus patient, was told he could go back to work.

Another carrier in California said he had not been paid for 14 days he recently took off after his coworker tested positive. He was feeling sick, and that his bosses are now ignoring him.

Despite the United States Postal Service's assurances that employees will be allowed "liberal" sick leave during the coronavirus pandemic, mail carriers say their bosses are making it incredibly difficult for them to take time off.

Business Insider spoke to two mail carriers, in California and Massachusetts, who detailed similar experiences. Both requested to remain anonymous to avoid retribution, but their identities are known to Business Insider.

The carrier in California, who works in a station outside Stockton, said he has yet to be paid for the 14 days he recently took off after a coworker tested positive for the coronavirus and he started feeling sick himself.

Meanwhile, the carrier in Massachusetts — who has worked for the service for 33 years — spoke of another employee who was told to come back to work after he was exposed to an infected customer.

USPS claims 'liberal' time off being allowed

These stories are at odds with the April 30 statement put out by the USPS, which said employees would not have a hard time taking sick days during the pandemic.

A United States Postal Service (USPS) worker works in the rain in Manhattan during the coronavirus outbreak in New York City. Reuters

According to the statement, the service had "updated our leave policies to allow liberal use of leave and to therefore give our employees the ability to stay home whenever they feel sick, must provide dependent care, or any other qualifying factor under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act."

"We have entered into agreements with our unions to provide 80 hours of paid leave to non-career employees for issues related to COVID-19, and have expanded the definition of sick leave for dependent care for covered employees to deal with the closures of primary and secondary schools across the country," the statement added.
Told to return after exposure to COVID-19

The Massachusetts carrier told Business Insider one of his coworkers had decided to go home after learning he was exposed to an infected customer.


While that coworker was on the phone to his doctor, trying to figure out what to do, he received a call from a manager at the station saying he could return to work.

"He wanted to get the opinion of his medical professional ... and they were literally trying to get him to turn around and go back to work," the carrier told Business Insider.

"It was just an awful situation."

The coworker decided to stay at home and self-quarantine after speaking to his doctor, who had said, "absolutely do not go back to work."

A USPS employee in Manhattan during the coronavirus pandemic. Mike Segar/Reuters

The Massachusetts carrier said while he has not requested any time off during the pandemic, he knows the USPS is making it incredibly difficult.

"They really push for documentation. You gotta jump through a couple hoops before they check the box," he said.

He says the USPS has always been this way.

"They've never been very considerate about sick leave," he said. "My experience through the years up until now is that if you call in sick, they question what's wrong."

"They're not supposed to, but they do. It's a small guilt trip."

Waiting to get paid

The California carrier said his managers made it very difficult for him to get paid sick leave when he took time off after being exposed to an infected coworker, and experiencing symptoms himself. It took place recently, around the same time as the April 30 statement.

He said the day after he learned about the coworker getting sick, he came down with a mild fever, fatigue, and started showing redness in his legs and eyes.

So he decided to call in sick, both to recuperate and to make sure he didn't accidentally transmit the coronavirus to anyone if he had contracted it.

He was immediately told that in order to get paid sick leave, he would need a doctor's note. Because he doesn't have health insurance, he paid out of pocket to see a doctor and get a note.

A USPS letter carrier crosses a quiet Boylston Street with greatly reduced foot and vehicle traffic in Boston on March 18, 2020. Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

After self-isolating at home for about two weeks, the carrier said he checked his employee profile online and saw that he still wasn't being paid for his sick leave.

He has since been told that his doctor's note specifically needed to have a coronavirus diagnosis on it, he said.

This, in turn, has been almost impossible.

"I tried calling the doctor back and he said two things: One, the CDC for six weeks now is asking doctors not to give out any notes at all because it's a waste of valuable time and resources; and two, they would never write your medical details down on a note as those are private," he said.
'A toxic environment from the top down'

Since returning to work this week, the California carrier said his bosses have been avoiding him, and he is not hopeful that he will ever get paid for taking that time off.

"I know 100% they're going to fight tooth and nail just to ignore me," he said.

Hygiene at his station has also been dire. In a previous interview with Business Insider, he described a lack of masks, social distancing, and having to stand "nearly shoulder to shoulder with everyone all the time" at his station.

He has become so fearful of the conditions there he's even resorted to looking for a new job.

"It's the worst possible time, but I'm already looking for other positions," he said. "They don't have my back. They don't have anybody's back at this point."

"It looks like a toxic environment from the top down."

The USPS has not responded to Business Insider's request for comment.

As unemployment continues to rise, the US could face another crisis: Homelessness across the country could increase by 45%

Sarah Al-Arshani May 14, 2020  INSIDER

Pedestrians walk to the edge of the sidewalk to avoid stepping on people in tents and sleeping bags in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco. AP Photo/Ben Margot


Homelessness in the US could go up by 45% as a result of unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new study from an economics professor at Columbia University. 

More than 800,000 people could be homeless by the summer. 

The unemployment rate in the US reached 14.7%, which hasn't been seen since the Great Depression.
Homelessness in the United States could increase by as much as 45% by the end of this year, according to a new study from a Columbia University economics professor.

Millions of Americans have filed for unemployment as many businesses across the country shutter due to stay-at-home orders and closures of non-essential businesses in an effort to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.

The report by Dan O'Flaherty, who is an expert on the economics of homelessness, "projects an increase in homelessness by 40-45% this year over January 2019."

That means around an additional 250,000 people will be without housing, "if homelessness follows unemployment the way that it has done so in the earlier part of this century," according to the model used for this study.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 568,000 people were homeless in January 2019. According to the study, more than 800,000 people could be homeless by this summer.

Some have already been forced to live in their cars or on the streets as a result of losing their job during the pandemic. One couple in Los Angeles previously told Business Insider that they lost their part-time jobs as security guards at a restaurant early into the pandemic and have been forced to live in their car.

The study notes that the unemployment rate in the US reached 14.7%, which hasn't happened since the Great Depression. The rate has not peaked yet, and California alone has already predicted that its unemployment rate could peak at 24.5%.

"This is unprecedented," O'Flaherty said, according to the study. "No one living has seen an increase of 10% of unemployment in a month."

According to the Los Angeles Times, California, which already has a quarter of the country's homeless population would likely see a "smaller increase in homelessness than the nation overall."

The study estimates that the state would see a 20% increase from 150,000 to 180,000 people. That's because the study mostly looked at a constant rise in unemployment across the US, so states that had fewer homeless people would likely see a larger increase.

More than 36 million Americans applied for unemployment during the last two months.

According to the LA Times, some economists say that the economic toll of the pandemic is likely to only get worse.

On Wednesday, citing a separate Federal Reserve survey, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said: "Among people who were working in February, almost 40% of those in households making less than $40,000 a year had lost a job in March."

"This reversal of economic fortune has caused a level of pain that is hard to capture in words, as lives are upended amid great uncertainty about the future," Powell added.

Australian investigation alleged that Cardinal George Pell knew about abuse within the Catholic church for decades. 

One of the pedophile priests he allegedly helped protect has been sentenced to more jail time for his crimes.

Rosie Perper
May 14, 2020

Cardinal George Pell AP


An 85-year-old priest from Victoria, Australia, has been sentenced to more jail time after admitting to further abuse against young boys in the 1970s.
Ridsdale has been in prison since 1994 and has been convicted of 179 offenses against 69 victims between the years of 1961 and 1988.
On Thursday, Victorian County Court Judge Gerard Mullaly extended Ridsdale's sentence for at least another three years, making his earliest release date 2025. He said the extended sentence meant Ridsdale is "more likely to die in custody."
An unredacted Australian Royal Commission investigation released earlier this month found that senior figures in the Catholic Church, including Cardinal George Pell, knew about Ridsdale's abuse and protected him.

An 85-year-old priest from Victoria, Australia, has been sentenced to more jail time after admitting to further abuse of young boys in the 1970s.

According to court documents, Gerald Ridsdale was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1961 and jumped from parish to parish in several cities, including Ballarat and Warrnambool, allegedly committing sexual offenses at each one.

Ridsdale has been in prison since 1994 and has been convicted of 179 offenses against 69 victims between the years of 1961 and 1988. His offenses include dozens of counts of indecent assault and child sexual abuse.

On Thursday, Victorian County Court Judge Gerard Mullaly extended Ridsdale's sentence for at least another three years, making his earliest release date 2025.
Mullaly said that the extended sentence "may well mean that you are, as a consequence, more likely to die in custody."

Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 14 sexual offenses against four young male victims from 1970 to 1979. According to Mullaly, Ridsdale befriended one of his victim's families and frequently visited their home. Two other victims were brothers.

In Ridsdale hearing last month, the court heard that one of the victims, who was seven years old at the beginning of the abuse, never learned to read or write because Ridsdale used to read to him during his assaults.

Ridsdale's defense said that when things escalated in one particular city, the priest knew he would be moved on to another parish.

During Ridsdale's sentencing in 2006, Judge Bill White said that his conduct "plummets to the depths of evil hypocrisy." White criticized the Catholic church for not taking action on complaints made about Ridsdale's known activities.

"The Catholic Church cannot escape criticism in view of its lack of action on complaints being made as to your conduct, the constant moving of you from parish to parish, providing you with more opportunity for your predatory conduct, and its failures to show adequate compassion for a number of your victims," White said in 2006.

An unredacted Australian Royal Commission investigation released earlier this month found that senior figures in the Catholic Church, including Cardinal George Pell, knew about Ridsdale's abuse and protected him.

The commission alleged that Pell should have done more to prevent sexual abuse and remove clergymen who were known to have committed sexual abuse.

Pell has continuously denied knowing about sexual abuse in Ballarat churches while he served as a priest there in the 1970s and 1980s.

According to The Guardian, the commission noted allegations that Pell tried to bribe a sexual abuse survivor from Ballarat named David Risdale into keeping quiet about his abuse at the hands of Ridsdale, who is his uncle.

The commission said it was satisfied that Pell "turned his mind" to Ridsdale taking the boys on overnight camps. The report said that Pell acknowledged that the likely reason for this "was the possibility that if priests were one-on-one with a child then they could sexually abuse a child or at least provoke gossip about such a prospect."

Pell was previously convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys at a Melbourne church, though his historic conviction was overturned last month.

Director Eugene Jarecki Explains Why He Mounted a ‘Trump Death Clock’ in Times Square

“Our government is showing no accountability,” the documentarian says of his sign counting American lives he says were lost to Trump’s slow response to COVID-19

https://www.thewrap.com/trump-death-clock-eugene-jarecki/

Lifestyle influencers are using COVID-19 to spread 

QAnon conspiracy theories: 'I truly believe I owe it to my audience to be more for them during this turning point in our culture' 

THE PRETENSION IS OVERWHELMING 

Rachel E. Greenspan
May 15, 2020

Snapchat

The QAnon conspiracy theory movement is spreading to some of Instagram's fashionable influencers. @jalynnschroeder/Instagram; @luvbec/Instagram; @krystaltini/Instagram


QAnon, a conspiracy theory deeply engrained with religious conservatives, is no longer just a fringe movement. Now, lifestyle influencers are spreading Q's gospel with their followers.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many QAnon believers have promoted conspiracy theories about "the great awakening" and a supposed plot against Donald Trump.
"I truly believe I owe it to my audience to be more for them during this turning point in our culture," Rebecca Pfeiffer of @luvbec told Insider in an email.
The spread represents a dangerous trend towards belief in unverified information online, that has spurned some Q followers into potentially violent action.
Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.


At first glance, Rebecca Pfeiffer's Instagram appears just like any other lifestyle influencer's feed. Pfeiffer's page @luvbec, which has 104,000 followers, is full of sepia-toned images of a happy family, denim and camouflage jackets, aesthetically pleasing kitchen decor, and sponsored posts with big brands, including Walmart.

But one post from April 7 stands out. Pfeiffer is wearing a bikini and a baseball cap adorned with the letter Q, designed with the American flag, and the words "where we go one, we go all," one of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement's top catchphrases.

"Humbled daily by your messages of awakening, of truth telling, of God-bearing grace," the caption reads, with the hashtags #wwg1wga, #qanon, #qdrops, and #thegreatawakening.

Pfeiffer is a follower of QAnon, the conspiracy theory movement that believes an embedded "deep state" operative sympathetic to the Trump administration is sending coded messages fateful for our culture and politics via an anonymous message board. Of the movement's many bizarre theories, most revolve around the idea that there is a secret plot against President Donald Trump.


QAnon has "no apparent foundation in reality," as NBC News noted, and it's possible that Q, the anonymous figure or group of people posting "Q drops" with new information for followers online, started as a trolling incident. The movement began in 2017 in the wake of the Pizzagate theory on 4chan, an anonymous online message board that is often a breeding ground for hateful vitriol and conspiracy theories.

There have been multiple incidents of QAnon supporters committing violence, including murders and attempted kidnappings, according to progressive research nonprofit organization Media Matters for America.

An FBI field office in Phoenix referred to QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat in 2019. "The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts," an FBI document obtained by Yahoo News said.
Pfeiffer is part of a small but mighty group of lifestyle influencers on Instagram who talk about QAnon in between fashion and parenting posts.

Pfeiffer's QAnon stories and posts are remarkably unspecific, and use religious rhetoric that paints QAnon as "the great awakening" of our time. Followers often times come off as missionaries of sorts, spreading the gospel of Q, as detailed in a recent Atlantic piece.


"I only started sharing this information recently when I started feeling that I had a moral obligation to my audience to share more important content, given the current circumstances," Pfeiffer told Insider via email. "I truly believe I owe it to my audience to be more for them during this turning point in our culture."

The proliferation of conspiracy theories on Instagram is far from novel, as misinformation and far-right ideologies have continued to spread on the app for years. And Pfeiffer is certainly not the sole influencer espousing these beliefs, though the trend is not yet widespread. One comment on her April 7 post, from a micro-influencer with 1,460 followers, reads: "Your posts have been so refreshing to see on an influencers platform... bravo."

Another fashion and lifestyle influencer, Jalynn Schroeder, began sharing QAnon theories in March. "One week ago today, my eyes were opened," she captioned a video in which she explained her new belief system. The 14-minute video has a thumbnail showing a quote from Maya Angelou that reads, "We are only as blind as we want to be." While the late poet and author had no connection to QAnon, Schroeder, who did not return Insider's request for comment, used it to demonstrate her own so-called "awakening."



Krystal Tini, an entrepreneur and model whose Instagram page has nearly 100,000 followers, is another believer in QAnon who has shared conspiracy theories like the baseless idea that 5G technology causes COVID-19, which has led to people burning down 5G cellular towers.


Tini told Insider in an email that she became interested in QAnon because it "gets people to think for themselves and not become a slave to the mainstream media," but she said she's not "100% convinced it's 100% true." Tini added that she never would have shared her perspectives prior to COVID-19.

"If anything, it has piqued my curiosity about all that has been going on 'behind the scenes' for quite some time and also it has provided information I wouldn't otherwise have never known," she said.



Originally, believers in QAnon considered themselves to be on the margins of US culture and considered those in the mainstream society as "normies."

Marc Tuters, a lecturer in the University of Amsterdam's Media Studies program who researches radical political subcultures online, has dubbed the phenomenon of QAnon entering mainstream consciousness as "normiefication," as influencers spreading these beliefs are actually sharing "vague ideas" rather than specifics. Tuters said there's been a "gradual translation to less and less extreme versions, until all that's really left is just the slogans."


These women clearly believe what they're spreading, but their explanations of Q are much easier to swallow than the notion that the Clintons and Obama were involved in a child sex ring.
Social media platforms have struggled to tamp down the spread of these theories during the coronavirus pandemic, as many of them are harmful to public health.

During the coronavirus pandemic, influencers, politicians, and celebrities have been posting misinformation and unproven treatments for the virus.

An April report by researchers from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University found that influencers are part of a group responsible for the most engagement with coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media. While politicians, celebrities, and influencers made up only 20% of false claims, their posts accounted for 69% of social media engagement with such theories.

Federal agencies have also put out warnings against false treatment claims. "What we don't need in this situation are companies preying on consumers by promoting products with fraudulent prevention and treatment claims," Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons said in a March Food and Drug Administration press release.


But these types of unsubstantiated claims have only gotten worse since March. In a 26-minute viral video dubbed the "Plandemic," anti-vaxxer Judy Mikovits, identified as a doctor in the documentary-style short, claims that wearing a mask can increase chances of contracting COVID-19.

Carmella Rose, a fitness and lifestyle influencer with more than two million followers, shared the short documentary with her followers in Instagram stories on May 12. "Everyone needs to check out this video," she wrote. "It keeps getting taken off of YouTube and Facebook when getting millions of views, time to wake up."

Screenshots from Carmella Rose's Instagram stories show her support for QAnon. @carmellarose/Instagram

Indeed, Facebook has been working to remove the video. "Suggesting that wearing a mask can make you sick could lead to imminent harm, so we're removing the video from Facebook and Instagram," a Facebook company spokesperson told Insider. YouTube said it has also sought to remove posts of the video, which contains "content that includes medically unsubstantiated diagnostic advice," Reuters reported.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, QAnon has officially become mainstream. Even President Trump is publicly acknowledging the movement's conspiracy theories.

Alexander Reid Ross, a researcher who tracks white nationalism and a doctoral fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, said that it's clear that the QAnon movement has wormed its way into mainstream culture.


"When you've got the president of the United States promoting these themes and theories ... You can say that they're fringe, in terms of the competent, rational mind, but you can't say that they're out of the mainstream," said Reid Ross.

In addition to the Plandemic, Rose, who did not respond to requests for comment, shared posts about "Obamagate" on her stories. "Obamagate," a conspiracy theory that alleges President Barack Obama and his administration illegally targeted the Trump administration in investigations (such as the Mueller probe), has been touted by President Trump.

Sen. Rand Paul tweeted on May 13 encouraging Congress to find out "what did the former president know." Then, Trump tweeted on May 14 urging Congress to investigate the "biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA."

35 current or former candidates for Congress have appeared to support QAnon, according to Media Matters for America, as reported by The Atlantic.
—Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 13, 2020


While Trump has continuously spread the Q-derived "Obamagate" theory, he has been unable to answer questions from reporters concerning crimes Obama allegedly committed.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2020


Tini said there are certain QAnon theories surrounding Obama that are particularly appealing to her, because of the president's Secret Service code name, "Renegade," which is defined by the Oxford dictionary as "a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles."

"That right there has me asking," Tini said, "why would a president of the United States of America choose such a word to represent him?"
QAnon followers are particularly emboldened during the coronavirus pandemic, which is a "perfect storm for conspiracy theories," according to Tuters.

Pfeiffer told Insider that she only recently became interested in QAnon "when the narrative we were being presented through mainstream media didn't seem to be adding up."


Though she would have never previously shared political ideology with her followers, she feels it's her duty. "I only started sharing this information recently when I started feeling that I had a moral obligation to my audience to share more important content, given the current circumstances."

Tini echoed that sentiment, writing in an email to Insider that her decision to share QAnon with her Instagram followers "comes strictly from passion to pursue the truth as opposed to so many people being controlled by fear" during the coronavirus pandemic.

Tuters also said it makes sense that people are turning to QAnon during the coronavirus pandemic, as the world remains uncertain and people are searching for beacons of hope and guidance. "[Conspiracy theories] are simplistic narratives that people come up with to kind of connect their political beliefs with something bigger," Tuters said.

"People seek some kind of sense of certainty, understandably so, and explanations that can sort of fit things into a more coherent framework," he said, "and that's what attracts people to conspiracy theories in general."

Read more:
Facebook banned a cluster of 'fringe conspiracy' QAnon pages for breaking its rules on manipulation

QAnon conspiracy theorists are telling people to drink bleach as a cure against the deadly Wuhan coronavirus

A QAnon conspiracy theory about Oprah Winfrey went so viral that it provoked her to respond, showing the scope of coronavirus misinformation

Celebrities, politicians, and influencers are largely accountable for the spread of false coronavirus information, according to a new study

This Priest Squirted Holy Water At Churchgoers At A Socially-Distanced Service And He's Now A Meme
Father Tim Pelc told BuzzFeed News he's amazed at how widely the photo is being shared. "It even had two hits in the Vatican," he said, "which sort of concerned me but I haven’t heard anything yet."
Posted on May 16, 2020

Courtesy Larry Peplin

Father Tim Pelc tries to stay off social media when possible, but recently, it's become unavoidable. Thanks to the photos from his socially-distanced Holy Week service in Michigan, which involved a water gun full of Holy Water, Pelc has become a meme.

The photos, which were taken by parishioner Larry Peplin, received some attention when they were first posted by St. Ambrose Parish on Facebook in April. But they have recently gone viral on Twitter, and even sparked a Reddit Photoshop Battle.


Jeff Barnaby@tripgore
A Priest giving social distance blessings with a squirt pistol and what, I'm assuming, is Holy water. 2020 folks.07:29 PM - 15 May 2020

The sudden internet popularity has come as a pleasant surprise to Pelc, 70, who's been with the parish in Detroit for 30 years and prides himself on having a "pretty wacky mind and pretty accepting congregation."

"The original idea was to do something for the kids of the parish," Pelc told BuzzFeed News. "They were about ready to have an Easter unlike any of their past, so I thought, what can we still do that would observe all the protocols of social distancing?"

Pelc came up with the idea of using a water gun to bless his parishioners' Easter baskets from a safe distance, and consulted with his friend, an emergency room doctor in Detroit, to ensure it was safe to do so.

"He said, 'not only is this safe, this is fun,' and he came with his kids," Pelc said. "He provided me with all the personal protection stuff that I needed. The sun was out, we had a nice turnout. It was a way of continuing an ancient custom, and people seemed to enjoy it."

Pelc said he's been amazed at how widely the photos have been shared, and how much they've resonated with people all over the world.

"It was a good news story and people were in the mood for something like that," Pelc said.

They noticed that the photos on Facebook had a wide reach.

"It was big in Ukraine, and the Germans are funny, that led to a whole sub discussion about the types of water pistols," he added. "It even had two hits in the Vatican, which sort of concerned me but I haven’t heard anything yet."

Christine Busque, who manages the church's Facebook page and posted the original photos, said the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and she's thrilled to see others appreciate Father Pelc's trademark thoughtfulness and creative flair.

“People wanted to have a bright side to the things that are happening in the world right now," Busque said. "They saw that, and I think they saw that he cared about his parishioners enough to want to keep his traditions alive but work [within] the CDC guidelines of being safe."

Facebook: stambroseparish

Pelc said he thinks the photos have taken off online because not only are they fun, they've also provided a bit of optimism for those feeling a sense of hopelessness during the coronavirus pandemic.

"I’m not objecting to it, this whole idea of combating evil is a good one," Pelc said. "When Jesus dies he doesn’t just lay around doing nothing, he goes down to hell and kicks the doors in, he really wrestles with evil. We all want to believe that the devil is not the most powerful force on the earth and neither is COVID-19."


Imgur / Via imgur.com
Father Tim Pelc's personal favorite photoshopped image.

While the Holy Saturday service was a bit tongue-in-cheek, Pelc said he's happy to see his parishioners and his city taking the pandemic seriously.

"Detroiters are taking lockdown very seriously," Pelc said. "Michigan’s got a public face of a lot of people with their assault rifles protesting, but here in south eastern Michigan that’s not the mood I’m getting."

While his parish may reopen for public masses as soon as next Sunday, with reduced capacity, Pelc said he's tried calling around for people to help put on and attend the service and been turned down.

"People are saying they don’t want to come out just yet," Pelc said. "There’s still a lot of fear out there and I don’t blame them."

Michigan currently has the fourth-highest COVID-19 death toll in the United States, with more than 4,800 deaths and over 50,000 cases.

Pelc and the St. Ambrose Parish have been honoring the state's COVID-19 victims with blue ribbons tied around trees on the church's property.

"When the lockdown started we tied a blue ribbon on one of our trees and the first week we had six ribbons, then 60, then 675, now it’s close to 5,000," Pelc said. "Each of those pieces of ribbon represents someone who was loved and had a family, it brings tears to your eyes."

Facebook: stambroseparish


While the parish waits to resume normal services, Pelc has been adapting with a mix of livestreamed and pre-taped Sunday services. The church's livestreams have become so popular — with as many as three masses worth of people watching tuning into a Facebook livestream, Pelc said – that the parish is looking at permanent camera placements to broadcast to people even after the pandemic ends.

"We don’t think we can put the toothpaste back in the tube," Pelc said. "Our broadcasts equal the number of people electronically as I would have on a normal weekend physically, and that tells me that there’s an audience out there."

As for his newfound internet stardom and meme-ification, Pelc is still getting used to it.

"I'm a little reluctant, if I didn’t have a mask on in these photos I probably wouldn't be as happy," Pelc said. "But I'm perfectly happy being the masked avenger here."

Olivia Niland BuzzFeed News Reporter
Olivia Niland is a news reporter and curation editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

Coronaviruses and surveillance technologies: How far will governments go?
Governments mobilized digital surveillance to contain the spread of the virus

Translation published on 04/01/2020


Electronic tracking bracelet on a passenger at Hong Kong International Airport. Photo file: Rachel Wong / HKFP.

This article was written by Shui-yin Sharon Yam, an assistant professor of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky, and was originally published in Hong Kong Free Press on March 24, 2020 . It is reproduced on Global Voices under a content association agreement.

See Global Voices special coverage on the global impact of COVID-19 .

Since the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a rapidly spreading pandemic, governments around the world have implemented new policies to help mitigate the spread of the virus.

In addition to closing borders for non-citizens, several governments have also mobilized digital surveillance technologies to track and contain visitors and citizens.

On Wednesday, March 18, the Hong Kong Government announced that all newcomers to the city must undergo two weeks of self-imposed quarantine and wear an electronic wristband that connects to a location tracking application on their cell phones.

If the application detects changes in the person's location, it will alert the Health Department and the Police. Prior to this policy, only people who had recently visited the Hubei province in China were required to wear a monitoring bracelet during their quarantine period.

While technologies and surveillance measures can provide the public with a sense of security to control the spread of the virus, we must be vigilant about its continued use after the pandemic disappears.

European and North American countries such as Italy, Spain and the United States are severely affected by the coronavirus. Meanwhile, international media praised Asian countries for their swift responses and the use of surveillance technologies to control the outbreak.

The Singapore Government, for example, implemented policies that can rigorously and effectively track a complex chain of contacts . Starting in February, anyone entering a government or corporate building in Singapore must provide their contact information.

In addition, the Government has been collecting a significant amount of data detailing every known case of infection and also where the person lives and works, as well as the network of contacts to which he is linked.

Although these measures seem to have produced positive results for now, they have highlighted the Government's capacity and technological potential to monitor the movements and lives of each person.

In China, where COVID-19 was first detected, the Government has been employing drastic containment policies and also various surveillance technologies to ensure public compliance with quarantine and isolation.

In addition to using drones to monitor people's movements and ensure that they remain in their homes, in five Chinese cities, the Police patrol the streets with smart helmets equipped with thermo-examination technologies that sound an alarm if a person's temperature exceeds the threshold.

The Government has also collaborated with Hanwang Technology Limited to refine their existing facial recognition technology so that it works even when the person wears a mask.

By connecting to a temperature sensor and the existing Chinese Government database and state-level information, this technology allows authorities to immediately identify the name of each person whose body temperature is above 38 ° C.

According to Hanwang Technology, this sophisticated facial recognition technology can identify up to 30 people "in a second."

While the use of surveillance technologies such as these have been effective in reducing the number of confirmed cases in China, they also carry risks.

Beyond the pandemic, both the Chinese government and the company have substantial interests in the development and use of this technology: the government can use it to track and suppress political opponents, while society has much to gain from the point of view. financially.

This technology can also be captured by China's counterterrorism forces to more tightly monitor and regulate the movement of the Uighurs, which the Chinese government lists as terrorists, and who are currently forced to enter mass detention camps and are subjected to forced labor.

Outside Asia, countries in the Middle East such as Israel and Iran have also employed similar surveillance technologies , out of the need to control the spread of the coronavirus.

The Israeli Government uses technologies developed for the anti-terrorist fight to collect data from cell phones, so that it can trace people's contact networks, as well as identify those who must quarantine.

Geolocation data collected through cell phones will be used to alert the public to where they should not go based on infection patterns.

Not only is there no precedent for Israel using anti-terrorism data to combat a health crisis, but the existence of this treasure trove of data, according to The New York Times , has also not been previously reported.

On March 6, researcher Nariman Gharib revealed that the Iranian government has been tracking its citizens' cell phone data through an application disguised as a diagnostic tool for the coronavirus.

Security expert Nikolaos Chrysaidos confirmed that the app collected sensitive personal information that is not related to the outbreak. For example, the app recorded the user's body movements like a physical test tracker would.

Google removed the app from Google Play, but this case demonstrates the need for constant public surveillance of the Government's use of surveillance technologies in the name of public health.

Preserving public health has historically been used by prevailing government institutions and authorities as a justification to stigmatize, monitor, and regulate the lives of marginalized people, such as immigrants, racial minorities, the LGBTQ + community, and those living in poverty.

If we do not hold our government accountable for the use of surveillance technologies during the current pandemic and in the future, we will expose those who are already marginalized to even greater risks of regulation, repression and persecution.

Written byHong Kong Free Press

Translated byMaria Emilia Miller

Pre-Hispanic inspiration, struggle, and satire: The art of Mexico's Manuel Ruelas
An interview with the Mexican engraver and painter

Translation posted 28 April 2020


“Mick and tecutli”. Woodcut 2017, photo used with artist's permission.

Manuel Ruelas is an artist and painter from Jalisco, western Mexico, better known as Fases, whose work lies at the intersection between consumerism, migration, and territoriality. His art, which displays satire and reflection, is also a mixture of pre-Hispanic art and everyday pop culture. Ruelas attended national and international events, such as the 6th International Szeklerland Engraving Biennial 2020 and the Second Edition of “Lumen Art Biennial” in Mexico.

His work is influenced by the TGP “Taller de Gráfica Popular” (“People's Graphic Workshop”), which is a landmark in Mexican contemporary art. This workshop has been a school for many engraving artists such as Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo O'Higgins, and Luis Arenal Bastar, and denounced class struggle through the use of Mexican symbols and popular elements.

Ruelas also alludes to the aesthetics of Chicano art, which is characterized by the use of religious, political, and indigenous symbols, and reflects social and identity issues in a Mexican-American context. Ruelas also acknowledges the stylistic influence of German Expressionism in his work.

Currently, he paints and makes prints within his Barranca Gráfica Workshop-Gallery, which currently has two offices and an art gallery. The office in Mexico is located in the Condesa neighborhood, one of the most relevant cultural places in Mexico City; the office in the USA is in Oakland, California, where he currently lives. He manages both spaces.

About a year ago, I had the opportunity to work in this Barranca Gráfica workshop in Mexico and to meet him. The following interview unfolds my recent talk with Manuel Ruelas about what influences his work and artistic vision.


“Misfortunes of faith.” Engraving on relief, 50 x 70 cm, 2019, photo used with artist's permission.

Alejandro Barreto: Your work is full of satire. What is Manuel Ruelas’ criticism directed against?

Translation
Original Quote


The sense of humor and satire is something inherent in Mexican culture, we grow, we live, and we die with it; humor has served as a vehicle to fight and cope with the hardships and ailments of this country. In my case, this happened in a natural and casual way, it gave me the possibility of maintaining a critical and political position regarding historical events. The social context, the mixture of poverty, violence, and corruption has become a reality in Mexico, [it is] a constant defense in a city that ends up making its citizens rough. In Mexico there is a cult of fighting and rivalry of all kinds, in the sports industry, politics, religion, and television. I try to capture a phenomenon of which we are a part: the misfortune in society, which ranges from getting sick, or becoming poorer, violent, or corrupt. And the ultimate misfortune is death, that is why this is a recurring concept in my work.


“Codex”. Woodcut 2019, photo used with artist's permission.

AB: In your opinion, what place does street art occupy in today's world society?

Translation
Original Quote


MR: [Street art] made the showcases more democratic, any artist or person who wants to say something or paint can do it, and in this way they took their message to audiences that perhaps had never been to a museum or to a gallery. The main issue for me today is that the big capital cities realized this and have turned it into a commercial and elitist product, a resource for gentrification, which makes it sterile and merely decorative, an ideal background for ‘selfies’, and large-scale advertising. There are still great artists who stand firm and consistent in their conception of art.

AB: Currently you live in the United States. Has this changed your perception of Mexican-American culture compared to when you lived in Mexico?

Translation
Original Quote


MR: For me, the starting point and the connection with the Mexican-American culture was the concept of Nepantla, a very important Nahuatl indigenous word for us Mexicans, that means “in the middle”, “in between”. The experience of living in the United States has taken me to investigate the paths of longing, my own and the collective “in the middle”, so this concept is very present in my work. At the same time, I am collecting stories about segregation, xenophobia, and racism, but also about overcoming, organization, community and struggle.


“Smoking Black Mirror”. Linoengraving, 15 x 20cm, photo used with artist's permission.

AB: There are many references to pop culture and territorial discourse in your works. How do these two concepts work for you as an artist?

Translation
Original Quote


MR: They are based on the ancient myth of the Mexicas or Aztecas migrating from Aztlán [to where Mexico City is today], and the construction of identity-territory. The people of Aztlán, the Aztecs, had to leave their homes in search of the land promised by the gods. By orders of the god of war and sun, Huitzilopochtli, they began a pilgrimage until they encountered an eagle devouring a snake, perched on a prickly pear cactus, and they founded México-Tenochtitlán [present-day Mexico City]. This story for me has a cultural, cross-border, and migration value, with which I wanted to build bridges between the self and the “other,” the mixture of the iconography of Aztec signs, but idealized by local or popular culture, and reinterpreted in light of the new culture of mass consumption. The popular consumerist elements and those that the Aztec empired worshipped. Names, common characters, and brands present in our collective culture. These exercises of appropriation and hybridization have made me search for new meanings of the icons, reformulating their narratives and giving them new ways of representation.


“Duality”. Linoengraving, 15 x 10cm, photo used with artist’ permission.

You can see more of the artist's work on his Instagram account.



Written byAlejandro Barreto

Translated byTeodora C. Hasegan

Mass animal sacrifice in the name of God stubbornly continues in Nepal

The practice is still deeply entrenched in some regions

IT REALLY HELPED WITH STOPPING THAT DISASTOROUS EARTHQUAKE THEY HAD

Posted 29 April 2020

Screenshot from Inside a clan's tradition of deity worship and sacrifice, a video documentary by Saprina Panday. Used with permission.

Note: The author of this story directed and produced the mini-documentary, “Inside a clan's tradition of deity worship and sacrifice”. She is also a member of the Upamanya Gotra (Pandey) clan.

In different regions of Nepal, animal sacrifice is still a thriving part of some religious festivals. While global attention is on the famous Gadhimai festival, many small-scale religious ceremonies also include what activists see as cruel sacrificial practices. Despite continued protests from rights groups and legislation aimed at banning the practice, animal sacrifice is still a deeply entrenched part of the cultural norms of many communities.
A ‘ban’ on animal sacrifice

The Gadhimai festival, often called the largest mass animal-slaughter on earth, caught the world's attention after international animal rights activists, like Brigitte Bardot, began campaigning against the event in 2009. It is held every 5 years at the Gadhimai Temple of Bariyarpur near the Indian border.

Read More: Will Nepal's Gadhimai Temple End Its Centuries-Old Animal Sacrifice Rituals?

After mounting pressure from both national and international animal rights groups, India's Supreme Court outlawed the transportation of animals across the border to Gadhimai without a license in 2014. Nepal's Supreme Court followed suit by directing the government to come up with a strategic action plan for the phasing out of the practice of animal sacrifice. In 2015, even the Temple Trust of Gadhimai had agreed to ban animal sacrifice.

However, despite the ‘ban’, the Gadhimai festival took place in 2019.


#Nepal temple ban animal sacrifices #Gadhimai festival?
We object to th cruelty with which animals r treated
There is random hacking of animals in open space. Not all animals have their heads chopped off.
The festival management committee cannot stop the animal sacrifices. pic.twitter.com/eNbKhPlrBw

— Gnapika Thapa (@GnapikaT) November 28, 2019


Killing Field#GadhimaiFestival #Gadhimai #Nepal #AnimalRights #animals
Photographs and videos by @fotomanish.
More photos: https://t.co/2YDogjGRnv@SnehaCare @HSIGlobal @NawrcOrg @AnimalNepal @Himal_Khabar pic.twitter.com/mZSpiOHh7f

— Nepali Times (@NepaliTimes) December 4, 2019
Clan tradition and the Kul Devata Puja

The fact that the largest, and the most infamous animal sacrificial ceremony did not lead to an all-out ban suggests that it will be even harder to put an end to the practice at small-scale regularly held events like the Kul Devata Pujas.

Kuladevata refers to a diety that is worshiped by specific clans who follow the Hindu faith. During Kul Devata Pujas, different clans meet up – albeit at different intervals – to rekindle their sense of community and worship their deity. Animal sacrifice often forms an integral part of that worship and the building of kinship.

“Inside a clan's tradition of deity worship and sacrifice” is an original mini-documentary made in March 2020 which focuses on animal sacrifice in the Upamanyu Gotra (Pandey) clan, a clan that meets once every 12 years in the eastern part of Nepal.

Attended by thousands of people, this year's event led to the killing of over a thousand goats in the belief that doing so would be honoring the wish of the deity and lead to the fulfillment of future wishes. Many members of the community also saw it as a way of uniting ties of kinship.

An interview with festival attendee Surya Bahadur Pandey shows that, despite growing ethical awareness about animal sacrifice, many are still attached to the tradition of bringing goats to slaughter, because of how it provides continuity with the past:


We know this is not right. But this is our upbringing and ancestral tradition. We cannot change this right away, but it will get amended gradually. Everybody wishes for that but you cannot suddenly change your upbringing. And for that reason, this sacrifice is ongoing.




[Warning:] This video contains graphic imagery.

While events in this video are distinct to this particular clan, the beliefs that surround the practice of animal sacrifice are similar to other rituals around the country wherever animal sacrifice is practiced whether that be at another clan's Kul Devata Puja or at the Gadhimai Festival.

Growing awareness, growing anger

But more than ever, many have expressed anger at the cruelty with which animals are treated in sacrificial festivals across the country. Nepali animal activist group, Bloodless Gadhimai, carried out numerous campaigns to try and change public opinion


There are so many animals, and many are not even beheaded cleanly because the knives are blunted by the mass slaughter. Sometimes they have to hack the animal many times, and the animals take hours to die,” says media personality Saroj Nyaupane.

This same outrage has also led to calls for an end to animal sacrifice during the Dashain festival which is celebrated with prayers and offerings to Durga.


#Dasain animal sacrifices need to end in #Nepal.
In #Kullu #India it is happening switched 2 coconuts
In #Mysore white pumpkins are smashed

— Sujeev Shakya (@sujeevshakya) October 21, 2015


#Dasain is synonymous with goat curry & I am sure few Nepalis will relate to goats as emotional & intelligent beingshttps://t.co/dOVUYHhVnG pic.twitter.com/YTflLyyMh3

— Nepali Times (@NepaliTimes) October 11, 2016

It is promising that this new mindset is changing social norms, and many locals have opted to ‘sacrifice’ coconuts and squash instead of animals.

But clearly animal sacrifice is part of something bigger than simply a practice. It is part of a deeply embedded cultural and traditional norm and holds meaning for many of those who practice it. Trying to ignore that aspect of it, will only serve to perpetuate the status quo and so it is imperative that it be taken in to account when implementing ways to end animal suffering.



Written by Saprina Panday

Will the Lesser Antillean iguana be saved from extinction?
The species is threatened by green iguanas and humans

Posted 30 April 2020

Lesser Antillean iguana (Iguana delicatissima) in a tree in Coulibistrie, Dominica. Image by Postdlf, CC BY-SA.

Often portrayed in action and adventure movies as either a giant, human-eating lizard or a harmless pet, the iguana is a reptile native to South and Central America.

In the Lesser Antilles in particular, two species have been observed over the last few decades: the common green iguana (Iguana iguana) which is largely spread throughout the region, and the Lesser Antillean iguana (Iguana delicatissima), endemic to Anguilla, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy and Sint Eustatius.

Classified as a critically endangered (CR) species in the Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list since 2009, the Iguana delicatissima is threatened with extinction, despite initiatives being taken by regional governments and organisations — but is it already too late?
History of the species

The first iguanas appeared in the Antilles more than 7,000 years ago, when the region was still uninhabited. These reptiles were so common in the archipelago — especially in Saint Lucia — that the indigenous Kalinago named the island Iouanalao, meaning “There where the Iguana is found”.

During the colonial era, these reptiles were chased and eaten by both the Kalinago and the French, who considered them a good source of protein.

Only 13,000 to 20,000 adult iguana still live in the Lesser Antilles, according to the IUCN. The majority of these — 10,000 to 15,000 — is located in Dominica.

Buffering Dominica are the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, two French overseas departments that are also home to a significant population of Lesser Antillean iguanas.

Guadeloupe counted 4,000 to 6,000 iguanas on its Petite-Terre islets between 1992 and 1993, and identified nearly 400 adults in the commune of La Désirade. In Martinique, 800 to 1,000 individuals were observed on the Chancel islet in 2013.

In Anguilla, this number rose to 300 in 1998, whereas in Sint Eustatius, the iguana population was somewhere between 275 and 650 in 2004. Last but not least, 300 to 500 adults may live in Saint Barthélemy.

In contrast, the Lesser Antillean iguana is believed to be extinct on the islands of Bonaire, Saba and Saint Martin. It has also completely disappeared on the archipelagos of Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Why the decline?

The decline of this species, whose life expectancy can at least reach 15 years, could be linked to two interconnected phenomena: competition and hybridisation. The first occurs when individuals (of the same or different species) are competing over a resource in order to survive and reproduce. The second happens when two similar species give birth to a hybrid offspring.

The incidence of the latter is increased by the resulting environmental impacts of intensive farming and urban inrush. Confronted with the deterioration of the vegetation and reduction of their natural habitats, the iguanas are compelled to live together in smaller spaces.

As a consequence, they tend to mate regardless of their species. The common green iguana, therefore, threatens the existence of the Lesser Antillean iguana because of this crossbreeding, as their hybrid offspring contribute to a reduction in the “pure” Lesser Antillean iguana population.

Moreover, quite apart from having to cope with natural predators, among which are dogs and cats, the Lesser Antillean iguanas are vulnerable to road accidents and hunting.
Regional and international protection

Since the 1970s, governments around the world began to take measures to protect biodiversity. On March 3, 1973, 80 countries adopted the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This binding agreement, signed in Washington, DC, regulates the trade of 30,000 species of plants and 5,800 species of animals, including iguanas.

A decade later, on March 23, 1983, 25 Caribbean states signed the Cartagena Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, which grants protection to the Iguana delicatissima. This Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) protocol was signed on January 18, 1990, in Kingston, Jamaica. Both SPAW and CITES were ratified by Dominica, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Some countries went further and added the conservation of the species into their own legislation. In 1989, for instance, a French ministerial order made it illegal to hunt, import or trade the Lesser Antillean iguana in Guadeloupe and Martinique. In Guadeloupe, the order initially protected the common green iguana as well, until it was withdrawn from the list of the protected species by an order published on February 10, 2014.

On October 21 and 22, 2009, Dominica hosted a workshop on the conservation of the Lesser Antillean iguana. It served as a basis for the IUCN’s Conservation Action Plan, a document created to ensure the long-term survival of the species in the region.

Similarly, the French Ministry of Ecology launched two national action plans, covering the periods 2011-2015 and 2018-2022. The current plan aims to protect the Lesser Antillean iguana by countering the proliferation of the green iguana.
An uncertain future

In Dominica and the French Caribbean, citizens are committed to conserving the Lesser Antillean iguana by halting the spread of the common green iguana.

The nonprofit organisation WildDominique, for instance, surveys and captures green iguanas, while educating Dominicans about the importance of conserving the Lesser Antillean iguana. Likewise, the volunteers of the Guadeloupe-based environmental organisation TITÈ (Organisation for the Management of the Natural Areas of La Désirade) carry out catching operations, especially on the island of La Désirade and on the Petite-Terre islets. The success of these exercises is partly dependent on citizen engagement, as people are encouraged to call in whenever they sight a green iguana.

Still, much remains to be done. In Martinique, for example, the Lesser Antillean iguana is still classified as a critically endangered species — the antepenultimate threat level before complete extinction — according to the IUCN's latest red list of threatened species in France, published on April 22, 2020.

Only time will tell if the Lesser Antillean iguana will survive or disappear. Yet, the announcement of the discovery of a new species of black endemic iguana (Iguana melanoderma) on the islands of Montserrat and Saba on April 14, 2020, shows the unpredictability of nature.

Nevertheless, many feel that these hopeful signs must not relax conservation efforts.


Written byStéphane Bagassien-Catala