CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Former Nikola CEO Trevor Milton charged with fraud in US

Federal prosecutors in New York say the company founder and CEO "brazenly lied" to investors about Nikola's green vehicles to inflate market value and drive up his own earnings. The SEC has filed charges as well.



Nikola argues that the charges only affect its former CEO and founder Trevor Milton, though its stock took a pounding on Thursday too

US Federal Attorneys on Thursday announced that they had charged billionaire entrepreneur Trevor Milton with three counts of securities and wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20-25 years in prison.

"We charge that Milton engaged in a scheme to enrich himself by making false and misleading statements to investors," said US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss as she publicly announced the charges against the founder and former CEO of the green-vehicle company Nikola.

At the time, Milton was trying to drum up investor interest as Nikola prepared to launch on the stock markets, before it was in a position to bring in any revenues from vehicle sales.

"In order to drive investor demand for Nikola's stock, Milton lied about nearly every aspect of the business," continued Strauss, whose office prepared the 49-page, three-count indictment. The indictment says the scheme occurred between November 2019, when he sought to take Nikola public, and September 2020, when he resigned as news of the investigations against him first surfaced.
What is Trevor Milton accused of?

Milton is accused of having "brazenly and repeatedly used social media, and appearances and interviews on television, podcasts, and in print, to make false and misleading claims about the status of Nikola's trucks and technology," according to Strauss — namely lying to investors about the true status of a prototype semi-truck that he claimed was "fully functional" when he knew it to be inoperable.

The billionaire businessman's claims targeted novice retail investors with no experience in the securities markets, including some who took up trading during the pandemic to make ends meet or to occupy themselves during the lockdown, according to the indictment.

Some investors were defrauded of their life savings. Prosecutors say Milton was motivated by greed, wanting to "enrich himself and elevate his stature as an entrepreneur" in order to fulfill his dream of becoming one of the world's 100 richest people.

Nikola had positioned itself as a sort of heavy-duty answer to Elon Musk's Tesla, even using the other half of renowned scientist Nikola Tesla's name, as the company looked to go public while Tesla's stock was soaring.

Despite glitzy launches and ceremonies, prosecutors allege Milton knew that its Two (pictured here) and Tre trucks were inoperable as he lauded them as 'fully functional'

What do Milton and his lawyers say?

Lawyers for Milton said, "Trevor Milton is innocent; this is a new low in the government's efforts to criminalize lawful business conduct." Both Milton and his lawyers claim he is the victim of a "faulty and incomplete investigation" and that he will be "exonerated."

"Trevor Milton is an entrepreneur who had a long-term vision of helping the environment by cutting carbon emissions in the trucking industry. Mr. Milton has been wrongfully accused following a faulty and incomplete investigation in which the government ignored critical evidence and failed to interview important witnesses," according to a statement released by the defendant's legal team.

Milton was taken into custody shortly Thursday and released on $100 million (€84.1) bond after arraignment. The Utah businessman pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Federal securities laws also apply on social media, says SEC

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed related civil charges on Thursday as well, with SEC Director of Enforcement Gurbir Grewal noting, "Corporate officers cannot say whatever they want on social media without regard for the federal securities laws," as he spoke alongside Strauss.

Grewal, too, said that Milton had targeted novice investors, painting himself as a "different" kind of CEO, again in a manner rather reminiscent of Tesla's Musk.
How did Milton get tripped up?

Milton's undoing came shortly after what had looked like one of his biggest coups, namely winning auto giant General Motors as a partner shortly after taking Nikola public via special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

However, a report by Hindenburg Research just two days after the GM deal was announced said that Nikola's fairytale success was based on "an ocean of lies." The report alleged that Milton's "intricate fraud" went so far as to release videos of non-motorized prototypes rolling downhill to give the impression they were driving under their own power.

"We commend regulators for acting expediently to protect investors and hold Milton accountable for his egregious lies," said Hindenburg founder Nathan Anderson in a statement.

Nikola, which initially denied the accusations in the Hindenburg report, was not charged in any of the accused crimes and publicly stated that it had cooperated with federal attorneys. "Today's government actions are against Mr. Milton individually, and not against the company," Nikola said in a statement."

Nevertheless, Nikola shares dropped 11% in afternoon trading to $12.63, or just over one quarter of its peak value in August 2020, a month before Milton's resignation.

js/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Trystes Cosmologiques: When Lévi-Strauss Met the Astrologers

Graham Douglas

In October 1969 the famous anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss gave an interview to the well-known French astrologers André Barbault and Dr Jean-Paul Nicola for the astrology magazine L'Astrologue. To the author's knowledge this interview has never been discussed in academic journals, and is here published for the first time in English translation. It is considered in the context of its time, and of the issues discussed: the Surrealist movement, which had an important influence on Lévi-Strauss's early work; the structure of the unconscious mind; and the question of causation in astrology. At the end of the interview Lévi-Strauss suggested a joint project with his interviewers to study the interpretations of serious astrologers as a way of understanding how their minds work. According to Dr Nicola, the suggestion was never developed because in his opinion there was no chance of getting astrologers to agree on how to go about it. In the last 20 years however, several theses have been devoted to similar projects.

ANDRE BARBAULT PASSED ON THROUGH THE DUAT TO NUIT
OCTOBER 2019

Astrology : History of a Prediction by André Barbault - CURA

cura.free.fr › quinq

For a critical review of predictive astrology, see Jacques Reverchon: "Value of the Astrological Judgements and Forecasts", CURA, 2003. ... It is thus that the Saturn-Neptune cycle will become the primary terrain I explore. The twentieth issue of Cahiers Astrologiques (March-April 1949 ...

André Barbault — Wikipédia

https://fr.wikipedia.org › wiki › André_Barbault

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André Barbault, né à Champignelles (Yonne) le 1 octobre 1921 et mort le 8 octobre 2019 à Labaroche (Haut-Rhin), est un astrologue français. Il a été à l'origine ...

André Barbault - At the Crossroads of Time | Articles - Lynn Bell

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by Lynn Bell. This article was published in 2018 and we are posting in memory of André Barbault who passed away this year. I remember my first encounter with ...

Mundane astrology master André Barbault... - The Astrological ...

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Mundane astrology master André Barbault has passed away, age 98. And we have just lost Ed Tamplin. We shall remember both in The Astrological Journal....

André Barbault - Urania Trust

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André Barbault was a prominent French astrologer and writer, the author of over 50 books. His special interest has been in Mundane astrology and how ...

The Reference in Astrology: 

The idea of Astroflash dates back to 1966 when an important product manager Mr. Roger Berthier, co-founder of the Euromarche supermarket chain, had the idea to offer to its customers their horoscope. André Barbault, the most famous French astrologer, author of numerous works, like the celebrated Zodiac Collection (Seuil) was contacted. After 8 months of teamwork with computer analysts, a first astrological product, placing side by side a psychological portrait and a long term calendar was born.Because of its initial success, they decided to market and sell the horoscope by mail-order . An advertising campaign started in 1967 and perfected by Publicis lasted until April 1968. Although the topics developed in the ads were inspired by extensive psychological analysis, their effectiveness remained mediocre.They soon discovered, however, that a press meeting was a means to attract a large number of customers. This was in May of 1968 - in a car-shop on the Champs Elysées: the "computer - astrologer" attracted the masses. The possibility to immediately obtain a personalized horoscope anonymously, and for a moderate price, proved to be conclusive.

The Astroflash Center opened its doors in September of 1968, being the first client to rent a space in the Galerie des Champs, located at 84, Avenue des Champs Elysées, in Paris: a place visited daily by thousands of people. Now the number of daily Astroflash customers is around 100 to 200. So a total of 70,000 people per year, not including mail orders.

Women come in first at around 62%.- Young people are the most interested ?- One customer out of every two is under 30.?- High income customers are outnumbered.?- Foreigners: 15 to 20%.Every social strata show an interest in Astroflash.??Famous figures coming from the Political, the Entertainment as well as the Sports World have had their horoscopes done by Astroflash. General de Gaulle's horoscope remains famous...

Since 1968, Astroflash has been creating new products and perfecting them, investing constantly, as well as translating the products in many different languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian, and Danish).The range of horoscopes consist of essentially psychological portraits - with a special version for children. A search of affinities among partners (comparative birth charts) and long-term forecast horoscopes (6 month, solar returns).Astroflash also places a Map of the Heaven at astrologers, professionals or amateur's disposal.

Reasons for success are first the customer's satisfaction who comes from the quality of our studies: all without exception are conceptualized by two famous French astrologers: André Barbault and Jean-Pierre Nicola. Secondly, after having been stated, the elements taken into account are interpreted. The interpretation of the birth charts is made according to tradition - enriched by new elements of modern psychology.

Can millions of genetically modified trees slow climate change?

Tim Fernholz
Fri, March 3, 2023 

Planting a tree, as environmental solutions go, comes in and out of fashion.

In 1970, US president Richard Nixon made Arbor Day a national holiday, urging people to get out and put saplings in the ground. Today, however, there is ongoing debate over whether a trillion new trees can meaningfully slow global warming, and whether incentives meant to protect forests actually do the job.

What is clear is that the fight against climate change is not just about reducing carbon emissions. Scientists estimate that to keep Earth’s climate at stable temperature, some 10 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere must be removed each year by the middle of this century.

Engineers are developing machines that suck carbon out of the air, and power plants that can store it deep underground, but so far neither method has been proven efficient at scale. That’s why some think it’s time for nature’s greatest carbon-hoovering creation to get an upgrade.

Living Carbon, a start-up in San Francisco, raised $21 million earlier this year with that exact approach: For its first product, it modified the genetics of poplar trees to grow 50% faster and capture 27% more carbon than before, at least in greenhouse conditions. Now the company is planting as many as 5 million of these trees—likely the first widespread use of genetically modified trees in the US.

The business model is to take advantage of incentives for carbon reduction provided by governments and nonprofits. Living Carbon wants to work with people and companies who own land that is environmentally degraded from industrial or agricultural use, some 133 million acres in the US. Living Carbon will pay to plant its trees on the land, and then work with third parties like Watershed to measure the carbon impact of those plantings. Then, it can sell credits for that stored carbon to corporations seeking to offset their carbon emissions. Or, companies can partner with Living Carbon directly and use the trees for their own internal carbon calculations.

The company’s CEO and founder, Maddie Hall, was a former OpenAI employee who saw an opportunity in giving world class plant biologists the same opportunities as AI researchers to pursue frontier science at commercial scale.

“We can plant enough trees by 2030 to remove a gigaton of carbon,” she told Quartz last month.

But whether these modified trees can sustain both a profitable business and a net reduction in emissions will only be proven after these trees have spent years growing in the wild.

“What Living Carbon is trying to do has never been done before at all,” said Steve Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at Oregon State University, who has partnered with Living Carbon on its research, including a field trial of more than 600 trees. “It’s very bold and I told them that ... everything about this is high risk, in my view.”
How to make a carbon-hungry tree

Altering plant genetics to produce better outcomes has been a part of human history since the dawn of agriculture. But these days generational breeding programs have been supplanted by a modern understanding of how to manipulate genetic information.

Living Carbon’s trees take advantage of natural evolution. Photosynthesis — when plants convert carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into fuel for growth—can accidentally produce toxic byproducts. Many trees have to spend their energy on biological systems that remove this waste, but other plants have evolved more efficient forms of photosynthesis. Living Carbon uses a method called “particle bombardment” to incorporate genetic material from more efficient plants into the poplar trees it plans to plant in the wild. The technique also allows the company to avoid regulation by the USDA and forestry standards groups that look askance at planting trees with genes modified by other techniques in the wild.

The company started with poplars, which are a popular tree for environmental remediation because of their ability to reduce and destroy industrial toxins. In lab conditions, Living Carbon’s poplars have grown much faster and larger than unmodified trees, suggesting that they will speed carbon storage in the field. Hall hopes that the fast-growing trees will also be useful for combatting invasive species and creating forest canopy to promote the return of native plants. Vince Stanley, a Georgia farmer who is working with Living Carbon, has planted 10,500 of their poplar trees on his property and says that being able to harvest them more frequently than the current 50-year rotation schedule promises more profits.

Living Carbon is also developing its own version of the Loblolly Pine, which is frequently grown commercially as a lumber source. It also wants to develop trees that accumulate more metals into their wood, slowing rotting and allowing them to store carbon for longer.

Poplar shoots grow in a petri dish at a Living Carbon laboratory.

Forestry experts told Quartz that Living Carbon’s results were plausible, but whether the new trees will have a useful environmental impact depends on many factors over a long timescale. Ultimately, the trees will eventually die and return their carbon to the ecosystem, or be harvested, with the fate of their carbon tied to the use of the lumber. If they wind up burned, or dumped, that won’t be that helpful in the long run.

Some wondered whether the tree species would be suited to the areas where they are planted, or if their fast growth would require too much water. They also noted that plantation-style tree growth focused on a small number of species could be susceptible to pest and pathogens.

“It would probably make more sense to plant trees that historically grew in places and are relatively adapted to them and to the pests and pathogens that occur there,” said Andrew Morris Latimer, a professor at the University of California, Davis.

The scientists were less concerned about the genetically altered trees leading to unexpected consequences in local ecosystems. Hall says the company is now only planting low-flowering female trees to limit wild reproduction. Strauss argues that given the global climate emergency, it’s irresponsible not to explore whether biotechnology can play a role in halting global warming.

But he adds an important caveat: It takes years to demonstrate that traits seen in trees grown in the controlled environment of the greenhouse will take root in the field. It’s too early to know if Living Carbon’s lab results will hold true across millions of trees planted in sites around the country.
A solution in search of a market

“The most surprising thing to me about building this company has been the challenges coming from the collective action problems from carbon removal projects,” Hall says. “The technology and the land partners weren’t that difficult.”

Namely, those collective action problems are figuring out how to reliably and independently measure the carbon savings of a project like planting trees on degraded land, and in turn assigning it a monetary value. The company depends on these efforts — “Living Carbon’s trees would not be planted or exist without carbon credit markets,” Hall says — even as questions about their reliability emerge. A recent investigation into Verra, an international carbon standards organization, found that many of its projects were likely not offsetting carbon emissions, and could have been worsening them.

Hall notes that the Verra projects under scrutiny were focused on halting deforestation and improving existing tree stands, which requires more complex assessment than planting new trees. She sees her company as a hybrid between nature-based solutions to climate change, like slowing deforestation, and engineering solutions, like the development of machines to capture carbon out of the air.

“Both have their challenges...engineered solutions are challenged by getting to scale [and] with nature-based solutions, it’s much more on the transparency and the durability and the quality of the projects,” Hall says. She is heartened by the push for better models that link what’s actually happening on the land to financial results, with verification through remote-sensing.

“There’s no question that trees suck C02 out of the atmosphere and store it for long periods of time,” Strauss says. “Whether that matters in the big picture, whether it’s big enough to matter, is a whole other question.”


One plausible estimate finds that there are about 228 million trees in the US. Major forestry companies plant tens of millions or billions of trees annually, Strauss says, and the millions of trees Living Carbon is planning to sew are likely to cover just hundreds of acres.

“My way to think about what they’re doing [is] see if it works at scale and in the kinds of environments they are putting them in,” Strauss says. “We need to be patient, we don’t really know what we have.”

Quartz

Whigs and Tory's

It is not just Harper and the Conservative Gang in Calgary that have been influenced by the neo-con Straussian ideal of Empire and the rule of the philospher king. So has Liberal Michael Ingnatieff more than even his cousin the philosopher George Grant.

Strauss’s rejection of individual rights led him to espouse political views that Rothbard found repellent: "We find Strauss . . . praising ‘farsighted’, ‘sober’ British imperialism; we find him discoursing on the ‘good’ Caesarism, on Caesarism as often necessary and not really tyranny, etc... he praises political philosophers for yes, lying to their readers for the sake of the ‘social good’…. I must say that this is an odd position for a supposed moralist to take."

THE IDEAS OF GEORGE GRANT*
As philosophy became more technical and remote, George Grant never stopped trying to reach a wide audience. In his writing and teaching, he dealt philosophically with the basic issues facing Canada: imperialism and national survival, the nature of technology, the moral bankruptcy of liberalism, and the claims of tradition in face of the modern. He wrestled with some of the most commanding figures of modern thought: Simone Weil, Leo Strauss, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. David Cayley explores George Grant's intellectual career, based on interviews with Grant himself, students, interpreters and critics.


The difference today between Liberals and Conservatives, both of whom claim to come from the liberal tradition, is that the Liberals reflect the utilitarian social democrat tradition of classical liberalism, they are in effect modern Whigs.

While the neo-cons who dominate the Conservative movement reflect the Imperialist aspirations of the old Conservative/Tory aristorcracy. America while a Republic of agrarian artisanal virtues has a ruling class that has always aspired to Empire, in mimicry of England. The Southern Aristocratic States that formed the Confederacy and their culture of 'Ladies and Gentlemen' reflect this unrepentant urge to return to the past as all conservatives do.

In accepting Empire Ignatieff is a blue Liberal far closer to the compardor politics of Harper's foriegn policy than classical Trudeau liberalism.

Trudeau liberalism is Whig politics that challenges both the rampant free market individualism espoused by the neo-cons, and its opposite socialism. His was an ideology of invidual rights and freedoms within the State, not opposed to the State. The State's function was too defend and expand these rights. So entrenched was his sense of social individualism that he was willing to trample collective political rights, those of Quebec, to create a made in Canada Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Today both these are opposed by the neo-con right and the Soveriegnists in Quebec. Ironic that the neo-cons who extoll individualism attack the Charter, Harper, Kenney, Ezra Levant, etc. but that is because it is both a Charter of social rights and Individual rights. It is Trudeaus legacy, and that is what they hate. The right in Canada has always hated Trudeau and his philosophy.

Todays Liberals embrace not Trudeauism, but Ignatieff. As one would a serpent to the breast. All is done for the expediency of power. Power for its own sake. Their ideology is messaging without content, all is platitude to retain power. Intellectually bankrupt they grab at Ignatieff as their new philosopher, when he is a mere shade of Grant or Trudeau. As a shade his bankrupt ideology cannot stand the exposure of the light of reason.

In this Ignatieff is as much influenced by Leo Struass conservative philosopher of Empire as he is by his esteemed cousin, George Grant. Ignatieff has accepted the existance of Empire and like the flawed logic of his cousin, has concluded that democracy is at home in the American Empire. Hence his extolling how he is an American. Of course in this context like Grant to be an American is to be a Continentalist, we are 'all Americans' now.

Trudeau was the philosopher politician who answered Grants lamantation. In his ideal of a New Federalism, Trudeau challenged the Red Tory ideology of acquiecence to America, and viewed Canada and Quebec as a capable of challenging America on the basis of classical traditional liberalism. Not just a rampant self aggrandizing individualism so common amongst American ideologues on the right but a social individualism. One that didn't say; I am alright Jack I got mine, but said; I am alright Jack because you got yours.

It was nearly twenty years after Grants lament that Trudeau brought Canada its constitution and Charter, that would fulfill Grants dream of a Canada different from the United States. Grant was a Whig, Trudeau was a Whig. Ignatieff is not. He is an apologist for Empire.

And the Conservatives in Canada are not Tories, they are Republicans, and not the party of Lincoln who was also a Whig, but a party of the rights of the shop keeper. Their belief in individual rights are only for those who own, not even possess, property. They would embrace America and George Grant would wail in lament from his grave. For he had warned us of these traitorous dogs forty years ago.

The major themes of Grant's interests made him, at once, a foundational thinker and an interpreter of current events. Deeply concerned with the political and social directions being taken in postwar Canada leading into the sixties and seventies, he also fiercely resisted the new, progressively functional purposes shaping Canadian universities during those years. At the root of his thinking lies his conviction that the liberal project of the Enlightenment, which has shaped life in western society for more than 200 years and is now dominating our whole planet, was a massive mistake--nothing less than a denial, through the glorification of instrumental reason and technology, of the true nature of the world and of human persons. Grant turned to Plato, to the contemporary Platonist Leo Strauss and to the philosopher-mystic Simone Weil for aid in his own intellectual transformation away from this modern view of humanity based on the primacy of will, the mastery of nature, individualism and the shaping of society essentially by market-driven capitalism.

LAMENTATION AND SPECULATION:
GEORGE GRANT, JAMES DOULL AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CANADA

David G. Peddle
Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, MUN

Neil G. Robertson
University of King's College

In 1965 George Grant created a national debate when he published his classic text, Lament for a Nation. The central thesis of this book was captured in its subtitle, "The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism." While Grant sees the defeat of Diefenbaker's government in 1963 as emblematic of the inability of Canadians to sustain their independence from the United States, he argues that the causes of this defeat lay deeper than any particular political event. For Grant, the sources of Canada's demise lay in the philosophical and political spirit of modernity and in the technological domination it asserts. He saw in Canadian Nationalism the noble belief that a more stable, conservative society could exist on the borders of the United States, the nation which, on his view, more than any other embodied this technological modernity. In 1963, Grant argued, the folly, the impossibility of this belief had finally exposed itself.

With big rallies cancelled, young climate activists are adapting election tactics

Phone banks, social media and friend-to-friend campaigning are the new focus ahead of this year’s US elections
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Protesters chant during a youth climate strike in California in December 2019. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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About this content

Lauren Aratani

Published on Mon 3 Aug 2020 

For young climate activists in the US, staying home because of the pandemic does not mean staying silent, with plans gathering pace across the country to make their voices heard in November’s elections.

It has been nearly a year since an estimated 6 million people across the world joined the youth-led global climate strikes on 20 September.

In the US, students from Los Angeles to Washington DC skipped school to voice their frustration over the slow response to the climate crisis by elected leaders, and Greta Thunberg told a cheering crowd in New York City “this is only the beginning”.

But in the 10 months since the historic protests, the Covid-19 pandemic has ravaged the US, making meeting and organizing in-person hazardous. Climate strikes, including a major three-day mass protest that was planned for Earth Day 2020 in April, have been cancelled.
Politicians who get elected this cycle have to be the ones that are really caring about our futuresRose Strauss, 20

But networks of youth climate activists have been regrouping, with a new focus on election campaigning with phone banks, social media and friend-to-friend organizing, according to interviews with organizers.

The stakes could not be higher for young people, according to Aracely Jimenez-Hudis, 23, the deputy communications director of the Sunrise Movement, a leading youth advocacy group on the climate.

“We are a generation that was really born into crises,” said Jimenez-Hudis. “We don’t have some golden age that we can look back on and feel that there is any kind of resonance with a call to normalcy because our normal has always been endless wars, has always been police brutality.”

Youth voter turnout during the 2016 elections was disappointing with just 46% of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 going out to vote, compared to 70% of the oldest voters, 70 and over.

Then in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, youth movements began building campaigns and gaining visibility, with climate change growing as a key issue, driven in part by the burgeoning Sunrise Movement, which was founded in 2017.

In preparation for the 2018 midterm elections, the Sunrise Movement began training young activists to canvass for candidates who were proponents of renewable energy and publicly confront incumbents who take money from the fossil fuel industry. When the 2018 midterms came around, 20% more young Americans ages 18 to 29 went out to vote compared to the last midterms in 2014, and Democrats won the House.

The group has more recently been pushing Democratic leaders to embrace the Green New Deal, a bold carbon-neutral plan for the economy championed by progressive Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hold a news conference to introduce Green New Deal legislation in Washington DC. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Backing the policy was initially seen as too radical by many Democrats but it has now been embraced more widely by members of the party. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, recently unveiled a climate and jobs plan that mirrors some of the aggressiveness of the Green New Deal, though some activists believe he is not tough enough on fossil fuel industries.

With the pandemic, Jimenez-Hudis said, the Sunrise Movement has shifted its electoral strategy to focus entirely on phone banking and friend-to-friend organizing – encouraging people to talk to their friends and relatives directly about the candidates they support.

“We still have lots of work to do to make sure that we get the right Democrats on the ballot, the right Green New Deal champions on the ballot for the election in November just up and down the ticket,” Jimenez-Hudis said.

The organization credits its phone banking volunteers for helping Jamaal Bowman, a former teacher who ousted a longtime congressman in New York, win his election and for tightening the race of Charles Booker, a Democrat in Kentucky who was hoping to run against the Republican senator Mitch McConnell.
Aligning racial justice and climate fights

In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in May, the Sunrise Movement has also made efforts to streamline its focus toward racism and police brutality, encouraging members to attend protests and speak out about the intersection of racial justice and climate activism. The organization recently started its #WideAwake campaign, encouraging local activists to protest outside the homes of elected officials. On Juneteenth, a local Sunrise chapter coordinated such a protest outside the home of Senator McConnell, demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed in her home by police in Louisville, Kentucky.

Recent months have helped some young climate activists see that the same systemic changes needed to address climate change are in line with the ones that will bring racial justice, escalating the need for elected officials who will bring those changes.

A man holds a sign at a protest in Brooklyn. Some climate activists believe the changes needed to address climate change are in line with the ones that will bring racial justice. Photograph: Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty Images

Rose Strauss, 20, a former organizer with the Sunrise Movement, said her time with the organization helped her understand the gravity of the 2020 election. She dropped out of college so she could dedicate all her time to the election and canvass for Senator Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire.

Once it became clear that Sanders was not going to win the nomination, Strauss and a few fellow activists began to dedicate their efforts to starting a new initiative called the Down Ballot Disruption Project. The program, held entirely over Zoom, aims to teach young people how to canvass for candidates in their local elections and how to build a community around their activism, especially on social media.

Young people can “change this election in massive ways. The only arena right now, because we can’t go and canvass outside, is social media. That’s where we know how to do stuff,” Strauss said. “We really need to make sure that the politicians who get elected this cycle are going to be the ones that are really caring about our futures.”

For activists with Zero Hour, the climate justice organization that coordinated a youth climate march in Washington DC in summer 2018, the focus for the 2020 election is less on getting individual candidates elected but broadly teaching young activists how to encourage their communities to get out to vote and educate them about the Green New Deal.

The organization, along with the National Children’s Campaign, launched the #Vote4OurFuture campaign in July, targeting youth activists in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and Grand Rapids and Detroit in Michigan, two swing states. The campaign was originally scheduled to be a bus tour in March, but coronavirus forced the organizations to change course. Now, the campaign is all about hosting virtual events like roundtables and webinars focusing on what the Green New Deal could look like in specific communities.

“We want climate change to be a top priority on people’s minds when they’re going to the polls in November because of the way it will impact people of color and people living in those cities,” said Zanagee Artis, 20, the co-founder and deputy director of digital advocacy for Zero Hour.


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While climate advocacy during the pandemic has largely been on video chats and social media, young activists are eager to get back on the streets. Fridays for Future, the global organization founded by Greta Thunberg, plans on holding a global climate strike on 25 September. Local chapters are working on what the protest will look like in their areas to accommodate local Covid-19 conditions.

Spencer Berg, 17, an organizer with Fridays for Future NYC, said organizers are still working out the logistics of what the protest will look like, but the overall message of the demonstration will be to advocate for a “green recovery” and ensure that New York City continues to uphold its commitments to fighting climate change.

While the pandemic has left devastation across the city and in many other places in the US, activists are hopeful that coronavirus can provide parallels to climate change and show how a single crisis can affect everyone.

Coronavirus has “inspired a lot of people because it has shown us that the government can act quickly and efficiently to quell a crisis”, Berg said. “That’s what this is: it’s a climate crisis. A lot of politicians say we can’t afford to do that, we don’t have enough time for this, but coronavirus showed us that we can have complete systematic change if we need to.”