Plastics Everywhere!!! Investigating the Other Pandemic
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
Plastics: The Other Pandemic
A Webinar with Journalists
Alex Hartzog
and Maura Stephens
Sunday, September 26
10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern(or find your time anywhere)
Gentle Earthlings,
As summer winds down in the Northern Hemisphere and Covid continues to mutate and rage around the globe, our thoughts turn to insulation against the cold and readying the least ecologically harmful indoor heating systems we can manage. And to being indoors again, without the ease of socializing outdoors that summer months have allowed us. Can we survive another winter of isolation? Yes, because there’s so much work to be done, and we can keep connected via the technologies that have helped keep us activated thus far.
And there’s no shortage of things to be activating about, nor movements to join or support.
But let’s celebrate some recent good news:
After a hard-fought decade-long fight, the EPA finally ruled on one of the toxic organophosphate chemicals used in agriculture, and banned chlorpyrifos. EarthJustice led the legal battle against the pesticide industry, which nearly succeeded in talking the EPA out of the ban as it considers one organophospate at a time. The big ag industry continues to sicken us.
This week a New York State Supreme Court (the state’s second-highest court) judge gave a short-term reprieve in favor of Sane Energy Project and Brooklyn residents suing a monstrous fossil-fuel project, whose lawyer even, disgustingly, argued that the plaintiffs, representing residents -- mostly people of color and poor people – in harm’s way, should pay National Grid for its business losses during a hard-won stay of work. The fossil fuel industry continues to nauseate us.
And in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” environmental justice activists are celebrating an order by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a long overdue environmental review of a proposed 2,000-acre Formosa Plastics complex. Local groups representing the mostly Black and low-income communities that would be affected by the $9.4+ billion petrochemical plant have been fighting for this minimal environmental income statement. Previous analyses have shown the facility would emit 13.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gases and hundreds of tons of toxic air pollutants per year.
Speaking of plastics, this week we’re publishing Part 1 of a three-part series on Plastics: The Other Pandemic written by SCNCC’s summer intern Alex Hartzog in collaboration with our editors. You won’t want to miss it.
And please mark your calendar for the next webinar in our ongoing series, Sunday, September 26, 2021, 10am Pacific, 11am Mountain, noon Central, 1 pm Eastern (US/Canada). (Check the time in your timezone here.) In it Alex Hartzog and SCNCC’s Maura Stephens will go into more depth on the Plastics Plague and how we might better deal with it.
Register now for Zoom. We will also livestream this event on our Facebook page and later post a recording on our YouTube channel.
And last, though we rarely ask for contributions to help support our work, we’d be grateful for your help as we migrate to a new web platform and plan upcoming projects. If you’re so moved, please donate by clicking here.
Photo: A seahorse glides amidst a sea of plastics. Photo by Rich Carey/Shutterstock
And while you're making the Revolution, check out these interesting articles on SystemChangeNotClimateChange.org
Book Review: If this is Paradise| August 9, 2021
Eve struggling to adapt to their post-apocalypse, de-industrialized world....
Power, Workers, and the Fight for Climate Justice| August 2, 2021
Book Review: "The Case for Degrowth"| July 28, 2021
Degrowth is an ambiguous label used by different currents that have emerged or have been reconsidered as such since the 1960s when the contemporary environmentalist movement got underway. The bulk of these movements identify as Greens although it includes eco-anarchists and others. The ambiguity of what degrowth stands for is a problem both for its proponents and its critics that sometimes misrepresent it....
What Might an Ecosocialist Society Look Like?| June 27, 2021
'Horrible and Unconscionable Betrayal': Biden DOJ Backs Trump Line 3 Approval | June 24, 2021
Try Filling Jails before Blowing Pipelines | June 16, 2021
COMMUNE, CONNECT, COLLUDE, COLLABORATE!
What is SCNCC?
System Change Not Climate Change is a network of ecosocialists who believe capitalism is incompatible with prospects for a decent life for future generations on planet Earth. We are based principally in the United States and Canada but our perspective is internationalist and anti-imperialist.Want to collaborate?
SCNCC needs you if you want to become a part of our editorial/writing crew. The imperative of building an ecosocialist movement is now more urgent than ever. Click here and let us know if you want to write for the website or take on other tasks to maintain and create content for our communications channels.Join Us Online
r34.