People Before Profit blog

Pacific Islanders in the U.S.: From immigrants to climate refugees

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 14:16:00 +0000

Born in Quezon City, Philippines, Stephanie Camba spent most of her childhood in the Marshall Islands. She said her family first moved to escape poverty, political persecution, and violence, but she eventually found herself immersed in the land and culture of her adopted home. After the attacks of September 11th, 2001 raised uncertainties about security and the economic future, however, Camba's entire family made the difficult decision to relocate to the U.S. This is where she first faced the social and political barriers that came with being an undocumented immigrant in the United States.

Since then, Camba has solidified herself in community organizing and has used her art to create healing spaces grounded in wellness and creative self-expression as a tool for systemic social change. She has been involved in many forms of activism outside of her art. This included participating in a direct action in 2013 on Chicago's Michigan Avenue that blocked the street during a presidential visit in order to call attention to the plight of undocumented communities under the Obama administration.

Though she longs to reconnect with her culture and childhood home, Camba said the Marshallese are facing an unprecedented crisis. A number of the Marshall Islands remain less than six feet above water. As a result, the people of the Marshall Islands are feeling the impacts of rising sea-levels, and the nation is a leading voice raising awareness of climate change through global forums such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Global warming has triggered rising water levels in the South Pacific of about a foot over the past 30 years, faster than elsewhere--creating thousands of climate refugees. The climate crisis only adds to the environmental problems already faced by the Marshall Islands. From 1946-58, the United States tested atomic bombs there, setting off more than sixty nuclear explosions. Some islands, like Bikini Atoll, are still unlivable due to the high levels of radiation.

To this day, the Marshall Islands remain one of the United States' most important military outposts in the Pacific. The arrangement between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands allows Marshallese nationals the right to live and work in the U.S. mainland freely. However, it leaves others who grew up there but do not possess Marshall Islands citizenship, like Camba, in a legal limbo. Even though she lived in the Marshall Islands for much of her childhood, she is not able to enjoy the U.S. immigration advantages given to the Marshallese. Additionally, returning back to the island of Majuro is becoming increasingly untenable, given the severity of oceanic water rise. Camba said she sees no choice other than to speak out on behalf of the climate refugees, many whom she considers family, that have been created through the political apathy surrounding environmental conservation.

Stephanie now resides in Chicago, where she continues to remain engaged in her community as the DACA and Community Outreach Coordinator at AFIRE (Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment). Through her art and her activism, Camba hopes to address the state-sponsored violence inflicted on undocumented individuals across the country, as well as the specific problems faced by climate refugees.

Photo: Earchiel Johnson/PW

Broad coalition wins Oakland ban on coal

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 14:06:00 +0000

Under pressure from a grand people's coalition, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously Monday night to ban the storage and handling of coal in Oakland, successfully blocking a developer's plan to ship coal from the port.

The broad No Coal in Oakland coalition (which came together over the last 14 months) was able to use public demonstrations of opposition to the coal shipping plan, as well as evidence showing the danger coal poses to the health and safety of the community and the environment, to counter the arguments and entreaties of the developer.

This "extraordinarily powerful movement"- as No Coal in Oakland spokesman Michael Kaufman put it - includes labor, the environment, the clergy, the health care community, the academic field, public officials, community groups and the communities that would have been directly affected by the transportation of coal through their neighborhoods.

In addition to the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, a major component of the coalition is the Alameda County Central Labor Council, including a key affiliate, the longshore workers' union whose members would have had to handle the coal at the Oakland docks.

"We're just glad to be part of the coalition, and to fight for...what is good for our community," Derrick Muhammad, Secretary-Treasurer of the International and Warehouse Workers Union (ILWU) Local 10, told the People's World.

On the eve of the city council public hearing, a circular opposing the ban on coal made the rounds through the West Oakland community, the neighborhood through which the coal trains would pass before entering the port complex. The circular contained false statements, including that anti-coal proponents want to kill the whole project and the jobs that would go with it.

Addressing the issues raised by the circular and developer's representatives at the public hearing, Josie Camacho, Executive Secretary Treasurer of the Alameda County Central Labor Council, condemned the developer for using the largely African American and minority "community's desire for jobs to push a project that poses a great danger to our health and the environment."

Camacho said, "We reject the notion that this is a matter of jobs vs. community health, or jobs vs. climate justice."

She reiterated the coalition's desire to continue with the project, minus the coal component.

"The port development will be profitable and create jobs regardless of the commodity shipped through it," she said.

The project, known as the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal, will be built by a group of developers led by Prologis CCIG Oakland Global LLC. FC

Developers cut secret deal

In April of last year, coalition members learned that the developers had secretly cut a funding deal with four Utah counties to export coal through the Oakland bulk terminal.

The deal followed a public statement by Phil Tagami, CCIG's President and CEO, that the company had "no interest or involvement in the pursuit of coal-related operations at the former Oakland Army Base" where the terminal would be built.

Meanwhile, the city had already signed onto the 2013 Development Agreement with the developers, which could not be modified without breaching the contract, but with one exception.

The Agreement stipulates that the city can apply regulations retroactively if it "determines based on substantial evidence and after a public hearing" that occupants or users of the project and adjacent communities would be placed in a condition "substantially dangerous to their health and safety."

Thus, the city council arrived at its decision solely on the basis of the substantial hazard to the community's "health and safety" that the coal plan would represent. Following Monday's decision, the council will take a second vote as required.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates testified on behalf of the mayors of a number of cities who signed a letter opposing the transportation of coal by rail through their towns on the way to the port of Oakland. In addition to Berkeley, they are the mayors of Fremont, Livermore, Hayward, Richmond, San Leandro, Union City, Emeryville, Albany and El Cerrito.

The proposal to ban coal was co-sponsored by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Councilmember Dan Kalb who carried the legislation in the council, which called for a ban on petcoke (a toxic coal processing byproduct) in addition to coal. Council member Desley Books was absent from the vote.

Oakland Councilmember Kalb, who played a leading role in the council, said, "With this new law, we're taking the steps needed to protect our community, our workers, and our planet."

A growing trend

With this action, the Oakland City Council joins other West Coast cities calling for a ban on coal. Portland, Ore. was the first city in the country to do so last year. That was followed this year by Oregon becoming the first state to ban coal for the state's electric supply.

In California, State Senator Loni Hancock earlier this month handily won approval in the state senate of two bills, one of which would put significant roadblocks to Tagami's plans to turn Oakland into a major coal export hub.

SB1277 would require additional environmental review for the plan to ship up to 10 million tons of coal per year through Oakland.

The other would prohibit the California Transportation Commission from allocating any state funds for projects proposed after Jan. 1, 2017, for the handling, storage, or transportation of coal at any port facility located in or adjacent to a disadvantaged community.

Before becoming law, the bills would have to be approved by the state assembly and then signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

"No" to the coal train

Margaret Gordon, a long-time resident of West Oakland and Co-Exec. Director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, told the World that the coal train would have brought "more asthma, lung cancer and COPD" in a community, largely African American and people of color already suffering disproportionally from these illnesses.

Gordon, who lives one mile from the port complex and a mile from the rail lines leading to it, said the coal would have come to "hound us after 20 odd years of fighting for reduction of diesel exhaust" and winning some positive results.

She said the spewing of diesel-generated pollutants has be drastically reduced with the upgrading of trucks and the replacement of diesel with electrification of other waterfront equipment.

But, the fight of Gordon, her neighbors and other members of the No Coal in Oakland coalition may not be over yet.

At the public hearing the developer's representatives threatened the council with suing the city if the ordinance banning coal went through.

By all accounts, the Ban Coal in Oakland coalition will endure as long as necessary.

Capturing the sentiment expressed by other coalition partners, Muhammed of the ILWU longshore union said, "On behalf of all the members of Local 10, we stand in solidarity."

Photo: A "No Coal in Oakland" rally before the city council meeting on Monday, June 27, 2016. | Peg Hunter via Flickr (CC)

Swimming in the gene pool: the haves and have nots

Tue, 21 Jun 2016 14:47:00 +0000

My Personal Genome Project ID is hu4DE348.

I'm part of a Harvard-initiated study which aims to sequence and publicize the complete genomes and medical records of 100,000 volunteers.

That's the goal, anyway. They're up to only 3,500 volunteers since beginning in 2005, probably due to budget constraints. I signed up early on, thinking because of my aunt's early death from colon cancer and my mother's narrow escape from that fate, my genes might reveal useful information for researchers in that field.

Plus, being a volunteer white mouse sounded cool. Back in 2005, the cost of having a complete genome sequenced was in the realm of tens of thousands of dollars. I knew I could never afford that, much like most other Americans.

A science geek with math blindness, I saw this as my chance to do research by proxy. Since results are made publicly available, volunteers had to pass an online exam on genetics to prove we were aware of the risks and scope of the study.

I passed it, then mailed my sputum sample in, which was sequenced by the team and uploaded to a publicly available page. It's not the complete genome, and since I couldn't go to any of the study's blood collection events on the West and East coasts, I was disappointed to learn in recent years that blood sample volunteers are the only ones whose complete genomes will ever be sequenced.

So, I'm not quite on the cutting edge of research as I'd hoped, but on occasion reports are posted with a potent familial angle. A pathogenic allele-let's call it bad gene-for prostate cancer (one brother contracted this decades too early for the usual patient), and yes, a bad gene for colon cancer.

But a bad gene isn't always a powerful indicator, and it works in conjunction with other factors along with one's prenatal and post-birth experiences.

Reading a brilliant book called The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee recently has prompted me to visit PGP's website after an absence of many months. A new medical report had been uploaded. It repeated the old deadly news about prostates and colons, but added a new one, about a bad gene associated with squamous cell carcinoma, which my sister successfully battled during this decade.

Mukherjee remarks in the book that certain genes thought of as being problematic can be useful in some contexts (as with Attention Deficit Disorder when one is hunting or being hunted) but not so much in others (as with the same disorder, but in a classroom).

My sister's carcinoma is obviously not useful in any situation. I can see how knowledge of one's genome, as translated by scientists, can be a valuable part of a medical record. That I'm finding out this data too late to help my family is disappointing.

Any person, regardless of income, should have voluntary and informed access to their genetic profile. As researchers learn more about how our genes operate, and the factors that influence them, it's tempting to sound the alarm about the dangers of too much knowledge in the wrong hands.

Government intrusion, health insurers, corporate testing to weed out job candidates, preference given to certain genetic profiles-these are real issues. But the biggest one in my view is that such genome editing techniques as CRISPR, in which scientists use bacteria to re-engineer genomes in crops and lab animals, are becoming realizable, although the ethics of such options are still not fully understood.

At some point, gene-based therapies for humans, even as early as the fetal stage, could mean the erasure of many of life's ailments. Yet the cost of such knowledge means the haves and have-nots could face an unjust divide regarding their respective genetic profiles.

Opponents of single-payer healthcare tend to rail that medical care is expensive because some people's lifestyle choices push up the costs for everyone else. A retail cashier and a well-paid lawyer with the same genetic profile and similar inclinations, however, have different healthcare options and interventions available.

Now think of a future in which that fortunate lawyer, thanks to early gene-based therapies, never develops high blood pressure or some other condition which we currently see as influenced by a poor choice. But the cashier does.

Then the "choice" to eat salt-laden or fatty foods can more clearly be seen as a decision made by someone whose options were never that great to begin with.

We live in an age where the tools to heal ourselves and our children are growing ever more powerful. Who gets access and at what cost? As a childless woman who volunteered to be a white mouse, and who is fortunate to have moderately good insurance, I don't have to worry about being targeted for my genetic profile.

Others may not be that lucky. Here is something to consider by people who opposes greater public access to health care and information: they're making that decision not only for themselves but also for their family's future.

A grandchild or a great-nephew may end up needing gene-based treatment that could have been scaled up for greater public access at a lesser cost per patient, as the result of progressive policies. But today's naysayers view the issue through glasses that only see morals and money, and not the promise of public science for public good.

Lawmakers and public policy researchers would do well to consider how access to biotechnology and genome engineering might figure in to public health outcomes-and they must include in their calculations the well-being of people who have yet to be born.

The future is now, in more ways than they think.

Investors pull funding from contested Honduran hydro project

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 13:27:00 +0000

European investors announced late last month they have pulled funding from the contested Agua Zarca hydroelectric project in western Honduras.

Finnish and Dutch development finance companies, FinnFund and FMO respectively, had suspended activities in Honduras following the March assassination of Berta Cáceres, an Indigenous Lenca woman and founder of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras: COPINH).

COPINH has been at the forefront of a multi-year campaign to stop the Agua Zarca project on Río Gualcarque, which they consider sacred and vital to Lenca survival. In 2015, Cáceres was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for leading that struggle.

Early in May, five men were arrested for Cáceres' murder. Two had direct ties to DESA, the Honduran development firm behind the hydroelectric project: Sergio Rodríguez, DESA's social issues manager, and Douglas Bustillo, retired military officer and DESA's former deputy chief of security. Two other military officers, one active and one retired, also were arrested, along with a gang member accused of being the hit man hired for $2,200.

While acknowledging that indictments were not the same as convictions, upon learning of DESA's connection with Cáceres' assassination FinnFund and FMO nonetheless sent representatives to Honduras to negotiate an end to their involvement with Agua Zarca (though not other Honduran energy projects). FMO had $15 million (USD) invested, FinnFund $5 million (USD).

Berta Cáceres, 44, was assassinated March 3 in her home in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. Also shot, and left for dead, was Mexican environmental activist Gustavo Castro Soto, who was in the country to discuss energy alternatives to the DESA project.

Local police detained Castro Soto and attempted to cast blame for the shootings on local COPINH leaders, whom they repeatedly interrogated while failing to interview DESA employees who had made threats against Cáceres.

Due to intense international condemnation of Cáceres' murder, the case was transferred to the national criminal investigation unit, bolstered by an attorney and a retired police investigator from the U.S., which subsequently had the five suspects arrested.

Following the indictments, COPINH and Cáceres' family issued statements saying the arrests confirmed their belief that DESA had instigated the assassination, but expressing doubts that the "intellectual authors" of the crime would ever be brought to light. They have repeatedly called for an independent assassination investigation conducted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a demand the Honduran government has thus far resisted.

Given the country's high degree of impunity, such doubts are well founded. Honduras has long been ruled by an oligarchy known to take drastic, sometimes violent, actions in response to threats to their control, the 2009 coup overturning the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya being a case in point. Zelaya had raised the minimum wage 60 percent and pledged to mediate land disputes between campesinos and the corporations that had acquired control of vast swaths of prime Honduran real estate.

Since the coup, more than 200 campesinos have been murdered in the northeast Aguan Valley in response to their attempts to reoccupy traditional land holdings appropriated for giant African palm and sugar cane plantations.

Though FinnFund and FMO have withdrawn their investments, the Agua Zarca hydro plant may yet be built. The Atala family, which controls the DESA board of directors, also owns Ficosah, one of Honduras' largest banks.

Until recently, DESA's financial details - who its investors were and who sat on its board of directors - were a closely held secret. In early May, Honduran investigative journalist Felix Molina published this information on his Facebook page, including the facts that a close family member of Honduran Secretary of Security Pacheco Tinoco serves as secretary of the DESA board, and that DESA's president is West Point graduate and former counterintelligence officer Roberto David Castillo Mejía, whose uncle is a long-serving congressman from the ruling National Party.

Following these revelations, Molina survived an assassination attempt with multiple gunshot wounds.

In response to such flagrant attempts to silence critics and activists, Honduran human rights defenders this week journeyed to Geneva, Switzerland, where their government is to appear before the U.N. Human Rights Council for a periodic policy review. Fifty-four organizations have compiled a report that counters the official, sanitized version being presented to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Released through FIAN, an international human rights organization, the report claims the Honduran government blocked participation of civil society groups in preparation of the official report. It goes on to detail violation of Indigenous rights to "free, prior and informed consent" before development or resource extraction proceeds on their ancestral lands; violence against women and discrimination against LGBT individuals; and displacement of campesino communities, among other state crimes.

The alternative report sets these violations in the context of widespread poverty, inequality and violence in Honduras, noting that approximately 20 percent of the richest Hondurans earn 60 percent of national income, while the poorest 20 percent earn only 2.02 percent. In the meantime, defense expenditures since the coup have risen 161 percent, while those for education have increased a mere 11 percent and for health, 29 percent.

Photo: Women protest killing of Berta Cáceres. | Fernando Antonio/AP

Labor Secretary: Cleaning the environment will boost economy

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 13:01:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - Cleaning up the environment is "an economic tool" to provide good jobs for U.S. workers, Obama administration Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says.

And cleaning up the environment and good jobs are not contradictory goals, either, he declares.

Perez sounded those two themes as the keynote speaker at the annual Good Jobs Green Jobs national conference, held this year in Cleveland on June 6. Delegates, including some union delegates and leaders, discussed opportunities related to clean energy initiatives and how they will create and maintain quality jobs.

Their key points included that not just restoring the environment but rebuilding our creaky and aging infrastructure - while also making it more environmentally friendly - would provide those good jobs.

"The economic wind at our back results in the shared prosperity for everyone," Perez said. "That is the basic work of the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency, ensuring that we attack climate change and are environmental stewards."

Perez said the nation must come together and tackle environmental challenges it faces, including working to ensure the implementation of common-sense regulations.

"As I work at the Department of Labor, we hear the tired arguments that businesses can either protect a worker or make a profit," Perez said. "I make house calls and I've met so many people building profitable businesses and protecting workers - such as the International Masonry Institute in Bowie, Md."

While announcing new safety standards related to silica dust in early April at the institute, Perez said nobody should have to walk into a job and give up their lives to that job.

"Facilities like IMI show facility safety and growth can go hand-in-hand," Perez said.

Perez added that development of wind and solar energy are ways to transform the environment. He mentioned a visit he made to Toledo, Ohio, about a year ago where he toured the Toledo Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Center, where apprentice training includes learning about and working on wind turbine technology.

There, he met with apprentices who have good-paying careers working on clean-energy technology - jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.

Careers such as working on wind turbines and building solar panels are a key to creating a strong middle class, Perez said. He also referenced a new factory being constructed at an old steel mill in Buffalo, his native city. Once operational, the factory will become the largest manufacturing facility of solar panels in the Western Hemisphere.

This union-built and union-employed factory will help produce much-needed American made products that provide clean energy and result in a cleaner environment, Perez said.

Besides creating clean energy, Perez said the nation must focus on improving its infrastructure." As an example, he discussed the preventable water crisis in Flint, Mich., calling it an abomination. Meanwhile, he noted, seven billion gallons of potable water are lost per day to leaks in drinking water pipes.

This should be the "low hanging fruit" of the movement to create good jobs while adding the environment, he told the audience. He then encouraged those in attendance to urge their federal lawmakers to support additional funding for capital infrastructure projects.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told conference attendees that demand for clean energy jobs needs to start at home. Nearly 70 percent of clean energy jobs are currently located overseas, he explained. "We supply less than 10 percent of global solar panels," Brown said.

Brown praised the Department of Energy's new partnership that will lead to the creation of a wind farm in Lake Erie. But he also spoke about the need to help the environment by stopping methane leaks that are occurring in old pipes in many cities throughout America. This work, he said, will create many jobs for plumbers and pipefitters.

Besides Perez and Brown, Plumbers and Pipefitters President William Hite received the 2016 Blue-Green Champions Award for the union's work during the Flint water crisis.

Members from union Local 307 volunteered their time, working tirelessly to help install new faucets and filters designed to reduce the amount of lead in the drinking water in almost 5,000 Flint homes. Additionally, members also purchased $20,000 worth of bottled water for the residents to use.

"When there's a crisis, and it has to do with water pipes or sanitation, never forget that the plumber protects the health of the nation," said Hite. He called the water crisis a disgusting development and a disgrace to the people who live in the city. But added that his members were happy to do what they could for the people of Flint.

The Flint water crisis, which saw lead poison its drinking water and permanently harm its kids, occurred because a state-appointed fiscal "czar," looking to save money, ordered the city's water source switched from relatively clean Lake Huron to the dirty Flint River, without needed equipment to prevent lead in Flint's old water pipes from contaminating the water. A public health doctor blew the whistle on the crisis, as officials ignored residents' complaints.

Hite also touched on his union's recent affiliation with the Roofers to help collect and conserve rainwater. Signed last year, the two unions are partnering on this important project to help train their members to install much needed water collection systems in areas where water conservation is mandated or a high priority.

Photo: Workers install photovoltaic panels at a solar plant in Germany. | Flickr/Windwarts Energie (CC)

Leave it in the ground: A new abolitionism needed for climate change

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 14:18:00 +0000

The world's last best hope to address the climate-change crisis may be this November when millions of Americans vote in the upcoming elections. Often overshadowed by the debate on inequality, the power of Wall Street, and of course the spectacle of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, the November elections will be a turning point for the future of our planet and society.

If climate scientists are correct, then as Alan Neuhauser wrote just prior to the Paris Climate Summit last year, "the next candidate Americans send to the Oval Office...may also be the very last who can avert catastrophe from climate change."

Just last week, Paul Krugman sounded a similar alarm in the Times:

"We're at a peculiar moment when it comes to the environment - a moment of both fear and hope. The outlook for climate change if current policies continue has never looked worse, but the prospects for turning away from the path of destruction have never looked better. Everything depends on who ends up sitting in the White House for the next few years."

Peculiar indeed. So if you weren't stressed out enough about the next Supreme Court nominee or three, about the comb-over king having at his disposal the most powerful military force in the world, or about his refusal to accept basic democratic concepts like rule of law, it's now time to start getting stressed out. The fate of the planet - not just the country - may actually depend on whose name you put your X next to on November 8.

It will be tough even if he doesn't win

Even if "he who must not be named" is defeated in November, averting the many-layered crisis of climate change will still be a very heavy lift. For years, perhaps decades, we have heard that the "green economy" was right around the corner. Because scarce fossil fuels would become more and more expensive, market mechanisms like cap and trade, carbon pricing, and incentives for implementing energy efficiencies would transition us to a "carbonless" economy.

But "extreme energy" like fracking and other methods have made cheap carbon-based energy available for the foreseeable future. Even with energy efficiencies in vehicles, housing, and production, global demand for energy has increased, not decreased. Even though the know-how of renewable energy technology is available and increasingly more affordable, the growth of renewables as a source of total world consumption is still projected to reach only 12 percent by 2040 - nowhere near enough to be on track to solve a climate crisis that demands radical reductions in CO2 emissions now.

Add to this studies like one that appeared in Nature last year which said to remain within the 2C temperature limit (the level beyond which human action will be ineffective against the consequences of climate change), 82 percent of coal, 50 percent of gas, and a third of known oil reserves will have to stay unused in the ground. With the fossil fuel industry's long-term profitability and appeal to investors premised on those same as-yet unused reserves, leaving them "in the ground" effectively means putting the industry out of business.

A new abolitionism

Is dismantling an industry so intrinsic, so imbedded in the political economy of the world possible? As Naomi Klein asks in her book, This Changes Everything, "Has an economic shift of this kind ever happened before in history?" Are there places we can look, historical periods where such transformations took place that can illuminate the challenge?

The closest one can come to an answer would be the abolition of the global system of slave labor that played such a central role in the economic development of early capitalism. In The Nation a couple of years ago, Christopher Hayes broached the idea of a "new abolitionism" to deal with the problem of climate change. It's an idea worthy of further discussion.

Like the fossil industry today, slavery was, in historian Greg Gandin's words, "the flywheel on which America's market revolution turned - not just in the United States, but in all of the Americas." And similar to today's fossil fuel industry, slavery's power shaped the politics of its day even as it decayed into a system increasingly incompatible with the needs of the developing industrial societies of the U.S. and Europe. In The Nation a couple of years ago, Christopher Hayes broached the idea of a "new abolitionism" to deal with the problem of climate change. It's an idea worthy of further discussion.

The trend toward wage-labor and industrialization made the case that slavery's days were numbered, but with the possibility of westward expansion in the United States, the would come later rather than sooner without active prodding. And just as the carbon industry today won't willingly give up the trillions in profits represented by the carbon still in the ground, neither would the slavocracy abandon its source of wealth.

Just as many have still not concluded that saving the planet from climate change requires the "abolition" of fossil fuels, most had not concluded that the end of slavery was required to preserve the nation in the mid-1800s either. As historian Philip Foner illustrated in his preface to The Life and Writings of Fredrick Douglass:

"The United States entered the Civil War with the avowed object of preserving the Union, and only that. As the war continued, however, it became clear that to adhere to this position was to guarantee victory for the slave power. Gradually a fundamental change occurred in the thinking of the American people. From a confused and somewhat timid hope that slavery might die of its own weight if only it were held to the South, the lessons of the war brought to the vast majority of the Northern population the realization that slavery had been the primary cause of the conflict, and that the end of slavery was the only key to victory and a stable peace."

This "change of thinking," though, was not automatic. It required the active role of the abolitionist movement and leaders like Douglass to push it along. As Foner continues:

"It was the result of patient and persistent education carried on by the anti-slavery men and women. The contributions of Fredrick Douglass in this movement to educate public opinion in the North was of outstanding importance. From the very beginning of the conflict, when many other anti-slavery advocates were hesitant and indecisive, Douglass recognized the revolutionary implications of the Civil War, and clearly perceived that the objective purpose of this Second American Revolution was the destruction of slavery and the slave power."

Ultimately, slavery's end was the result of a broad, complicated, and contradictory movement. A movement that included the revolt and rebellions of the slaves themselves, the protests of the religious-based abolitionists, those for whom the preservation of the Union was paramount regardless of the outcome for the institution of slavery, and free-soilers (whites whose primary motivation was access to land that would otherwise be unavailable with the slave systems expansion to the western territories).

Like the complex and contradictory movement to end slavery, it will take a similarly broad and complex movement to challenge the power of "Big Carbon." It will have to be a movement that like Douglass's, recognizes the possibility of the moment. Though deeply flawed, the recent Paris Accord is a recognition of the world's need to address the climate change crisis. Until 55 countries representing 55 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions present formal ratification documents, however, the accord will not take effect. This brings into focus the need and the possibility for bold grassroots action.

Putting "big carbon" on the run

The wellspring of the carbon-based economy, the fossil-fuel industry, is becoming increasingly isolated. Movements against fracking, pipelines, and coal-fired powered plants have scored some meaningful victories. The halting of the Keystone XL pipeline and the achievement of a fracking ban in New York State are among the most notable.

The peddling of climate change denial has become increasingly embarrassing. Even petroleum giant Shell has joined corporations like Google and Facebook in withdrawing their support from the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, citing the latter's opposition to action on climate change as "clearly inconsistent" with its own outlook. Can marshalling these diverse movements create a "shift in popular thought" capable of coalescing into a powerful anti-carbon consensus? Can it bring about a new abolitionism?

Just as the original Abolitionist movement did in its time, so too must the "carbon abolition" movement bring together a broad alliance. This will mean nurturing connections with sectors of society not traditionally considered part of the progressive or environmental movements.

For example, as Tik Root noted recently, there is a growing Evangelical environmental movement: "The Evangelical Climate Initiative...has grown from about 15,000 people to over 800,000 in the past six years." They are aiming to reach 3 million within the next two.

For the secular environmental movement to ignore this potential ally would be costly, as it holds the promise of upending the right-wing coalition that serves as the base of the fossil fuel industry's political power.

2016: A climate referendum

Our upcoming elections will be pivotal in the fight to address climate change. Ironically, many in the Abolitionist movement only reluctantly supported Lincoln in 1860, considering him not anti-slavery enough. Yet Lincoln's election became the most consequential event leading to the abolition of slavery. As Douglass himself explained: "Lincoln's election has vitiated their authority, and broken their power...it has demonstrated the possibility of electing, if not an Abolitionist, at least an anti-slavery reputation to the Presidency of the United States." Douglass went on to say, "Mr. Lincoln's election, breaks the enchantment, dispels this terrible nightmare, and awakes the nation to the consciousness of new powers and the possibility of a higher destiny than the perpetual bondage to an ignoble fear."

Today a majority of Americans believe that more must be done to address climate change, even as they hold mixed views as to how best to do that. There are differences around whether nuclear should be part of the renewable energy mix, and so on. As an important arena where millions of people can express their views on what is perhaps the defining issue confronting humanity, the upcoming elections will be a referendum on climate change even if it is not the central issue of the election.

By "vitiating the authority" of climate deniers in government (principally the GOP), a strong message is sent, both internationally and domestically, that addressing climate change is on the agenda for the U.S. Conversely, a win for climate deniers would lead the world to conclude that the U.S. is not serious about addressing the climate crisis and at the same time embolden the fossil fuel industry. On the heels of the Paris Accord, such an outcome would significantly undermine the building of a global consensus that the carbon-based energy industry must be dismantled and replaced with a renewable one.

Rift and reconciliation

Once you get past the climate deniers, the debate on climate change often revolves around jobs. When taking on the challenge involves altering how and where we work, communities can feel compelled to choose between "food on the table" and a "future." As such, even the weakened trade union movement in the United States is a central player in the political drama of the climate crisis.

Between unions like those of the Building Trades, whose jobs can often be tied to the fossil-fuel industry, and those whose future is more closely linked to addressing climate change, such as transportation or health, the rift has widened. It is one unlikely to be reconciled easily. As Sean Sweeney, the director of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) notes in explaining the divisions in the labor movement over Keystone XL: "This was no ordinary squabble, and there are no plans for a "group hug" moment of reconciliation...KXL could be a precursor to a more protracted and serious union leadership-level dispute in the years ahead."

Confronting the climate crisis and ensuring a just transition to a sustainable economy will require a deliberate effort to reconcile that rift. It will require "climate-friendly" unions to accept that mainstream environmental groups and the renewables industry will not lead a transition to a union-friendly sustainable economy without a hard push. Unions in the energy production and infrastructure industries, meanwhile, must make the perhaps more difficult recognition that policies addressing climate change are not the principle cause of union job loss.

Rather, their industries are already becoming increasingly capital-intensive and anti-union, as is the renewables industry and the U.S. economy generally. Energy is an industry in transition, just as the Longshoremen's union had to make bold choices when faced with an increasingly-automated industry in the form of containerization, "energy" unions will have to weigh short-term job protection with long-term job security. The renewable energy economy will not be a "worker-less" industry, but a world in the grips of a climate crisis is unlikely to be a union-friendly environment.

It is not that all "carbon-friendly" unions necessarily deny the threat of climate change. Indeed, some argue that a comprehensive approach must be taken. As IBEW president Lonnie Stephenson points out, "Human-caused climate change is real, and a real threat, but focusing on power generation in isolation - leaving out industry, agriculture, and transportation - ignores three-quarters of the problem. Everyone will benefit from an effective response so everyone should share in the cost."

A comprehensive approach can go a long way in reconciling the rift. Again though, the political climate will shape the debate. It will determine whether there will even be a debate at all. A loss for climate-change deniers in the upcoming elections will help to reframe the debate among trade unions and the labor movement generally, from the narrow "food or future" to "food and a future" - a just transition to a sustainable economy.

If the power of the fossil-fuel industry and anti-union forces over politics is resisted and reversed, the possibility opens, as Sweeney argues, for "unions in all sectors [to] work together to support an approach to energy and climate that is needs-based, grounded in the facts, and independent of both industry interests and the mainstream environmental groups."

Reconstruction

Like the carbon industry today, the power of the Southern slave owners shaped the politics of the day and determined the trajectory of the whole nation. At the time, their power seemed insurmountable. As Fredrick Douglass wrote, "For fifty years the country has taken the law from the lips of an exacting, haughty, and imperious slave oligarchy. The masters of slaves have been the masters of the Republic."

Likewise, the corporate-controlled energy industry has shaped the historical development of the economy to its own interests. Steering it away from a robust public transportation system to a car culture and all that that implies. Cultivating a vast agricultural system dependent on petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides that have exhausted soil fertility. Constructing an energy distribution system that precludes any alternatives.

Just as the Union could not be preserved without the abolition of slavery, climate change cannot be solved without squarely addressing the power of the fossil fuel industry and its control over energy production. As long as the latter remains in corporate hands, efforts to make a just transition to a sustainable economy will be stymied, as will worker power in these industries and in the growing renewable energy sector which is needed to address climate change. The alternative to corporate control is democratic control of energy production at all levels of society.

The defeat of the slave oligarchy in the Civil War began what historians have coined America's "Unfinished Revolution." Reconstruction was, in Eric Foner's words, "not only a specific time period, but also the beginning of an extended historical process: the adjustment of American society to the end of slavery." As with most profound changes, it did not unfold without conflict.

Reconstructing the economy on the basis of renewable energy requires defeating the power of the fossil-fuel industry specifically, but also challenging corporate domination of the economy and politics in general - the same power that has systematically sought to destroy organized labor and its influence. The fight for a just transition to a sustainable economy can afford workers in the energy industry and the labor movement in general, an opportunity to reshape the political economy of the nation in a direction that greater reflects their interests for today and the future.

The Nov. 8 elections may be the last chance to seize that opportunity.

Photo: Sue Ogrocki/AP