From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."
Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line
Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By Jane Mayer
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...
"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.
Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."
Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington
Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.
August 23, 2018
Writing a New Chapter, Not an Obituary, for the Planet
By Lidy Nacpil, May Boeve, Patti Lynn
Truthout, August 22, 2018
"Even a tenth of a degree Celsius means the difference between life and death for millions of people."
Three women activists (see more on them below) on why taking action on climate is urgent:
"No, it’s not too late to address climate change. No, families with minivans aren’t equally to blame for failing to address the climate crisis as are oil executives who have stopped at nothing to protect their profits. And with respect, no, the only meaningful attempts to address climate change haven’t stemmed primarily from a couple of white men in the US three decades ago — however valiantly they’ve fought.
Now is our chance to defend — not lose — the Earth. But after reading The New York Times Magazine’s “Losing Earth” by the magazine’s writer-at-large Nathaniel Rich, you’d hardly be alone if you’re feeling hopeless about humanity’s ability to curb the climate crisis. Remember: Declaring the future as “history already written,” as the piece suggests, isn’t how the future works. According to the article’s incomplete and inaccurate version of history, action to address climate change seems futile. So why should we even bother?
For starters, even a tenth of a degree Celsius means the difference between life and death for millions of people, especially in the Global South and communities least responsible for this crisis. Despite what the piece may suggest, people are not content to shrug their shoulders and allow big polluters to continue to thwart strong climate policy. In fact, from city halls to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), environmental advocates are demanding urgent action now.
We cannot let the fossil fuel industry off the hook as “Losing Earth” does. Fossil fuel executives were not powerless minions, forced to pollute unabated (in return for enormous profits), at the behest of government officials. There is evidence that, as early as the 1980s, big polluters poured hundreds of millions of dollars in a multi-faceted campaign of deception, greenwashing and manipulation." ...
Read full article
Lidy Nacpil is the co-coordinator of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, the co-coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, and a member of the global coordinating committee of the Global Alliance on Tax Justice. She also serves as the convener of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice and vice president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition.
May Boeve is the executive director of 350.org. Previously, May co-founded and helped lead the Step It Up 2007 campaign, and prior to that was active in the campus climate movement while a student at Middlebury College. May is the co-author of Fight Global Warming Now.
Patti Lynn is the executive director of Corporate Accountability, which stops transnational corporations from devastating democracy, trampling human rights and destroying our planet. Alongside governmental and NGO allies, Corporate Accountability has helped to rein in Big Tobacco by ensuring the adoption of the 2003 UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the first legally binding treaty of the World Health Organization (WHO). Patti has been with the organization for over 20 years.