Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
At Teen Vogue, 18-year-old Rachel Zhang, a first-time voter this year and formerly a Bernie Sanders DNC delegate from Minnesota, writes in an op-ed column—The 2020 Election Has to Be a Story About Climate Change. She urges youth to push the Democratic Party to make the climate crisis a top priority. Here is an excerpt:
[...] Our generation needs to vote for every level of government, from city council to the presidency, and to hold politicians accountable for their past actions (or lack thereof). We need to push our institutions to divest from the fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate crisis. We also need to remind ourselves that “social movements have always changed the world — not one person, not one organization, and certainly not one politician,” as the Sunrise Movement so wonderfully puts it.
Now that I’ve introduced the problem (man-made climate crisis) and the rebel forces (zoomers) for our own real-life dystopia, let’s talk about how we can have this storyline progress in our favor.
On the federal level, we need the Green New Deal: a 10-year plan that will transform every facet of standard U.S. society to 100% clean and renewable energy by 2030, create jobs that actually pay a livable wage, and facilitate an equitable transition for workers and frontline communities. A Green New Deal is not a single law, but a set of economic policies to provide better job opportunities, cleaner air and water, less climate pollution, and more resilient communities. The Green New Deal is bold, big, and exactly what we need to start moving on the right path forward.
We also need to push for Green New Deal policies on a state level as well. In 2017, for example, California enacted a Buy Clean Law. The result is that when California spends taxpayer money on infrastructure projects, the state must give priority to companies that limit climate waste throughout their supply chains for industrial products like steel, flat glass, and mineral wool. The law puts pressure on companies to establish climate-friendly manufacturing.
Despite the hyperpartisanship at state and federal levels, local efforts to fight climate change have been highly successful and are particularly important in the 2020 election. The climate crisis is multifaceted and must be addressed with a multilevel strategy. Local government is a great place to start. Places like Austin have committed to net-zero city-wide greenhouse gases by 2050 — leading the way for other cities to follow suit. [...]
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~~W.E.B. Du Bois
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—Michelle Obama—hugs and haters:
The right-wing racists in this country who still haven't recovered from the two-time installation of a black family in the White House have dredged up yet another reason to hate on the first lady. This last week it was about water. When I read about the manufactured controversy at Wonkette, I thought it was a joke. Rush-bloat got into the act, with his par-for-the-course bigot act, and so it went ... on and on ad nauseum, from one right-wing website to another. The FLOTUS has, as part of her goal to improve our children's health, simply suggested that they—gasp—drink more water.
The comments sections to the stories on those sites were predictably slime-filled. Usually, I can just brush the crud off of my psyche, shrug my shoulders and wonder who are these people who seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time on the internet inventing new ways to degrade and demean the FLOTUS?
The problem is that they are people, who own computers, who though faceless and sometimes anonymous, live real lives in my country. And though I may be able to withstand the filth and accept that my world is still full of too many hateful folks, I began to wonder what effect of all of this has on the Obama daughters.