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This Earth Day, do your part to protect the Amazon by The Amazon rainforest provides us with 20% of our oxygen – that’s 1 in every 5 breaths! Much of the world’s rainfall is generated directly by the Amazon, and its vegetation continuously recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen. In a very real way, it serves as the heart pump of the Earth’s climate and the lungs of our planet. Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park is the heart of the Amazon. It is one of the most biodiverse rainforests on the planet and home to Ecuador’s last remaining indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. Underneath this global treasure, there’s oil. For 7 years, the Ecuadorian government proposed to keep the oil in the ground, inspiring and encouraging the world that we can do better. Now they’ve changed their plan and are set to drill in the Yasuní. In response, nearly 800,000 Ecuadorians signaled their support for a referendum to keep oil in the soil in Yasuní forever. Oil exploration there would be a disaster for the climate, the rainforest, and indigenous rights, and it would pave the way for drilling in 6.5 million acres of indigenous territory in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. As Yasunidos in Ecuador said last week, “NOW is the time to be vigilant for nature, our communities and our democracy.” Please support this call to action to keep the oil in the ground under Yasuní. For Earth Day, every day,
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Monthly Archives: April 2014
Twice the impact
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Pepsico and Deforestation
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PepsiCo is the largest globally distributed snack food company in the world. PepsiCo products such as Cheetos, Doritos, and Lay’s potato chips are sold in over 200 countries in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Africa. If we can change PepsiCo, it will have a ripple effect on the global palm oil industry. Note: If action link doesn’t work in your browser, use this instead. When we launched our Snack Food 20 campaign over a year ago, PepsiCo was one of the companies that RAN called on to clean up its palm oil supply chain. In the year since, its peers like Mars, Kellogg’s, Unilever, and General Mills have made new commitments to cut Conflict Palm Oil. Meanwhile, PepsiCo has lagged behind and is now the largest and most influential of the companies yet to adopt a policy to eliminate deforestation and human rights violations from its products. PepsiCo’s irresponsible practice of allowing large-scale deforestation in pursuit of a few extra pennies has huge impacts. With a whopping 457,200 metric tons of palm oil used every year, PepsiCo is one of the largest consumers of Conflict Palm Oil in the snack food sector. That’s why we at RAN have pushed hard for the company to adopt a global palm oil procurement policy — and we’re not alone. PepsiCo’s culpability in forest destruction has also made it a target for Showtime’s new series with Harrison Ford, “Years of Living Dangerously.” Last night the show’s deforestation episode showcased the devastation caused by Conflict Palm Oil and other exploitation, helping to bring this issue to millions of viewers. Now the YEARS project is calling on PepsiCo CEO Ms. Indra Nooyi to answer questions about PepsiCo’s role in deforestation. With this kind of exposure, it’s time for us to raise our voice together and make sure that PepsiCo hears from every one of us. Now is the time, so please add your name here to join RAN, Years of Living Dangerously, and thousands of people around the world demanding change at PepsiCo. We are on the verge of a tipping point – both within the palm oil sector, and for the planet as a whole. It’s time to take action. Together, we can send the message that PepsiCo must end forest destruction and eliminate Conflict Palm Oil.
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With massive reach and absolutely no attention to where its palm oil is sourced from, PepsiCo is driving breakneck deforestation around the globe to supply the world with chips, cookies, and granola bars.
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This Thing is Working
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A Slew Of Good Health Care News Has Conservatives On Their Heels
The evidence continues to pile up that the Affordable Care Act is doing exactly what progressives said it would: providing the peace of mind of high-quality and affordable health coverage to millions of Americans. Despite the initial bumps, the law is actually exceeding expectations when it comes to enrollment. What’s more, Americans are sick of Republicans who have voted over 50 times to repeal the law without even offering an alternative — the law is working better than expected and it is here to stay.
19 Million Americans Covered
With President Obama’s final announcement of enrollment numbers on Thursday, the tally for the total number of Americans getting coverage (so far!) thanks to the Affordable Care Act is in:
- 8 million people have signed up for health coverage through the state and federal marketplaces.
- 3 million more have signed up for coverage through Medicaid.
- 3 million now have coverage by staying on their parents’ plan.
- 5 million people have signed up for ACA-compliant plans outside the marketplace.
Altogether, a new Gallup survey reveals that 4 percent of all Americans are newly ensured this year.
Exchanges Working And Costs Down
Opponents of the law claimed that insufficient numbers of young and healthy people would enroll in the exchanges, causing premiums to skyrocket next year. These fears also aren’t panning out; in fact, just the opposite is happening.
For one, young people are signing up for health coverage under the law in droves. The White House reported that 28% of enrollees are between the ages of 18 and 35. That’s the same percentage as in Massachusetts, which has run a successful healthcare marketplace since 2007. Gallup echoes this point, writing that “the newly insured are, on average, much younger than the overall population.”
Additionally, worries about dramatic cost increases have also proven to be overblown. New Congressional Budget Office projections for 2016 insurance premiums are 15 percent lower than previous estimates, a reduction that they estimate to save $186 billion (not to say we called it, but…we called it).
The mix of massive enrollment and a young, healthy enrollment pool has insurers who “got their first taste of Obamacare this year [wanting] seconds,” according to Politico. In at least ten states, insurers that didn’t offer coverage through the exchanges this year have said they plan to in 2015. This creates more options for consumers, and signals the strength of the ACA marketplaces.
Conservatives On Defense
As millions of people experience real, and not just theoretical, benefits of the law, Americans are getting more and more tired of the political battles to repeal it. A recent Kaiser survey found that 59 percent of Americans want keep the law in place or improve it, while only 29 percent want get rid of it. Pew reports that even a “majority of ACA opponents – representing 30% of the public overall – want politicians to do what they can to make the law work as well as possible, compared with 19% of the public that wants elected officials to do what they can to make it fail.”
And constituents are showing their frustration with their conservative elected officials’ fixation on repeal. Without any alternative to point to, and an increasingly frustrated public, these politicians have nobody to blame but themselves.
Think Progress videotaped on one such interaction at a town hall for GOP Rep. Dennis Ross (FL):
Constituent: Why do you think it is so good to deny seniors on Part D to make them pay more, about $4,000 more for medicine, and people with pre-existing conditions get denied insurance, have 26-year-olds have a harder time getting insurance because they can’t get on their parents’? Why do you think those are good ideas?
ROSS: I don’t. I think one of the most unfortunate things my party did the last three years was not offer an alternative to health care.
Ross isn’t the only Republican to face criticism recently. Paul Ryan, Scott Brown, and Chris Christie have also had constituents tell them to end their focus on repeal. Meanwhile, states that have refused to expand health care to low-income residents are also starting to face the music: the uninsured rate is dropping three times faster in states that have expanded Medicaid compared to those that have not.
BOTTOM LINE: We think just a look at a few of this week’s health-care related headlines provides the best summary: the ACA is working.
New York Times: Enrollments Exceed Obama’s Target for Health Care Act
New Republic: Obamacare Signups Hit 8 Million And both Young And Old Are On Board
National Journal: Obamacare Is On A Winning Streak
Politico: Insurers see brighter Obamacare skies
Washington Post: States embracing Obamacare are doing a better job of covering the uninsured, surveys show
Gallup: Uninsured Rate Drops More in States Embracing Health Law
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My family is in prison in the Middle East
My sister Grace and her husband Matt are in prison in Qatar because they were accused of trafficking their adopted children. Sign my petition asking for US officials to pressure the Qatari government to release them immediately.
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In 2012, my sister Grace and her husband Matt moved to Qatar with their three children. What started as an exciting opportunity for Matt’s work has turned into a nightmare. My niece, Gloria, died suddenly last year, and Matt and Grace were completely devastated — as any parents would be.
But then things got much worse. The Qatari government decided that since Matt and Grace’s adopted kids are African and have special needs, Matt and Grace must have adopted them to harvest their organs or do medical experiments. So they took the kids away and threw Matt and Grace in jail.
It is ridiculous and insulting that the Qatari government would assume that Matt and Grace couldn’t be dedicated, loving parents just because their children are adopted. Our family is now caring for Matt and Grace’s other two kids while Matt and Grace are stuck in Qatar sentenced to three years in prison. Their trial was just a show that didn’t even include a conviction. Just a sentence.
Matt and Grace are two of the most amazing people I know. When they were adopting their kids, they specifically requested high needs children because they wanted to become parents to the kids who needed parents the most. The fact that the Qatari government could see something sinister in that absolutely turns my stomach.
I take solace in the fact that Qatar is vulnerable to international pressure right now, especially since they’re hosting an upcoming World Cup. US pressure has also been very successful in helping American prisoners get released in the past — I know one man got to come home from being unjustly held Nicaraguan prison after his family started a petition just like this one.
It absolutely kills me that when my nephews ask me when Mommy and Daddy are coming home, there’s nothing I can tell them except “I don’t know.” But I hope they’ll come home soon, because their kids miss them so much. I miss them so much. We need them to come home.
Thank you,
Joanne Chin
Los Angeles, CA
Be a Seed for Change 
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