Tag Archives: Congress

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

UCS … Demand no more global warming victims


It’s pretty common these days to hear my friends and family members complaining about global warming—but it’s not just the weather they’re complaining about any more. One friend had to evacuate her town with her small boys in tow to flea this season’s wildfires. Another had to abandon a coastal cottage that had been in his family for generations because of rising sea levels. A grandparent stranded in a heat wave. Global warming is affecting all of us every day. And unless we take immediate action, both to help communities prepare for the consequences but also to reduce climate emissions, these stories will become more frequent, and more dire. —Karla

UCS reports highlight global warming consequences for American West.
Two new reports from UCS experts demonstrate just how serious the climate risks are for the great American West and the people who live there. Hotter, drier conditions brought on by global warming are contributing to more large wildfires and longer wildfire seasons. And in the Rocky Mountains—home to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Parks—these conditions are having severe impacts on the region’s forests—as drought, wildfires, and tree-killing insects that thrive in hotter temperatures are producing potentially irreversible effects. READ MORE

Ask a Scientist

“My husband and I live in the American Southwest and are very concerned about its habitability in the future due to worsening drought and rising temperatures. We are especially concerned about where our children and grandchildren will be able to live and prosper. Are there any regions of the country that might emerge unscathed from the effects of climate change?”—J. Winkeller, Gilbert, AZ.

I empathize. Climate change is now part of everyday reality, and no place in the United States—or the rest of the world, for that matter—is unaffected. Even if we were able to completely switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources right now, the climate will continue to warm in the coming decades. The National Climate Assessment recently examined the current and projected impacts of climate change on different regions of the country. READ MORE

 

Science in Action
protect western forests Protect Rocky Mountain forests before it’s too late!If we do not act now, the forests of the Rocky Mountains will continue to die as they face the severe consequences of climate change. Urge your elected officials to allocate the resources necessary for forest managers to address the current effects of global warming and implement steps that can make our forests more resilient.
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

This Saturday, Sept. 13: HRC Seattle Dinner


The HRC Seattle Gala Dinner

Joe Manganiello True Blood Ally for Equality AwardJoe Manganiello – True Blood
Ally for Equality Award		 Saturday, September 13
5:30 p.m. – Registration & Silent Auction
6:45 p.m. – Dinner ProgramThe Sheraton Seattle Hotel
1400 Sixth Avenue
Seattle, WA


Purchase Tickets
Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami
Special Guests
Plaintiffs, Supreme Court Case Proposition 8

Fred Sainz
HRC VP of Communications & Marketing
Featured Speaker
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Absurd …


Check out this pep talk for Speaker Boehner!Check out our video message for John Boehner — and add your name to demand better from the Speaker of the House.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Midyear


A Better Balance
2014 Midyear Newsletter
Dear Friend,
The first half of 2014 has been a very exciting time at A Better Balance. Over the past several months wehave been working hard:
And we are just getting started!
A Better Balance is now on the front lines making a difference, but we need your support to keep the momentum going!
Thank you, as always, for your support.
The A Better Balance Team
Sherry, Dina, Phoebe, Jared, Liz, Elizabeth, Risha, Morenike, Rachel, & Meredith
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Bill Gates: End your investment in private prisons

1 Comment

Immediately withdraw your $2.2 million investment in the GEO Group.

Sign Presente.org’s petition

One of the world’s biggest social good foundations is contributing to one of society’s biggest ills — the private prison industry. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust has invested more than $2 million in GEO Group, one of the largest and most abusive private prison corporations in the United States.

GEO makes a business of jailing those with the fewest resources, profiting from their labor, stripping them of their dignity, and leaching precious human capital from already-distressed communities.

GEO Group and other private prison companies have a perverse profit motive to drive criminal justice and immigration policy towards more incarceration of citizens and immigrants in prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers. They spend millions of dollars — dollars provided in part by investors like the Gates Foundation Trust — lobbying local, state, and federal governments to institute longer sentences, to incarcerate more people for mi nor crimes, and to terrorize immigrant communities.

If that weren’t bad enough, GEO’s prisons are notorious for their awful treatment of prisoners. Accounts of sexual assault, physical abuse, medical neglect, rotten and inadequate food, forced signing of immigration papers, and death have been well-documented at GEO facilities. A federal judge called the inhumane conditions at GEO’s now-closed Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, “a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world.”

In light of this evidence, it is shocking that the Gates Foundation Trust would maintain its investment in the GEO group. The Gates Foundation prides itself on the good it does in the world. But this investment fundamentally contradicts the Foundation’s stated mission: to “ensure that all people — especially those with the fewest resources — have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.”

If enough of us speak out now, we’ll be able to create a powerful media narrative that exposes this contradiction and shames the Gates Foundation Trust to withdraw its investment.

Join Presente, Enlace, and 25 other organizations in calling on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust to immediately withdraw its investment in the GEO Group.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

–Presente.org

This petition was created on MoveOn’s online petition site, where anyone can start their own online petitions. Presente.org didn’t pay us to send this email—we never rent or sell the MoveOn.org list.