What happens to TPP after election?

RT America

Published on Nov 8, 2016

To discuss the fate of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) after the elections, Thom Hartmann, host of RT’s The Big Picture, and Bryan Pruitt, director at RedState, join RT America’s Ameera David and Larry King. Hartmann says that these trade agreements are actually “corporate managed trade deals” and Pruitt believes if the Democrats maintain a majority in the Senate, President Obama will attempt to have TPP approve during the lame duck session.

This is Voting in 2016: Armed Intimidation Squads, Purged Rolls, 868 Fewer Polling Stations

Democracy Now!

Published on Nov 7, 2016

http://democracynow.org – On Saturday, the U.S. Supreme Court restored a Republican-supported law in Arizona banning political campaigners from collecting absentee ballots filled out by voters. In New Jersey, a federal judge decided against the Democratic National Committee in a complaint it brought against the Republican National Committee, ruling that the RNC’s poll monitoring and ballot security activities did not violate a legal settlement. But in a ruling hailed by voting rights advocates, a federal judge late Friday ordered county elections boards in North Carolina to immediately restore registrations wrongfully purged from voter rolls. All of this comes as this year’s presidential election is the first in half a century to take place without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down crucial components in Section 5 of the act in a case called Shelby County v. Holder, when it ruled that states with histories of voting-related racial discrimination no longer had to “pre-clear” changes to their voting laws with the federal government. For more, we’re joined by Ari Berman, author of the recent article, “There Are 868 Fewer Places to Vote in 2016 Because the Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act.”

Disenfranchised by Misinformation: Victoria Law on the Millions Who Can Vote—B ut Might Not Know It

Democracy Now!

Published on Nov 7, 2016

http://democracynow.org – Across the nation, almost 6 million people are prohibited from voting as a result of state felony disenfranchisement laws. Three-quarters of those now prevented from voting have been released from prison and are living in their communities either under probation, on parole or having completed their sentences. African Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the laws. Florida has the highest number of disenfranchised voters—where nearly one in four black adults is disenfranchised. Meanwhile, in Vermont and Maine, prisoners can vote from jail. How will this impact tomorrow’s election? For more, we speak with Victoria Law, freelance journalist and author of the recent article, “Disenfranchised by Misinformation: Many Americans Are Allowed to Vote But Don’t Know It.” We also speak with Malissa Gamble, founder of The Time is Now to Make a Change, a support center for formerly incarcerated women in Philadelphia. She was incarcerated in Muncy, Pennsylvania, and released 13 years ago.

Greg Palast in Ohio on GOP Effort to Remove African Americans from Voter Rolls in Battleground State

Published on Nov 8, 2016

http://democracynow.org – In an on-the-ground report from the battleground state of Ohio, investigative reporter Greg Palast has uncovered the latest in vote suppression tactics led by Republicans that could threaten the integrity of the vote in Ohio and North Carolina. On some polling machines, audit protection functions have been shut off, and African Americans and Hispanics are being scrubbed from the voter rolls through a system called Crosscheck. “It’s a brand-new Jim Crow,” Palast says. “Today, on Election Day, they’re not going to use white sheets to keep way black voters. Today, they’re using spreadsheets.”

Norwegian Bank DNB Considering Cutting Funding of Dakota Access Pipeline

November 08, 2016, Headlines

The proposal to reroute the Dakota Access comes as the billion-dollar project, spearheaded by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, is facing increasing pressure from the banks funding its construction. On Sunday, the Norwegian bank DNB announced it’s considering withdrawing its funding amid concerns about human rights violations against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. DNB, which is Norway’s largest bank, is responsible for financing up to 10 percent of pipeline. This comes as Citigroup told The New York Times it also has raised concerns about the project with Energy Transfer Partners, although the bank has not yet said whether it will withdraw its funding. Citigroup is playing a major role as both a financer of the project and the loan agent. Lindsey Allen of the Rainforest Action Network said, “Citibank’s leading role in financing the pipeline makes it complicit in gross violations of Indigenous and human rights.”

India: New Delhi Engulfed in Worst Air Pollution in 20 Years

November 08, 2016, Headlines

In India, the environmental minister has called for an emergency meeting as the capital New Delhi is engulfed in thick hazardous smog. It’s the worst air pollution New Delhi has seen in 20 years. This is environmentalist Vimlendu Jha.

Vimlendu Jha: “We have polluted ourselves to an extent where the air is completely toxic. It’s beyond measurable limits. It’s crossed all limits of human imagination, of the imagination of our machines that were supposed to really calculate how polluted our air is.”

U.N. Climate Change Talks Open in Morocco

November 07, 2016 Headlines

The United Nations climate change talks opened today in Morocco, with the U.S. election casting doubt over efforts to slow global warming. Delegates to the negotiations in Marrakesh fear that, if elected, Donald Trump would make good on a campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change reached last year. Meanwhile, many climate scientists warn that countries need to commit to far deeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to meet the agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. We’ll have more on global warming all next week, as Democracy Now! broadcasts from the U.N. climate talks in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The Age of Sustainable Development: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Ki-moon Ban

Jeffrey D. Sachs is one of the world’s most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development.

Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs’s twelve years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, his thirteen years advising the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals, and his recent presentation of these ideas in a popular online course, The Age of Sustainable Development is a landmark publication and clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

Pursuing Sustainability: A Guide to the Science and Practice: Pamela Matson, William C. Clark, Krister Andersson

Sustainability is a global imperative and a scientific challenge like no other. This concise guide provides students and practitioners with a strategic framework for linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable development, and serves as an invaluable companion to more narrowly focused courses dealing with sustainability in particular sectors such as energy, food, water, and housing, or in particular regions of the world.

Written by leading experts, Pursuing Sustainability shows how more inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches and systems perspectives can help you achieve your sustainability objectives. It stresses the need for understanding how capital assets are linked to sustainability goals through the complex adaptive dynamics of social-environmental systems, how committed people can use governance processes to alter those dynamics, and how successful interventions can be shaped through collaborations among researchers and practitioners on the ground.

The ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate students and an invaluable resource for anyone working in this fast-growing field, Pursuing Sustainability also features case studies, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading.

• Provides a strategic framework for linking knowledge with action
• Draws on the latest cutting-edge science and practices
• Serves as the ideal companion text to more narrowly focused courses
• Utilizes interdisciplinary approaches and systems perspectives
• Illustrates concepts with a core set of case studies used throughout the book
• Written by world authorities on sustainability

Volkswagen Accused of Cheating on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

November 07, 2016 Headlines

Volkswagen faces fresh accusations that it rigged its cars to avoid pollution standards. The California Air Resources Board says some of VW’s line of Audi luxury cars contained software that lowered carbon dioxide emissions under testing conditions. Regulators found that when cars were put into real-world conditions, the carbon dioxide emissions rose dramatically. Volkswagen previously admitted to rigging some 11 million vehicles worldwide, allowing them to emit up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide pollutants than standards allow.

Topics:

• Global Warming
• Climate Change