Greenovate Boston – 2017

 

Greenovate Boston is Mayor Walsh’s initiative to get all Bostonians involved in eliminating the pollution that causes global climate change, while continuing to make Boston a healthy, thriving, and innovative city.

Climate action in Boston is a priority for Mayor Walsh. Climate change is happening, and promoting the activities that reduce greenhouse gases creates job opportunities and improves quality of life. We must also prepare our people and infrastructure for a changing coastline and increasing temperatures, so our City is protected from more intense natural disasters and extreme weather events.

Greenovate works with the broader community to implement the City’s Climate Action Plan, which is a roadmap to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 and to become carbon neutral by 2050. These goals were originally outlined in the City’s Climate Action Plan, and updated recently by Mayor Walsh in his 2017 State of the City Address.

Learn more about what the City of Boston and our community is doing to address our changing climate.

Francis: A Trigger for Rapid Arctic Warming

Climate StatePublished on Nov 22, 2017

Jennifer Francis from Rutgers University speaks about our atmosphere with a scope on the Arctic response to climate change and the connection to weather. This video is part of a panel presentation published by Earth Institute November 2017, with already improved sound quality (reduced humming sound). Video via Earth Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSYM…

J.P. Morgan Chase Whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann on Democracy Now

Intercept MediaPublished on Nov 11, 2014

A mere slap on the wrist for wreaking havoc on markets throughout the world.

FCC Chair Ajit Pai Unveils Plan to End Net Neutrality

 

Nov 22, 2017

Elsewhere in Washington, D.C., FCC chair Ajit Pai unveiled a plan Tuesday to roll back net neutrality—reversing Obama-era rules barring corporate service providers from blocking access to websites, slowing down content or providing paid fast lanes for internet service. The plan is slated to face a vote in an FCC meeting on December 14, where all three Republican-appointed commissioners on the five-member FCC support ending net neutrality. Reaction to the announcement was swift. Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps tweeted, “This is an FCC chair gone rogue. How can one person be so zealous in dismantling the entire communications ecosystem and endangering our democracy?” Net Neutrality activists have launched a campaign to pressure lawmakers to intervene and are planning protests in cities across the U.S. on December 7th, when they’ll march from Verizon stores to the offices of members of Congress. We’ll have more on Net Neutrality later in the broadcast.

FCC Moves to Gut Net Neutrality, Ignoring Public Support & Laws Upholding Equal Internet Access

Democracy Now!
Published on Nov 22, 2017

https://democracynow.org – Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai issued a major order Tuesday in which he outlined his plan to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet. Pai wants to repeal net neutrality rules that bar internet service providers from stopping or slowing down the delivery of websites and stop companies from charging extra fees for high-quality streaming. A formal vote on the plan is set for December 14th. We speak with Tim Karr, Senior Director of Strategy for Free Press, which is organizing support to keep the rules in place ahead of the vote.

BBC World Service – Newshour, What’s behind China’s vast trade project?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058d0rt

China calls it the “project of the century”. It’s planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars on infrastructure in more than 60 countries. As the US steps back from its role as leader of the world economy, China is stepping forward. President Xi Jinping says the new Silk Road will benefit all. But critics warn of a bid for strategic influence, which they say will indebt China’s partners for decades. In a series of reports this week, our China Editor, Carrie Gracie, follows the 12000-kilometre rail route from China to the UK to meet the people of the new Silk Road and to ask what it might deliver.

(Photo: The first freight train linking China directly to the UK arrived back in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu from the UK on 29th April 2017 Credit: AFP)

Release date:

11 July 2017

BBC World Service – Newshour, Old Silk Road, new Silk Road

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p058d5q1

The BBC’s China editor, Carrie Gracie, follows the old Silk Road in western China as part of her trip along Beijing’s ambitious new Silk Road project – a railway link from China to the UK.

(Photo: Chinese tourists in the desert in western China Credit: BBC)

BBC World Service – Newshour – The New Silk Road

How China is launching a major new trade route via the ancient Silk Road

For Now, Federal Focus On Affirmative Action Centers On Harvard | Edify

August 03, 2017 Updated August 03, 2017 8:36 AM
Max Larkin
In higher education as elsewhere, the new Trump administration has hinted at more change than it has brought so far.

Colleges and universities nationwide await signs of how the federal response to big campus questions from responses to sexual assaults to student loans may change in the months and years ahead.

It appeared that the practice of considering students’ race while making admissions decisions — which many institutions, especially selective ones, still practice — might also be headed for a shakeup, in the name of the civil rights of white students. The New York Times reported that the Justice Department was seeking attorneys willing to investigate, and possibly to sue, over “intentional race-based discrimination” in college admissions.

But a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice denied that in a statement, saying the department’s attention is focused exclusively on “one administrative complaint” left over from the Obama administration. That complaint is one filed against Harvard on behalf of Asian-American applicants who were turned away from the highly selective school.

Suit Argues Harvard Holds Asian-Americans Applicants To Higher Standards

Discrimination complaints against Harvard first materialized in a 2014 lawsuit. The suit was filed by Students for Fair Admissions, or SFFA — a nonprofit organization headed by Edward Blum, the conservative legal activist at the center of many such cases.

The suit doesn’t

focus on the effect of affirmative action for black and Latino students on white students. Instead, it argues that Harvard’s admissions team practices a kind of reverse discrimination against Asian-American applicants by holding them to a “far higher standard” of academic performance than it does other students, and in effect forcing them to compete against each other for what, it argues, is a functionally limited number of seats.

…(read more).

DOJ Looks Into Whether Harvard Discriminates Against Asian-Americans | WBUR News

August 03, 2017 Kirk Carapezza Nov 20, 2017

The Justice Department confirms it is looking into a complaint that accuses Harvard University of discriminating against Asian-American applicants. The probe raises questions about whether college admission policies in general may come under scrutiny by the Trump Administration.

A coalition of more than 60 organizations accuses Harvard of holding Asian-American applicants to higher standards than black and Latino applicants

Swan Lee of Brookline is an organizer of the coalition.

“If one group of students are held to higher standards based on their appearance, that’s not right,” says Swan Lee, an organizer of the coalition.

The group asked the federal government to investigate two years ago, but the Obama administration dismissed the claim without evaluating its merit because a similar lawsuit had already been filed in federal district court.

That lawsuit is pending and could be the nation’s next test case on affirmative action.

But now the Trump administration says it will look into whether Harvard’s practices break the law.

The announcement comes after an internal job posting at the Justice Department appeared to signal a shift in priorities of the Civil Rights division toward complaints of reverse discrimination.

The posting was first reported in The New York Times, but the Justice Department says it’s not looking at university admissions in general.

A spokesperson says the Department is “committed to protecting all Americans from … illegal race-based discrimination.”

Civil rights groups and legal experts are skeptical.

…(read more).