MLK Opposed “Poverty, Racism & Militarism” in Speech One Year Before His Assassination 53 Years Ago

Democracy Now!

Published on Apr 5, 2021

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 53 years ago, on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 39. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice, and was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War. We air an excerpt of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated, in which Dr. King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and urged support for “a genuine revolution of values” that centers collective liberation and revolt against oppressive systems. “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism,” King said.

See related:

• Remembering Why Black Lives Matter

 

World’s Poorest Nations Face Setback as India Suspends Vaccine Exports Amid Fight over Patent Rights

Democracy Now!

Published on Apr 5, 2021

We look at the urgent push to ensure equal access to COVID-19 vaccines for all nations, rich and poor, and growing calls for Big Pharma to waive their patent rights, as COVID-19 cases soar in India and the Modi government has suspended exports of coronavirus vaccines to many of the world’s poorest countries that depend on AstraZeneca vaccines it produces. “These are not India’s vaccines,” says Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for equitable access to medicines. “The number of vaccine doses that have gone out to a third of humanity — 91 poor countries — is 18 million doses, or just enough to cover about 1% of the populations of these countries if they’ve even got vaccines, which some have not,” Prabhala notes. Leena Menghaney, an Indian lawyer who heads Médecins Sans Frontières’s access campaign in India, links the supply shortage to Oxford University’s decision to sign an exclusive deal with the Serum Institute in India rather than contracting several manufacturers to produce the vaccine. “The monopoly is going to cost us,” Menghaney says.

Making Climate Policy Work: David G. Victor & Danny Cullenward

For decades, the world’s governments have struggled to move from talk to action on climate. Many now hope that growing public concern will lead to greater policy ambition, but the most widely promoted strategy to address the climate crisis – the use of market-based programs – hasn’t been working and isn’t ready to scale.

Danny Cullenward and David Victor show how the politics of creating and maintaining market-based policies render them ineffective nearly everywhere they have been applied. Reforms can help around the margins, but markets’ problems are structural and won’t disappear with increasing demand for climate solutions. Facing that reality requires relying more heavily on smart regulation and industrial policy – government-led strategies – to catalyze the transformation that markets promise, but rarely deliver.

Review

“Cullenward and Victor provide a refreshingly honest and pragmatic perspective on this complex field. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in climate policy and carbon pricing.”
David Wright, University of Calgary

“This is a must-read for policymakers, especially the climate intelligentsia who believe that market-based policies are a panacea for the existential threat of climate change. Cullenward and Victor shatter that myth and chart a better course based on proven models that achieve tangible results.”
Kevin de León, California Senate President Emeritus

“I have spent my career trying to answer the question posed by Cullenward and Victor – how to make climate policy work. This book provides a compelling answer: the deep decarbonization the world needs will only be achieved when governments commit to a vision of transformation that all actors can work towards.”
Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, Founder of IDDRI

About the Author

Danny Cullenward is Policy Director at CarbonPlan and a lecturer at Stanford Law School.
David G. Victor is Professor of International Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. He co-heads the initiative on energy and climate at the Brookings Institution.

Product details

• Publisher : Polity; 1st edition (January 7, 2021)
• Language : English
• Hardcover : 256 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1509541799
• ISBN-13 : 978-1509541799
• Item Weight : 15.7 ounces
• Dimensions : 5.6 x 1 x 8.6 inches

Digital Collections | Yale University Library

The Battle for Earth’s Climate Will Be Fought in Africa | Wilson Center

By Jack A. Goldstone on March 24, 2021

In 2019, for the first time, CO2 emissions in both the European Union and the United States declined. Much of the planet’s hope for maintaining a livable climate depends on that trend continuing, and the focus of emissions reductions skews heavily towards the actions of the world’s largest emitters, which are largely concentrated in North America and Asia. The actions of countries in these regions—especially the United States, China, and India—are key to global success on climate. But on their own, they will not be enough.

In discussions of climate change, African countries are usually portrayed as victims of climate impacts, rather than as contributors to the crisis. Historically, the continent has contributed the least of any global region to fossil fuel emissions, yet it is already experiencing some of the world’s most dramatic changes in terms of drought, flooding, heat waves, and viable land use. Often missing from these conversations is the recognition that African countries are in fact critical partners for global climate change response.

Under President Biden’s leadership, the United States is working to reestablish its leadership on international climate action, and is taking steps to break with the previous administration’s foreign policy. As African countries take steps to grow their economies, ensuring that climate dialogues and decision-making are inclusive of the continent’s needs and priorities will be key to ensuring that future emissions from the region do not eclipse progress made elsewhere. It will take a global effort, enlisting the energy and contributions of Africa’s own youthful activists, skilled engineers, and patient leaders, spurred by investments and encouragement from abroad, to build a low-carbon future that nonetheless supports and propels Africa’s rapid economic growth.

…(read more).

Environmental Humanities

Through Yale’s many center, programs, and departments, Yale faculty and students pursue innovative environmental projects across the humanities. Yale hosts regular colloquia, lectures, and conferences in environmental history, literature and the environment, religion and ecology, environmental anthropology, and other topics. Visit the program websites below to learn more about the extraordinary range of activities underway.

2021 Conference | Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative

In the past….New Horizons in Conservation 2019

School for Environment and Sustainability

May 14, 2019

New Horizons in Conservation: Diversity, Equity, and Justice The second annual New Horizons in Conservation conference, held in Chicago on April 24 -26, built upon the success of the inaugural 2018 conference in Washington D.C. Through a full program of lectures, panel discussions, and workshops, more than 240 students, faculty, SEAS alumni, and leading conservation professionals—the majority of them people of color—gathered to understand the status of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the environmental sector and assess critical gaps.

Now we are excited to invite you to register for the 2021 New Horizons in Conservation Conference! Registration is open to the public, visit https://yse.to/newhorizons

The conference is an annual gathering of students and early career professionals who are historically underrepresented in the environmental field and/ or committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field. Conference attendees have opportunities to network, engage in hands-on workshops, and learn from leaders and visionaries in the environmental field. This year’s virtual New Horizons conference is taking place from April 18 to April 20. The conference agenda is available here		Speakers at this year’s conference include:
		Dorceta Taylor Beverly Wright Robert Bullard David Pellow Gerald Torres Michael Brune David Yarnold Peggy Shepard Vernice Miller-Travis	Mustafa Ali Kyle Powys Whyte José González Kim Moore Bailey Malik Yakini Deeohn Ferris Jacqueline Patterson Savi Horne and more

Tax Us If You Can: Africa

Khadija Sharife | Global Justice Program

Based in South Africa, Khadija Sharife (LLM) is an award-winning investigative journalist and senior editor for Africa at Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Her focus is illicit financial flows, natural resources, and political economy.

She is the former director of Plateforme de Protection des Lanceurs d’Alerte en Afrique and currently also a board member of Finance Uncovered and a Poynter Fellow at Yale. She has worked with forums including the Pan-African Parliament, African Union, OECD, and UNEP. She is the author of “Tax Us If You Can: Africa.”

The Steady Stater (Podcast) – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy | Herman Daly

The Steady Stater is CASSE’s podcast, established August 3, 2020, and hosted by CASSE’s own Brian Czech. It is the only podcast in the world dedicated to advancing the steady state economy. The podcast airs every Monday at 8:00 am EST. Czech and guests offer unique and compelling dialogue on the steady state economy, limits to growth, the degrowth movement, and related affairs in science, society, politics and policy.

The Mystery Of The Mesolithic Footprints In The Sand | Time Team | Timeline

Timeline – World History Documentaries – Mar 30, 2021

When the tide recedes at this point on the Severn estuary, rare evidence of stone age activity is uncovered. Time Team are on a three-day mission to help recover some of these relics before they are washed away. It involves excavating and painstakingly examining 15 cubic metres of muddy silt; but time is against them. The Mesolithic period is poorly understood, because these people were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who did not build permanent structures. They uncover some of the smallest artefacts they have ever handled. Phil and Brigid are fascinated by ancient footprints of adults and children, preserved in the sand.