IN 2015, the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate, an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, as a “probable carcinogen,” setting off a global debate about the world’s most popular weedkiller.
THE AMERICAN FUEL & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a powerful lobbying group that represents major chemical plants and oil refineries, including Valero Energy, Koch Industries, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Marathon Petroleum, has flexed its muscle over environmental and energy policy for decades. Despite its reach, AFPM channels dark money and influence with little scrutiny.
The group is now leveraging its political power to criminalize protests of oil and gas infrastructure.
On August 16, climate activists Rita Wong and Will Offley were sentenced to jail for blocking the TransMountain site on Burnaby Mountain. Will was sentenced to 14 days in prison, and Rita to a shocking 28 days, the longest sentence yet in the more than 220 arrests of water and land protectors.
The climate crisis is itself a byproduct of 70 years of U.S. interventionism and empire.
The Pentagon is staring down the barrel of what could become the longest, hottest war in U.S. history. This titanic clash pits the largest military the world has ever seen against an omnipresent opponent that can marshal resources like no enemy it has ever encountered.
As of last year, close to one thousand institutions with three per cent of global savings under management have engaged in some form of divestment from fossil fuels.
In the midst of climate breakdown, governments around the world are funding and protecting the fossil fuel industry - (The fossil-fuel lobby is threatened by public concern over the climate crisis. So it’s buying influence to get the results it wants)