Climate change, and the threat of wildfire that accompanies it, is often equated to a great, existential war between the extreme forces of nature and humanity. Much like wartime commendations of the men and women fighting on the frontlines, wildland firefighters are celebrated as the last line of defense on the wilderness frontier…
In fall of 2019, UC Berkeley undergraduate students formed “Pour Out Pepsi,” (POP) a campaign dedicated to breaking UC Berkeley’s corporate partnership with PepsiCo, Inc. As UC Berkeley votes to renew their contract with PepsiCo, POP is showing the campus that when universities function like businesses, they betray their commitments to their students.
Most of us are familiar with the Old McDonald—the man from the nursery rhyme who had a farm. We picture the farm with a stereotypical red barn with hay, a few pigs rolling in mud, horses, and a couple cows out in huge pastures. This romanticized version of the American farm is no longer a reality.
This year, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, launched a new project: the Earthshot Prize. The Earthshot prize at its core is simple: if you come up with an innovative solution to five core environmental issues you can win one million pounds. These core issues, or “Earthshots,” are: protect & restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world, and fix our climate.
Anyone following the 2020 US election knows that Arizona flipped blue for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. However, they may not have heard about the role Native Americans in the Navajo Nation played in turning the swing state blue for the second time in seventy years, where, despite facing the most severe rates of COVID-19 in the country, reportedly 60-90% of their eligible registered voters went for Biden. The Democratic party and liberals everywhere owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Navajo Nation, and this debt should only be repaid by supporting the Land Back movement and the fight for Indigneous land sovereignty everywhere.
As the constitutional convention came to a close in 1789, Benjamin Franklin looked at the armchair that Washington sat in, with a sun painted on its headboard. As he signed the new Constitution, he said, and James Madison later recorded, “ [I] looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.” Franklin understood that unity was made through progress, and this was a monumental breakthrough. Although the framer’s refusal to address the horrors of slavery, genocide of Native Americans, and rampanant sexism would lead to centuries of struggle and strife, it was the most progressive government document ever seen by the western world. Since it’s signing, history has proven Franklin right: this country’s best moments have been when we embraced bold progressivism, and our darkest days have followed our complacency and inaction.
