Adam Clare

The Cambodian Forest Protectors Risking COVID-19

Forest

Deforestation in Cambodia increased dramatically this millennium due to multinational corporations exploiting the country’s natural wealth. Obviously, this removal of trees has bothered people and damages entire ecosystems. As a reaction to the destruction in their area the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) launched to police the it local forests. They document and report on illegal logging operations and expose the activity to authorities and other non-governmental organizations.

The work they have done is great, and now with COVID-19 it’s more important than ever before. Cambodia has cut back on their enforcement of environmental laws (like the USA) which has led to an increase in illegal logging that the PLCN is trying to hold back.

The PLCN continues their fight despite the increased workload and risk from COVID-19.

Established in 2000, the PLCN has a core of about a dozen full-time activists across the four provinces spanned by the 432,000-hectare forest, and about 600 “volunteer” members.

Patrollers – many from indigenous groups that live in and around the forest – use GPS technology and a purpose-built smartphone app to log tree stumps, new roads and logging camps.

Their data is paired with publicly available satellite imagery – that has shown deforestation, timber stockpiles and sawmills – and is published periodically with researchers from the University of Copenhagen.

Emissions are Down, and They can go Lower

carbon emission drop

Carbon emissions continue to drop due to the economic slowdown and are on track for an 8% reduction for 2020. This is good news for the planet as it gets a brief break from all the waste we’re dumping into the atmosphere. Still, it has revealed that individual actions alone won’t do enough to avert climate catastrophe, we need to work together and enforce the creation of a carbon-neutral economy. Individual transportation solutions (like cars) use is down substantially yet we’re still going to blow past the carbon output budget for 2020, where then can we cut back on emissions? Look to manufacturing and our sources of energy.

â€œI think the main issue is that people focus way, way too much on peopleâ€™s personal footprints, and whether they fly or not, without really dealing with the structural things that really cause carbon dioxide levels to go up,â€ said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
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Transportation makes up a little over 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. (In the United States, it makes up around 28 percent.) Thatâ€™s a significant chunk, but it also means that even if all travel were completely carbon-free (imagine a renewable-powered, electrified train system, combined with personal EVs and battery-powered airplanes), thereâ€™d still be another 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions billowing into the skies.

Understanding the Anti-Reality Narrative in America

Those of us who have been arguing for sustainable growth and a carbon neutral economy for years know that people don’t listen; in fact people argue against the very concept to their own detriment. The response to these climate change deniers and malicious actors was to ty to change their mind by showing the science, it didn’t work. The same thing is now happening with reactions to the necessity to stay at home to stop the spread of COVID-19. So what do we do when people are actively arguing against what reality has made plain? Over at The New Republic they have some ideas.

Coronavirus denialism and climate denialism arenâ€™t the product of skeptical masses but disingenuous elites. Investigative journalist Lisa Graves pointed out recently in The New York Times that the anti-shutdown protestsâ€”like the Tea Party, and like much of the Koch-funded climate denialismâ€”embody a mix of genuine outrage and dark money astroturf funneling that rages toward politically advantageous targets. The protestsâ€™ benefactors are dutifully social distancing for fear of getting sick themselves but want everyone else back to work to appease the stock market. Fossil fuel companies lobbied Congress and paid climate deniers in places like the Heartland Institute and Heritage Foundation to spew junk science on cable news, clouding the conversation enough to delay any meaningful action. Itâ€™s a similar tactic to that deployed by the Koch brothers in 2009, fearing that a climate bill would be passed: To head it off, they trained Americans for Prosperityâ€™s guns on so-called RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) who thought about supporting it, clouding town halls, congressional offices, and airwaves with doubts about whether the earth was warming at all. If you were a Republican politician at some point in the last decade, it very literally paid to be a climate denier.

It’s OK to Just Stay Home

Just stay home, that’s all you need to do to help. There’s no need to give yourself anxiety about what else you could be doing to help. Take this at home time to relax, and forget about the all the bizarre social pressure to be always performing. It’s ok to just be yourself. You can do it!

Iâ€™ve seen this happen to a lot of people. The best thing that 99% of us can do is to stay home. Yet, that can feel like doing nothing, because we see other people out there actively doing something. Yet, passively doing nothing, in this case, is actively doing something: You are taking the best action for our collective safety and health. My student also pointed out that the best thing to do â€” stay at home â€” is oddly uncomfortable. I think many of us can relate to this. The discomfort of feeling stuck or trapped inside can heighten the desire to be active in general, creating an even bigger contrast between staying put and helping outside of the home.

Whatâ€™s going on here and how do we work with these feelings?

Unions Bring Big Benefits to California

If you work in a unionized environment you’re likely doing better than a person in a non-union environment according to a study done in California. You’re also less likely to make use of the state’s welfare system. What’s more this means that the whole state benefits from unions as more economic activity is happening as a result with less costs imposed on the social welfare system. The pandemic has really made it clear that unions can make a big difference in how workplaces react to the economic troubles.

Workers covered by a union contract in California earn an average of 12.9 percent more than non-union workers with similar demographic characteristics and working in similar industries.
Overall, we estimate that unions increase workersâ€™ earnings in California by $18.5 billion annually through collective bargaining.
Unions decrease by 30.6 percent the likelihood that a worker is in a family where at least one member is enrolled in a public safety net program, compared to non-union workers with similar demographic characteristics and working in similar industries.