HOW SHALL BEAUTY CLAIM A PLACE

Here’s a Gaza poem from our friend Kos Kostmayer. It is sent “with love and desperate hope for better news and happier times.”
_________________________________________________________________

HOW SHALL BEAUTY CLAIM A PLACE

When sorrow bears witness
To unspeakable violence

Time withers
Weather stops
Laughter too
The wind departs

The sun retreats

Wells run dry
The sky disgorges black regret
Rivers reek of blood and bile
Children vanish in the dark
Olive trees begin to die
People wading through the bloody streets

In search of missing names

Weep to no avail

They weep because they know
There is no justice in this world
If mercy has no say
If mourning has no brief

To salvage tenderness
From mindless force
Or shelter happiness

From grief so deep
It wears the human heart away

Photo: Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. CC BY-SA 3.0 license held by Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA) in contract with APAimages. The image has not been modified.

THE LAST BREATH: A POEM FOR PALESTINE

By Kos Kostmayer, poet, novelist, screenplay writer
October 8, 2024


I don’t know where we are

We are not allowed to see

Lights are made to blind us

We are driven out of sleep – ridden down by beasts – banished out of sight

They say we have no right to live, but still I have to ask: whose prayers abide when we are vaporized?

Who cares for us when laws are cast aside by genocide?

Who walks inside the wind with us when all is stolen, all is lost, all is broken in the mind?

We were never born to disappear and yet we vanish

The West is deaf to our suffering, indifferent to our need, blind to our despair, but I have heard the cries of mothers bleeding orphans in the dark

When infanticide is no longer a sin, we have come to the edge where the end begins

We are pleading in the void

There is fear in every step

Death in every cell

I am running out of breath

I am not allowed to breathe

I don’t know what to do

I pray you hear me when I say that if you find my last remains scattered on the bloody ground

Treat them with respect

Take them home to Khan Yunis

Bury them beside my name.

###
In the last 12 months the U.S.A. has embraced, weaponized and fully funded Israel’s genocide  against the people of Palestine. It has been estimated by Lancet and other reputable organizations that a minimum of 118,000 and possibly more than 200,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been slaughtered to date, and the killing continues unabated. The living are hounded from place to place, then buried under bombs delivered to Israel by the U.S.A. The dead pile up. The war goes on and spreads. Israel continues bombing schools, churches, mosques, temples, refugee camps, apartment buildings, civilian dwellings, tent cities, U.N. shelters, designated safe zones, and all the while disease and famine spread and the hostages that Israel claims to care about continue to die or remain in captivity. In the past few days Israel has bombed four countries – Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen – killing mostly civilians, including countless numbers of children. Children are always civilians. Civilians are always innocent.

According to Oxfam, more women and children have been killed in Gaza than in any other conflict in the world over the past two decades. The response of the Biden administration to these ongoing massacres is a mix of unforgivable cruelty, blatant dishonesty and astonishing weakness.  A group of American medical professionals who traveled to Gaza to care for the wounded recently sent a letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris, pleading for mercy, and saying, “We cannot fathom why you continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children en masse.” It is difficult to think of the current Israeli government as a legitimate state. It has become a state of mind, a feverish whirlwind of annihilation bent on destruction and bred for death, less a governing body than a lethal and well-funded war machine. In the midst of all this we have to retain some sense of our own humanity. We have to embrace compassion. We have to reject the agents of death and destruction on every side. We have to stand with the innocent, and with the living, not with the killers. We have to be grateful for the fact that the international community has overwhelmingly condemned the U.S. sponsored Israeli violence and  has articulated strong support for Palestinian self-determination. That call has been echoed by a multitude of Jewish organizations and people around the world who have condemned the genocide, demanded an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and overwhelmingly rejected the egregious and dangerous claim that Judaism and Zionism are synonymous. We have to acknowledge that the Palestinian people have a right – codified by international law – to resist subjugation. They also have a right to self-determination and self-defense, but Israel has never allowed the Palestinians to assert those rights in a reasonable, non-violent fashion. We have lost our way, we have betrayed our professed values, and we have abandoned the rules-based international order put into place after World War Two in response to genocide. It is a sad but true fact that there is no end to our shame; no redemption in our lust to kill; no sense in our cruelty; no mercy in our politics; no reason in the madness we have subsidized. We have spread death, destruction, disease and even famine without regard for human life or safety. We have forsaken the righteous cause and made ourselves the willing servitors of evil. We have sided with the mighty against the undefended. We have become the agents of an infinite sorrow.

The Cruel Nature of the Israeli Occupation

Annette Braden-Rozier, The Chicago Tribune, Oct 11, 2024.

Jews and Palestinians are suffering, but the dominant narrative is that Israel is the rightful home of the Jews and needs defending against its enemies.

But there is another narrative. The cruel nature of the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank is vividly portrayed in two recently released documentaries — “Israelism” and “Where Olive Trees Weep.” They show in graphic detail how residents of Gaza and the West Bank have lived in constant fear of being stopped and degraded by Israeli soldiers, shot, arbitrarily detained and tortured, raided at night in their homes, cut off from their farmland, and harassed and attacked by Jewish settlers. For decades, Palestinians have not been free to move, speak out or own property.

There are many organizations that work toward peace. IfNotNow is a movement founded by American Jews who want to end U.S. support for Israel’s apartheid system and demand equality and justice for both Arabs and Jews. Many Jews felt betrayed when they realized that they grew up not ever learning the Palestinian side of Israel’s history. Arabs were viewed as the enemy and as terrorists. Standing Together is another group, made up of Arabs and Jews, that is working toward a future in which Jews and Arabs can live next to each other with equal rights.

The Oct.7 attack on Israel was a horrific event, with painful consequences for both sides. How much worse is it now that Gaza has been turned into a wasteland, hostage families are still waiting for their loved ones and thousands of Israelis have been displaced? And how much worse is it now that Israel is attacking south Lebanon?

The U.S. government is enabling this expanding war. Despite knowing full well that the atrocities committed in Gaza should lead to restrictions in arms shipments, President Joe Biden has kept the weapons pipeline going. No wonder that many Muslims say they won’t vote for Kamala Harris!

Israel should work for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza to finally get the hostages out. Stopping the occupation is the path to peace.

Like these groups working for justice and peace, the Biden government should work with both sides to find a solution to end the bloodshed and achieve permanent peace.

— Annette Braden-Rozier, Evanston

GAZA, HAMAS, OCCUPATION, LET’S ASK MORE QUESTIONS….

by Catherine Buntin, August 2024

Americans have protested the genocide in Gaza for these past 10 months. It has been anguishing to see the daily terror and murder of the Palestinian families and children. It’s a barbaric war.

Reflecting on my participation in the street protests at the Democratic convention last week, and having conversations with people from across the country who care deeply about a peace in the middle east, several themes emerged from these discussions that are shared here.

MANY THINGS ABOUT THIS WAR ARE CLEAR TO EVERYONE.

No one excuses the horrific murders of October 7th.  It is a war crime to kill civilians. But proportionality has been lost, the response is openly intended as genocide.

Hamas is a military force, but it also has provided government services to the Palestinian people in Gaza, much as the militant Black Panthers in Chicago also provided basic needed services to their communities for years (something that went unrecognized). These entities serve as more than one thing for their people. 

The occupation has meant that Palestinians have no control over their economy, over their power sources and water resources.  No control over the food supplies or travel out of their region.  And no opportunity for a defense force, or a military base, thus the tunnels their only way to resist occupation. Moreover, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians that happens daily, long has been met with immunity.

Many freedoms are out of reach for Palestinians.  Home security versus home demolitions, secure streets versus IDF snatching and taking people prisoners at whim. A secure environment for children versus abuse of children on the streets and in their homes.  Israelis hold Prisoners like hostages for years often without charges or on fabricated charges.

KNOWING ALL THIS, WE MUST ASK SOME CRITICAL QUESTIONS OF OURSELVES, if we proclaim to hold the moral high ground as often, we do.

Do Palestinians have the same right to defend themselves as Israel has to defend itself?

Is it natural to resist an oppressor? If so, does that resister deserve to be called a terrorist?

What about the oppressors?  Should they be defined as terrorists?

Is “occupation” a racist system of oppression?  Is one side deserving of freedom and security at the expense of the other?  Or are both peoples born with the inalienable rights of freedom and liberty? 

Bringing the questions home, how can Americans convince their politicians to withhold further support from the oppressor in order to achieve a permanent ceasefire and an end to Israel’s genocidal goals?

Finally, do Palestinian citizens have the right to decide the role Hamas should play in their future government just as Israeli citizens are allowed to decide whether Netanyahu will be their leader for tomorrow?

If we ask these questions with an open mind, will we be better prepared to work for a realistic (or an actual) peace in the Middle East?

Catherine Buntin, Public Health Nurse and Board Member, Chicago Area Peace Action

URGENT, FRESH LOOKS AT THE IMPORTANCE OF  HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI  COMMEMORATIONS

by David Borris and Jack Lawlor
August 5, 2024

Within four months after the atomic bomb attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 31 year old war correspondent John Hersey  went to Hiroshima, interviewed survivors, and wrote a series of  stunning articles for The New Yorker we know today as his book, Hiroshima.  The book does not treat this first use of atomic weapons as abstraction, instead, it personalizes the nature of the resulting individual suffering to six survivors caused by the attack in ways left unexplored in the recent movie, Oppenheimer.

For many years, Hiroshima became mandatory summer reading on some high school summer book lists.  I remember reading it in the hot summer sun of a golf caddy yard, moved deeply by the descriptions of severe burns, mysterious persistent radiation sickness, and efforts to rebuild life in the rubble of an irradiated city.  The book moved me to question my complete pro-American bias and inquire about how to protect humanity and the earth.

The commemoration of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic attacks are more relevant than ever, because we may not have learned all that we can from them.  President Putin of Russia has been threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, a step which could lead to unforeseeable consequences.  He is already using hypersonic weaponry against Ukraine, another unprecedented escalation.

What can we as citizens do to protect ourselves, our descendants, the earth?  We need to join hands  and make international discussion of this issue much more of a top priority.

I wish we could say there is an arc of progress in efforts to regulate nuclear arms.  But the arc is going in the wrong direction:

1.     For all practical purposes, there are no longer effective arms control treaties in effect between the US and Russia.  They have expired or are expiring.

2.     There are now at least nine countries with nuclear weapons, stockpiling more than 13,000 weapons.

3.     The US budget allocates 22.4 billion, yes billion, annually for nuclear weapons and is in the midst of a massive modernization program encountering large cost overruns.  The land-based Sentinel nuclear missile program, which maintains hidden-in-plain site underground silos in a handful of Plains states, just reported a 37 percent and growing cost overrun.  The US Defense Department just gave the green light for moving forward, nonetheless. 

4.     There have been UN resolutions like the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) pledging member countries to forego first use of nuclear weapons.  This is an admirable effort, but its legal effectiveness is questionable and the nine nations who possess nuclear weapons either haven’t signed or privately feel free to violate the treaty.

5.     US peace and justice groups have been pushing hard for the US to forego first use of nuclear weapons.  Senator Markley of Massachusetts and US Representative Ted Lieu, among others, have been leading the efforts, but the legislative resolutions stall in a toxically divided Congress pre-occupied with elections and culture wars.

6.     The peace and justice groups’ efforts have tried to regulate, for the first time, a US president’s authority to authorize a nuclear attack.  Apart from verifying that the order to launch comes from the President, US protocols do not require discussion or review of the order to attack by any other US official.  This is remarkably dangerous should an autocratic or unstable individual occupy the Oval Office.

What can we do?

We cannot assume the US public is very familiar with much of this, and thus should begin a dialogue that uses plain language to demonstrate the need to avoid future Hiroshimas. We encourage people to:

A.    learn more about the situation, using resources such as Arms Control Today magazine and The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft ;

B.    attend the many webinars on this subject led by experts in the field and offered by organizations like Back From the Brink and The Union of Concerned Scientists and a variety of  US peace and justice groups;

C.    Above all, join with other people in your community through groups such as Chicago Area Peace Action.  You’ll learn a lot from others and they will appreciate your insights and talents.  Seasoned groups know how to work with elected officials and their staff members, elevating the effectiveness of your efforts enormously.

At the conclusion of his excellent book, Hiroshima Nagasaki, author Paul Ham points out the irony of how accelerating weapons technology has exceeded human capacity to control it.  In doing so he cites two of the people involved in the drama behind the recent movie, Oppenheimer.

First, he paraphrases Albert Einstein for the insight that “The splitting of the atom changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”  Then, he turns to an insight from the often taciturn President Truman: “The human animal and his emotions change not much from age to age. He must change now or he faces absolute and complete destruction and then maybe the insect age or an atmosphere-less planet will succeed him.”

Let’s ponder this with the curiosity of a young John Hersey and work together to prevent another Hiroshima.

David Borris is the most recent past president of Chicago Area Peace Action. Jack Lawlor works with CAPA’s Foreign Policy Working Group and with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

An Appeal for Enlightened Journalism On Gaza – Catherine Buntin

This May 4, 2025 letter was sent by Catherine Buntin, CAPA president, to David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and PBS commentator. We encourage readers to send their own peace-oriented letters, not only to legislators but also to journalists and influential public figures.

Dear David Brooks,

We need your deep dive into the war in Gaza, from the Palestinian perspective, and your journalistic help to bring balance to our news coverage.

For three years the Houthis have repeatedly said that they are only bombing ships in the Red Sea to retaliate for the Israeli bombing in Gaza. And they stopped all bombings during the recent ceasefire. They kept their word. Yet this never gets reported.

Nor does the fact that thousands of innocent Palestinian prisoners — including men, women, and children — are tortured and held in depraved conditions in Israeli prisons. They are hostages, too. But only the 50 or so remaining Israeli hostages are ever discussed, only their families are interviewed.

Your reporting could elevate the profile of one Palestinian prisoner in particular. Marwan Barghouti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwan_Barghouti) is respected by Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank and might be a gifted negotiator for peace. The people need his voice and talent. I’m sure Hamas has negotiated for his release — perhaps they would have more luck if there were public pressure from the US. But this can’t happen if Americans don’t know of him, and most don’t.

Most importantly, the US needs to examine its years of bombing Yemen and its support for the terror Israel has inflicted in the Middle East for decades; the list of executions is long as is the theft of land. These atrocities must be called out and our participation must be critiqued with brutal honesty. But to do this, Americans need complete and accurate information from journalists.

We are faithful viewers of the News Hour, and daily readers of the NYT. We are grateful for most of the journalism produced in these spaces. But on Israel’s genocidal war, the US media presents a biased view, and that includes PBS and the NYT. There are excellent journalists, like Trita Parsi and Jeremy Scahill, who could be featured. Please encourage The News Hour and the NYT to include voices like these and of the Palestinians themselves so that your viewers are equipped to hold our government accountable and to demand the just peace that Palestine deserves. By the way we know that this war will never make Israel safe or safer. Until Israel can treat its neighbors as equals, hate and violence over peace and human dignity will surely prevail.

Lastly, please see the documentaries, Where Olive Trees Weep and No Other Land; and read “Hamas Contained” by Tareq Baconi. These resources have helped our community better understand what “occupation” means to people’s everyday lives and why the resistance will continue.

Your voice matters…. I believe we need your help… and I think Pope Leo would agree!

Respectfully,
M. Catherine Buntin, MS, MPH, Public Health Nurse

The Terrifying Threat of New Cold Wars

No New Cold Wars Campaign Statement

  • With the Obama/Biden Administration’s “Asia Pivot” against China, its preoccupation with regime-change in Syria, and its support for a coup in Ukraine
  • with the Trump/Pence Administration’s racist anti-Chinese trade war, its blatant and illegal intervention in Syria, and its fierce antagonism toward multiple Russian allies on several continents,

  • and with both major U.S. parties trading inflammatory rhetoric and stunningly implausible conspiracy theories about both China and Russia, 

the United States is well embarked upon two devastatingly wasteful and profoundly dangerous new Cold Wars.  

  • With climate change promising untold economic and military chaos, 
  • with a rising global eruption of fascism and protofascism unseen since the 1930s, and 
  • with the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals drastically reducing the species’ margin for doomsday error through unprecedented hypersonic missile technology,

humanity cannot afford any new Cold Wars and should not expect to survive the existing/current ones for long.  

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists rightly puts their famed “Doomsday Clock” at twenty seconds past 11:58pm: nearer to nuclear midnight than humanity has ever come.  General Lee Butler, commander of America’s nukes as the last Cold War ended, reports that “we escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention—probably the latter in greatest proportion…. Because skill and luck certainly don’t account for it.” 

Chicago Area Peace Action’s “No New Cold Wars” campaign will educate the public and its legislators concerning the betrayal of America’s and the world’s future implicit in  letting superpower rivalry and demagogic domestic politics distract humankind from collectively solving our gravest existential problems.  Climate change, WMDs, and a fanatic backlash to global inequality are problems desperately requiring the mutual cooperation of a multipolar world – a world that is through with empire.  Our campaign will seek concrete steps to arrest America’s slide through Cold War II into World War III.  

Take Action!

Our campaign is just beginning.  In the middle of COVID lockdown, much of our immediate presence will be online.  

  • We’ve assembled our first draft of a U.S.-China Cold Wars Resource List to include background articles and video arranged by topic, links to news sites informatively covering U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia relations, contact lists for allied national and global organizations leading on this issue, and information on pending webinars and Chicago-area street actions. 
  • An ongoing calendar of dates and events requiring letters to the editor will provide talking points from our resource list to our growing team of dedicated op-ed writers, ready to barrage Chicagoland media with our concerns regarding the apocalyptic peril of renewed superpower rivalry.  
  • We have endorsed – and will immediately focus on supporting – the Roots Action organization’s call for public resistance to the apparently imminent appointment of failed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as the U.S. ambassador either to China or to Japan.  Rahm and diplomacy are words impossible to credibly link, and his manifest contempt for ordinary citizens of any country must keep him from involvement in the growing risk of U.S.-China confrontation.   
  • We are planning a series of online video and panel discussion events, the first of them showcasing famed reporter and author John Pilger’s film, The Coming War on China.

Join the No New New Cold Wars Campaign by emailing Sean Reynolds at joveismad@juno.com or call him at (773) 865-6042

Now is the Time for Nuclear Abolition!

We believe an important space in the Nuclear abolition discourse has been opened by the coming into force of the landmark Treaty for The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on January 22, 2021. The opening has been further widened by the evident increase in risk from the egregious behavior of the Trump administration with respect to all things nuclear weapons related, beginning with then candidate Trump’s question to a foreign policy advisor in 2016, “If we have these weapons, why can’t we use them?”

This was rapidly followed by his callous disregard for the importance of the Iran nuclear deal, (JCPOA), his complete lack of negotiating savvy in addressing the North Korean nuclear arsenal – and finally in his administration’s complete disregard for the INF, Open Skies and New Start treaties. These actions have enhanced the public’s recognition globally that, whether by design, miscalculation or accident, the probability of a nuclear weapon’s being detonated is no longer a statistical question of whether, but only of when. The presence of the nuclear arsenals, and the severely damaged treaty limits, mean that even with a more savvy president, unless major changes in the international, and especially the US, dialog occur immediately, such an event becomes inevitable. Contributing to reducing that risk is a responsibility we have accepted.

Our first and continuing goal in this campaign is to make that point evident to a public that is able, now, perhaps for the first time since the middle 1980s, to hear this message. The last time we had such an open public ear to the issue, we witnessed the largest nuclear arms reductions in the history of the nuclear age – led in part by one of the staunchest cold war presidents in history – Ronald Reagan.

We believe a moment has arrived that is even more ripe.

We begin with the recognition that our ultimate goal is for the U.S to become a signatory and then a State Party to the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons (TPNW treaty). Realistically, we know that will not, cannot occur in the present political environment. We will need to move public opinion significantly before we can gain that political diplomatic win.

We choose to begin the campaign with what we judge to be the most achievable public policy:  a congressional resolution coupled with a presidential statement that the United States will never be a “First Strike” or First Use country.

On the campaign trail, President Biden stated on more than one occasion that he would be the first president in US history to make that policy statement. And there is more than one bill in Congress addressing this. So, this seems a very real possibility in the near term.

Once that piece of policy is established, we believe it is essential to quickly pivot our attention to the land based (Inter-continental Ballistic Missile) ICBM program, one leg of the US nuclear “triad”. The current ICBM Minuteman III is scheduled to be upgraded over the next 9 years at a near term cost of $100 Billion with a 50 year price tag of $264 Billion over the life of the new weapon,  currently referred to as the GBSD (Ground Based Strategic Deterrent). This upgrading is part of a 30 year $1.7 trillion US nuclear weapon escalation program currently referred to as “modernization”. Our work to disavow the necessity of this one program (GBSD) is the leading edge of a more comprehensive campaign to stop the entire $1.7 trillion program. 

The ICBMs in missile silos do not have a defensive role; they will be the first targets in a nuclear exchange and thus are forced into the extremely destabilizing position of needing to be Launched On Warning (LOW), truly a first use strike force. Once the US has an avowed policy of No First Use, ICBMs become superfluous, and no money or international trust should be wasted on their so-called “modernization.”

As we pursue these two important policies objectives, we will continue to frame our work in an overarching narrative that nuclear weapons do not make us safer – indeed they make us more vulnerable to catastrophe on a global scale. Therefore, the US should revisit its 50-year-old unfulfilled commitment under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force on 3/5/1970 and is still in effect:  “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”. We further mean to make the case that signing and ratifying the TPNW is the next logical treaty step – but this time the US must back up a signature with real action toward complete global nuclear disarmament.  Our campaign will be working to ever increase public participation in pushing the US government in this direction, working on every step until nuclear weapons are eliminated.

THERE IS NO VACCINE FOR A PLANET WARMING CATASTROPHE

THE U.N. CLIMATE SCIENTISTS PREDICT CATASTROPHIC IMPACTS AS EARLY AS 2040

Last year effectively tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, U.S. and European climate researchers recently announced, as global temperatures continued their relentless rise brought on by the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. These record warm temperatures fueled deadly heat waves, droughts, intense wildfires and other environmental disasters here in the United States and around the world. This occurred last year despite the development in the second half of the year of La Niña, a global climate phenomenon marked by surface cooling across much of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. According to the European Union report, the global average temperature in 2020 wasabout 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius) warmer than the preindustrial average. 

Scientists Warn us to Take Urgent Action as Planet Warms at an Alarming Rate

Two years ago the climate scientists warned us in a Special Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current rate, the atmosphere will warm by up to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) by 2040, resulting in catastrophic impacts like inundated coastlines causing massive population relocations, intensified droughts that worsen food shortages, and mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040. Unfortunately, global emissions have continued unabated, rising at 1.4% per year for the past several years. Now, according to a 2019 UN Emissions Gap Report we must reduce global emissions by 7.6 percent per year for the next ten years. In the 2018 IPCC Report, scientists concluded that leaders must reduce global emissions to net-zero emissions by 2050 to stand any chanceof avoiding the most severe impacts of this climate crisis. They also concluded that even faster reductions in global emission to reach net-zero emissions in 2040 would result in a higher probability of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius than reaching that target in 2050.

In the weeks and months ahead, we have our best opportunity for significant progress in controlling the climate crisis. President-elect Biden has selected key cabinet and staff people who have an established records in working on the transition to renewable sources of energy. During his campaign, Biden proposed a strong climate plan; we support its focus on transportation, electricity, building efficiency, creation of millions of good paying jobs, and its prioritization of climate justice. But it will not get us to the aggressive emission reduction targets above in time to avoid catastrophic impacts. Our purpose is not to critique the plan but to recommend six additional actions to enhance the plans’ ability to meet the aggressive timelines required to protect the health, safety and livelihoods of people across the planet.

Our Recommendations for Biden’s Climate Action Plan are as follows:

Accelerate the Timeline:  During the campaign, President-elect Biden pledged to ensure that the U.S. achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050. Within its first 100 days, the Biden Administration must create an ambitious national climate action plan that achieves the net-zero emissions goal as fast as possible, and ideally by 2040 to reduce the probability of catastrophic climate change. 

Support Carbon Fee and Dividend: As a single action, placing a fee on carbon at its source and returning the funds to families on a monthly basis as in the congressional bill “Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act”, HR 763, would have the most efficient impact in decreasing fossil fuel use and carbon emissions.

Stop Subsidizing Fossil Fuels: The Federal Government must remove subsidies from the fossil fuel industries. The most conservative estimate in direct subsidies is $20 billion annually, but this does not include discounted cost for fossil fuel extraction on federal lands or indirect tax breaks. These funds need to be itemized and diverted to support the implementation of the National Climate Plan and the new solar and wind infrastructure needed in all 50 states. During his campaign, Biden pledged to work with G20 countries to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and to lead by example at home by cutting U.S. fossil fuel subsides in his first year and to re-direct those resources to invest in clean energy. We strongly support this pledge and urge the President to include it in his Climate Action Plan.

Incentivize the Power Sector to Transition to Renewable Energy: Reducing and eliminating coal burning power plants is among the most impactful actions the Biden Administration can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the recent past, we have idled 145 coal burning units. As a result, coal burning emissions are down from 31% in 2017 to 20% today.  There are plans to idle another 71 coal units within the next two years. But, as utility companies close down these coal units, they are replacing the majority with gas-fired stations with operating-life expectancies of 30 to 40 years. The Biden team must work with Congress to incentivize utility companies to replace coal with renewable energy, rather than continuing to rely on polluting fossil fuels, like natural gas, which contributes to climate change. Biden can do this by taking immediate action to implement his campaign pledge to reform and extend tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy and establish a clean energy standard for utilities and grid operators.

Eliminate any Non-essential Plastics: Eleven million tons of petroleum resourced plastics enter the oceans each year (the equivalent of dumping a full garbage truck of plastic in the ocean every minute of every day for one year). This figure is predicted to triple over the next 20 years. Tiny plastic particles are now pervasive in the air we breathe and in our waterways. They account for 4.2 million premature deaths globally each year. The fossil fuel industry is increasing plastic production to offset the loss of revenues they are experiencing. Uncontrolled plastic contamination and pollution is a violation of both the Clean Air Act and The Clean Water Act and the EPA has ignored this serious issue for the past four years. Today, nearly 8% of annual global oil consumption is associated with plastics, according to the World Economic Forum. If this reliance on plastics persists, plastics will account for 20% of all oil consumption by 2050. (Brooke Bauman, How Plastics Contribute to Climate Change,).

Declare a Climate Emergency: This would allow the President to work directly with organizations and corporations with specific expertise to quickly develop technologies and capabilities not presently available to more readily transition to renewable energy. The following are specific areas of need:

  • Home Heating. Presently 90% plus of private homes or apartments are heated by either natural gas or oil. We need a reliable carbon free alternative like electric heating pumps that can easily be installed on boilers and hot water tanks and enable utility companies to replace fossil fuel service to many qualifying customers.
  • Carbon Capture Capability. Present carbon capture capabilities proposed by the petroleum industry will not reduce carbon emissions. Oil companies propose transporting captured carbon back to drilling locations to produce more natural gas or oil. This proposed process will only produce more methane or carbon emissions.  We must not divert scarce financial resources to support this misguided approach. We need a major initiative to explore natural carbon capture such as regenerative farming methods and enhanced development of our natural resources.
  • Fast Rail, Air travel and Large Trucks. The U.S. is behind other industrial countries in fast rail options. Large truck transport is a major source of CO2 emissions and subsidies should be available for further development and production of electric truck transport. During his campaign, Biden committed to ensure that the U.S. “has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world – for both passengers and freight.” We urge President Biden to include in his Climate Action Plan immediate actions to achieve this goal. Also, incentives should be available for further research and development of the use of electric energy for air transport, which is showing some feasibility.
  • Military Impact on Carbon Emissions. The U.S. military is the largest single user of petroleum products, with over 900 bases and a vast amount of heavy equipment. To their credit they have worked on reducing their carbon emissions but an independent commission must review what is needed and make recommendations to achieve substantially more emissions reductions, including downsizing.

Summary

Every year we are still pumping 40 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere globally. Climate scientists now give us ten years to make significant progress in reducing carbon emissions and until mid-century or sooner to reach net-zero carbon emissions to avoid unstoppable catastrophic impacts. These six recommendations would strengthen Biden’s climate plan to help achieve these goals. The Biden team and our Illinois congressional representatives must lead by improving public education on climate science, emphasizing the urgent need for action by all levels of government, companies and citizens to respond to this climate crisis.

Last week Prime Minister Boris Johnson, host of the November Climate meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, has already increased the UK commitment to reducing climate emissions by 69% by 2030.  His plan and leadership are based on science and on the understanding of urgency needed to change the emission commitments made by governments and corporations. 

Local environmental and climate working groups must meet with our bipartisan lawmakers from Illinois to stress the urgent need for climate legislation to protect communities in the U.S. and around world and our planet from ruin. There will be no vaccine to protect us when the global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius and threaten lives, livelihoods and ecosystems around the globe.

Written and Submitted by:

Jack Kelly, co-chair of the CAPA Climate Group
Catherine Buntin, co-chair of the CAPA Climate Group

The Climate Crisis: A Plea and a Path Forward

An Open Letter to Governor J.B. Pritzker and Illinois Lawmakers

See it published by The Chicago Tribune

A growing number of states are adopting sweeping new climate legislation that will result in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by or before 2050. These states are California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington and New York. Political leaders in these states realize that because of the devastating impacts of climate change they must transform their entire economies to pollution-free renewable energy as soon as possible. 

Unfortunately, Illinois lags behind with only 8% of our electric energy coming from renewable sources and a goal of 25% renewable energy by 2025. As our new Governor, we know you understand that this is a major shortfall in prior political leadership in Illinois. The most recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Special Report states that we have just 10 years to reduce our carbon emissions by 45% to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global climate change. Recently, climate scien- tists announced that we must reduce our global carbon emissions by 7.6% every year for the next ten years to achieve the necessary reduced emissions targets. 

Given the magnitude of the problem, piecemeal efforts will not achieve the critical goals. We therefore ask for your leadership in developing an ambitious, holistic, and comprehensive plan for Illinois to reduce our carbon emissions while transitioning to renewable energy. 

The following summarizes the key components of such a holistic plan: 

Pass the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA). This legislation will put Illinois on a path to electrifying the transportation sector, reducing our energy consumption, and will be an important first step in enabling our state to be powered with 100% renewable energy by 2050. It will also create thousands of new, well-paying jobs, particularly in disadvantaged communities. With your help, this legislation must be passed in this session of the legislature. We now have an added incentive to do so as a result of President Trump’s recent decision to increase renewable energy pricing on the Federal grid and provide a financial bailout to fossil fuels. As you know, CEJA contains a provision that allows Illinois to establish its own grid; this will enable Illinois to bypass these punitive price increases on renewable energy and nuclear power. 

Stop all further development of oil/gas pipelines in Illinois. Energy Transfer Partners has recently requested that the Illinois Commerce Commission, ICC, approve two new pumping stations that would allow double the volume of oil transported through existing pipelines. This means more risk of spills across Illinois land and waterways while promoting the sale of more fossil fuels that must be kept in the ground. We need policy to make clear that Illinois is not supportive of any further fossil fuel development. 

Divest fossil fuel holdings from our Illinois State Pension Plans. 350.org asserts that it is “a moral imperative” to divest from the dirty energy that is significantly degrading the climate, and to reinvest in climate solutions. Further, fossil fuel divestment is good investment strategy. Funds will benefit by switching from assets that will inevitably remain locked underground for new, state-of-the-art industries and technologies. 

De-carbonize using Illinois natural resources. We can ensure funding for our struggling forest preserves in Illinois which represent significant carbon sinks. According to the 2018 Illinois Forest Action Plan, Illinois forests sequester 343 million tons of carbon. Here in Cook County alone, we have 356 locations totaling 70 thousand acres of forest and wetland preserves that play an important role in decarbonization. And there are 16 such county preserves in Illinois. Investments in regenerative farming to ensure we take advantage of our vast agriculture acreage in Illinois is a great opportunity for us. The 2018 IPCC report states that our natural resources well managed can sequester 15 to 20% of our annual emissions. 

Establish a timetable to transition Illinois off nuclear power. We presently have 11 nuclear reactors operating in Illinois providing 52% of our electric energy. These reactors initially had a 40-year life expectancy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, increased that life expectancy by 20 years. Half of these reactors are now in the expanded life expectancy stage. Maintenance costs continue to increase every year — a major reason why nuclear power is no longer cost competitive with renewable sources of energy. These aging reactors have also become more prone to serious failures as they get older, while at the same time they create more nuclear waste. The cost to replace these reactors is exorbitant (about $10 billion each) and it requires 12 to 15 years to bring one to market. Existing nuclear plants will of necessity be used to provide energy as we increase the renewable energy infrastructure. But we should not spend one more public dollar to maintain these plants for Exelon. The public deserves a logical timetable to phase them out one by one as they become less safe and as we have the renewable sources made available for Illinois. 

Pass the referendum for a Fair Tax in 2020. We are grateful for your leadership on moving the Fair Tax initiative and strongly support you in making this a top priority for Illinois. It takes substantial financial resources to implement and sustain a comprehensive renewable energy strategy. Passage of this Fair Tax Initiative will bring $3.4 billion dollars annually to Illinois, which will help fund our energy transformation. 

These collective actions would accelerate our transition to renewable sources of energy and reduce our annual emissions sooner rather than later. Piecemeal actions will not protect current and future generations from an increasingly storm-ridden, flood-and fire-prone world. With political will, Illinois can become a leader in addressing our climate crisis, a model for other states, and demonstrate accountable governing. We are all in this together, and look forward to working with you to make it happen. Thank you for your leadership. 

Sincerely,

09.22.19

40th ANNUAL