Environment
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Address at Indianapolis, Indiana
Tags Share Crime is an issue that is difficult and dangerous; easily susceptible to illusory and false programs; an issue which threatens to divert us from the road to a better nation into blind alleys of suspicion and mistrust. So let us examine not just the danger of crime but what we can do together…
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Air pollution control conference
Tags Share On a trip to Latin America last year, I saw people in Recife, in the poorest part of Brazil, who ate crabs which lived off the garbage that the people themselves threw in the shallow water near their shabby homes. And whenever I tell this story to Americans, the reaction is: How sad,…
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On rebuilding a sense of community
Tags Share Even as the drive toward bigness [and] concentration…has reached heights never before dreamt of in the past, we have come suddenly to realize how heavy a price we have paid; in overcrowding and pollution of the atmosphere, and impersonality; in growth of organizations, particularly government, so large and powerful that individual effort and…
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Solving the Urban Crisis: Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization
Tags Share Each of our cities is now the seat of nearly all the problems of American life: poverty and race hatred, interrupted education and stunted lives, and other ills of the new urban nation—congestion and the filth, danger, and purposelessness which afflict all but the very rich and the very lucky. To speak of…
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There is no climate solution without Indigenous Peoples and the protection of their rights
Tags Share Last week concluded the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, with over 150 heads of state, including President Biden, meeting to discuss efforts to address climate change. The annual conference comes as global warming has caused more frequent and extreme climate disasters, giving countries large and small a role and…
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Fashion and consumption
Tags Share With fast fashion’s status as the second most polluting industry (second only to the oil industry) and its 2.1 billion tons of annual carbon emissions making up at least 4% of the world’s total, the environmental impact our clothes have on the planet can’t be overlooked. While efforts to move towards sustainability have…
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Arctic
Tags Share Temperatures in the Arctic are rising at three times the global average, resulting in drastic impacts on local communities, especially indigenous groups. Rising sea levels, extreme temperature events, and depletion of natural resources have resulted in a human rights crisis. The Arctic Council, comprised of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and…
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Climate change
Tags Share Human-caused climate change is impacting communities all around the world, resulting in devastating effects such as intense heat waves, wildfires, worsening storms and flooding, and glacial melt. Certain communities such as children, older adults, communities of color, and low-income communities are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. For example, many organizations…
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Coral reefs
Tags Share A key aspect of the Speak Truth To Power program is the central idea of human rights defenders. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals also embraces this idea of the impact of the individual person. Of course, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are meant to be achieved by Member States as a whole by…
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Solar panels
Tags Share To avert the worst effects of climate change, consensus among scientists and policymakers is to limit the long‐term increase in average global temperatures to 1.5 °C, which in turn entails reducing global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to net zero by 2050. Ending reliance on fossil fuels and investing in renewable sources of energy…
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Standing Rock
Tags Share In June 2014, the Dakota Access Pipeline project—an underground pipeline that would transport crude oil from fields in North Dakota to a terminal near Patoka, Illinois—was announced to the public. Construction of the pipeline, which would run close to important cultural and burial sites on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, prompted a series…
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