As the days of social distancing become weeks, some have turned to poetry to cope with such strange times. OPB spoke with a few Oregon poets to hear what they are writing about right now.

The ABA Journal recently published an article entitled Bar Exam Does Little to Ensure Attorney Competence, Say Lawyers in Diploma Privilege State, describing the experience in Wisconsin, the only state that currently has the “diploma privilege.”  Under the Wisconsin rules, in-state law school graduates can become licensed without taking a bar exam.  These graduates must … Continue reading The Coronavirus Crisis Provides an Opportunity to Adopt Better Systems for Licensing Lawyers than the Bar Exam →

The decades of disinvestment have placed Colorado universities in a precarious financial position with little margin to maneuver through the coronavirus pandemic. Students are already considering whether to stay home next fall. Raising tuition could cause enrollment to dip further, putting in jeopardy colleges’ main revenue source.

Angela Rye deep-dives into the student loan crisis.

The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About

Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires, and disruptions of supplies of food, water, and power.

At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development, and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.

Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.

We can address both crises by doing four things:

First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the US economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity - one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.

Second, stop dirty energy. A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn’t enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal.

The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world’s currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it’s absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.

Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry’s expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can’t afford now, let alone in the decades to come.

Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn’t stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics. For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that’s just what they were required to report: that number doesn’t include the untold amounts of “dark money” they’ve been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.

As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects – a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn’t even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every United States citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.

And we’ve got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record – triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.

That’s not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads, and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.

We can’t wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.

Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they’ve harmed.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn’t enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing. 

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon’s own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards. 

Going by population, that’s essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming “sacrifice zones,” where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they’ve wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it’s because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.

Australia’s bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California’s fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before. 

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry. 

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

These challenging times require fierce, broad, and intersectional activism – which is just what Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) has been doing for the past four decades. This now-independent nonprofit, which used to be affiliated with Hampshire College, continues its unique movement-building work preparing younger activists to work on the front lines of today’s struggle for reproductive justice. Please consider supporting CLPP today with a generous donation. 

As we know, the Covid-19 pandemic is disproportionately harming those in our communities who were already facing ... More

The post Please Support Civil Liberties and Public Policy During the Covid-19 Crisis: An Appeal from Judy Norsigian appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.

In a guest piece, industry executive Aaron Simpson explains how the animation industry had been preparing for this disaster for decades without even knowing it.

The post For The Animation Industry, The Coronavirus Crisis Has Created A Big Opportunity appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The gravest threat posed by the coronavirus is that high-risk groups like the elderly and other high-risk groups will get infected by it. The pressure on staffs at nursing homes is growing. Some patient advocates are calling for emergency contingency plans. Are the facilities safe enough for the people living in them?

German politicians have begun calling for industry to be shielded from too much environmental protection during the coronavirus crisis. But corporations aren't joining the appeal. They managed to turn CO2 reduction into a competitive advantage long ago.

People are growing increasingly impatient over the coronavirus lockdown, and politicians are now debating whether to loosen measures. From a scientific point of view this is a disaster. Measures should actually be tightened until we know more about the virus.

While Spain continues to battle a dire coronavirus outbreak, the situation is vastly better in neighboring Portugal. But why?

Economist Nouriel Roubini correctly predicted the 2008 financial crisis. Now, he believes that stock markets will plunge by 30 to 40 percent because of the coronavirus. And that Trump will lose his re-election bid.

New research from the Central Bank shows that demand for bank loans has fallen sharply.

The COVID-19 crisis is laying bare our city’s extreme racial and economic inequality. Not only have communities of color borne the brunt of the pandemic, but workers of color make up 75% of New York’s essential workers, the people who are risking their health to provide the services on which we all rely.

The fourth-year DA told the Daily News in an interview that his focus has shifted dramatically during the crisis, as trials and grand juries have been put on hold across the state.

The small businesses, many of which already run on razor-thin margins, are struggling to make end meet amid the crisis.

The governor did not go as far as to cancel rent outright, which progressives have increasingly called on him to do as the virus continues to curtail people’s ability to work and make ends meet.

Google parent Alphabet has scrapped its plans to develop a futuristic “Smart City” on the Toronto waterfront over privacy concerns and economic uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic

How to create your own victory garden in the coronavirus era

Rather than using his powers during the pandemic, Trump simply wants to be adored for having them.

If only such important decisions weren't in the hands of Trump, a president so obviously unprepared and ill-equipped to make them.

Autocratic regimes in Russia, Turkey and Venezuela are already maneuvering to exploit the coronavirus crisis to further entrench their rule.

Since FDR, presidents have taken on the role of comforter-in-chief in moments of national crisis.

The left blames the right, the right blames China and the World Health Organization. Governors blame the president, and he blames them right back.

Biden has 'work to do' to win Latino support and trust, and it's hard to get a message out in a pandemic.

Power abhors a vacuum. With the legislative and judicial branches basically shut down because of the coronavirus, the executive has seized almost complete control over state government.

Business groups, nonprofits, healthcare associations and some legislators are criticizing some moves the California governor made in response to coronavirus outbreak.

After weeks of the coronavirus shutdown, the Republican-led Senate will gavel into session Monday. The Democratic-led House will not.

The governor said bookstores, florists and others can reopen for pickup as early as Friday. More detailed guidelines will be released later this week.

Sutter and Yuba counties allowed businesses to reopen on Monday amid the coronavirus crisis after a similar decision was made in Modoc County in California's northeastern corner.

“We’ve learned to assist each other, to help each other and listen,” said Magda Melendez, Citymeals warehouse distribution manager. “We leave aside the mother-daughter relationship and cooperate like best friends.”

“We’ve learned to assist each other, to help each other and listen,” said Magda Melendez, Citymeals warehouse distribution manager. “We leave aside the mother-daughter relationship and cooperate like best friends.”

The Dodger Dog is not available at the ballpark right now, but the Dodgers will be distributing hot dogs from their ballpark.

Google parent Alphabet has scrapped its plans to develop a futuristic “Smart City” on the Toronto waterfront over privacy concerns and economic uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic

The governor did not go as far as to cancel rent outright, which progressives have increasingly called on him to do as the virus continues to curtail people’s ability to work and make ends meet.

Google parent Alphabet has scrapped its plans to develop a futuristic “Smart City” on the Toronto waterfront over privacy concerns and economic uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic

“We’ve learned to assist each other, to help each other and listen,” said Magda Melendez, Citymeals warehouse distribution manager. “We leave aside the mother-daughter relationship and cooperate like best friends.”

If you were headed to Tokyo or any other destination, here's what you must know to get a refund. It may not happen — you may get a voucher instead — but you can get some relief.

Garden Calendar: Virtual edition! Yes, there is still plenty to see during this time of coronavirus.

L.A. brands Citizens of Humanity, Hedley & Bennett and Michael Costello, along with New York designers Brandon Maxwell and Christian Siriano, Italian label Prada and French conglomerate Kering, are making face masks and medical gowns.

The coronavirus has ended big budget brand deals for some influencers, but the focus has shifted to engaging with a potentially bigger audience more authentically.

Cal State will not require SAT or ACT test scores for admissions for 2021-2022 applicants, following a similar decision by UC, other colleges.

Handing out food, hunting down students, organizing distance learning. This is one day in the life of an Inglewood teacher during the coronavirus crisis.