May 30, 2018 8:23 AM EDT
In 2015, It Takes Roots convened a delegation of climate justice leaders to participate in mobilizations at the COP21 in Paris and proclaimed “It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm.” When I first heard this statement, I was struck by the vivid imagery it evoked. I envisioned a tree with roots that, despite a powerful rainstorm, swirled, connected, and clenched with fortitude into the depths of its rich soil. I imagined branches growing and the emergence of leaves bearing fresh fruit. Read more >
May 24, 2018 10:04 AM EDT
Endangered Species Day was introduced as a resolution by Congress in 2006 to encourage “the people of the United States to become educated about, and aware of, threats to species, success stories in species recovery, and the opportunity to promote species conservation worldwide.” This year, Endangered Species Day (May 18) began with a devastating school shooting. It really had me questioning how appropriate it would be to emphasize the importance of wildlife conservation while so many in the world and our nation seem to place little value on human lives. Read more >
April 24, 2018 2:37 PM EDT
In April of 2014, Flint, Michigan residents noticed that there was something wrong with their water. As UCS Senior Fellow and noted Boston Globe Opinion writer Derrick Jackson recounts in his lengthy report, only a month after the city of Flint switched to using Flint River, instead of Lake Huron water, community members noticed the difference. Read more >
April 24, 2018 2:35 PM EDT
The institutionalized killing of black and brown people in the United States is not a new phenomenon. The government’s role in the overt harming of black bodies goes as far back as slavery, when patrollers (paid and unpaid) stopped enslaved people in public places, entered their quarters without warrant, and assaulted and harmed them. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government further sustained public devaluation of black lives through tolerance of lynching and by failing to pass anti-lynching legislation. Read more >
April 2, 2018 4:41 PM EDT
It has been only six weeks since last I wrote about gun violence in America, following the Parkland shooting that took seventeen lives and impacted a nation. In that time there have been 22 more mass shootings, at least 10 of them at schools. The number of deaths by guns in 2018 is at 3,423, and we’re only 89 days into the year—that’s about 38 human lives lost per day. In that time, hundreds of thousands of people have voiced their outrage and concerns over our country’s inaction around gun violence, as we witnessed at last weekend’s March for Our Lives. Read more >
