Farmers Have Long Memories: Trump’s Climate Record Could Hurt Him in Iowa Farmers Have Long Memories: Trump’s Climate Record Could Hurt Him in Iowa In rural Iowa, farmers bearing the brunt of climate change may play an outsize role in electing the next president. by Judith Lewis Mernit Published on October 14, 2020 Keith Puntenney never gave his permission for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cut through his Iowa farmland. When, in 2016, the state took the land anyway, he and several other landowners sued
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Central College student Tiffany Van Gilst participated in the Climate Crisis Parade earlier this year and continues to speak out about the urgency of climate action and the importance of people from different generations working together.
[Link to the original interview] American Voter: Kathy Byrnes Al Jazeera asks the same key questions about the presidential election to voters across the United States. Kathy Byrnes’s top election issue is climate change [Al Jazeera] 7 Oct 2020 US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are battling for the presidency in a sharply divided United States. Trump has been focusing on “law and order”, Biden has been trying to strike a conciliatory note. The Black Lives Matter movement, and whether Trump
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I met Ed Fallon when we were both in our early 20s. I was looking for a third roommate in my run-down, three-story, sloped-floor apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, on the border of Cambridge.
He was an itinerant musician, believer in all causes to save our planet, and general nice guy. We campaigned against nuclear power together, and I followed his trajectory as he grew from farming his family property in Ireland, to winning a seat in the Iowa house of representatives, to hosting a radio talk-show and, in the past few years, to organizing the longest climate-change march in history.
The escalation of climate change, coupled with the decision this week by Judge Boasberg to shut down DAPL, opens the door to a new conversation about Iowa’s role in addressing the climate crisis. Geri, you are in a unique position of leadership and influence. It is no exaggeration to say that, at this moment, more than any other Iowan, you could have an immensely profound impact on the climate crisis.
"We can't have continued expansion of the fossil fuel infrastructure," said Fallon, who walked the entire pipeline path in opposition to the project. "Without the pipeline, oil isn’t going to be extracted. Without the pipeline, oil isn't going to be burned and the carbon won't find its way to the atmosphere."
"This ruling is a huge victory for the coalition of Indigenous communities, landowners, farmers, and environmentalists who have fought this pipeline for six yearsr. One of our primary goals now is to make sure that the Corps’ review is comprehensive and that it examines DAPL’s impact on water, land, property rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and most urgently on the worsening climate crisis.”
Mr Fallon says the "gold standard" is for Mr Biden to declare a climate emergency "on day one" of his administration, contrasting the moment to President Trump's first day, in which he he reauthorized Keystone and DAPL pipelines.
"[B]efore we start pointing the finger at young people for their shameless neglect of our safety, perhaps we "adults" ought to take a long, hard look in the mirror. After all, the harm their narcissism could cause us likely will be exceeded a thousandfold by the harm our failure to respond to the climate crisis will cause them, their children, and all life to come."
Hello Bold Iowans, We have an important question for you (scroll down.) But first, there are two big pieces of news to share — one good, one bad. Earlier this week, there was much excitement over a federal judge’s decision to grant the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request to strike down the Dakota Access Pipeline’s (DAPL) federal permits. The judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers must complete a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Hopefully, the judge’s next action will be to shut down the
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