Each week find a round-up of selected news and resources related to global ethical issues and positive solutions that you can use in your solutionary teaching/work.
Here’s some recent news worth knowing:
Inspiring youth actions …
- A Girl Scout in California contacted companies to ask them to reduce their use of single-use plastics like straws, and several of those companies listened and took action.
- Several US environmental organizations hosted an Ocean Heroes Bootcamp to help train youth activists in creating and implementing campaigns designed to reduce plastic waste.
Regarding immigrants and asylum seekers …
- A US federal court has ruled that the Trump administration cannot enact “blanket detention” of asylum seekers and must “conduct individualized reviews to determine whether a person is a flight risk, poses a national security threat or is a danger to the community before denying parole.”
- New Gallup and Pew polls show increased support in the US for immigrants and for increased immigration.
- The US Army is discharging immigrant recruits and reservists, often with little explanation. Some have been told that they’re security risks because they have family who live abroad.
- Librarians and other “digital ninjas” have created an interactive map “that visualizes the vast apparatus of immigration enforcement in the US, and broadly maps the shelters where children can be housed” as well as ICE facilities around the country.
The climate continues to heat up …
- Reports of record heat have been set all around the world recently, including in Northern Siberia, where temperatures reached over 90 degrees, which is about 40 degrees above normal. And a city in Algeria reached a new high of 124.3 degrees.
Increasing rights, protections, and opportunities for people …
- Pennsylvania has passed “clean slate” legislation that will “automatically seal lower-level, nonviolent crimes from public review after 10 years.” The goal is to help people with criminal histories “to more easily find jobs, education and housing without the hardships often associated with living with a record.”
- New laws passed in New Jersey provide transgender people with the right “to alter the sex recorded on their birth and death certificates.” The new legislation also requires the establishment of a “transgender equality task force” to make recommendations for reducing legal and societal barriers to equity and for preventing discrimination.
- Oregon has strengthened protections for farmworkers around pesticides. The new rules, which go into effect in 2019, “establish zones around pesticide applications that workers cannot enter. It also allows workers the choice to take shelter in housing or other structures instead of moving away.”
- Delaware has become the sixth US state to provide “12 weeks of paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child.”
- California has passed a waiver that allows farm workers with school-age children to stay in state-subsidized housing all year, so that their children can stay in the schools they’ve been attending. The “50-mile rule” to which the waiver applies has required that migrant workers move at least 50 miles away for at least three months of the year, in order to be able to return and work again.
- A new law in Rhode Island allows DREAMers to apply for driver’s licenses.
Nonhuman animals need our help …
- The Uttarakhand High Court in the State of Uttarakhand, India, has declared that “The entire animal kingdom including avian and aquatic are declared as legal entities having a distinct persona with corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person. All the citizens throughout the State of Uttarakhand are hereby declared persons in loco parentis as the human face for the welfare/protection of animals.” The declaration does not prevent the use of nonhuman animals, but it sets down some specific guidelines to increase their welfare.
- According to the latest “red list” assessment from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), “more than 26,000 of the world’s species are now threatened … adding to fears the planet is entering a sixth wave of extinction.”
- A vertical “pig farm” has been constructed in southern China on 11 hectares. The eight-story building is designed to hold 30,000 female breeding pigs who are expected to produce around 840,000 piglets each year. The liquid waste will be sprayed on nearby forests, and the solid waste sold to farmers as fertilizer.
- An advocacy group was able to buy illegal ivory in 10 European countries, revealing that current restrictions, which often have loopholes, are not working to protect endangered elephants and rhinos.
We need to protect our health …
- The US EPA is being accused of suppressing a draft health assessment by EPA scientists that “warns that most Americans inhale enough formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life to put them at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments.”
- When a University of Washington student learned that pharmaceutical companies have intentionally refrained from making eye drop medication applicators smaller, she decided to “stick it to drug companies” and create an eyedropper that allows people who need them to get just the right amount of medicine, saving them money and reducing waste.
- At a recent United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly, the United States delegation resorted to threats and pressure when countries like Ecuador tried to introduce a resolution promoting breastfeeding and seeking to limit inaccurate and misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. The US delegation also successfully had language related to soda taxes removed from a document about worldwide obesity, and unsuccessfully tried to stop efforts to help “poor countries obtain access to lifesaving medicines.”
- A team of researchers engaged in a major study have confirmed that “living close to nature and spending time outside has significant and wide-ranging health benefits.” Published in Environmental Research, the study involved data from more than 290 million people across 20 countries.
Solutions in small steps …
- In the realm of the creative, more women in communities in Uganda are using a “sex tax” to help force their husbands to contribute to the household income and to “atone for refusing to take on household chores.”
- To help combat waste, a café in Ipswich, England, has decided to stop using disposable coffee cups and use ceramic mugs instead.
- To help protect its coral reefs, Hawaii is banning the use of most sunscreens by 2021. The ban will affect sunscreens that include oxybenzone or octinoxate, which is about 70% of sunscreens currently available.
Be sure to add these resources to your solutionary educator toolkit:
- Reveal News has created a map of shelters where immigrant children have been housed in the US.
- Torn Apart has mapped out ICE facilities (including those for children) across the US.
Be sure to forward this to at least ONE person who would benefit from these resources.
Subscribe to This Blog Become a Humane Educator Support Our Work
The post What’s New Wednesday 7-11-18: News & Resources for Educators & Solutionaries appeared first on Institute for Humane Education.