John Muir Meets the Teamsters: Governors Tout a New Environmentalism

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“Think of this alliance: the steel workers and the Sierra Club,” proposed Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM) last Friday when he argued that investing in clean energy and job creation can go hand in hand. Not willing to wait for Congress to pass federal legislation on behalf of cleaner power, Richardson and his gubernatorial counterparts in Pennsylvania and Montana unveiled state-level strategies for lessening dependence on foreign oil.

The governors support a roadmap towards energy independence developed by the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmental, labor, and religious groups seeking to reframe the debate on energy in the United States. The Alliance, which takes its name from President John F. Kennedy’s project to put a man on the moon, is the brain-child of The Breakthrough Institute, whose founders made waves in 2004 by publishing a piece called “The Death of Environmentalism” that criticized the environmental movement’s failure to build effective political coalitions.

The governors’ recent speeches, an odd mix of environmental concern, populism and economic mercantilism, echo this new attempt to package green energy in a way that appeals to the “can do” spirit of Midwestern swing voters concerned with vanishing jobs and national security. The roadmap calls for incentives to promote alternative fuels, mass-transit development, more efficient American automobiles, and the energy-efficient retro-fittings of buildings. All of which, the three governors argue, will create good-paying American jobs. Some skepticism about ill-conceived subsidies notwithstanding (see Slate for a rundown), it is refreshing to see the seeds of a broad green energy coalition beginning to sprout.

— Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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