Vintage Chamber of Commerce on Earth Day

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Check out this vintage clip of a 1970 CBS Evening News special on Earth Day, hosted by Walter Cronkite. There are several slices of awesome here. First, there’s the song about sulfur dioxide. But more interesting is the debate among environmental activists about whether to ally themselves with the Chamber of Commerce in publicizing Earth Day.

“Would we be co-opted by business?” asked Edward Furia, Philadelphia’s Earth Week director. “Would we not be diluting our effort completely?” The group held three days of meetings to decide whether to even meet with the Chamber of Commerce; in the end they accepted financial support from the Chamber for their activities, and agreed to call off direct actions against industries. In return, the Chamber called off counter attacks and encouraged members to acknowledge their pollution and discuss clean up efforts.

Here’s the clip:

The video is even more amusing in light of this week’s 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Senators are expected to unveil a climate bill shortly afterwards, and the authors and the White House been heavily courting the national Chamber of Commerce to support the measure, after the group waged high-profile opposition against the House bill last summer. Top Obama administration officials are meeting with Tom Donohue, the president and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, tomorrow. From Energy & Environment News:

Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Carol Browner, Obama’s top staffer on energy and climate issues, invited Donohue to the White House as part of its ongoing courtship of the nation’s largest industry voice. In February, Obama and Donohue exchanged public letters suggesting they could work together on expanding nuclear power and increased drilling for offshore oil.

Some things never change, do they?

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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.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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