Infrastructure

Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene

November 5, 2024 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Hurricane Helene, Infrastructure, North Carolina, Public Banks

Asheville, North Carolina is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a favorite escape for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall. Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just for stricken North Carolina residents but for people across the country following their tragic stories in the media and in the podcasts now favored by young voters for news. “Preppers” well equipped with supplies watched in helpless disbelief as homes washed away in a wall of water and mud, taking emergency supplies in the storm.

Spring Flowers Turn Into Fruits In The Fall

September 23, 2024 Bouthaina Shaaban, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Africa, China, Global Solidarity, Global South, Infrastructure, Military bases, South Africa

Amid the stench of death, aggression, murder, and the extermination of an ancient, noble, and civilized people and the international impotence and hypocrisy that have become a catastrophe for humanity at large, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation commenced in Beijing between September 4 and 6, with the participation of over fifty African countries and a comprehensive, serious, and profound agenda that touches upon the wisdom and heritage of the ancients. The forum draws upon the spirit of friendship and constructive cooperation to build on these foundations, adding the fruits of human intellect to envision a future based on shared interests, mutual respect, and the pursuit of benefit for all.

China To Give LDCs, Including 33 African Countries, Zero-Tariff Treatment

September 6, 2024 Friends of Socialist China. Educate! Africa, China, Infrastructure, Least Developed Countries, Tariffs

China has decided to give all least developed countries having diplomatic relations with China, including 33 countries in Africa, zero-tariff treatment for 100 percent tariff lines, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on Thursday in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, the Xinhua News Agency reported. This has made China the first major developing country and the first major economy to take such a step. It will help turn China’s big market into Africa’s big opportunity, Xi said, Xinhua reported. China will expand market access for African agricultural products, deepen cooperation with Africa in e-commerce and other areas, and launch a “China-Africa quality enhancement program,” Xi said.

Even In California, Infrastructure Spending Is A Climate Time Bomb

August 27, 2024 Zack Deutsch-Gross and Corrigan Salerno, Next City. Educate! California, climate crisis, Infrastructure, Transportation

With the fifth largest economy in the world, California has for decades set the tone for what is possible on climate, with other states and even countries looking to it for bold policy leadership and direction. Yet while Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to tout California as a climate leader, his transportation agency — operating with little public oversight or accountability — continues to advance harmful projects that will guarantee future increases in emissions. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in how California is spending its Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) dollars. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was hailed by the Biden Administration as the biggest investment in climate in U.S. history.

Report: Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Derailed Partial Ceasefire Talks

August 19, 2024 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. Educate! Infrastructure, Negotiations, Russia, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

Ukraine’s offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast has derailed planned indirect negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials that could have resulted in a partial ceasefire, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. The two sides were scheduled to send officials to Qatar for negotiations on an agreement that would halt strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides. Qatari officials would have acted as mediators instead of having the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators meet directly. An unnamed diplomat told the Post that Russia postponed the talks after Ukraine launched its invasion of Kursk on August 6. The diplomat said the talks weren’t called off altogether, saying the Russians “didn’t call off the talks, they said give us time.”

Making Our Communities What They Need To Be

July 15, 2024 Steve Early, Resilience. Organize! Communities, Democracy, Infrastructure, Unions, Vermont, Water

The symbols of public-sector infrastructure are often associated with urban areas: major highways and subway systems, for instance; bridges and tunnels; large ports and airports; billions of gallons of fresh water to deliver and hundreds of tons of solid waste to cart away every day. Yet public works departments are no less important in rural areas, where municipal employees and their families, whether members of the National Education Association, the Firefighters union, or the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), are dependent on the same community services they provide. In Middlebury, Vermont, the largest town in rural Addison County, 46-year-old Jeremy Rathbun is one of those public servants.

Restoring Nature Is Our Only Climate Solution

July 1, 2024 Richard Heinberg, Resilience. Create! Carbon sequestration, climate crisis, Environment, Infrastructure

Climate change is a huge, complicated problem. Therefore, many people have an understandable tendency to mentally simplify it by focusing on just one cause (carbon emissions) and just one solution (alternative energy). Sustainability scholar Jan Konietzko has called this “carbon tunnel vision.” Oversimplifying the problem this way leads to techno-fixes that actually fix nothing. Despite trillions of dollars already spent on low-carbon technologies, carbon emissions are still increasing, and the climate is being destabilized faster than ever. Understanding climate change requires us to embrace complexity: not only are greenhouse gases trapping heat, but we are undermining natural systems that cool the planet’s surface and sequester atmospheric carbon—systems of ice, soil, forest, and ocean.

Contrasting US’ Urban Decay With China’s Extraordinary Infrastructure

June 5, 2024 Roger McKenzie, Friends of Socialist China. Strategize! China, Failed State, Infrastructure, Socialism, United States

Empires always end. All of them. The only question is about the nature of that end. We can see this before our eyes as the United States empire reaches its inevitable end, internationally and domestically. We can see it happening in front of our eyes if we choose to look. One of the advantages of travelling by train instead of flying is you get to see much more of the reality of a country. The Acela Express train ride of 230 miles or so for three hours from New York City to the US capital, Washington DC, was depressing in so many ways. The train itself was better and more comfortable than many I have travelled on in Britain, but the journey revealed a picture of severe urban decay in supposedly the world’s most important and richest nation.

You Can’t Be Neutral In A Flooding House

March 27, 2024 Ankur Singh, In These Times. Resist! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Illinois, Infrastructure

Cicero, Illinois - A crowd swells outside an auditorium one summer evening in 2023, trying to enter a special town hall meeting. The air fills with chants: “Where’s our money?” and “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (“The people, united, will never be defeated”). Soon, police inform the hundreds outside that no one else is allowed in. It felt apt: We wanted answers about why our city was so dysfunctional, and the city couldn’t even host a proper meeting. I’m a journalist and also a Cicero resident, and I was there because I, too, was angry. Howard Zinn famously said you can’t be neutral on a moving train; it’s also difficult in a flooded house.

Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Created A ‘Climate Time Bomb’ In Black Neighborhoods

March 20, 2024 Adam Mahoney, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Infrastructure, Joe Biden, Segregation, Urban Design

Nearly 45 years ago, the Acres Homes area north of Houston was the largest unincorporated Black community in the South, a thriving 9-square mile area where homeownership was the norm. That was until the city of Houston annexed it, and the Interstate 45 highway was built through its heart. In the aftermath, the community’s poverty rate has jumped to almost double the city’s average, and health ailments from pollution have increased. President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, one of the nation’s most significant investments in curbing climate change, was supposed to consider the history of areas like Acres Homes in an attempt to make communities whole again.

Targeting Of Gaza’s Essential Workers And Infrastructure Is An Attack On All

March 15, 2024 Daniel Bertossa, Public Services International. Educate! Gaza, Genocide, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Infrastructure, Israel, Palestine, Wars and Militarism, Workers

Across Gaza, public service workers face scenes of unimaginable devastation: 392 educational facilities destroyed; 132 water wells out of service; 24 hospitals knocked out with the remaining 11 only partially functional. The entire energy grid remains offline due to fuel import restrictions and the severing of external lines. Lack of electricity has forced desalination and water treatment plants to close with wastewater openly flowing in the streets. Lack of washing facilities is forcing many women to take pills to delay their menstruation.

The Axis Of Resistance: Like Seeds In The Soil

March 12, 2024 Hanna Eid, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Axis of Resistance, Gaza, Hezbollah, Infrastructure, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Reparations

While many articles written on Al Mayadeen and other platforms have exposed and highlighted the brutality of the Zionist occupiers and their American masters, I want to take this opportunity to expose the humanity and fraternal conduct of members of the Axis of Resistance throughout the history of this network of organizations seeking to liberate West Asia. It came to me to write this as I read Aurelie Daher’s masterful history book: Hezbollah: Mobilisation and Power. In this book, Daher shows that the first steps of resistance in Lebanon were not conducting military operations against the Zionists, but building bonds with the masses.

Guerilla Bus Benches Are Spurring Berkeley To Step Up For Bus Riders

February 4, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Buses, California, Infrastructure, Mutual Aid, Transportation

By day, Mingwei Samuel works as a software developer. Also by day — together with urbanist and writer Darrell Owens — he builds and installs benches at bus stops around Berkeley and Oakland that have no seating. It’s a tale as old as social media: In November, Owens tweeted a photo of his 64-year-old neighbor sitting on the curb at a bus stop to draw attention to the lack of seating for bus riders. “Which stop?” replied Samuel. “I can put a bench there.” A month later, he had placed a wooden bench, built based on a template from the Public Bench Project, at the bus stop in downtown Berkeley.

Tribes Say SunZia Line Threatens San Pedro River, Sue To Stop Work

January 24, 2024 Hayleigh Evans, The Arizona Republic. Resist! Arizona, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Sacred sites, wildlife

Two Arizona tribes filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management for approving a high-voltage transmission line, alleging the government failed to account for historic and cultural sites through the line's San Pedro Valley route. The Tohono O’odham Nation and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, along with Archaeology Southwest and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed the suit on Jan. 17 over the authorization of the SunZia transmission line. The plaintiffs want a federal court to halt construction and require the BLM to comply with the law before continuing further activity.

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