Climate Crusader–Isaias Hernandez, Supreme Court Denies Big Oil Again! The Climate Daily Reforestation Campaign!

CLIMATE CRUSADER, ISAIAS HERNANDEZ

CLIMATE CRUSADER Isaias Hernandez (he/they), the person behind @queerbrownvegan on Instagram, is a young environmental educator and eco-influencer. Hernandez, a Los Angeles, California native, grew up in Section 8 housing, was a recipient of food stamps, and lived in a community that they say faced environmental injustice. These firsthand experiences are where he eventually found his passion for the environment, social justice, and equity.Hernandez says they witnessed the ways pollution affected his body and community.  They turned anger and sadness into a solution: creating environmental education that would prioritize accessibility and intersectionality.

Hernandez earned a B.S. in Environmental Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and began to gain experience in diversity inclusion work in environmental spaces, academic research, and creative work. His current focus is on education about sustainability and environmental justice, with a framework that centers empathy and understanding. He often posts videos to social media that explain fads or environmental terms or encourage discussion around a questionable sustainable habit or item. Check out a great interview with Isaias Hernandez on Citizens’ Climate Radio, by clicking on the link in the Deeper Dive Section of this story at theclimate.org/episodes.

DEEPER DIVE: Queer Brown Vegan, Citizens’ Climate Radio

SUPREME COURT DENIES BIG OIL, AGAIN!

According to a press release, two lawsuits from Delaware and Hoboken, New Jersey, that seek to make major oil and gas corporations pay for climate damages they knowingly caused can continue proceeding toward trial in state court, after the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to consider appeals from the fossil fuel industry. Why do these cases, particularly the Hoboken case matter to us?

Hoboken’s case charges the polluters with violating New Jersey’s Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO. According to the Center for Climate Integrity, Hoboken recently amended its complaint to charge major fossil fuel companies with conspiring to defraud the public about the harms they knew their products would cause. Hoboken says fossil fuel companies united behind trade associations and front groups to perpetuate a “fraudulent scheme to deceive the public about the link between fossil fuels and climate change.”

Under New Jersey’s RICO law, it is illegal “to maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest or control of an enterprise which is engaged in activities of which affect trade or commerce.” Hoboken’s complaint argues that that’s exactly what the executives of fossil fuel companies did, and are still doing today, through their participation in and control over the decades-long climate deception campaign coordinated through the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil and gas trade association.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court denied fossil fuel industry requests to review similar lower court rulings in climate accountability lawsuits brought by communities in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawaii, and the State of Rhode Island. In March, the U.S. Justice Department added its support to the communities, urging the Supreme Court to deny ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy’s petition to hear a case brought by three Colorado communities.

DEEPER DIVE: Center for Climate Integrity, Hoboken Complaint, Supreme Court,

THE CLIMATE DAILY 50/100 REFORESTATION CAMPAIGN, OR, THINGS JUST GOT SUPER REAL

For many years, scientists have been warning that the rise in global temperature must be kept to below 1.5⁰C above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. It’s so important a benchmark, it’s been a rallying cry in the climate activist community since the Paris Accords of 2015.

According to a report released last week by the World Metrological Organization, that limit is about to be breached. It estimates there is a 66% chance that global temperatures will breach the 1.5⁰C limit by 2027. Depending upon who you talk to, that’s either three or thirteen years sooner than predicted. That’s not good. But there is hope. In the form of trees. Trillions of them.

The reality is trees are currently the best technology for capturing carbon dioxide, that greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming. It’s possible human beings will develop and scale up a technology that can rival the efficiency of Nature. But until then, our best hope is to plant a trillion trees by 2030, or sooner. That’s why we’re asking you to join our crowdfunding campaign—and our 30 tree planting partners to plant 10,000 trees at one time in one of seven regions around the world. Of course the tree-planting professionals will do all the planting.

That’s right. Join our other 201 crowdfunder partners and make a one time donation of $50 or $100 and become a climate champion. Go to www.theclimate.org, and at the top of the page, click on the words, “Climate Champion” and donate today. What’s a climate champion? A Climate Champion is someone who sees the impacts of climate change, experiences those changes themselves, and knows we cannot continue the way we have.  They’re someone who loves our green, blue and beautiful planet and wants the things they love about it to be there – just as green, blue and beautiful – for their children and their children’s children. 

A climate champion is one willing to take action to help change the current direction – so our fears don’t come to pass. Yeah, like two-time donor and two-time climate champion, Vicky Bonasera! We’re proud to be a champion for the earth and for the climate.  Come join us! Donate today. Go to www.theclimate.org, and at the top of the page, click on the words, “Climate Champion” and donate today

DEEPER DIVE: WMO Report,  50/100 Campaign, Trillion Tree Project