Links for Friday, June 14
Corporations are psychotic. How should they be dealt with?
Today’s links fest was planned to offer further support to the points I made here:
That’s still the plan, though the weather has intervened (see first link below).
Links
• Serious heat wave to scorch the East next week. Maps show areas at risk. (Washington Post, via the aggregator Collapse Chronicle)
The eastern half of the United States faces an intense heat wave starting late this week and peaking next week that could produce dangerously high temperatures over a large area for an extended period. It could threaten records and place vulnerable groups of people at risk from heat-related illnesses.
Over the weekend, widespread highs in the mid-90s to around 100 — some 10 to 20 degrees above normal — will spread across the southern Plains, South and Midwest. By Monday, the heat will swell into the Ohio Valley before reaching the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast shortly thereafter.
For much of next week, a punishing combination of heat and humidity will remain lodged over the East — although some relief may arrive in the Upper Midwest during its second half.
The map is here:
They mean it when they talk about a “punishing combination” of heat and humidity. See the chart in this piece by Ian Welsh about India’s own heatwave for more on the punishing combo. If you’re in the areas affected, be warned and stay healthy.
File under “Time to get used to what you haven’t been used to.”
• Colombian Victims Win Historic Verdict Over Chiquita: Jury Finds Banana Company Liable For Financing Death Squads (Earthrights.org)
West Palm Beach, FL (June 10, 2024) – In a landmark ruling in the fight for human rights, a jury has found banana giant Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a brutal paramilitary death squad. After 17 years of legal proceedings, the first set of victims and their families have finally obtained justice.
The jury’s decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC’s egregious human rights abuses. By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians. This historic verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.
The Earth Rights general counsel said, “This verdict sends a powerful message to corporations everywhere: profiting from human rights abuses will not go unpunished.”
Prosecution of corporate executives for first-degree murder might send a more powerful message. Just a thought.
File under “Corporate murderers.”
• Scientists move step closer to solving mystery of America's 'cancer alley' (Daily Mail)
Scientists investigating a cancer hotspot in Louisiana have made a key finding that may partially explain the high rates of disease.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found extremely high levels of a carcinogen in the air across 85 miles along the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, which has been dubbed 'cancer alley.'
Tests carried out last year found residents are breathing in a colorless, flammable gas known as ethylene oxide up to 20 times higher from January 31 through February 26 than what was previously thought - and about 1,000 times more than the safe level.
Industry swears their ethylene oxide levels are safe (according to the article), but one resident, Geraldine Watkins, had “more than 30 family members [who] died from throat cancer, while others died of leukemia, breast cancer, testicular cancer and liver cancer.”
What do we do to people who murder for money? What if those people are corporate executives?
File under “Corporate murderers.”