Stand Together Music, part of rightwing billionaire Charles Koch’s advocacy network, collaborates with Pitbull, Machine Gun Kelly and others
Last September, the rapper Killer Mike was DJing hip-hop classics like Snoop Dogg’s Ain’t No Fun at a music festival afterparty in Louisville, Kentucky. “The inspiration for the night’s set is freedom of speech, so say what the fuck you want!” he told a crowd of hundreds. Killer Mike, half of the duo Run the Jewels, is known for speaking out against police brutality and racial injustice, as well as campaigning for Bernie Sanders.
But this night’s set was co-sponsored by Stand Together Music, an organization backed by the libertarian billionaire Charles Koch, who made his fortune in fossil fuels. Other sponsors of the party included the free-speech group Fire (which has received millions of dollars in contributions from the Charles G Koch charitable foundation), as well as the music outlet Spin, an official partner of Stand Together Music.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/07/2023 - 07:00
12/07/2023 - 05:00
A lucrative underground trade risks undermining research, creating new pandemics and pushing a recently abundant species to the brink
In 2019, Jonah Sacha, a researcher at Oregon Health and Science University, received a delivery of 20 monkeys from Mauritius. As part of his research into stem-cell transplants as an HIV treatment, he performs tests on long-tailed macaques.
The captive-bred monkeys were legally imported using an approved vendor, and looked healthy. However, when Sacha tested them, one appeared to have latent tuberculosis (TB).
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12/07/2023 - 03:43
As world leaders gather at Cop28, these charts show how far away the major economies are from their targets
Not a single G20 country has policies in place that are consistent with the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C and meeting their “fair share” of emissions reduction.
The assessment, based on data up to 5 December provided by the Climate Action Tracker, comes as leaders gather in Dubai for the Cop28 conference.
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12/07/2023 - 00:57
270 horses were shot during a two-day trial with no reports of unnecessary animal harm or suffering
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The New South Wales government has begun trialling aerial shooting to reduce the number of feral horses which are destroying fragile alpine ecosystems in Kosciuszko national park.
In November, 270 feral horses were shot during a two-day trial with no reported adverse animal welfare events, after a Senate committee examining the effect of feral horses in alpine regions called for aerial culling to be allowed in NSW. Two helicopters were used and independent veterinarians observed the trial.
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12/07/2023 - 00:00
Traditionally unpopular carbon taxes could be achieved with regulatory compliance, IMF head tells Cop 28
Diverting the trillions of dollars by which the world subsidises fossil fuel production each year, and putting an implicit price on carbon emissions, would generate the vast amounts of cash needed to tackle the climate crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.
Governments have been put off explicitly pricing carbon by the potential unpopularity of new carbon taxes, which have become favourite targets of anti-climate politicians and parties around the world, from the US and Australia to Europe and the UK.
When you put a price on carbon, decarbonisation accelerates
Kristalina Georgieva, of the IMF
It is not so easy to identify the carbon content and then to put on an appropriate price
Kristalina Georgieva
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12/06/2023 - 23:00
The 80,000 delegates are thinking of how best to unwind from the climate summit ‘whirlwind’ in Dubai on their only day off
From the world’s largest waterpark to an indoor ski resort in a shopping centre, Cop28 delegates will have plenty of options to choose from on their only day off at the climate summit.
After an exhausting week of negotiations, events and protests, the 80,000 delegates in the United Arab Emirates will have a chance to enjoy Dubai ahead of the final push.
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12/06/2023 - 15:05
A team of sustainability scientists recently announced that they have developed a community-based framework, founded on extensive local and traditional knowledge, to help assess and respond to the kinds of ecological threats that are widely dispersed across a varied landscape and whose solutions are not immediately obvious. The framework, which was developed to address watershed issues in Honduras's Lake Yojoa, is widely applicable to a broad range of threats facing ecological commons wherever they may occur around the world.
12/06/2023 - 13:20
Robbie Douglas-Miller, who was made a baron last week, had complained about impact on salmon stocks
Downing Street is facing calls to explain why it has appointed a wealthy, unelected shooting enthusiast as its animal welfare minister after it emerged he has backed the culling of seals and wild birds.
Robbie Douglas-Miller, who was last week given a peerage to allow him to become minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), owns a grouse moor in Scotland and has argued for the relaxation of rules on shooting wild birds that prey on salmon.
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12/06/2023 - 12:55
Anne Lindboe to look at transport plans for Norway’s annual gift to UK, but insists tradition will not stop
It is a long-cherished Christmas tradition: a tree sent to London every December from Norway to thank Britain for its support during the second world war.
But felling a decades-old 20-metre (66ft) spruce in the woodlands near Oslo and transporting it by road and sea to Britain to light up Trafalgar Square, only for it to be turned into woodchip a month later, could hardly be described as environmentally friendly.
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12/06/2023 - 11:34
Key things to know about hacking, radioactive leaks and toxic workplace culture at Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site
Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China
Sellafield workers claim ‘toxic culture’ could put safety at risk
Nuclear Leaks, a year-long Guardian investigation, has uncovered problems with cyber hacking, radioactive leaks and toxic workplace culture at Sellafield, the UK’s most hazardous nuclear site.
It has also revealed how a small corner of the UK has an outsized influence on its special relationship with the US, with the countries bound by the shared history of nuclear weapons development. Britain’s neighbours in Europe, particularly Norway and Ireland, also keep a sharp eye on the site, from where previous pollution incidents and radioactivity as a result of a fire have made it to their shores.
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