June 27, 2019

Activists Outside the 2020 Debate Are Demanding That Climate Change Take Center Stage

“You can’t come to Miami without talking about climate change.”

Just a few hours before the second round of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are set to face off, dozens of local activists in Miami, Florida held an “Underwater Climate Rally,” calling for more discussion about climate change at the second Democratic debate. A coalition of local environmental groups organized the march to the Arsht Center in Miami, where this round of debates is being held, with marchers sporting signs calling for a specific climate change debate and pushing for the Green New Deal.

Melissa Baldwin, co-organizer of Miami Climate Month, which organized the rally, says from the moment she and her fellow organizers found out the first debate would be in Miami, they wanted to “put a spotlight on climate change, because you can’t come to Miami without talking about climate change.”

Climate change and fossil fuels have already disturbed the daily lives of Floridians. Sea level rise and warming temperatures threaten cities like Miami. Kim Ross, ReThink Energy Florida leader, resident witnessed people in her community in Tallahassee feeling helpless after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, which damaged Gulf Coast ecosystems.

“This isn’t something in the future,” Ross says. “This is something that’s happening now and needs to be addressed now.”

At the first 2020 Democratic debate on Wednesday night, Democrats spent less than 10 minutes talking about climate change. Though not an extensive conversation, that was still more time spent talking about climate change than in all of three debates combined between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016.

Baldwin tells Mother Jones that climate and energy policy needs a prolonged conversation at every debate because “climate change is an issue that affects every other issue: agriculture, the economy, including tourism.”

She recalls a friend saying, “Who wants to go to Disney when it’s 105 degrees outside?”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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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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