June 12, 2019

The Democratic Party Just Got Hit With Hundreds of Thousands of Demands for a Climate Debate

“We’re not settling for soundbites.”

MaryFrances Vorbach/Greenpeace

Activists gathered Wednesday at the steps of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington, DC, to demand a climate change debate for the 23 contenders in the 2020 Democratic primary.

As Mother Jones reporter Rebecca Leber wrote Tuesday:

The pressure for a debate on climate change is only escalating since the Democratic National Committee rejected a call to devote one of its dozen debates to a subject that’s grown in urgency and salience among the Democratic base.

At Wednesday’s rally, organizers delivered more than 200,000 petition signatures, collected by groups like Greenpeace, US Youth Climate Strike, Sunrise Movement, 350 Action, and Women’s March National, asking the DNC to organize a climate debate.

One of the activists, Karla Stephan of US Youth Climate Strike, told Mother Jones that even if the DNC doesn’t agree to hold a debate centered on climate change, she wants the candidates to at least to agree to one so they can still hold the debate. If candidates engage in debates not sanctioned by the DNC, they risk being barred from the main stage.

Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic frontrunner, reportedly expressed his support for a climate change debate Tuesday in a video that Greenpeace recorded in Iowa. Janet Redman, Climate Campaign Director for Greenpeace USA, said that they will “continue pressing every candidate to support a climate debate,” adding that the debate “has to do with economic justice, racial justice, generational justice.”

“All of these groups have power on their own, but together we are unstoppable.” Stephan said, “We’re not settling for soundbites.”

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.

payment methods

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