Newspaper Guild-CWA demands Justice Dept. return telephone records taken of AP reporters’ phone calls

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Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory, where record CO2 increases are being documented. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP

For the first time in human history, the concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has passed the milestone level of 400 parts per million (ppm). The last time so much greenhouse gas was in the air was several million years ago, when the Arctic was ice-free, savannah spread across the Sahara desert and sea level was up to 40 metres higher than today.

These conditions are expected to return in time, with devastating consequences for civilisation, unless emissions of CO2 from the burning of coal, gas and oil are rapidly curtailed. But despite increasingly severe warnings from scientists and a major economic recession, global emissions have continued to soar unchecked.

“It is symbolic, a point to pause and think about where we have been and where we are going,” said Professor Ralph Keeling, who oversees the measurements on a Hawaian volcano, which were begun by his father in 1958. “It’s like turning 50: it’s a wake up to what has been building up in front of us all along.”

“The passing of this milestone is a significant reminder of the rapid rate at which – and the extent to which – we have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said Prof Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which serves as science adviser to the world’s governments. “At the beginning of industrialisation the concentration of CO2 was just 280ppm. We must hope that the world crossing this milestone will bring about awareness of the scientific reality of climate change and how human society should deal with the challenge.”

The world’s governments have agreed to keep the rise in global average temperature, which have already risen by over 1C, to 2C, the level beyond which catastrophic warming is thought to become unstoppable. But the International Energy Agency warned in 2012 that on current emissions trends the world will see 6C of warming, a level scientists warn would lead to chaos. With no slowing of emissions seen to date, there is already mounting pressure on the UN summit in Paris in 2015, which is the deadline set to settle a binding international treaty to curb emissions.

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College students today graduate with the terrible burden of an average of $25,000 in student-loan debt. That total increases with the rising costs of tuition, even at public colleges and universities, and by the actions of our own government in letting the rates for student loans rise. If nothing is done by July 1, the rates will rise again.

Such heavy responsibilities will hold graduates back for years to come. Instead of kicking students when they are down, we should end the student debt crisis. That is why we are enthusiastically endorsing the first bill introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), which would lower student loan interest rates for one year to 0.75 percent, the same rate at which the government loans money to the banks through the Federal Reserve discount window. Student loan interest rates will double to 6.8 percent on July 1 without action.

By linking the interest rates students pay to the interest rates big banks pay, the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act would insure that every qualified student can afford the education that he or she has earned. Senator Warren was right on the money when she said, “In effect, the American taxpayer is investing in those banks. We should make the same kind of investment in our young people who are trying to get an education.”

We hope her colleagues in the Senate and the members of the House see how Senator Warren’s bill will brighten the future of millions of students while at the same time energize the U.S. economy.

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NC NAACP president, 16 other protestors arrested outside NC Senate

Published: April 29, 2013

Perri Morgan, Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine, is escorted by police to a Division of Prison Inmates Transfer bus following an act of civil disobedience condemning the Republican legislature’s agenda Monday, April 29, 2013, outside the N.C. Senate chamber. Seventeen people including N.C. NAACP President Rev. William Barber were arrested.

TRAVIS LONG — tlong@newsobserver.com

By John Frank — jfrank@newsobserver.com

RALEIGH — In the strongest statement so far against the Republican legislature, a group of 50 protestors marched into the legislative building Monday and blocked the tall gilded doors to the N.C. Senate chamber in an act of civil disobedience that led to 17 arrests.

N.C. NAACP President William Barber led the protest, standing in the rotunda on the second floor to read an indictment against the Republican-led legislature for denying Medicaid coverage to as many as 500,000 poor people, cutting unemployment benefits and proposing legislation to divert money from public education and require a voter ID at the polls.

Barber said the preponderance of actions from the GOP lawmakers demanded a strong statement. “There must be a witness in the face of extremism and regressive public policy,” Barber said, calling Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders this generation’s “George Wallaces.”

Barber, Duke University scholar Tim Tyson and a handful of clergy members were among those arrested just before the Senate’s 7 p.m. session.

General Assembly Police Chief Jeff Weaver warned the protesters to disperse three times before arresting them.

Most protesters left, but 17 refused to move. The protestors sang “We Shall Overcome” and other civil rights-era songs as Raleigh police officers put plastic zip ties on their wrists and led them away. Weaver said the protesters arrested will likely face charges of disorderly conduct, second-degree trespass and violation of building rules, all misdemeanors.

At one point, Republican state Rep. Michael Speciale, a New Bern Republican, poked his head around a hallway corner to watch the demonstration. He suggested the action won’t make difference in the lawmaking.

“They have a right to protest; we have a right to disagree,” he said. “If we are here to do what is right for North Carolina, then we are doing the right thing.”

Two years ago, Barber and six others were arrested for interrupting a legislative session to protest the state budget. The latest arrests are part of an ongoing series of demonstrations across the state. “There must be an act that dramatizes the shameful” agenda, Barber said. “Nobody … can say they don’t know what’s happening North Carolina.”