Category Archives: National Vanguard

The University of Chicago will present honorary degrees to four distinguished scholars at its Convocation ceremony in June 2022, in recognition of their significant contributions to their fields of study.

The recipients are Cora Diamond, a philosopher at the University of Virginia; Katherine H. Freeman, an organic biogeochemist at Pennsylvania State University; Mercedes Garca-Arenal, a historian at the Spanish National Research Council; and Nergis Mavalvala, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cora Diamond, a distinguished philosopher, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. Diamond has produced groundbreaking work in three major areas: the philosophical foundations of logic; the interpretation of 20th-century Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein; and the ethical treatment of animals. She also has produced important work on gender studies, literary theory and care ethics.

The Kenan Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Virginia, Diamonds scholarship has joined these disparate subjects together in ways that illuminate the contributions that philosophy can make to the broader culture. She also has shaped the trajectory of philosophical scholarship around the world: Her work has been collected and published in multiple languages, and entire essay collections and conferences have been devoted to discussions of her work in moral philosophy.

Diamond has been an author, editor or contributor to 10 booksincluding works in Italian, French and Germanand more than 100 journal articles and essays, with others forthcoming. Her most recent book is Reading Wittgenstein with Anscombe, Going on to Ethics(2019). She is a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Katherine H. Freeman, a world-renowned organic biogeochemist, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science. Freeman studies ancient organic molecules and their stable isotopeswork that has given fundamental insights into the study of climate change over millions of years

The Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences and Chemistry at Pennsylvania State University, Freemans development of the paleo-carbon dioxide proxy record has had wide-ranging implications for the study of climate change. She also contributed to the invention of compound-specific stable isotope analysis, and continues to develop new measurement techniques that will allow deeper understanding of ancient molecular structure than ever before. As a leader in molecular isotope paleontology, she has studied areas ranging from the earliest recognized life on Earth to modern biological processes.

Freeman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Geochemical Society, the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Geophysical Union. She is also a recipient of the Alfred Treibs Award from the Geochemical Society, the highest honor in organic geochemistry; the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America; andthe2020 Nemmers Prize In Earth Sciences from Northwestern University.

Mercedes Garca-Arenal, one of Europes most eminent historians and a leading scholar of religion in post-Franco democratic Spain, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

She has studied the Muslim inhabitants of Europe in the late medieval and early modern period; the Spanish Inquisition; and Iberian-North African history, opening new areas of inquiry in historical analysis and the study of religious minorities. She is currently a research professor at the Spanish National Research Councils Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East.

A major area of focus in Garca-Arenals scholarship has been the study of the Moriscospeople whom the Spanish Crown forced to convert from Islam to Christianityand their descendants. Her work on the history of Iberia and North Africa also has been transformational, examining how the flows of people and ideas changed both Islam and Christianity in the West.

With nearly 40 authored or co-authored books and hundreds of articles, she also serves as the sole historian and humanist on the scientific committee of the European Research Council. She is a recipient of Spains highest honor for academic research, the Premio Nacional de Investigacin Ramn Menndez Pidal.

Nergis Mavalvala, a leading astrophysicist, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science. A leader in the observation of gravitational waves and quantum measurement, Mavalvala is noted for her work on the discovery of gravitational waves, and for developing precision quantum opticaltools that improved scientists ability to measure extremely small motions of large objects.

The Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she has been at the vanguard of a new field of researchknown as quantum optomechanicsthat has led to revolutionary advances in fundamental physics and precision measurement. Her work has been credited as being integral to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project. She is now studying the relationship between the macroscopic world and the quantum world underlying it.

She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She also serves as the dean of the MIT School of Science.

Excerpt from:

University of Chicago to award four honorary degrees at 2022 Convocation - UChicago News

ACCORDING TORushtons Race, Evolution, and Behavior fully modern Homo sapiens emerged in Africa 200,000 years ago. 100,000 years ago, a small group of Africans had a sudden urge to head north. This small group inhabited the rest of the world, with minimal contact with the rest of the Africans who stayed in Africa. Forty thousand years ago, the Caucasoid race broke off from the Mongoloid race.

This means the entire world outside of Africa is largely related, descended from one small tribe of perhaps a few hundred or a thousand. This tribe was obviously already unique, in that it alone had the intrepidity and determination to head north and conquer the world. We, the descendants of this unique tribe, have afterwards been evolving under extremely different, more challenging environments for the last 100,000 years apart from the African race we left behind. 100,000 years under dramatically different environments from a dramatically different founding stock is a long time. Compare it to dogs:

Dog Domestication and History

Dog history has been studied recently using mitochondrial DNA, which suggests that wolves and dogs split into different species around 100,000 years ago

Another recent study suggests that the entire population of dogs today are descended from three females near China about 15,000 years ago.

So, Im going to stick my neck out and use the 13,000 year BC date as the probable date of domestication.

This is a convenient parallel. Dogs also come from a bottleneck, theyve also been genetically separate from wolves for 100,000 years, and theyve also undergone different environmental pressures than their wolf counterparts. Just as the northern latitudes presented a unique environment for non-Blacks to grow up in, dogs were domesticated and evolved towards suiting human needs instead of wolf needs. No one on earth says dogs and wolves are the same species, even though it is possible for dogs to mate with wolves and have fertile offspring. The genetic differences are vast enough, the phenotypic differences in looks, behavior, and personality are great enough, that everyone instinctively recognizes dogs and wolves are different species now.

Why then are Blacks considered human? Why are Blacks and non-Blacks considered part of the same species? We could not look more different, act more different, or have more different personalities than them. There is a vast genetic divergence between Blacks and non-Blacks dating back 100,000 years. And even though Blacks and non-Blacks can have fertile offspring, biologically that has never been used as the exclusive standard for whether you belong to the same species or not.

Phenotypic Variations Between Blacks and Non-Blacks

Blacks have wide noses, kinky hair, black skin, high waist-to-hip ratios, prognathic jaws, long arms, and soulless, vacant eyes. Everything about them is ugly.

Blacks have the lowest IQ in the world (ignoring the equally disgusting and black-skinned Australian aborigines for conveniences sake). The Bushmen clock in at around 50 IQ, the average Bantu achieves the mentally retarded level of 70 IQ, and the highly cultivated, well fed, well cared for, partially White African-Americans reach 85 IQ. IQ has an enormous impact on lifestyle, achievement, and behavior. IQ correlates to poverty, crime, mortality, and broken homes on one side and education, wealth, human accomplishment, long life and stable homes on the other. According to IQ and the Wealth of Nations, a country must have a minimum average IQ of 90 to run a technological civilization. It is not a far cry to say it is IQ that makes humans better than the animals, and it is IQ that makes some humans better than other humans.

Thats not all though. Blacks are unique in that when we arrived, they had no written language, no wheel, no architectural works, nothing at all that would indicate they live a human existence. Whereas literature and palaces and cities existed in almost every corner of the earth, from the Incas to the Indians to the Persians to the Chinese to Stonehenge to Ankar Wat in Cambodia nothing existed in Africa. For the past 100,000 years non-Blacks have been spreading across the globe, building pyramids and cities, developing new technology, domesticating animals and crops, covering themselves in finely decorated clothing, and living essentially human lives. Blacks, meanwhile, stayed nearly naked, self-mutilating, technology-less, with no domesticated animals, no written language, no wheel, no stone buildings, no metalworking, nothing.

Virtually every other non-Black group came up with an admirable or at least interesting religion or philosophy which was recorded and taught to a priesthood. Indians had the Vedas and the Upanishads, Chinese had Confucianism, Daoism, and various sects of Buddhism. Europeans had Virgil, Horace, and Homer to write down their pagan religion, with Plato, Aristotle, and numberless other greats to record their philosophy. Even the Aztecs had a corpus of literature which was, unfortunately, burnt and destroyed by the Spanish invaders. Shintoism was developed in Japan, the epic of Gilgamesh was recorded in ancient Babylonian times, and Egypt authored the Book of the Dead. Only Black Africa (and assorted primitives in Australasia) hadnt recorded or created any official religion or philosophy. Blacks still rely on voodoo, witchcraft, black magic, and animism with no particular pantheon of Gods, no priesthood, no anything that could develop them past superstition and barbarism.

Today it is questionable what Blacks could achieve on their own, without the intervention of others giving to them all the things they could never produce or maintain themselves. Though we see Blacks walking around in business suits, speaking English, shooting guns, and making use of all sorts of non-Black generated goods and services and inventions and ideas and discoveries none of them originate from the Black man. Without the continuous intervention of charity into Black Africa, its unknown whether they could even maintain what they have, or if they would simply regress back to mud huts the moment we left. All current Black civilization is in fact transplanted non-Black civilization. There is not as yet a single Black civilization on Earth that has independently developed and maintained its own technological and philosophical way of life. No Blacks have won any Nobel prizes in the hard sciences, Fields medals, or gotten any spot on a list of human accomplishment that would represent some major scientific or technological advancement for the world.

Geography can be no excuse, because Blacks today live all across the world. Blacks in France, the UK, and the USA are given preferential treatment and access to college educations, and yet they still produce nothing. At the same time, Whites who lived in South Africa and Zimbabwe made them into decent, First World nations without a problem. There is nothing about the African continent inimical to modern life, it is simply the fact that it is populated by Blacks.

Nor can some strange combination of bad luck and being separate from other civilizations explain Black underperformance. After all, Blacks have been connected to the outside world since the 1400s. They have had centuries to modernize and improve themselves in Africa with full access to modern knowledge and technology. In contrast, it took Japan about twenty years to modernize from a feudal Samurai culture to a fully modern industrial state which then took on and defeated Russia in 1900. Blacks have had centuries in the USA to do all sorts of human activities, immersed in White culture, knowledge, and technology. Instead all they do is riot, rape, steal, sell drugs, and demand more handouts from the government. Germany recovered from WWII in just ten years, becoming yet again a prosperous, powerful, and leading-edge modern civilization. Africans meanwhile cannot recover from colonization, slavery, or discrimination after centuries. Haiti has been an all-Black, independent, free state since the Napoleonic wars, 200 years ago. Even so, its lifestyle and standard of living perfectly matches that of darkest Africa. In those 200 years it hasnt progressed an inch. In fact it has probably regressed since that time. Their neighbors in the Dominican Republic have immensely better statistics than them in all fields. Instead of a failed state, the Dominican Republic takes care of its people, has a working government, and doesnt need charity. The difference? Their population is non-Black. All of the old, tired excuses are refuted by geography and history.

The Black murder rate is nine times that of the White/Hispanic (combined!) murder rate. It is 36 times as high as the Asian murder rate. Blacks are the majority of AIDS cases and all other STDs, their STD rates are completely out of proportion to all other groups. Even homosexuals have a hard time keeping up with the Black STD rates. No ordinary healthy human has the sexual habits of the Black race. Whereas every other people on earth developed a family structure, Blacks still roam around aimlessly screwing everyone they meet and never staying to raise the child. Seventy percent of Black children in the USA are illegitimate. In Africa, women largely do all the work and raise the kids while the men commit crime or sit around chewing leaves or smoking something. Domestic violence among Blacks is atrocious. Rape is endemic. The human race does not act like this; their morals and habits are completely different.

Good things can be said of virtually every group or civilization on earth. This is unsurprising, given the fact that everyone on earth is descended from the same small tribe that left Africa 100,000 years ago. East Asians are such decent, advanced people they are comparable to Whites. Unsurprisingly, they only diverged from the White race 40,000 years ago. There is only one group nothing good can be said about, there is only one group completely unrelated to the rest of the human race, and that is the Black African. There is enough genetic variation between Blacks and non-Blacks that any objective scientist, classifying us like they would classify various animal species, would label us different species. On one side humans, on the other Blacks. There is enough phenotypic, common sense variation, that again it is an insult to categorize Blacks among the human race. They are nothing like us and they never will be; they are worse in every way. Call them orcs, or trolls, devils, or whatever you like they are not human.

* * *

Source: Lord Jim blog

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Blacks Arent Human | National Vanguard

British neo-Nazi activist

John Colin Campbell Jordan (19 June 1923 9 April 2009) was a leading figure in post-war neo-Nazism in Great Britain. In the far-right circles of the 1960s, Jordan represented the most explicitly "Nazi" inclination in his open use of the styles and symbols of Nazi Germany. Through his leadership of organisations such as the National Socialist Movement and the World Union of National Socialists, Jordan advocated a pan-Aryan "Universal Nazism". Although later unaffiliated with any political party, Jordan remained an influential voice on the British far right.

The son of a lecturer, Percy Jordan, and a teacher, Bertha Jordan,[1] Jordan was educated at Warwick School from 1934 to 1942. During the Second World War he attempted to enlist in the Fleet Air Arm and the RAF but after failing the tests for both he enlisted in the Royal Army Educational Corps.[2] After being demobilised in 1946 he studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating in 1949 with second class honours in history.[3][4] The same year he became a teacher at Stoke Secondary Modern Boys School, Coventry,[4] where he taught mathematics. In 1953 he received his M.A. He joined the League of Empire Loyalists and became its Midlands organiser.[5]

At Cambridge Jordan formed a Nationalist Club,[6] from which he was invited to join the short-lived British People's Party, a group of former British Union of Fascists members led by Lord Tavistock, heir to the Duke of Bedford.[7] After the Second World War Jordan joined the British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, a pro-fascist group led by Sir Oswald Mosley's secretary, Jeffrey Hamm,[8] but Jordan soon became associated with Arnold Leese and was left a house in Leese's will. This became the Notting Hill[6] base of operations when Jordan launched the White Defence League in 1956.[9] Jordan later merged this party with the National Labour Party to form the British National Party in 1960,[10] although he split from it after a quarrel with John Bean, who was opposed to Jordan's advocacy of National Socialism.

In 1962, Jordan founded the National Socialist Movement (renamed the British Movement in 1968) with John Tyndall as its leader. A meeting in Trafalgar Square on 2 July 1962[11] of supporters was disrupted by opponents whom Jordan described as being "Jews and Communists",[12] leading to a riot. He was dismissed by the board of governors of the Coventry school where he taught[6] in August 1962 after a period of suspension[13] that had begun after the events in Trafalgar Square.[11]

In August 1962 Jordan hosted an international conference of Nazis at Guiting Power in Gloucestershire, which resulted in the formation of the World Union of National Socialists. Jordan was the commander of its European section throughout the 1960s and was also elected "World Fhrer" with George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, as his deputy.[14] On 16 August Jordan and Tyndall, together with Martin Webster, Denis Pirie and Roland Kerr-Ritchie, were charged under the Public Order Act 1936 with attempting to set up a paramilitary force[15] called the Spearhead, which was modelled on the SA of Nazi Germany. Undercover police observed Jordan leading the group in military manoeuvres.[16] He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment in October 1962.[6][17]

On 5 October 1963, while John Tyndall was still in prison, Jordan, who had just been released, married Tyndall's fiance, Franoise Dior, the former wife of a French nobleman and the niece of the French fashion designer Christian Dior. This hasty marriage was ostensibly to prevent her deportation as an undesirable alien. When Tyndall was eventually released the marriage caused friction and he split with Jordan in 1964 to form the Greater Britain Movement. Jordan's marriage to Dior proved short-lived though, and she announced the couple's separation in January 1964. She claimed that Jordan had become "bourgeois".[18]

During the Leyton by-election of 1965 Jordan led a group of about 100 fascist demonstrators at a public Labour Party meeting, and after taking to the stage to berate the audience he was punched by Denis Healey, the then Secretary of State for Defence.[19] The fracas came about because the far right was using the by-election to stir up interracial hatred in order to defeat the Labour candidate (and Foreign Secretary) Patrick Gordon-Walker. He had previously been defeated in the 1964 general election in the Smethwick constituency after racist campaigning tactics[20] were employed by Colin Jordan and his followers.[21] Specifically, Jordan claimed that his group produced the much publicised "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour" slogan and launched the campaign to circulate the posters and stickers which the slogan was written on; in the past Jordan's group had also written and circulated other campaign slogans, such as: "Don't vote a vote for Tory, Labour or Liberal is a vote for more Blacks!".[22] The successful Conservative candidate was Peter Griffiths, who did little to condemn the campaign. On 25 January 1967, Jordan was sentenced to eighteen months in prison at Devon Assizes in Exeter for breaking the Race Relations Act 1965 by circulating material that was likely to cause racial hatred.[23] At the same time, Jordan was prosecuted and convicted under the Public Order Act 1936 for distributing a leaflet titled "The Coloured Invasion", "a vituperative attack on black and Asian people".[6][23]

In September 1972, Jordan was fined for disorderly behaviour at Heathrow Airport when, after protesting against the arrival of Ugandan Asians into Britain, he addressed airport staff through a loudspeaker, urging them to strike in protest against mass immigration from Uganda.[24][verification needed]

Jordan reorganised the National Socialist Movement as the British Movement in 1968, but in 1974 he was obliged to step down from its leadership in favour of Michael McLaughlin. His demise was further accelerated by his arrest and subsequent conviction for shoplifting three pairs of women's red knickers from Tesco's Leamington Spa[19] branch in June 1975. Magistrates fined him 50 for the offence.[3][25]

While leader of the British Movement, Jordan stood for parliament on three occasions: in the 1969 Birmingham Ladywood by-election (282 votes, 3.0%); Birmingham Aston in the 1970 general election (704 votes, 2.5%) and Wolverhampton North East in the February 1974 general election (711 votes, 1.5%).[26]

Jordan maintained ties to groups led by Eddy Morrison and Kevin Watmough, such as the White Nationalist Party and the British People's Party as well as the American National Socialist Workers Party. In 2000, he expressed scepticism over the efforts of the British National Party to soften its hard right stance.[27]

In the 1980s, Jordan revived Gothic Ripples, originally Leese's publication, as his personal political project.[28] He once declared that there was "no reliable evidence whatsoever" that six million Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust.[25] In 1989, he stated his belief that Jesus was "counterfeit" and Adolf Hitler was the real "messiah" and "saviour", whose eventual "resurrection" would make him "the spiritual conqueror of the future".[25] Democracy, he thought, was really a form of dictatorship because it prevented the defence of the Aryan people.[29]

Jordan was back in court in 2001, after being charged with publishing racist literature, but the judge ruled that his serious heart condition made him unfit to stand trial.[25] Jordan dedicated his 2004 book The Uprising to the jailed white supremacists Richard Scutari and David Lane.[30]

Jordan and Julianne Safrany became life partners at some point after his divorce from Dior.[3] The two were still together when Jordan died at his Pateley Bridge home on 9 April 2009.[3][25]

Jordan features in the 2014 historical novel Ridley Road by Jo Bloom.[31] In its 2021 BBC television adaptation, he is portrayed by Rory Kinnear.[32]

Continue reading here:

Colin Jordan - Wikipedia

Early this week, Elon Musk rose to a challenge posed by the World Food Programmes Director, David Beasley to donate 2 percent of his wealth to solve the global hunger crisis. He tweeted:

Mr. Beasley backtracked, saying hed fly anywhere to meet Mr. Musk and that millions of lives could be improved with the money.

The exchange generated over 330,000 likes and tens of thousands of comments on social media. While seemingly only semi-serious, it reveals important features of todays world.

Until recently, even the wealthiest individuals did not have enough money to make a material dent in global problems, let alone solve them. Compared to the size of national economies, or the budgets of the governments of national economies, their wealth appeared small.

This is no longer the case. There are 2,755 billionaires in the world today, with an estimated wealth of $13.2 trillion. Even just 1 percent of this wealth (equivalent to a tax rate of 15-20 percent on the accrued income that billionaires have received with returns of 5-7 percent per year) would yield a flow of $130 billion per year. This can be compared with annual official aid (net ODA) of roughly $160 billion from all countries and multilateral institutions combined. Looking for contributions from billionaires has moved from a nice-to-have niche improvement to becoming part of the conversation on financing to solve large-scale global issues.

There are 2,755 billionaires in the world today, with an estimated wealth of $13.2 trillion. Even just 1 percent of this wealth would yield a flow of $130 billion per year.

What could be done with $130 billion each year?

Figure 1 below provides some estimates of the cost of solving selected global problems. For example, updating previous work, I estimate that $95 billion would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty for all the 708 million people in the world living below the international threshold of $1.90 per person per day. Yes, a 1 percent contribution from the worlds billionaires would provide more than enough resources to end extreme poverty today.

Other major global issues have less precise costing estimates but paint a similar picture. The issue of solving world hunger has a range of estimates, partly because solving hunger is not simply about having enough food, but about having consistent access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food, often in conflict-prone, or climate change-affected areas. Preferably, the food should also be grown in a sustainable way and the food system changes required depend on simultaneous system changes in health, energy, and transport. The U.N.s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) nevertheless estimates that annual investments of $39 billion to $50 billion would be required to achieve a world without hunger by 2030. This includes both the 800 million people suffering from acute food insecurity, as well as the 1.5 billion additional people suffering from moderate food insecurity.

According to the Ecological Threat Register, 1 billion people live in countries that do not have the resilience to deal with the ecological threats they face. The Nature Conservancy and others estimate the funding gap to preserve nature and biodiversity to be about $600 billion per year. But they note that $500 billion of this could be found by redirecting subsidies for agriculture, forestry, and fisheries that harm biodiversity, leaving an unfunded gap of $100 billion in incremental money to be raised.

In reviewing the financing requirements for developing countries, ex-China, to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic along a low-carbon economic growth trajectory, I estimate additional aid needs of about $96 billion by 2025. This would dramatically help the 1.2 billion people living in 48 V-20 countries (those most vulnerable to climate change).

Figure 1 provides a summary. Each issue costs less than 1 percent of the wealth of the worlds billionaires, and each would have an impact on hundreds of millions, in some cases, billions, of people.

Mr. Musk, by himself, may not be able to solve these problems, but the collective of the worlds billionaires now have sufficient wealth that even if they contribute less than 1 percent of their wealth each year, they could mobilize the requisite level of funding. This raises the question as to what the responsibilities of billionaires are, in terms of contributing back to strengthen the system that has enabled them to become so wealthy, either voluntarily funding solutions of their choosing or by paying more in taxes.

The comparisons here are simply to point out that the issues of inequality in global wealth and the issues of sustainable development and basic living standards for billions of the worlds poorest people have become inextricably intertwined with each other. For the first time in history, a small group of private individuals could, if they so choose, materially impact global development at a scale that has previously been the near exclusive domain of governments.

Private philanthropy has a long history and is codified in several religious textsthe concept of zakat for Muslims and tithes for Christians and Jews. It encompasses charity but goes beyond, often seeking to achieve systemic change in society. Plato funded an Academy 2,500 years ago to ensure that Athens would remain a center for intellectual discussions. In a similar vein, Andrew Carnegies libraries have been an important element of social change in America.

A number of large foundations have looked beyond the shores of their own countries to help change other societies. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private donor reporting to the OECD aid statistics database, with annual net disbursements surpassing $3.5 billion. Their experience shows that it is possibleindeed desirablefor large philanthropists to partner with official development agencies to tackle large global problems.

Equally, the Bill& Melinda Gates Foundation experience shows that successful approaches must be institutionalized. Effective and impactful funding requires an organizational structure to govern the flow of funds, and this takes time to create. Mr. Musks willingness to sell Tesla stock to fund a good cause is welcome, but if he wishes to engage in solving truly large and deep problems such as global hunger, he would need to build or support an organization that could sustain financing over many years.

This brings us back to the Twitter exchange between Messrs. Beasley and Musk. Mr. Musk has usefully changed the conversation from whether one should or could address global hunger to a debate on how to do thisdescribe exactly how to use his words. This is a big step forward. No one before, government or individual, has ever said show me how and I will get it done. As a consequence, huge energy gets devoted to trying to persuade donors to take on this or that issue, rather than focusing on what would be most impactful.

With their unprecedented levels of wealth, Mr. Musk and his fellow billionaires can now truly seek to eradicate global poverty, end global hunger, stop species extinction, and put developing countries onto a low-carbon, inclusive growth trajectory. Im also ready to get on a plane (using my own personal funds) to talk to him about what can be done at his convenience. But if the billionaires do not act, I will also be in the vanguard of those advocating for a tax on them, with proceeds earmarked towards improving the lives of the poorest on this planet.

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Elon Musk, billionaires, and the United Nations: The 1% solution to global development - Brookings Institution

In a joint statement led by National Parks UK, as the host nation for this year's United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 26, signatories acknowledge that no single site or organization can address the global crisis of climate change nor the exacerbating impact of climate change on biodiversity loss. However, as a family of protected and conserved areas distributed all around the World, and focusing on collaboration and global ambitions for rapid and far-reaching actions to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, our global network aspires to be the "first 30 per cent" that inspires nature-based solutions and informs land and sea use choices across the planet the places where billions of people connect with nature and become inspired to play an active part in combatting the dual crises.

Parks Canada administers one of the finest and most extensive systems of natural and cultural heritage places in the world, which are a source of shared pride for all Canadians. Ron Hallman, President & CEO of Parks Canada Agency, signed the Statement virtually today, as part of the COP26 Youth Day events.

Quotes

"Parks Canada is the oldest national parks service in the world and we are proud to protect some of Canada's, and the world's, most important natural treasures, both for their intrinsic beauty and for the rich ecological services that they provide. For us, it is crucial to join our voices with major organizations from all around the globe, and recognize that we all have a role to play in this fight against two of the greatest challenges of our time: climate change and biodiversity loss. Parks and protected areas in Canada offer an important nature-based solution to climate change, as healthy ecosystems help nature and people adapt to climate change. Parks Canada works with Indigenous communities across the country as partners in conserving our nation's natural and cultural heritage and sharing the stories of these treasured places with all Canadians and the world. United for nature, we will all go further."

Ron HallmanPresident & CEO, Parks Canada Agency

"In the fight against biodiversity loss and climate emergency, if we fail here, we will fail everywhere. We're star players, don't leave us on the bench. Climate change is not confined within national borders, and I believe this unique agreement can help spread innovation and good practice to our collective benefit. In turn we can show the way for countries, landowners and individuals across the world inspiring them to put nature and nature-based solutions at the heart of their thinking and their economic and life choices."

James StuartConvener of Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park and architect of the statement, United Kingdom

"We are no longer at a point where we can have world leaders ignore the climate and biodiversity crises. We must act now. And we, as protected areas, have a duty of care to be the catalyst that sparks change. We know what we're fighting for, so let's fight."

Catriona Manders Youth Committee & Junior Ranger, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, United Kingdom

"Protected and Conserved areas are criticallyimportant solutions in combatting the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss simultaneously. Increasinginvestment in these areas can not only help safeguard biodiversity in both the terrestrial and marine realms, but also help secure their role as important carbon sinks helping humansocieties cope with climate change impacts by reducing risks associated with climate-related hazards."

Madhu RaoChair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature/World Commission on Protected Areas

Quick Facts

Related Documents

Protected and Conserved Areas Joint Statement on Climate Change and Biodiversity Crises

Related Links

SOURCE Parks Canada

For further information: Joanna Sivasankaran, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 819-790-1907, [emailprotected]; Media Relations, Parks Canada Agency, 855-862-1812, [emailprotected]

http://www.pc.gc.ca

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Parks Canada and Protected and Conserved Areas Around the World Sign First Ever Joint Statement on Climate Change and Biodiversity - Canada NewsWire

White supremacist political organization in the USA

Political party in the United States

The National Alliance is a white supremacist[3][4][5][6] and neo-Nazi[3] political organization founded by William Luther Pierce in 1974 and based in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Membership in 2002 was estimated at 2,500 with an annual income of $1 million.[7] Membership declined after Pierce's death in 2002 and after a split in its ranks in 2005 the group was barely functioning.[3]

The National Alliance was reorganized from an earlier group called the National Youth Alliance (NYA), which in turn was formed out of the remains of the youth wing of Governor George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign. The NYA broke into factions as a result of infighting, and William Luther Pierce, a former physics associate-professor and author of the white supremacist novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter, gained control of the largest remnant and relaunched it as the National Alliance in 1974.[8] Following Pierce's death from cancer in 2002, the Alliance's board of directors appointed Erich Gliebe to succeed him as chairman of the organization.[9] A series of power struggles began almost immediately, with high-ranking members either resigning or being fired. A boycott of the National Alliance's Resistance Records label resulted in a steep drop-off in generated funds.[10]

In April 2005, prominent Alliance member Kevin Alfred Strom, then editor of National Vanguard magazine, issued a declaration calling for Gliebe to step down;[11] the Alliance's executive committee and most of its unit coordinators supported the action. Gliebe refused, claiming that the Alliance operated under the "Leadership Principle" and stating that he would not yield to any coup. Strom formed a new group called National Vanguard.[12] In January 2008, Strom pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography in exchange for the other charges to be dropped.[13][14][15] He was sentenced to 23 months in prison on April 23, 2008.[14][16][15] Strom told the court before being sentenced that he was "not a pedophile" and was "in fact the precise opposite of what has been characterized in this case,"[14] saying he had been "unwillingly" possessing 10 images of child pornography and that those came from an online forum he had visited which had been "flooded with spam," which included "sleazy, tragic" pictures of children that he deleted. The judge of the case responded: "Mr. Strom, you pled guilty to charges that now you're saying you're innocent. I prefer people plead not guilty than put it on me."[16]

Shortly after the attempted coup by Strom, Gliebe resigned as chairman of the Alliance and briefly appointed Shaun Walker as his successor. However, following Walker's arrest in June 2006, Gliebe again assumed leadership of the organization.[17][18] By that year, paid membership for the Alliance had declined to fewer than 800 and the paid staff was down to only ten people.[19] By 2012, the Alliance reportedly consisted of fewer than 100 members, with no paid staff other than Gliebe.[20][21] The following year, it was revealed that the Alliance's property in Mill Point, West Virginia had been put up for sale. The end of the National Alliance as a "membership organization" was confirmed by Gliebe in September 2013.[22] Thomas Mair, later to be convicted of murdering the British Labour Party politician Jo Cox, was connected to the National Alliance.[23]

In 2014, Will Williams became head of an organization calling itself the National Alliance (NA).[24] However, a rival faction disputes whether this group maintains continuity with the original Alliance founded by Pierce.[25] The Williams led NA has since been embroiled in several legal issues.

In 2015, an accountant was hired by Williams to audit the NA's books. According to a lawsuit filed by a former Baltimore attorney against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), there was a confrontation between the accountant and Williams. The lawsuit further claims that after the accountant left the NA headquarters he released documents that he had scanned to the SPLC.[26]

In December 2015, Williams was arrested and charged with battery after allegedly hitting and strangling a female employee on the grounds of the Mill Point compound.[27] He was convicted, briefly incarcerated, and placed on probation. He appealed the sentence and the appellate court affirmed the conviction.[28]

Williams was banned from the NA compound in West Virginia pursuant to a court order stemming from his 2015 arrest.[29] Williams claims that the National Alliance (is) back. We are definitely back.[30] He also said in a letter to a newspaper sent from Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee (allegedly the NA's headquarters) that "(The National Alliance does) not appreciate being called haters or being associated with some hate movement.[31]

Before the death of Pierce, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the National Alliance the best-financed and best-organized white nationalist organization of its kind in the United States. Membership in 2002 was estimated at 2,500 with an annual income of $1 million.[7]

In 2004, Harry Robert McCorkill of New Brunswick, Canada, attempted to will his entire estate (valued at almost $250,000) to the National Alliance upon his death. However, in 2014, the Court of Queen's Bench of New Brunswick invalidated the will on the grounds that the National Alliance was a criminal organization made for the purpose of spreading hate speech and inciting violence against non-whites.[32]

In the past, the organization ran a white power record label called Resistance Records. It released the video game Ethnic Cleansing in 2002, which received criticism from the Anti-Defamation League. As of early 2019, its website is offline.

The organization also once had a radio program, American Dissident Voices, which was heard on shortwave, AM and FM stations, and streaming audio on the Internet. At one point in the mid-1990s there were 22 radio stations, AM and FM, which carried the program. The original host was Kevin Alfred Strom, who continued until early 1997 when Pierce took it over full-time. Upon the death of Pierce in July 2002 it again was hosted until April 16, 2005 by Strom. Walker then became the voice for American Dissident Voices until his arrest in June 2006. At that time, Gliebe became the voice of the radio program. Broadcasts continued until 2012, when the frequency became erratic. At some time in 2013, Gliebe ceased broadcasting altogether, but programming was resumed by Kevin Alfred Strom in December of that year.

Citizens' Council FBI files obtained through the FOIA and hosted at the Internet Archive

Articles and topics related to Holocaust denial

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National Alliance (United States) - Wikipedia

ABOVE: First Community Mortgage Chief Risk Officer Samantha Meyer

First Community Mortgage Chief Risk OfficerSamantha Meyeris one of 50 national honorees in HousingWires Seventh Annual Vanguard Awards, which recognize executives in the housing economy for outstanding leadership.HousingWire is a leading daily newsletter for the U.S. mortgage and housing markets.

Meyeris an active member of the Mortgage Bankers Association and is very involved in community and church activities. She is based in the organizations corporate office and resides in Murfreesboro.

Samantha is an expert in her field, with vast knowledge of every facet of mortgage lending an unheard-of proposition given complicated lending requirements and regulations,saysKeith Canter, CEO of First Community Mortgage and one of the companys founders. She also is a thoughtful and nurturing leader, empowering her team members to maximize both their success and that of our customers. Managing risk and compliance for one of the largest lenders is a momentous responsibility, and Samantha is always up to the challenge. Thus, its no surprise she is the recipient of this prestigious recognition.

Vanguards are selected from among executives who have led their organizations to unparalleled success, like expanding products, services and profits in the past twelve months. The 50 honorees were chosen for their vital contributions to their companies and the dynamic way they are changing the industry.

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Continued...

We are proud to recognize the 2021 Vanguard winners, who represent the industry's most impressive leaders, saysHousingWireEditor and ChiefSarah Wheeler. They are leading through an incredible time for those in the housing market whether real estate, mortgage or fintech and driving one of the largest sectors of our economy.

Meyer, an FCM team member for 16 years, has managed nearly every operational department in the company. She became the first female on the Board of Directors for First Community Mortgage (2019) and has served as Vice President of FCM Cares (foundation) since its inception in 2016. Canter notes that, during the pandemic, Meyer did not skip a beat and provided ways to ensure her department had everything it needed to run smoothly, efficiently and safely. Over the last year, production nearly doubled for First Community Mortgage, yet business was as usual, with Meyer providing extra training sessions, always making herself available.

In March of 2021, FCM acquired A Mortgage Boutique, which Meyer headed up with her team from a compliance and licensing standpoint to ensure everyone was covered for Risk.

Scroll down to learn more about First Community Mortgage...

About First Community Mortgage

First Community Mortgage, Inc., which does business nationally, is a wholly owned subsidiary of First Community Bank of Tennessee, and includes Wholesale, Correspondent and Retail divisions. FCM is a FNMA, FHLMC, and GNMA seller/servicer and offers mortgage solutions to consumers and financial institutions. FCM funded over $3.5 billion in home loans in 2020. It was recently named one of the Best Places to Work 2021 by theNashville Business Journaland one of the Top Work Places 2021 by theTennesseannewspaper. First Community Mortgage is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS ID 629700.

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BANKING: Murfreesboro Resident Named One of 50 National ...

By now the serious harm to student learning caused by the pandemic may seem like old news. From Texas and Ohio to Tennessee, state test scores have dropped substantially for all students, however, those declines were uneven. The pandemic caused widespread drops in both reading and math, with much larger declines in math, which hit historically disadvantaged students the hardest. As schools set to the unenviable task of making up this lost ground, newly released national test results give reason to carefully consider how, particularly for math, they might best do so.

Since the 1970s, the NAEP Long-TermTrend Assessment (LTT) has tracked student academic performance, and it waslast administered just before thepandemic. Those pre-pandemic results can be compared to the last LTT resultsfrom 2012. They show disquieting trends for the nations nine- and 13-year-olds:declines in both reading and math, with larger declines in math, driven mostly bylow-performing students. Sound familiar?

Math scores declined for both nine- and 13-year-olds at the 10th and 25th percentiles with 13-year-olds at the 10th percentile falling a whopping third of a standard deviation. Meanwhile, high-performing students saw no significant change. With the bottom falling and the top remaining afloat, the achievement gap is growing. And that was before the pandemic.

So, what fueled this widening math achievementgap? Theres no clear single cause; however, one contributing factor could bethe marked shift towards conceptual math instruction that emerged around 2010.This shift stemmed from concerns that math instruction focused too much on fluency learning how to solve problems and not enough on conceptual understanding learning why particular techniques and formulas lead to solutions.

Tom Loveless, formerly at the Brookings Institution, pointed to this shift in light of the LTT results: To me, it suggests that beginning a decade or so ago, something went wrong with how we teach math to younger students. My own hypothesis is that an emphasis on conceptual understanding has gone too far, that without computational skills to anchor math concepts, students get lost. Similar concerns have been voiced outside the LTT context.

Now, before I get too far ahead ofmyself or push Loveless past his hypothesis, its important to not uniformlyascribe drops in math to this single instructional trend. Conceptualunderstanding and fluency are both important parts of math education, and itcould be that the shift to conceptual math instruction was not a problem, orwas just one of several factors. However, if the shift toward conceptual mathleft fluency behind, then Loveless theory fits these results.

Moreover, its no great leap to see howsuch a shift would hit low-performers the hardest. An over-emphasis onconceptual understanding would hurt low-performers progress if fluency is aprerequisite, or perhaps more accurately, an anchor, for developing andarticulating conceptual math understanding. Such challenges could be negligiblefor students maintaining grade-level performance math, but problematic for low-performers.

I am reticent to jump to conclusionsregarding this instructional shift, but this potential explanation is worthattention right now for three reasons. First, this explanation fits with the low-performersscoring trajectory, while few others match the timing and subject matter of themajor LTT declines. Second, this balance is well within educators control,which may be a welcome relief to teachers and schools often held responsiblefor forces outside their control. Third,and most importantly, if an inordinate focus on conceptual math is hurting lowperforming students, educators need to adjust now, not because of what the lastLTT showed us, but because of what the nextround will show.

Typically scheduled every four years, the LTT for nine-year-olds was wisely moved up to capture the pandemics impacts on student learning. This is a great decision but, frankly, we already know what it will show: remarkably larger declines, just like those seen on last years state assessments.

Nearly all students took a hit during the pandemic, meaning schools have far more low-performing students than a few years ago. Math educators need to take a clear-eyed and pragmatic view on what it will take to get those students back on track, and that may mean shifting the instructional mix to privilege fluency over conceptual math instruction. This may be an unpopular view, especially among the vanguard of math education cognoscenti that pushed for more conceptual math instruction, but it will be a tragedy if math instruction does not strike the right balance for low-performers especially now when schools have more of them to serve.

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Is the over-emphasis on conceptual math showing up in national test scores? - American Enterprise Institute

In November, at the COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference, the U.S. will join the community of nations keeping alive the promise to meet the agreed target to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels. The Biden administration will continue to work to reestablish U.S. leadership and increase global commitments for tackling climate change amid lingering skepticism from other countries. Its strategy for achieving its own ambitious target goes beyond a narrow focus on mitigation to include other important dimensions such as quality jobs, public health, and environmental justice. This offers an opportunity to leverage the areas of intersection and synergy between the U.S. climate agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to advance U.S. climate ambitions, both at home and abroad.

President Biden has made climate change a key priority of his administration. He reversed President Trumps withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Climate Accords on his first day in office, and hosted a global summit in April where he outlined a new, ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the U.S.a 50-52 percent reduction from 2005 levels of economywide net greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.

At the U.N.-sanctioned COP, nations come together as peers to present both individual and collective climate commitments and progress toward their targets. This year, advocates and markets will be closely watching areas such as the phasing out of coal, commitments regarding hard-to-abate industries such as cement and aviation, and increased financing. While President Biden hosted some of the largest countries at the April 2021 Summit, for the wider global community, U.S. participation in COP26 constitutes an important next step in its reentry to the fold.

The Biden administration has already built a formidable team and rolled out ambitious plans, led by first-ever White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy to advance its priorities at home and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry to rally the international community. The COP presents a major opportunity for the U.S. to reassert its leadership on the global stage. The administration will be eager to raise the collective global ambition, and it is likely to build on its April commitments with new initiatives. It may even roll out a climate action plan that demonstrates how the U.S. will meet its new domestic target.

Notwithstanding these ambitions, the U.S. is still working to rebuild credibility and trust on these issues. The administration will face skepticism about both its ability to advance its plans at home and the extent to which the U.S. will remain dependable beyond its term in office.

The administrations climate change agenda is also a core pillar of the presidents comprehensive Build Back Better plan. This policy agenda also seeks to respond to the inequalities unveiled during the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial reckoning unleashed by the murder of George Floyd. Informed by these objectives, its strategy to reach the newly ambitious target reflects an integrated approach, one that accelerates mitigation of greenhouse gases to achieve the 50 percent reduction by 2030 while also spurring an economic transformation that results in a fairer, healthier, and more just economy.

President Bidens Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (EO 14008) clearly lays out this integrated approach. Published just a week after taking office, it establishes a governmentwide National Climate Task Force comprised of Cabinet secretaries, with a mandate to facilitate planning and implementation of key Federal actions to reduce climate pollution; increase resilience to the impacts of climate change; protect public health; conserve our lands, waters, oceans, and biodiversity; deliver environmental justice; and spur well-paying union jobs and economic growth.

Such an integrated strategy mirrors the interdependent objectives reflected in the SDGs, to which the U.S. and all other U.N. member states agreed in 2015. A central component of the SDGs is that they are universal, meaning they apply domestically to all countries regardless of income level.

While the Biden administration has taken some steps to position its international development investments through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) within the context of the SDGs, it has not yet signaled an embrace of the SDGs related to its domestic agenda. Yet the harmony between the U.S. climate plan and the SDGs provides the administration with an additional entry point to rebuild U.S. credibility and generate additional political momentum for its ambitious and comprehensive climate agenda at COP26.

Similar to the administrations climate agenda, the SDGs provide a ready-made framework that connects the dots between health, jobs, resilience, and justice. It also importantly helps to set targets for assessing progress and ensuring accountability. Action on climate change has its own goal (SDG 13) and, amid todays changing environment, stands as an essential requirement for successful sustainable development. This framework for accountability is already recognized and being used around the world, including in specific cities and sectors in the United States.

Given that the SDGs represent a collective global effort, with an imperative for every country to make progress on human, economic, and environmental targets simultaneously, drawing connections between the U.S. climate plan and the SDGs could provide another concrete example of the administrations seriousness about reentering and respecting multilateral alliancesand stake out a potential leadership position with humility, as it acknowledges the progress necessary within our own borders.

A key emphasis of the SDGs is to leave no one behind, ensuring that governments focus their policy attention on those who have been most marginalized or are most vulnerable. The presidents executive order quickly establishes this as a clear priority for its proposed actions on climate change.

Economic opportunities and new jobs (SDG 8) stemming from a sustainable economy and the economic recovery must benefit left-behind communitiesplaces that have suffered as a result of economic shifts and places that have suffered the most from persistent pollution, including low-income rural and urban communities, communities of color, and Native communities. It also calls for greater job opportunities for women (SDG 5). This commitment is reinforced by multiple Build Back Better proposals under negotiation in the budget reconciliation process.

The executive order also strongly emphasizes the importance of advancing environmental justice. It establishes a White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council (WHEJAC) and calls for the creation of an environmental justice scorecard for federal agencies and initiatives. Its mandate of an Office of Climate Change and Health Equity and an interagency working group focused on reducing the risk of climate to vulnerable groups further advances this priority.

At the center of this effort, the Justice40 Initiative aims to ensure that 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy flow to disadvantaged communities. It also calls for a new Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool to provide further guidance to federal departments and agencies.

These actions directly link to SDG targets related to public health, clean air, clean water, access to green space, gender equity, racial equity, and reductions in inequality. Presumably, both a scorecard and screening tool for environmental justice will depend upon disaggregation of demographic and geographic data, replicating the type of targets, indicators, and evidence base inherent in the SDGs. For example, Justice40 directly reflects the spirit of SDG target 10.1, which calls for progressively achieving sustained income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.

The transition toward a sustainable economy will involve upgrading infrastructure, investing in clean energy, and supporting bold U.S. leadership on innovation while uplifting impacted mining and power plant communities. These objectives tie to targets under SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure), including target 9.4 (upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable). The Investment in Coal and Power Plant Communities plan aims to support small, medium, and rural manufacturers in the transition, to increase access to capital for domestic manufacturers, to guarantee union and bargaining rights for public service workers (PRO Act), and to ensure domestic workers receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve.

The administration seeks to produce clean and affordable energy that generates opportunities for job creation. The Initiative for Better Energy, Emissions, and Equity (E3) includes $30 million investment in the American workforce through technical assistance and funding awards by the Department of Energy (DOE), with the aim to save $750 per year in energy bills for nearly 12 million American households, and create nearly 700,000 quality jobs in every region in the country through the Clean Energy Accelerator. By aiming at energy efficiency and universal affordable access to clean, efficient energy, the initiative could be measured through the indicators of SDG 7 (Affordable & Clean Energy), including targets 7.1 (ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services) and 7.2 (increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix).

The Biden administration would not be starting from a blank slate in more intentionally fusing the SDG and climate agendas domestically. Many U.S. cities, states, and corporations are already in the vanguard of combining climate action and the SDGs. City governments across the U.S. have begun to use the SDGs as an evidence-based framework for measuring progress and fostering policy coherence among different offices and levels of governance. They also embrace the SDGs as a valuable policy framework that is helping to mobilize progress on climate goals, integrating those ambitions with critical targets on inclusion, equity, and sustainability. Cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Pittsburgh, and Phoenixleaders in the climate and environmental agendahave pioneered approaches to adapting the SDGs to their local realities.

Over the past five years, U.S. local leadership has also had a decidedly global flavor. Through city-to-city cooperation, networks, and policy exchanges globally, U.S. cities and states are pushing ambition and policy among their counterparts across the world. They have established their leadership in networks such as C40 Cities (chaired last year by Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles), ICLEI, the U.S. Climate Alliance, the Urban 20 (an affiliate of the G-20), the Local2030 Islands Network, and the Brookings SDG Leadership Cities network.

This activity helped maintain U.S. global leadership and cooperation during a notable federal absence. While the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, U.S. stakeholders remained committed, and many of them have become global examples of combined action on climate and sustainable development.

Hawaii helps host a Local 2030 Hub, providing leadership, facilitating peer exchange, and offering technical assistance with a network of small island developing states in the Pacific. New York City launched the first-ever Voluntary Local Review (VLR), an innovative report on local SDG progress that has emerged as a global movement, one so widespread that it was recognized by United Nations member states this year in the Ministerial Declaration of the High-Level Political Forum for the first time. Los Angeles initiated a local Green New Deal and committed to 100 percent renewables on its grid by 2025 while launching a network of cities dedicated to advancing gender equity. The Biden administration can benefit from the experience of these leaders in integrating the two agendas and leverage the stature that many have earned globally.

Stronger communication and interactions between the local and federal levels will also benefit the implementation of the administrations domestic priorities. The effort to achieve 50 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2030 will necessitate a shared vision, alignment, and support among local, state, and national actors, as many of the policies and goals designed at the federal level will rely upon execution by local leaders. From land use decisions to infrastructure and shifts in policies and investments, execution to reach emission targets has a decidedly local flavor. The SDGs provide the platform that can enable local leaders to take on climate while meeting other concerns of their constituents, and provide a common language for local governments to cooperate with the national government as well as coordinate across the vast array of local jurisdictions.

To be successful domestically, the federal government will need to scale up local success and facilitate transfers of knowledge to lower the costs of a fair and equitable energy transition. Building holistic sustainable development plans locally requires practices such as decarbonization, energy transition, geo-explicit approaches, and data monitoring, which require staff, skills, and resources. Federal leadership could help scale up local action and successes by lowering the transaction costs of that exercise, using the SDGs as a universal toolbox so it doesnt have to be done from scratch.

There are several recommendations that the Biden-Harris administration could embrace in both the short and long term:

This could be done by including local leaders at planned events and forthcoming announcements and partnerships, and even including them on the official United States delegation. Ensuring partnership and regular, open communication between these stakeholders and the U.S. government delegation during the COP proceedings can help jointly reinforce mutually beneficial agendas. Finding ways at COP26 to lift up U.S. local leadership could be a powerful motivator for building additional global partnerships and ambition, and this approach has the added benefit of showcasing U.S. actions that are not beholden to current Congressional budget negotiations or the politics of federal elections. Another opportunity is showcasing the existing and multistakeholder political leadership and innovations already taking place at the local level, through mayors, governors, corporate leaders, and universities. It would demonstrate the global leadership of all segments of American societyafter all, it is not just nation-states that will solve climate change.

Doing so would draw attention in the global community and is likely to be perceived as a signal of support for global cooperation that could enable increased international momentum for the U.S. climate agenda. It would also help integrate the interagency process domestically. The National Security Council (NSC) can take advantage of the interagency processes, particularly on Build Back Better, COP26, and climate finance, as an opportunity for using the SDGs to describe how U.S. climate commitments can lead to better economic and social outcomes. This would provide a powerful narrative to bolster its international leadership and engagements at COP26, pushing to accelerate the economic and other transitions needed to reach the targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, especially as many governments are grappling with making progress on climate change at the same time as achieving an equitable economic recovery from COVID-19.

Identifying specific pilot initiatives that advance climate action and the SDGs, including around measurements of equity and prosperity, would send an important signal that the Biden administration is committed to supporting action-oriented efforts in local communities. As Justice40 develops its approach, tools, and scorecards, it could act as a pilot by mapping to key SDG targets and disaggregating data by racial and other demographics to develop the evidence base and measure progress on justice and equity considerations. This initiative so clearly combines social and economic considerations with the administrations climate ambitions, it provides a ready-made opportunity to explore and exploit the intersections between the two agendas. The increased accountability through the use of SDG data and targets would also provide additional basis for building trust with communities skeptical of these commitments, and could help institutionalize climate justice efforts beyond election cycles. It could also create a through-line for upcoming events on the political calendar that are priorities for the Biden Administration, moving from COP26 to the Summit for Democracy, for example.

Creating more regular and sustained policy channels among local, state, and national leaders would enable efficient local execution on the policy ambitions set forward by the U.S. national strategy and help identify best practices and innovations. Given the priority that local leaders are already giving to social and economic considerations, an alignment between climate action and the SDGs would be welcomed at the local level. This would also pay dividends in better connecting influential local leadership to diplomacy being done in global networks. Several coalitions could be leveraged, such as the U.S. Climate Alliance and WWFs America is All In.

This offers additional reinforcement to the administrations drive to build credibility and momentum for its global climate leadership. The United States is the only G-7 and G-20 country not to have submitted a VNR (nearly 170 countries have presented VNRs since 2016). A U.S. commitment to a VNR could create global momentum and attention that will add to its new commitments on climate action, connect its domestic action to its global leadership and investments, and provide another entry point for U.S. reengagement in the global multilateral community. Undertaking a VNR would also offer a unified, measurable vision that connects to the global development priorities that the U.S. government invests in and implements internationally through USAID, MCC, DFC, and the State Department.

The above ideas and recommendations would send important signals to domestic and foreign policy audiences that the Biden administration is committed to and is implementing policies and practices that ensure a more just, sustainable, and equitable recovery from the pandemic. Since the administration has not yet signaled its approach to the SDGs domestically, these ideas could also provide momentum for what it might do on the SDG framework in the United States as well. The Office of the Climate Advisor and the National Climate Task Force ought to have a major role as the administration determines its commitment to the SDGs overall. So too should regular channels of communication, learning, and policy exchange be established among the growing cohort of diverse American leaders committed to climate action and the SDGs that cities, states, corporations and investors, philanthropy, universities, and civil society are already carrying forward.

The COVID-19 pandemic, a quickly warming planet, and the murder of George Floyd have demonstrated just how connected these issues are to one another, blurring the lines and important connections between domestic and global leadership from the U.S. The SDGs provide an important vehicle for the Biden administration to rebuild credibility at home and abroad and to implement a comprehensive climate action agenda rooted in equity and sustainability.

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Leveraging the Biden-Harris climate agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals - Brookings Institution

In recent months, there has been growing recognition for the crucial role of nurses in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, nurses contribution to addressing other infectious diseases, including 40 years at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS, are less recognized.

Nurses and midwives have been indispensable for significant progress in the fight against HIV since the onset of the epidemic in 1981, enabling advances in prevention, care, treatment, research, and advocacy for those living with HIV/AIDS. Despite progress, persistent HIV disparities, such as in the U.S. South, warrant renewed attention, including, with regard to, strengthening the role of nurses in the fight against HIV.

On October 12, the Duke University School of Nursing will present The Role of Nursing in Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Call to Action. The virtual event will highlight 40 years of indispensable contributions of nurses fighting HIV in the U.S. and globally and new directions for leveraging nurses in support of reinforced national efforts to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. The events featured speaker will be Harold Phillips, MRP, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. Through his current position, Phillips leads the process of setting the administrations domestic HIV/AIDS priorities to be reducing the number of new HIV transmissions, improving the quality of life for people living with HIV and ending the HIV epidemic.

Dr. Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, dean, Duke University School of Nursing, vice chancellor for nursing affairs, Duke University, and member of the HHS Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), will serve as host and moderator for the event in addition to presenting on the impact the HIV epidemic has had on the Latino population.

Additional expert speakers include Duke School of Nursing faculty Drs. Kara McGee, associate professor, Schenita D. Randolph, associate professor, Brandon Knettel, assistant professor, and Michael V. Relf, associate dean for global and community health affairs and associate professor. These faculty members will discuss topics such as the Schools nurse practitioner HIV specialty program; nurse-led HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) interventions designed for Black women in the southern U.S.; telehealth in HIV patient care; mental health of people living with HIV as well as the scope of practice of nurse practitioners and associated barriers to fully leveraging nurses in the fight against HIV in the U.S.

This event is commendable and demonstrates nurses pivotal role in both prevention and treatment around HIV and AIDS care, said Dr. Ernest Grant, American Nurses Association (ANA) president. Since the early 1990s, ANA has been committed to addressing nurses health and safety and calling for increased access to care for all people living with HIV and AIDS.

While there has been progress made to address the HIV and AIDS epidemic, access to care and prevention is still a challenge for many people. Nurses have been the vanguard for this public health crisis and must continue to be engaged in emerging national strategies and goals for HIV and AIDS care.

More about PhillipsIn his current position, Phillips develops and oversees the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), consults with the Office of Management and Budget, and coordinates with others on the Domestic Policy Council, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator to ensure Americas response to the HIV epidemic is accelerated, comprehensive and reflective of the lived experiences of those at risk of and living with HIV.

Prior to joining the White House, Phillips served as the chief operating officer for the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, and held positions at the Health Resources and Services Administrations HIV/AIDS Bureau.

He has worked for the North Carolina Department of Health, Environment and National Resources, helping establish the States Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS Program (HOPWA) in 1993, and earned his masters degree in urban and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

More about the EventThe Role of Nursing in Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Call to Action presentation will occur on October 12 from 12 to 3 p.m. on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public.

Registration is required.

Originally posted here:

Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy Featured Speaker for Duke University Event - Duke Today