It’s National Library Week, so I’ve been thinking a lot about knowledge and the idea that knowledge should be readily available – for all. An informed populace is crucial to the health of the nation and a bulwark of democracy. The ability to think, to reason, to avoid being fooled, all these notions are tied to reading and easy access to the wisdom of the ages.
And this is exactly why libraries – and their contents – are under siege these days.
HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery recently told readers:
“Librarians are living in constant fear. They have become the targets
of Republican politicians and far-right groups like Moms for Liberty
Liberty that are hellbent on burning books about LGBTQ+ people,
people of color and racism. Some librarians are quitting their jobs
because of constant harassment; others are getting fired for
refusing to clear shelves of books that conservatives don’t like.”
If that’s not bad enough – and it is – Bendery informs us there’s another evil twist in the tale: “The GOP’s censorship campaign has shifted from book bans to legislation threatening librarians with jail time.” Idaho’s tried several times to enact such legislation; this February, West Virginia passed a bill “making librarians criminally liable if a minor comes across content that some might consider obscene.” Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, and Georgia are also considering various means of keeping books they don’t like off the shelves...and they’re not alone.
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom shared some frightening statistics: “The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.”
Given these ever-more-frequent, ever-more-strident attacks, what can a concerned reader do to stem the tide of book-banning?
PEN America, an organization whose mission “is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible,” offers a number of ways to make one’s voice heard. Whether you’re a student, a parent, an author, or a librarian, PEN America provides advice, assistance, and resources to keep you informed and ready to push back.
The need to support the nation’s libraries is more urgent than ever. In Bendery’s HuffPost piece, American Library Association President Emily Drabinski draws a chilling conclusion: “What gets lost in conversations about book banning is that it’s really about eliminating the institution of the library, period. It’s not about the books. Well, it is about the books, but the books are the way in to gut one of the last public institutions that serves everyone.”
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Ray Bradbury once said. “Just get people to stop reading them.”
Bradbury was one of the 20th century’s finest fabulists, the author of The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the worldwide blockbuster Fahrenheit 451. Published in 1952, the novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future where books are illegal and firemen don’t put out fires – they start them. Printed matter is what they burn.
Bradbury was writing in the tense, paranoid early years of the McCarthy era. But he might as well have penned those words last Thursday.
Support your local library. Speak up for the voices the hate-mongers would shut down. Before – as history’s proven again and again – they try to shut down yours.
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Students fight a book ban by giving away free banned bookswww.youtube.com
The New York Public Library has also weighed in on the matter, you can find its suggestions here.
The Environmental Impact of Palm Oil
It's destroying the environment.
Palm oil is used in instant noodles, processed breads, lipstick, ice cream, and shampoo, and is the most widely-consumed vegetable oil on the planet. It's an extremely versatile substance, and while many Americans are unaware of its ubiquitousness, it's a virtual guarantee that you've eaten or used a product containing palm oil at some point in your life. The problem is, the process in which palm oil is farmed and collected is having a detrimental effect on the environment. The industry has been linked to deforestation, climate change and animal cruelty and it's been estimated that an area the equivalent size of 300 football fields of rain forest is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil production
Though oil palms are grown all over, 85% of the world's palm oil comes from Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests, and the effects have been devastating. In the early 20th century, Borneo–the world's third largest island shared by both countries–was completely covered with lush vegetation. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) most of Borneo's rainforests will be completely gone by 2022 and many extant animal species with them. This rapid deforestation all but guarantees the extinction of the orangutan, Asian elephant, Sumatran tiger, and Sumatran rhino, as well many other forms of plant and animal life. With this in mind, there are several initiatives, mostly funded and supported by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), attempting to come up with a sustainable method for farming oil palms.
Orangutans' habitats are being destroyed
One such organization is the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a nonprofit dedicated to setting a global standard for the palm oil production. Their standard is predicated on self-reported greenhouse gas emissions and a commitment by RSPO-linked companies to stop using pesticides. While relying on companies to accurately self-report is a bit unrealistic, the RSPO has been mildly successful, but many feel as though palm oil farming isn't changing fast enough to have any real impact on the environment. The truth is, the RSPO rarely kicks corporate members off of its board, and doesn't hold nearly as much sway as it purports to. In fact, back in 2016 the RSPO kicked IOI Group off its board only to reinstate them a few months later and RSPO's impact report didn't even include IOI's suspension. IOI is one the RSPO's founding members. The RSPO changes policy democratically, by matter of consensus. Couple this with the fact that there are hundreds of corporate and NGO members involved in RSPO, and it becomes pretty clear that the organization is too bloated to efficiently push for change. On top of this, companies basically have carte blanche to write the word sustainable on their products no matter how their palm oil is produced. It's virtually impossible for a consumer to tell which items in their grocery cart are ethically produced.
A short list of products that contain
The ecological issues are only part of the story, however. A report by Amnesty International revealed that companies like Unilever and Nestle aren't just forcing their factory workers to work overtime without extra pay, but are routinely using child-labor when processing palm oil. While the RSPO tepidly wags its finger at these practices, in reality, it has no power to stop them. Moving to sustainable palm oil doesn't necessarily hurt a company's bottom line, but there's no cheaper labor than slave labor. Treating employees with respect costs money, and most giant food corporations aren't willing to foot the bill.
The truth is, there might not even be a means to combat this issue. An estimated 50% of all consumer products contain palm oil. It's impossible to ask people to effectively boycott half of a grocery store, especially considering the fact that palm oil is key ingredient in many affordable staples. America's ability to solve the labor issue is also limited, as the Indonesian and Malaysian governments don't seem particularly invested in protecting their workers. Even shedding light on this issue doesn't really work, as Americans are pretty anesthetized to the fact that most of our products are made in sweatshops. To quote journalist Hillary Rosner, "Palm oil may be the ultimate icon of globalization — an ingredient directly responsible for some of the world's most pressing environmental problems that has nonetheless permeated our lives so stealthily we barely noticed."