This Independence Day, let's start re-envisioning our criminal justice system.


** News of the world environment
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NEWSLETTER | JULY 3, 2020
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** The Cost of Incarceration
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At California’s San Quentin State Prison, just a ten-minute drive from my home in Point Richmond, a massive failure of our public health and criminal justice systems is rapidly unfolding. Over the course of the past month, the maximum-security facility went from zero reported coronavirus cases to more than 1,200. That’s a third of the prison population. Two prisoners have died in just over a week. At least one of them tested positive for the virus.

There is little that those incarcerated in San Quentin can do to protect themselves. As we reported in the Journal ([link removed]) this week, prisoners are confined almost entirely indoors, cannot social distance from one another, and often avoid reporting symptoms of illness for fear of being quarantined in solitary confinement. More than 20 men incarcerated at the prison are now on hunger strike ([link removed]) to protest conditions there, and advocates are urgently calling for the early release of medically vulnerable and elderly prisoners, as well as those nearing eligibility for parole.

The health threat posed by Covid-19 adds to the long list of environmental risks faced by prisoners in the US, including exposure to contaminated water, polluted air, and extreme heat. As the Journal revealed in its 2017 investigation “America’s Toxic Prisons,” ([link removed]) mass incarceration in the US has vast repercussions for both public health and the environment across the country, repercussions that are disproportionately borne by Black, Brown, and low-income people.

Addressing the steep social, environmental, and health toll of prisons and jails will require rethinking mass incarceration in this country and re-envisioning our criminal justice system at large. What better time to begin that process than now, as our nation — where freedom continues to be more of a privilege than a right — prepares to celebrate its 244th Independence Day.
Zoe Loftus-Farren
Managing Editor, Earth Island Journal
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** Overcoming the Odds ([link removed])
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Gender and caste can be huge barriers for many Indians aspiring for careers in STEM. For S. Velvizhi, the daughter of a fisherman, the struggle to overcome these barriers has shaped her work in bringing relevant science and technology to coastal communities to help them build more sustainable fisheries.
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** Winged Savior ([link removed])
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The waterways in the American Southwest provide a last stronghold for the yellow-billed cuckoo, a threatened migratory bird. The push to save it could help save rivers in the region as well.
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** Lost and Found ([link removed])
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Every three or four years, when the Rodman Reservoir on Florida’s Ocklawaha River is drawn down to clear it of choking aquatic vegetation, some of the watershed’s 20 lost freshwater springs remerge, offering a glimpse of what was and a vision of what could be.
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** Puccini for Plants ([link removed])
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Barcelona's El Liceu opera house held its first concert since March to a packed audience of 2,292 potted plants. A paean to nature indeed!

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** Jump! Jump! ([link removed])
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A record number of humpbacks whales are being spotted leaping out of the waters along Australia’s coast as their populations grow.

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