"Spain's coal miners continue to wait for their country's Green New Deal"

"Credit: 

Lucia Benavides/The World"

 "Spain’s government isn’t getting much done these days.

No political party won a majority in the nation’s general elections in April, and parliamentary negotiations to form a new government remain at a standstill. If a new government can’t be formed by Sept. 23, Spanish voters will go back to the polls in November for another general election, in what would be the country's fourth in four years.

One of the many projects on hold is Spain's “ecological transition” — a push to close all of the country’s coal mines and transition to renewable energies, like wind and solar.

Related: How a forest became Germany’s poster child for a coal exit

People in Spain’s northern region of Asturias are anxiously waiting to see how things play out. They’ve been mining there for 150 years. But today, the industry is almost dead.

During a recent weekday at the San Nicolás coal mine, dozens of miners — mostly young men — walked out of their shift around 2 in the afternoon, in a hurry to get home and eat lunch. The underground mine is located in a valley, surrounded by lush, green hills. At its peak, the mine employed around 2,000 people — today, about 200 work there. It’s the last working coal mine in all of Spain.

Gorka Peña, 36, has been working at San Nicolás for nine years. He says his father was also a miner, and he didn’t expect to end up in the trade himself.

“There’s no future here, no youth,” Peña says. “The towns are becoming more depopulated, its residents are getting older. You don’t have anywhere to go, so you have to migrate.”

Last October, the leading mining union struck a deal with Spain’s Socialist government to funnel 220 million euros ($246 million) into the region over the next decade, which would include retraining programs and investment in new industries.

“In Asturias, what we’re asking for and what we need is for this 'ecological transition' to be exactly what it says it is,” says José Luis Alperi, the union’s spokesperson. “That is, that no one be left behind.” "

Read more from Lucia Benavides article at PRI here.

Microplastics blowing into remote Pyrenees mountains

[Photo: Bob Edme/Pool via Reuters]

"Microplastics have been discovered in a remote area of the French Pyrenees mountains [close to the border with Spain/Catalonia.] The particles traveled through the atmosphere and were blown into the once-pristine region by the wind, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

This is just the latest example of the “hidden risks” posed by plastics that humans cannot see with the naked eye. For now, governments and activists are focused on avoiding plastic litter in the environment, driven mainly by concern for wildlife and worries over unsightly drinks bottles or abandoned fishing nets on beaches. Plastic bag usage has been cut in many parts of the world, and various projects are exploring how to gather up the floating plastic waste in oceans. But little has yet been done to deal with polluting plastic particles that are usually invisible.

There is, however, growing concern about these micro and nanoplastics, classified as particles smaller than 5mm. These come in part from deliberately manufactured sources, such as scrubbing materials in cleaning and cosmetic products, but also from secondary sources, such as the inevitable breaking up or wearing down of larger items such as tires or fibers shed from tumble driers and washing machines. We are becoming increasingly aware of their presence but know surprisingly little about how much is out there, how it behaves in our environment and what the implications are for human and animal well-being.

As more studies publish their findings we are learning that microplastics are more widespread than we imagined, and that they are found in every environmental system investigated. Plastic particles have been found in record-breaking quantities in river sediments in the UK, for instance, while a study in Paris found plastic fibers in wastewater and the air."

Read more from source here.

"Climate change refugees?"

[Photo credit: 

David Gray/Reuters]

"Millions of people have to move each year due to natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.

We talk about "climate refugees"...but [in a legal sense] they don't exist. In fact, those displaced by climate change have no special protections under international law. But that may be changing."

The UN is finally recognising this fact.

More from source at PRI here.

"These Turks would rather leave their country than continue living under Erdoğan"

[People walk past an election poster for Turkey's President Erdogan in Istanbul, June 14, 2018.  Credit: 

Huseyin Aldemir/Reuters]

'Bilal Dündarlioğlu, a 34-year-old information technology engineer from Niğde, in Turkey’s Central Anatolia region, says he loves his country.

And in the next breath, he explains why he wants to leave.

“Human and political conditions are not good," he said. "I am not quite happy with the [situation] here — there is no justice."

"I am not happy with the economy either," he added. "Taxes are too high and salaries too low.”

Dündarlioğlu is not alone. In Istanbul, most young people interviewed by PRI say they either know someone who has left Turkey or wants to. Many say they’re thinking about it themselves. In cities from Barcelona and Madrid to Stockholm, Berlin and Athens, researchers say Turkish diaspora communities are growing. And for the first time in modern Turkey's history, it seems the exodus isn’t mainly due to a search for economic opportunity.

There are no official figures on emigration compiled by the Turkish government that break down the motives behind people's departure. But recent emigres and would-be emigres told PRI their decision was about safety from persecution, having a voice in society and, even more crucially, an uncertain future in the so-called “new” Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They say that Turkey went from being a haven of a stability and economic growth in the region to a country with increasing societal divisions, rising violence and a government that continues to become increasingly authoritarian.

Many people — particularly young, secular and educated Turks — say they have had enough.

"Here, unfortunately, a human being has no value and cannot express oneself," said Dündarlioğlu, adding that his final decision to leave will depend on what happens in the June 24 election, which could give Erdoğan even more power. "If you support the government, maybe you will be valued."

Over the 15 years Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party have been in power, they have eroded freedom of the press, free speech, expanded the role of conservative Islam in the officially secular republic and presided over an increasingly fragile economy, analysts and emigres say.

Related: Turkey jails more journalists than any other nation. Those in detention are all terrorists, Erdogan says.

After an unsuccessful coup attempt in July 2016, Erdoğan and his allies stepped up those efforts to clamp down, instituting a state of emergency that further grants them powers to detain and imprison alleged coup conspirators and sympathizers as well as anyone else who supposedly supports Fethullah Gülen, the Muslim cleric living in exile in the US whom Erdoğan has blamed for organizing the coup.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers, lawyers, intellectuals and artists as well as members of the civil service, the judiciary and the military have been jailed or have lost their jobs.

Then last year, voters approved changes to Turkey’s constitution to abolish the office of the prime minister and transform the country’s now-ceremonial presidency into a full-fledged chief executive. Supporters of the change said it would make the government run more efficiently. Opponents said it was move to give an increasingly authoritarian Erdoğan even more power.

If Erdoğan wins Sunday's election, he could wield near-absolute authority and cement his status as the most important Turkish leader since Kemal Ataturk founded the country in 1923.

Erdoğan is leading in most polls. But his power grab has also galvanized his opponents: He’s forecast to come close to or only slightly top the 50 percent threshold necessary to avoid a runoff election. 

Still, many of these Turks say nothing will change.

"I learned not to be hopeful about the elections because it's the same guys who always win," said a 26-year-old woman studying in Malmö, Sweden, who left Turkey in 2015, saying she couldn't take the oppressive environment any longer.

“I wasn't happy in Turkey as a woman, as a non-Muslim, single woman,” said the student, who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisal against her or her loved ones at home. “Harassment became a part of your everyday life. You just hoped that you'd be one of the lucky ones, so no psycho will kick you in the face in the bus because you were wearing shorts that day.” 

"Those who remain in Turkey face an uphill battle against the changes that have occurred in the country in recent years, especially if Erdoğan wins," she added, explain that she visited Turkey after the coup attempt and found it "scary." 

"I remember thinking, 'Where am I?'" she recalled, after seeing pro-government propaganda in the subways and experiencing the tense feeling. "I felt like the Turkey I knew, the Turkey I left, died on [July 15, 2016]." 

She says she knows at least six people who have left Turkey. "But every time I go back and see my friends, they are all talking about leaving," she said.'

Read more from source at PRI's GlobalPost here.

"A Children's Book Introduces German Kids to the True Story of Syrian Refugees"

[Credit: Jan Birck]

"There are now more than 65 million people displaced by conflict in the world, the highest level ever recorded. Half of these refugees are children.

Germany has received more than 1 million refugees, mostly from Syria and Iraq. Despite supporters initially celebrating Chancellor Angela Merkel's actions, many Germans have begun voicing concerns about when this acceptance of migrants will come to an end.

But while the adults in Germany have expressed mixed reactions to the refugees, German author Kirsten Boie wants children at least to realize that a refugee child is just like any other kid in the world.

In her latest children’s book, “Everything Will Be Alright,” she writes the true story of Rahaf and her family, who flee Homs, Syria due to bombings by war planes. The family crosses the Mediterranean Sea on a small boat, ultimately choosing a small town near Hamburg, Germany to start their new lives.

The book is published in German and Arabic and is meant to be read at school to both German-born children and their new immigrant neighbors. (An English translation is available online here.)"

Listen to this story on PRI.org »