SumOfUs
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a court overturned a decision that would have forced the Michigan township of Osceola to issue a permit to Nestlé to build a massive water pumping station. This is a huge win for Michiganders who are against Nestlé’s attempt to suck the state dry, all to bottle water for profits.
This legal decision couldn’t have happened without SumOfUs members like you,who banded together to chip in over $50,000 to pay for the legal and administrative fees for the legal challenge.
Not only that, you saved a township from bankruptcy. Osceola Township, with a population of 2,000, was running out of options to pay to fight back against Nestlé’s water sucking ways. Until you came in.
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Trump’s friends at Dow Chemicalhave just convinced the EPA to approve toxic bee-killing pesticide, sulfoxaflor.
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US Customs has a legal obligation to block imports linked to forced labor. So today, alongside our partners International Labor Rights Forum and Rainforest Action Network, we've launched a demand that US Customs seize conflict palm oil from Procter & Gamble’s business partner, ‘FGV’, at US ports!
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Residents of Osceola township are watching water levels in local streams drop drastically since Nestlé moved into town and started pumping their water to sell for massive profits. And a small group of local volunteers has taken Nestlé to court.
For years Nestlé has tried to crush this committed group of residents so it can pump even more water to sell at an eye-watering profit.
This dedicated group in Osceola has been locked in a two-year legal battle against Nestlé --but after mountains of legal challenges, the group is drowning in debt.
So they’ve asked for your help today Pat. The final decision on whether Nestlé can pump more water is right around the corner -- and if they can’t get some money to their lawyers soon, this fearless group risks losing everything to Nestlé.
Can you chip in $1 to keep Nestlé’s greedy hands off Osceola township’s precious water?
Right now, Nestlé is pumping 250 gallons of water a minute or more than 350,000 gallons every single day from Osceola Township for just $200 a year.
And in their battle to stop this outrageous water-grab, this tiny group of volunteers is over $100,000 in debt.
Their lawyers have fought tirelessly by their side, but they can’t continue without getting paid. Losing their lawyers now would leave them in debt with nothing to show for years of work against Nestlé, and that’s exactly what the mega-corporation wants.
But you can make sure their fight isn’t over yet. Nestlé has millions to throw at this court case, but this group of dedicated fighters in Osceola has you. With your donation today they can keep their lawyers and make sure they have the best legal team on hand in these last critical months so that Nestlé can’t pump more of their precious water.
raised 50K defense
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10/18
story that’s far too common. Communities from Michigan to California have had to battle Nestlé's attempts to make massive profits by bottling the local water source. Even in the midst of droughts and wildfires.
But when a corporation threatens a community's right to water, SumOfUs members like you take action. Just last year, thousands of members like you helped the tiny township of Osceola, Michigan avoid bankruptcy by raising over $50,000 to fight off a lawsuit from Nestlé for trying to protect their water. That’s truly incredible.
That’s why the tiny town of Stanley, Australia is urgently asking for your help, Pat. This 400-person town is taking on a multi-billion dollar beverage company that’s been selling the town’s only source of fresh water.
The town is rapidly running out of money and needs your help to continue this fight until they can kick this greedy company out for good.
Chip in $1 now before this tiny town is forced into bankruptcy.
Stanley, Australia is a tiny town of just 400 people. Asahi-Schweppes is a massive soft drinks company has been bottling up Stanley’s only source of fresh water, selling it off, and making millions at the expense of the people who depend on it.
This small town has been fighting back -- but the court ordered them to pay almost $65,000 in legal costs to the other side. Now the townspeople are facing a terrible choice: give up or face bankruptcy.
This could either bankrupt the local post office and community center or force residents to empty their savings to pay the bill.
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google-owned YouTube is again facing allegations of profiting from not enforcing its own ban on the monetization of climate misinformation, this time in a report published Friday amid legislative battles in Brazil over policies on the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous rights, and social media.
Google announced in October 2021 that for advertisers and publishers along with creators on its video platform YouTube, the company would "prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."
For four weeks, researchers with Ekō—a group formerly known as SumOfUsthat works to curb the power of big corporations—reviewed 60 YouTube videos in English and Portuguese that contained disinformation and conspiracy theories about Amazon deforestation, Indigenous rights, and the climate emergency.
Over two-thirds of the videos were monetized, and Ekō identified more than 150 brands in the ads. Using a common industry tool, researchers estimated that the channels—which collectively had over 40 million subscribers and more than 5 million views—earn $636,000 to $10.1 million a year through monetization.
"The proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories are helping to derail efforts by the Lula administration to advance policy agendas around Amazon protection, Indigenous land rights, and social media regulation."
"Well-known Brazilian and global brands likeLyft, Calvin Klein, Budweiser, Panasonic, and Samsung, as well as environmental and human rights groups like Friends of the Earth U.K., UNICEF, and the Peace Corps,are appearing next to extreme climate denial content and conspiracy theories," the report states, "effectively pouring money into the pockets of conspiracy theorists and climate deniers."
"Ekō researchers found top-name apparel, electronics, and drink brands appearing next tovideos suggesting actor Leonardo DiCaprio funded nongovernmental organizations to commit arson in the Amazon,"the publication continues. "Other false claims include that the rainforest is too humid to catch fire, and that manmade global warming is a lie."
"The proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories are helping to derail efforts by the Lula administration to advance policy agendas around Amazon protection, Indigenous land rights, andsocial media regulation," the document adds, pushing for policy "that prevents platforms from monetizing and profiting from disinformation and lies that are subverting the legislative process."
In a statement Friday, Ekō campaign director Vicky Wyatt also demanded action from the company.
"While global warming, deforestation, and wildfires reach their highest levels ever recorded, YouTube's shameless greenwashing is exposed—with the company giving profits to climate deniers to the tune of millions," said Wyatt. "This is a clear slap in the face to the brands whose advertisements unknowingly support climate disinformation. It's time for YouTube to step up, detox its platform, and protect the integrity of the fight against the climate crisis."
Ekō's analysis follows a May report from Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) for which researchers found 200 YouTube videos containing climate mis- and disinformation. The videos had a total of 73.8 million views and all had featured ads.
YouTube spokesperson Michael Aciman told Engadget in response to those findings that the company is "constantly working" to remove content that violates its rules and welcomes third-party feedback to "help improve the accuracy of our enforcement over time."
"In 2021, we launched a new, industry-leading policy that explicitly prohibits ads from running on content promoting false claims about the existence and causes of climate change, which we designed in consultation with experts and authoritative sources on climate science," Aciman also said. "We do allow policy debate or discussions of climate-related initiatives, but when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we remove ads from serving on those videos.”
Meanwhile, Callum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, part of the CAAD coalition, said at the time that "despite Google's green grandstanding, its ads continue to fuel the climate denial industry."
"Whether it's taking cash to target users with climate disinformation, or running ads that make climate denial content profitable, the company is selling out," Hood added. "Tech companies make big promises on hate and misinformation because they know it's hard to see if they've kept them. We need to force Google to open up the black box of its advertising business."
FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES
Facebook has removed the page of violent fascist organisation Britain First -- which had posted videos comparing immigrants to animals and describes its leaders as “islamophobic and proud”.
Two of Britain First’s leaders are currently in jail for racist hate crimes. Yet, Mastercard, Visa and American Express continue to process donations for the hate group.
Racist groups can't operate without money.
SumOfUs members have already pushed Paypal to stop processing funding for the violent French white supremacist group Génération Identitaire. Now, let’s make the credit card giants take responsibility and cut all ties with Britain First.
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CEOs who made up two White House advisory councils have fled like rats on a sinking ship. Their exodus — a dramatic rebuke of Donald Trump — came within 48 hours of the incendiary August 15 press conference where the President praised some of the participants of last week’s white supremacist rampage in Charlottesville, Virginia.
But many of the CEOs on these councils had been under heavy pressure to disavow Trump’s agenda of hate and racism even before Charlottesville. That pressure came from grassroots activists.
The Center for Popular Democracy, Make The Road New York, New York Communities for Change, and several other immigrant and worker advocates had led that activist campaign, targeting the leaders of nine major corporations affiliated with the Trump administration. The campaign, working through a web site called Corporate Backers of Hate, detailed the connections between the nine companies and the Trump administration and encouraged people to send emails to both the CEOs involved and members of their corporate boards.
Throughout the spring and summer, the campaign also held protests against the companies, including a civil disobedience action at the JPMorgan Chase headquarters on May Day, where 12 were arrested, and a march to JPMorgan’s annual shareholder meeting, where protestors confronted CEO Jamie Dimon for his company’s financing of private immigrant detention and mass incarceration.
The campaign also worked with a broad network of groups, including CREDO, Color of Change, SumOfUs, and Ultraviolet, to gather petitions calling for CEOs to step down from the Business Council. On August 16, they delivered more than 400,000 petitions collected from across the country to New York City offices of JPMorgan and the Blackstone private equity group, demanding that their CEOs withdraw from Trump’s advisory bodies.
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman chaired Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum and had personally recruited the group’s 16 members, a cohort of execs that included current and past CEOs from some of the country’s largest firms, among them Walmart, General Electric, IBM, and General Motors. Schwarzman’s firm has become one of the country’s largest owners of real estate, and Schwarzman himself has reportedly developed a very close personal relationship with President Trump, sometimes speaking to him several times a week.
The news earlier this week that the CEO councils had been disbanded brought a quick reaction from Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. The choice that executives made to quit the Business Council, Archila noted, “should have been clear long ago – and because of the tireless and courageous advocacy of those who are affected most by Trump’s agenda, they finally made that choice today.”
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon also issued a personal statement after the councils disbanded.
“There is no room for equivocation here: the evil on display by these perpetrators of hate should be condemned,” Dimon noted, “and has no place in a country that draws strength from our diversity and humanity.”
Archila and other activists are demanding that the CEOs like Dimon go further to reject Trump’s agenda. These execs, she stresses, need “to make clear that white supremacy has no place in this country – and neither do the private prisons and immigrant detention centers that they help finance.”
Daniel Cortés, a member of Make the Road New York who lives in Queens and was part of the group delivering the petitions, says he couldn’t believe the leaders of JPMorgan Chase and Blackstone agreed to join Trump’s business council in the first place.
“I’m glad to hear they’re gone,” adds Cortés. “But they still need to stand up against his hateful agenda that targets people of color, immigrants, Muslims, and women. If they don’t, they will remain backers of hate and they will continue to feel our outrage.”
Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy project at the Institute for Policy Studies and is the author of the new report Off the Deep End: The Wall Street Bonus Pool and Low-Wage Workers.
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