Tag: Health
Agenda 47
Thank you, Ten Bears! I keep pointing out that Project 2024, Agenda 47, and the Republican National Party Platform are all cut from the same whole cloth. It’s important to be aware, even though one need not read each document separately.
More From Janet, with links
A Worthy Cause as well as a Resource-
He’s been flying people to access reproductive care. Here’s how he’s preparing for the election.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, this organization flying people to access abortion and gender-affirming care will have plenty of work. (Emphasis mine, but important-A)
Originally published by The 19th
This article was co-published with The Advocate as part of The 19th News Network’s Abortion on the Ballot series.
Just two months before the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the federal right to an abortion, Mike Bonanza launched Elevated Access.
The nonprofit dedicated to helping patients receive reproductive health care would soon find its services more crucial than ever. Since its beginnings in April 2022, Republican-run legislatures have passed near-total abortion bans in 13 states. Conservatives also began pushing bans on gender-affirming care for minors alongside other anti-transgender laws, culminating in 26 states that now prohibit this widely-supported medical treatment, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
As the need has grown, so has Elevated Access. The organization has continued to enlist volunteer pilots and offer free flights to patients who need reproductive health care, such as abortions and gender-affirming care, but who don’t have access to it where they live, whether due to bans or lack of resources. Elevated Access completed 400 flights in its first 18 months, according to Bonanza. In the past 12 months, it’s completed 1,200.
Now, Bonanza and his few staff members are preparing for the results of the November elections, which could have an impact on their work. For Bonanza, there is a “best-case” scenario that sees Vice President Kamala Harris ascend to the presidency, and a “worst-case” that sees former President Donald Trump return to office. But no matter the outcome, there will still be plenty of work for Elevated Access.
“Trump winning alone doesn’t necessarily do all the bad things that could happen. Harris winning doesn’t mean all the good things will happen,” Bonanza said. “So, a likely scenario really is some form of what we see today, where it’s going to vary wildly between states no matter who wins, at least for probably the first year to 18 months [of the next administration].”
While Trump’s campaign has attempted to distance itself from the unpopular idea of a national ban — even claiming recently that he would veto one if it made it to his desk — his running mate, JD Vance, previously expressed the desire to restrict abortion federally, and a road map to implement such a policy is outlined in Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump presidency crafted by conservative organization the Heritage Foundation.
Bonanza isn’t quite sure what will happen to Elevated Access in the longshot event of a national ban. While the organization currently enlists its volunteer pilots and other allies through aviation conferences and media coverage, their efforts have remained domestic. He insists that if abortion is somehow outlawed nationally or otherwise restricted, his group will continue to do what they’ve done in the face of increasing state bans, which is “get creative.”
“When I think about what the worst case scenarios are of the future — short of having to shut down because there’s just no legal space for us to operate in — we’ll find a way to help people, whatever that looks like,” Bonanza asserted. “We’re really creative and really nimble, and always ready to find solutions to new challenges.”
While Harris is “certainly” the “better” option, according to Bonanza, the rollback of rights seen at the state level over the past two years has happened under a Democratic president and can continue to happen under another one. There are unlikely pathways a Harris administration could take to solidify access to reproductive health care, such as by expanding the Supreme Court or championing legislation through a Democrat-controlled Congress — which is currently not in place.
Even under Harris, Bonanza explained that “there’s always going to be people that don’t have transportation, don’t have the funds they need to pay for the care they need, don’t have housing and other things they might need in order to get care from the right provider.” Part of this is due to “the state of the American health care system” and lack of universal health care, but “that’s not something we’re gonna fix in the next two to four or even eight years — it’s going to be a long process.”
“The problems that people are facing today are not new. Some of our partners have existed for a decade helping people travel to get access to abortion in particular. That’s because you can’t just walk to any medical provider and get that care, because some providers don’t do it,” Bonanza said. “So, even if President Harris is able to [legally protect] abortion, gender-affirming care, and all the possible scenarios that we would support, legalization does not equal access.”
Ten states will be voting on abortion directly: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota each have a referendum on the ballot that would enshrine abortion access in their state constitutions. So far, every abortion protection referendum that’s previously been brought to vote has passed.
But regardless of whether the ballot measures pass, Bonanza predicts that legal challenges to abortion laws will continue. In Georgia, a six-week ban was recently overturned before the state Supreme Court almost immediately reinstated it. Bonanza said that while providers were “ready to start providing abortions again” in the state, it’s the constant back-and-forth that leaves health care suspended in legal limbo.
“The providers that have been under a state ban the shortest amount of time are going to have the most capability to get up and running again. But there are certainly providers out there that relocated from one state to another after their bans were passed,” Bonanza explained. “I know a provider that relocated both his practice and himself from Ohio to Illinois. I don’t see a scenario where he moves back to Ohio and starts a new clinic again.”
Beyond the election, Elevated Access is preparing for the U.S. Supreme Court’s impending ruling on gender-affirming care and the constitutionality of state restrictions for youth. Bonanza, who is not just the executive director but also a pilot, has personally flown both transgender adults and youth to receive treatment.
He emphasized that there’s “a very broad spectrum of what gender-affirming care looks like,” from altering one’s hair and wardrobe to puberty blocker and hormones. For the transgender youth Bonanza has served, the gender-affirming care they receive is often “as simple as just going to see a talk therapist.” For the adults he serves, many “are traveling just to get access to care because they don’t have a provider locally.”
Surgeries on minors are incredibly rare — a recent study published in JAMA found that there were only 151 breast reductions performed on American minors in 2019, and 146 (97 percent) were performed on cisgender males.
The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the World Medical Association, and the World Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults but minors as well.
The American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, National Library of Medicine, and World Health Organization, all agree that abortion is an essential component of reproductive health care which requires legal and safe access. A large majority of the U.S. — 63 percent — also believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the most recent data from Pew Research.
But, Bonanza said, facts and data are no match for “dehumanizing language” from politicians and public figures, which is why he has issued a call to voters ahead of November: “Let’s rehumanize people that have been attacked from certain parts of the spectrum, especially immigrants, trans people, and others that have been targeted by people in politics today.”
“If you listen to the rhetoric of people that are running — and whether they’re in the same party or from one person — you hear the people that use dehumanizing language,” Bonanza continued. “What it comes down to is: If that person in your family, that neighbor that you have, might be experiencing some of these things, do you want them to suffer under these oppressive policies? Or do you want them to be able to live their lives and get access to health care that they need?”
Things to Remind People in the Grocery Line
or wherever mentions of prices, and whatever else has improved since Pres. Biden took office. I post this because my own US Rep is campaigning about how bad everything is, with facts from the Don’s admin when they’re facts at all. I’m certain he’s not the only “safe” (I voted for the Dem-we actually have a Dem running!) Republican running for the US House, as they’re all up for election every two years. Anyway, he makes the claims that things are bad under Biden-Harris, and how he’s just focusing on improving those very things that have improved thanks to Biden-Harris and the legislators who managed to get things passed (most Republicans are not among those legislators, btw.) Anyway, here’s Heather Cox Richardson:
October 17, 2024
Oct 18, 2024
In a new rule released yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission requires sellers to make it as easy to cancel a subscription to a gym or a service as it is to sign up for one. In a statement, FTC chair Lina Khan explained the reasoning behind the “click-to-cancel” rule: “Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” she said. “Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.” Although most of the new requirements won’t take effect for about six months, David Dayen of The American Prospect noted that the stock price of Planet Fitness fell 8% after the announcement.
When he took office in January 2021, with democracy under siege from autocratic governments abroad and an authoritarian movement at home, President Joe Biden set out to prove that democracy could deliver for the ordinary people who had lost faith in it. The click-to-cancel rule is an illustration of an obvious and long-overdue protection, but it is only one of many ways—$35 insulin, new bridges, loan forgiveness, higher wages, good jobs—in which policies designed to benefit ordinary people have demonstrated that a democratic government can improve lives.
When Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, she noted that the administration “has driven a historic economic recovery” with strong growth, very low unemployment rates, and inflation returning to normal. Now it is focused on lowering costs for families and expanding the economy while reducing inequality. That strong economy at home is helping to power the global economy, Yellen noted, and the U.S. has been working to strengthen that economy by reinforcing global policies, investments, and institutions that reinforce economic stability.
“Over the past four years, the world has been through a lot,” Yellen said, “from a once-in-a-century pandemic, to the largest land war in Europe since World War II, to increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters. This has only underlined that we are all in it together. America’s economic well-being depends on the world’s, and America’s economic leadership is key to global prosperity and security.” She warned against isolationism that would undermine such prosperity both at home and abroad.
The numbers behind the proven experience that government protection of ordinary people is good for economic growth got the blessing of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday, when it awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to James Robinson of the University of Chicago. Their research explains why “[s]ocieties with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better,” while democracies do.
Although democracy has been delivering for Americans, Donald Trump and MAGAs rose to power by convincing those left behind by 40 years of supply-side economics that their problem was not the people in charge of the government, but rather the government itself.
Trump wants to get rid of the current government so that he can enrich himself, do whatever he wants to his enemies, and avoid answering to the law. The Christian nationalists who wrote Project 2025 want to destroy the federal government so they can put in place an authoritarian who will force Americans to live under religious rule. Tech elites like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want to get rid of the federal government so they can control the future without having to worry about regulations.
In place of what they insist is a democratic system that has failed, they are offering a strongman who, they claim, will take care of people more efficiently than a democratic government can. The focus on masculinity and portrayals of Trump as a muscled hero‚ much as Russian president Vladimir Putin portrays himself, fit the mold of an authoritarian leader.
But the argument that Americans need a strongman depends on the argument that democracy does not work. In the last three-and-a-half years, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Democrats have proved that it can, so long as it operates with the best interests of ordinary people in mind. Trump and Vance’s outlandish lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene are designed to override the reality of a competent administration addressing a crisis with all the tools it has. In its place, the lies provide a false narrative of federal officials ignoring people and trying to steal their property.
Their attack on democracy has another problem, as well. In addition to the reality that democracy has been delivering for Americans for more than three years now—and pretty dramatically—Trump is no longer a strongman. Vice President Kamala Harris is outperforming him in the theater of political dominance. And as she does so, his image is crumbling.
In an article in US News and World Report yesterday, NBC’s former chief marketer John D. Miller apologized to America for helping to “create a monster.” Miller led the team that marketed The Apprentice, the reality TV show that made Trump a household name. “To sell the show,” Miller wrote, “we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.” But the truth was that he declared bankruptcy six times, and “[t]he imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV,” Miller wrote. While Trump loved the attention the show provided, “more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV.”
Miller says they “promoted the show relentlessly,” blanketing the country with a “highly exaggerated” image of Trump as a successful businessman “like a heavy snowstorm.” “[W]e…did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader,” Miller wrote. “I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.”
Speaking as a “born-and-bred Republican,” Miller warned: “If you believe that Trump will be better for you or better for the country, that is an illusion, much like The Apprentice was.” He strongly urged people to vote for Kamala Harris. “The country will be better off and so will you.”
A new video shown last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live even more powerfully illustrated the collapse of Trump’s tough guy image. Written by Jesse Joyce of Comedy Central, the two-minute video featured actor and retired professional wrestler Dave Bautista dominating his sparring partner in a boxing ring and then telling those who think Trump is “some sort of tough guy” that “he’s not.”
Working out in a gym, Bautista insults Trump’s heavy makeup, out-of-shape body, draft dodging, and physical weakness, and notes that “he sells imaginary baseball cards pretending to be a cowboy fireman” when “he’s barely strong enough to hold an umbrella.” Bautista says Trump’s two-handed method of drinking water looks “like a little pink chickadee,” and goes on to make a raunchy observation about Trump’s stage dancing. “He’s moody, he pouts, he throws tantrums,” Bautista goes on. “He’s cattier on social media than a middle-school mean girl.”
Bautista ends by listing Trump’s fears of rain, dogs, windmills…and being laughed at.” “And mostly,” Bautista concludes, “he’s terrified that real, red-blooded American men will find out that he’s a weak, tubby toddler.” Calling Trump a “whiny b*tch,” Bautista walks away from the camera.
The sketch was billed as comedy, but it was deadly serious in its takedown of the key element of Trump’s political power.
And he seems vulnerable. Forbes and Newsweek have recently questioned his mental health; yesterday the Boston Globe ran an op-ed saying, “Trump’s decline is too dangerous to ignore. We can see the decline in the former president’s ability to hold a train of thought, speak coherently, or demonstrate a command of the English language, to say nothing of policy.”
Trump’s Fox News Channel town hall yesterday got 2.9 million viewers; Harris’s interview got 7.1 million. Today, Trump canceled yet another appearance, this one with the National Rifle Association in Savannah, Georgia, scheduled for October 22, where he was supposed to be the keynote speaker.
Meanwhile, Vice President Harris today held rallies in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and La Crosse, Wisconsin. In La Crosse, MAGA hecklers tried to interrupt her while she was speaking about the centrality of the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices to the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion.
“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” Harris called to them with a smile and a wave. As the crowd roared with approval, she added: “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
—
Notes:
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5154814/click-to-cancel-subscriptions-memberships-ftc-rule
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2654
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/press-release/
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/popular-information/
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ditches-nra-event-latest-cancellation-1970902
https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-fox-news-interview-ratings-donald-trump-1970906
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/16/opinion/trump-cognitive-decline-press-republicans/
https://www.newsweek.com/dancing-donald-trump-clearly-steep-decline-opinion-1969551
X:
ddayen/status/1846991070309101761
ddayen/status/1847011806587634007
carlquintanilla/status/1847051458618736920
KamalaHQ/status/1847026957407449361
YouTube:
watch?v=rn-Dw2JUVmo&t=910s (video starts at 15.23)
Not many this week, but a few good ones. Hugs
Texas AG sues doctor who allegedly provided transgender care to 21 minors
(I guess I’m confused as to why he’s suing, and not charging this doctor. Is it a hunt for evidence to use in charges? This is not normally how that is done, but TX is TX. -A)
The suit is the first by an attorney general against an individual doctor for allegedly violating a restriction on gender-affirming care for minors.
By Matt Lavietes and Jo Yurcaba
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Dallas doctor Thursday accusing her of providing transition-related care to nearly two dozen minors in violation of state law.
Paxton alleged that Dr. May Chi Lau, who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors between October 2023 and August for the purpose of transitioning genders. In 2023, Texas enacted a law, Senate Bill 14, banning hormone replacement therapy and other forms of gender-affirming care for minors.
“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
The statement issued by Paxton’s office alleged that Lau used “false diagnoses and billing codes” in order to mask “unlawful prescriptions.”
Neither Lau nor her employer, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, immediately returned requests for comment.
If found to be in violation of the law, Lau could have her medical license revoked and face a financial penalty of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Paxton’s suit is the first in the nation by an attorney general against an individual doctor for allegedly violating a restriction on transition-related care for minors.
Texas’ law includes a provision that allows physicians to continue to prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy to patients who began treatment prior to June 1, 2023, in order to wean them off of the medications “over a period of time and in a manner that is safe and medically appropriate and that minimizes the risk of complications,” according to Paxton’s suit. Minors are required to have attended at least 12 mental health counseling or psychotherapy sessions for at least six months prior to starting treatment. It’s unclear whether Lau’s treatment of the minors could fall under that provision.
Pre-Op Celebration Time! Good Health News Within 🥂 🌹
Peace & Justice History for 10/16:
It is World Food Day. (Among other things; this is a busy date!)
| October 16, 1649 The British colony of Maine granted religious freedom to all citizens the same year that King Charles I was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church. |
| October 16, 1859 Abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 other men, five black and sixteen white, in a raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. They had hoped to set off a slave revolt — throughout the south — with the weapons they had planned to seize.  John BrownVirtually all his compatriots were killed or captured by General Robert E. Lee’s troops; Brown was wounded and arrested, and hanged for treason within two months. Read more  The Tragic Prelude (John Brown)mural by John Steuart Curry (1937-1942) Former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass said of Brown that he was a white man “in sympathy a black man, as deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.” |
October 16, 1901 President Theodore RooseveltPresident Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute and the most prominent African American of his time, to a meeting in the White House. The meeting went long and the president asked Washington to stay for dinner, the first black person ever to do so. Newspapers in the both the South and North were critical, but the South with more venom. The Memphis “Scimiter” said that it was “the most damnable outrage that has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States.” Roosevelt claimed he had invited a friend to dinner with his family and it was no one else’s business.  Booker T. Washington |
| October 16, 1934 Dick Sheppard, who volunteered and joined the Army as a chaplain in World War I, started the Peace Pledge Union in England. In a letter published in The Guardian newspaper and elsewhere, Sheppard, a well-known priest in the Church of England, invited those who would be willing to join a public demonstration against war to send him a postcard. Within a few weeks he had received 30,000 replies. Members of the Peace Pledge Union vowed to “renounce war and never again to support another.”   Reverend Sheppard had been the first ever to broadcast religious services on the radio and, when Vicar of St. Martin-in-the Fields, Trafalgar Square, he had opened the building to the homeless of London.“Up to now the peace movement has received its main support from women, but it seems high time now that men should throw their weight into the scales against war.” -Dick Sheppard Read more about the Peace Pledge Union |
| October 16, 1964 China detonated its first atomic bomb, becoming the fifth nuclear-armed nation. The 20-kiloton fission device (equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT) was detonated in the vicinity of Lop Nor, a lake in a remote region of the Central Asian province of Sinkiang. ” To defend oneself is the inalienable right of every sovereign State. And to safeguard world peace is the common task of all peace-loving countries. China cannot remain idle and do nothing in the face of the ever-increasing nuclear threat posed by the United States.China is forced to conduct nuclear tests and develop nuclear weapons . . . In developing nuclear weapons, China’s aim is to break the nuclear monopoly of the nuclear Powers and to eliminate nuclear weapons.” Chou En-lai, the Chinese Prime Minister, sent messages to all heads of government for a world summit conference on nuclear disarmament. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk told a news conference that the United States did not regard Communist China’s proposal “as having any practical value.”  Deng Jiaxian. The father of the chinese bomb.TRINITY AND BEYOND™ (The Atomic Bomb Movie), a documentary by Peter Kuran |
October 16, 1967 Joan Baez the day after the arrest Folksinger Joan Baez was arrested in a peace demonstration as rallies took place across America during “Stop the Draft Week.” 1158 young men returned their draft cards in eighteen U.S. cities. Baez was among 122 anti-draft protesters arrested for sitting down at the entrance of the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California; she was sentenced to 10 days in prison. Read more |
| October 16, 1968 During medal presentations at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, winning sprinters Tommie Smith (Gold) and John Carlos (Bronze) raised their black-gloved fists while the U.S. national anthem was played. They were suspended from the team at the insistence of the International Olympic Committee, and expelled from the Games two days later. Smith later told the media that he raised his right fist in the air to represent black power in America while Carlos’s left fist represented unity in black America. They were wearing just socks to represent world poverty.  Peter Norman (silver medalist, left) from Australia also wears an OPHR (Olympic Project for Human Rights) badge in solidarity with Smith and Carlos. He was castigated upon return to Australia and throughout his life for his support of these two brave athletes. Read more |
October 16, 1973 Henry KissingerU.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, though accused of war crimes by some for the massive bombing of Laos and Cambodia, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho (who refused the honor) for the cease-fire agreement they had negotiated. This occurred just a month after the bloody military coup, fully supported by the Nixon administration and aided by the CIA, that overturned the democratically elected government of Chile, and installed General Augusto Pinochet as military dictator for the next 17 years. |
October 16, 1984 Desmond Tutu, the archbishop of South Africa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in fighting apartheid. He has gone on to be a relentless advocate for justice around the world. Desmond Tutu – Nobel peace prize recipient |
| October 16, 1998 In a human rights and international law breakthrough, British authorities, after receiving an extradition request from Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, placed former Chilean dictator, and senator-for-life, General Augusto Pinochet under arrest for “crimes of genocide and terrorism that include murder.” Augusto Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher  Chronology of Pinochet’s rule |
| October 16th every year United Nations’ World Food Day is recognized every year. About the annual day of hunger awareness |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october16
Bye-Bye, Russian Gas!
A funny bit; I pasted in the link to see if it would embed the story, and it did! Sort of. It put the title as a hyperlink, as you can see below. I was sorely tempted to just leave it there like that, because what a witty title on its own! Then everyone could either be curious enough to click (it’s not too long to read,) or go ahead and post it all.
Here’s a snippet, because the photo should be seen on the page, and JSTOR is generous and deserves a click now and then:
By: Aissa Dearing and Michaela Rychetska October 10, 2024 4 minutes
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered Europe’s geopolitical landscape, with profound implications for its energy security. The invasion exposed Europe’s vulnerabilities, particularly its heavy reliance on Russian oil and natural gas. This has repositioned energy security as a central concern, with Russia seen as a significant threat to the stability and reliability of Europe’s energy supply chains. In response, Europe has taken decisive action to reduce its energy imports from Russia. In May 2022, the European Council agreed to ban almost 90 percent of Russian oil imports—with the notable exception of pipeline crude oil—complemented by stringent sanctions aimed at weakening Russia’s economic leverage. Does this shift suggest that the European Union’s transition to renewable energy is accelerating, not solely for climate reasons, but to achieve energy sovereignty amidst a geopolitical crisis?
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has indeed catalyzed a unified European reassessment of energy dependence on Russia, prompting collective efforts to diversify energy sources and bolster energy security. As security studies scholar Marc Ozawa notes, Western European countries historically framed their reliance on Russian energy within the context of market transactions and economic interests, a legacy of the oil shocks during the 1970s OPEC crisis. In this light, reliance on Russian energy was, in some respects, a strategic response to earlier crises. (snip)
The transition to an energy sovereign economy cannot solely focus on implementing renewable energy—it requires more than technological advancements—it necessitates profound socioeconomic shifts and a reevaluation of the traditional monopolistic energy business model. A just transition, as scholars Elianor Gerrard and Peter Westoby emphasize, is “the idea that the burdens of decarbonization—such as job losses from the closing of the fossil fuel industry or the high costs of clean technologies—should not unfairly impact any one group.” Achieving this transition involves developing policies that are both pragmatic and ethically sound, ensuring that the shift to a low-carbon economy goes beyond labor market adjustments. At its core, a just transition seeks to reconcile environmental protection with the need to protect vulnerable communities long reliant on fossil fuels. The decarbonization process cannot succeed without prioritizing these communities, providing workforce development for fossil fuel workers, and supporting decentralized, community-owned renewable technologies with adequate storage capacities. Existing electric technologies and grid infrastructure shouldn’t become stranded in this process but be retrofitted to ensure efficiency and multilateral grid cooperation.
