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2017 Year in Review: Turning Lemons into Lemonade

Alexandra Bradbury, Samantha Winslow Labor Notes
Labor still has the power to throw sand in the gears of exploitation. The next step is for all these disparate troublemakers to start seeing their workplace struggles—from defending pensions to defending refugees—as part of the same bigger movement.

Voices from Bonn: System Change not Climate Change

Anna Gyorgy Women and Life on Earth
For delegates in Bonn from Nov. 6-17, the goal was to define and firm up terms and goals of the Paris Agreement, drafted with much fanfare at COP21 in Paris in 2015.

The West in Flames in 2017, a Constant Reminder of Climate Change

Natasha Geiling ThinkProgress
Disastrous wildfires have engulfed the Western US
One of the biggest climate stories of 2017, the disastrous wildfires that engulfed the West. Fires burned millions of acres in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Then the fires came first to Northern and then to Southern California.

A Superfund for Workers

Jeremy Brecher Dollars & Sense
How to Promote a Just Transition and Break Out of the Jobs vs. Environment Trap

Processed or Ultra-processed: is there a difference?

Andy Bellatti Eating Rules
To combat the voices of health advocates who expressed concerns on the health effects of the Standard American Diet, which is high in processed foods, the food industry cast doubt and reframed the conversation on processed foods.

Annual Message from the Moderators of Portside to Our Readers

Portside
The fact is, the political climate has changed in the last year. There is a pendulum swing to the left. Social movements are resurgent, from Black Lives Matter to Climate Justice to Fight for 15. The Bernie Sanders campaign has even brought a socialist critique of capitalism to the national discussion. The service Portside provides is in greater demand than ever. We turn for you to help because as we grow, so do our financial needs.

Employer Political Coercion: A Growing Threat

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez The American Prospect
Managers and supervisors can now legally require their workers to participate in politics as a condition of employment. For instance, in most states, managers have the legal right to mandate worker attendance at a political rally for a favored candidate—and fire or punish workers who decline to participate.

Russians May Have a Strong Case in Turkish Shootdown

Charles J. Dunlap Jr. The Hill
While President Obama is certainly correct in saying that "Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace," exactly how it may do so is more complicated than the president implies. In fact, the Russians may have strong legal arguments that any such right under international law was wrongly asserted in this instance.

How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains

Ferris Jabr Quanta Magazine
Fossils established the Brain Boom as fact. But they tell us next to nothing about how and why the human brain grew so large so quickly. In the last eight years, however, scientists have started to answer the “how” of human brain expansion — that is, the question of how the supersizing happened on a cellular level and how human physiology reconfigured itself to accommodate a dramatically enlarged and energy-guzzling brain.