The 2nd Amendment

I grew up in Washington D.C. - no, not in Chevy Chase or Alexandria - but actually in the District. So when I heard last week that the Supreme Court struck down a District of Columbia ordinance that barred homeowners from keeping handguns, I immediately took notice. It was a 5-4 decision (Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas were in the majority) which ruled that the 2nd Amendment explicitly protects Americans’ right to own guns for self-defense.

I'm not a constitutional law scholar, so I can't speak to whether or not I think the 2nd Amendment really does protect Americans' right to own guns (but to read Justice Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer's dissent and why they think it doesn't you can click here). What I do know is that every day in the United States more than 80 people die from guns and another 200 are wounded. And that due to something called the Gun Show Loophole which conditions that current federal law requires criminal background checks only for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, two out of every five guns sold change hands without a background check. The problem is even worse in predominantly African-American communities where homicide is the leading cause of death for people aged 15-24 and 90% of those were committed involved firearms.

I could go on and on about these kinds of statistics but the point is that something needs to be done to mitigate the effects of gun violence, and it needs to be done fast. What this country needs is a sensible policy that addresses the issues surrounding the cause and effect of guns.

As a Foundation that has funded in the field of gun violence prevention in the past, I'm curious to see how the Supreme Court's decision will play out. My guess is it will simply renew the ongoing contentious and highly politicized debate about gun rights, gun violence and crime in this country. The ruling has already brought court challenges in similar laws in Chicago and San Francisco.

I look forward to following several of Overbook grantees, both past and present, that focus on this issue, those from a constitutional perspective like the American Civil Liberties Union, The Constitution Project, and The American Constitution Society, and those that focus on gun violence prevention like PAX and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence.

Cities Respond to Climate Change

Last night I attended a program hosted by Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy and the Center for New York City Affairs called "Cities Respond to Climate Change: The Challenge of Energy Efficiency." The issue at hand was how cities, such as New York City, could mitigate the effects of climate change through energy efficiency.

I learned that buildings account for 48% of emissions in the U.S. and that two thirds of the buildings in 2050 will be built between now and then. This gives us a great opportunity (and challenge) to standardize efficiency methods and develop sustainable design models. Efficiency standards can also be applied to electrical appliances, vehicles, old buildings, as well as the generation and distribution of energy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the use of Energy Star equipment alone has saved $14 billion per year since 2006.

One fun fact is that 5% of Portland's workforce commutes to work on a bike, up from 2% in just four years. Furthermore, Portland became the first U.S. city to adopt a global warming plan, demonstrating the power of decision-making at the local level. Other local governments, such as California and New York City, with Mayor Bloomberg's 2030 plan, have also lead the way in addressing climate change.

Despite the action taken by local governments, the biggest challenge that rose out of last night's discussion is the need for complimentary federal policy. Most of the speakers agreed that the timescale problem requires immediate federal action. One only needs to look at today's news headlines to learn that the North Pole's ice may completely melt this summer, oil just passed $142 per barrel and the federal government just froze solar energy projects. Time is simply running out. And with the presidential elections coming up, it will be increasingly important for the nominees to address the issue of climate change and how they're going to tackle it.

For more information on Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, you can visit their website here. You can also find out information here on The New School's new undergraduate degree program in sustainable design and urban ecosystems.

Internet for Everyone

I spent the beginning of this week at The Personal Democracy Forum’s 2008 Conference. During the conference, Free Press (an Overbrook grantee) held a news briefing announcing the launch of a new campaign called Internet for Everyone.

Two statistics mentioned truly shocked me: In America only 35% percent of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection and nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider. If we ever needed specific evidence of a digital divide, when it comes to the internet, this is it.

In this day and age, access to the Internet is no longer a luxury but is instead a necessity. The Internet is becoming, if it is not already, the primary method of communication and if every community doesn’t have a fast, open and affordable Internet, they will inevitably be left behind.

The Internet for Everyone Campaign will focus on four key principles:

Access: Every home and business in America must have access to a high-speed, world class communications infrastructure.

Choice: Every consumer must enjoy real competition in lawful online content as well as among high-speed Internet providers to achieve lower prices and higher speeds.

Openess: Every Internet user should have the right to freedom of speech and commerce online in an open market without gatekeepers or discrimination.

Innovation: The Internet should continue to create good jobs, foster entrepreneurship, spread new ideas and serve as a leading engine of economic growth.

Free Press also announced that it’s working with federal and city officials to hold a series of local broadband hearings to gather public input to guide a national broadband plan. If you want to find out how to participate in those hearings you can click here. You can also view the full-length press conference here.

Welcome!

Earlier this year, The Overbrook Foundation began posting the blogs of its Human Rights and Environment grantees on our website here. It was pointed out by a conscious observer that the Foundation itself didn’t have its own blog! Well it took us a few months to get rolling, but here we are.

Before we begin to post about the work of the Foundation’s grantees, we thought we should tell you a bit about us. The Overbrook Foundation, located in New York City, is a family foundation established in 1948 by Frank and Helen Altschul. The Foundation took its name from Overbrook Farm, the Altschul family home in Stamford, Connecticut. Currently the Foundation has an endowment of approximately $185 million and awarded $7.7 million in grants during 2007. Today, twelve of the Board directors are family members and one independent Director sits on the Board. The Board remains committed to the family tradition of philanthropy.

The Foundation's has two primary program areas: The Environment and Human Rights. The Environment Program supports organizations working to develop better consumption and production habits in the United States and in Latin America (currently Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador only). In Latin America the primary objective is to conserve the planet's dwindling biodiversity. The Human Rights Program joins together the Foundation's commitment to international and domestic human rights to support human rights work inside and outside of the United States. The program investigates and looks to support human rights activism of smaller human rights organizations where activists are at particular risk both domestically and globally. The Foundation works to link together its focus on reproductive rights, LGBT rights, reproductive health, HIV, trafficking of people and other issues of sexuality. In doing so, it seeks to advance support for gender rights and to eliminate discrimination and marginalization based on gender.

To learn more about the Foundation and the work that we support, please visit us on our website. Be sure to check out the recent edition of our Newsletter.

We look forward to posting topics related to the Foundation's work in the upcoming weeks.

Enjoy!