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Cake day: September 14th, 2023
  • ralakus@lemmy.worldtoBusiness@lemmy.world•A farm-supply chain vowed to cut DEI roles amid pressure. Outcry followed.English
    2·
    3 days ago

    Article for anyone not wanting give in to corporate data collection:

    A farm-supply chain vowed to cut DEI roles amid pressure. Outcry followed.

    Tractor Supply said it would make changes to its diversity and climate programs after fielding criticism from customers.

    One of the country’s largest farm-supply retailers announced Thursday that it would cut diversity-focused positions and withdraw its carbon-emissions goals in a response to right-wing pressure that sparked an uproar from other customers and advocacy groups.

    Tractor Supply Company made the changes after fielding criticism from customers about some of its programs, the Tennessee-based business said in a statement. It also vowed to stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, and to no longer sponsor Pride festivals and voting initiatives.

    “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them,” the company said. “We have taken this feedback to heart.”

    The move was met with celebration from conservative activists — and consternation from others, including a New York animal sanctuary, LGBTQ+ organizations and an association that aims to support Black farmers.

    Tractor Supply did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post on Saturday.

    The company is the latest to find itself at a crossroads between customers with different political beliefs. Last year, Bud Light’s sales dropped after it ran an advertisement featuring a transgender social media influencer, and Target lost business after revealing a Pride Month collection. And while a conservative legal campaign dismantles corporate and government diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, some companies are privately rebranding their DEI policies.

    Tractor Supply, which sells animal feed, tractor parts and power tools at more than 2,230 stores nationwide, was recognized for its inclusiveness last year. Bloomberg praised it for promoting gender equality, while Newsweek called it one of the best U.S. companies for diversity.

    “Our deeply rooted Mission and Values are the foundation of who we are as an organization,” Melissa Kersey, Tractor Supply’s executive vice president, said in a statement in February 2023. “They dictate that Tractor Supply prioritize a safe, respectful and inclusive work environment that values diversity of thought and perspective.”

    But the company came under scrutiny this month when conservative podcast host Robby Starbuck denounced Tractor Supply’s diversity and climate policies. An employee recently had messaged him to complain that the company was supporting LGBTQ+ groups, Starbuck told The Washington Post.

    Starbuck visited Tractor Supply weekly to buy provisions for his farm in Franklin, Tenn., he said, but wasn’t comfortable with the company putting money toward inclusion programs.

    “Start buying what you can from other places until Tractor Supply makes REAL changes,” he wrote on X on June 6.

    Other customers responded to say they would join the boycott, and the company’s share price fell by 5 percent in the past month, according to the Financial Times.

    Starbuck and other conservative X users, including Libs of TikTok, publicly celebrated after Tractor Supply said it would roll back several of its policies.

    “This is about getting back to an environment where businesses are just businesses again, and they’re not proxies for social values or political values,” Starbuck told The Post.

    Others weren’t so happy.

    John Boyd Jr., founder of the National Black Farmers Association, an advocacy group for African American farmers, told The Post that Tractor Supply is “sending the wrong message to America.” In four decades as a farmer, Boyd said, he has seen White farmers — who made up about 95 percent of farmers in 2017 — spit in Black farmers’ faces and call them the n-word.

    “We’re just going backwards,” Boyd said of Tractor Supply’s decision.

    SquirrelWood Equine Sanctuary, an animal sanctuary in Montgomery, N.Y., said Tractor Supply would no longer receive the more than $65,000 it usually spends there each year.

    “You have lost our business and every shred of respect we might have had,” the sanctuary wrote on X.

    Eric Bloem, vice president of programs and corporate advocacy for the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement to The Post that Tractor Supply “is turning its back on their own neighbors.” Tennessee state Sen. Charlane Oliver (D) wrote on X that the company was “choosing hate and bigotry.”

    Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said Tractor Supply has brought “harm to their LGBTQ customers and employees.”

    “Tractor Supply’s embarrassing capitulation to the petty whims of anti-LGBTQ extremists puts the company out of touch with the vast majority of Americans who support their LGBTQ friends, family, and neighbors,” Ellis said in a statement to The Post.

    DEI programs became popular in many organizations during the racial-justice movement sparked by George Floyd’s murder in 2020. But backlash soon followed from critics who claimed the policies created new inequalities.

    Frank Dobbin, a sociology professor at Harvard University who researches corporate diversity programs, said it’s rare for companies to publicly announce their reversal of diversity programs. Depending on how the move impacts Tractor Supply’s business, Dobbin said the company could be a “test case” that informs whether other organizations announce similar cuts.

    “Is this going to cascade down to lots of other companies?” Dobbin asked. “Or is this going to be the lesson that other companies take, that you don’t want to reverse course on trying to promote equality?”

  • ralakus@lemmy.worldtoClimate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.@slrpnk.net•Hurricane Beryl is intensifying at an unprecedented rate. What to know.
    22·
    4 days ago

    Hurricane Beryl becomes Category 4 storm on its way through Caribbean

    Beryl exploded into a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph Sunday — the earliest a storm of that intensity has been recorded in the Atlantic — leading Caribbean islands to prepare for violent storms.

    The National Hurricane Center said Beryl could pose “life-threatening” problems in the Lesser Antilles, an island chain on the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. Hurricane warnings have been issued for Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands, Grenada and Tobago, while a tropical storm warning covers Martinique.

    “All preparations should be rushed to completion today,” the Hurricane Center posted at 11 a.m. Sunday. Forecasters expect Beryl to move across the Caribbean and toward the northwestern region of the sea, affecting the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

    Researchers have been warning for months that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be one for the record books, and now it is.

    What to know about Beryl’s location and islands’ preparations

    As of 1:45 p.m. Eastern time, Beryl was about 300 miles east-southeast of Barbados and was moving due west at 21 mph.

    St. Lucian Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre said on Facebook that emergency service officials declared a national shutdown for the country of about 170,000 people starting at 8:30 p.m. local time Sunday.

    “We need to be together and support each other as we prepare but hope and pray we are spared,” he said in a video message.

    The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Meteorological Service on Sunday issued a flash-flood warning to its 100,000 residents.

    At midday Sunday, Michael Tiller was looking at blue skies and calm, clear blue water from the patio of a rented vacation home in Barbados.

    “You can’t really tell there’s a hurricane coming,” the Michigan resident said. “It’s a really beautiful day out here.”

    Tiller plans to hunker down as soon as the winds pick up. The property managers of the home he is sharing with his family for the week came in earlier Sunday and boarded up the windows and glass doors.

    He was surprised, however, that they didn’t take away the patio furniture or provide him with any other instructions.

    To stay up to date and keep his family safe, Tiller is following weather updates online from a Barbados-based meteorologist, Sabu Best, who provides updates every three hours.

    The family is bracing for strong winds and power outages, but Tiller isn’t too concerned.

    “I’m calm and not particularly worried,” he said. “There will be adversity, but in the grander scheme of things it will be fine for us.” The family is planning to return to the United States on Wednesday.

    How fast the storm strengthened

    Beryl went from a tropical storm to a Category 3 hurricane in 36 hours; it intensified by 75 mph during that time frame. According to Sam Lillo, a researcher at DTN Weather, that level of rapid intensification has never happened in June and has happened only twice in July.

    On Sunday morning, it reached Category 4 intensity.

    What makes this so unusual

    There is no precedent for a storm to intensify this quickly, nor reach this strength, in this part of the ocean during the month of June. Records date to 1851.

    While flukes happen, there is a firm link between rapid intensification (the strengthening of hurricanes) and human-induced climate change. Ocean waters are running 3 or 4 degrees above average, reminiscent of August rather than June. In some cases, records are being set. It’s unsurprising that the atmosphere is responding accordingly.

    Before now, the Atlantic has only ever seen two major hurricanes during June — Audrey in 1957 and Alma in 1966. “Major” hurricanes are those rated as Category 3 or higher. Both Audrey and Alma occurred in the Gulf of Mexico as early-season “homegrown” storms. The Atlantic’s Main Development Region, located between northern South America and Africa, was always believed to be inhospitable to major hurricanes during the month of June — until now.

    In addition to extremely warm ocean waters, relaxed upper-level winds played a crucial role in its development. If high-altitude winds are too harsh, they can tear apart a fledgling storm. Winds are ordinarily hostile during June, but not this year.

    The juxtaposition of low pressure to the northwest and a high to the north and east helped evacuate air away from Beryl in a narrow filament, “venting” it and helping it to intensify more quickly. (Imagine placing a fan at the top of a chimney — the more air you blow out the top, the more the flames will grow as air rushes in to fuel the fire at the bottom.)

    Where Beryl could go next

    Beryl will slam the Lesser Antilles on Monday, probably the Windward Islands, with winds of 130 mph or more. Because its strongest winds are concentrated in the center, the specific track of the storm’s eye will determine its exact impacts.

    The National Hurricane Center is also expecting a storm surge of 6 to 9 feet, as well as 3 to 6 inches of rain.

    High pressure to the north will act as a force field over the central Atlantic, preventing Beryl from escaping out to sea. That’s why Beryl will continue moving west.

    By Tuesday, Beryl will enter the eastern Caribbean, still moving westward or slightly west-northwestward. It may be weakening acutely by then as it encounters shear, or changing winds with height, that work to knock it off-kilter.

    Its eventual track in the Caribbean is unknown. Jamaica and Cuba could both be in play. So could the Yucatán Peninsula. At this point, it does look like Mexico is more likely to be hit.

    There’s also a potential scenario — least likely at this point — where Beryl threads the gap between Cancún and western Cuba, entering the Gulf of Mexico. The feasibility of that scenario, and range of possible impacts, won’t be known for days.