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Currently viewing entries in the Environment and Climate Change category.
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Climate Change for June 20th, 2009
APOCALYPSE NOW
Globe and Mail Environment Reporter Martin Mittelstadt reviews new books by three heavyweights James Lovelock, Lester Brown and John Michael Greer each of whom warns of dire consequences of global warming and peak oil.
- Brace yourselves for apocalypse now — The Globe and Mail
NEEDED: A DIFFERENT GUARDIAN OF THE ARCTIC
Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier argues that as the Northwest Passage sea-ice coverage is lost, instead of aggressively facing climate change, Canada has decided the best way to keep foreign ships from running the passage is with our military. She advocates instead for co-operative management of the Arctic, by means of an Arctic treaty that charges circumpolar indigenous peoples with the stewardship of the Arctic and international co-management boards that would integrate traditional and scientific knowledge to ensure sound and peaceful management of the Arctic’s natural resources.
- NEEDED: A DIFFERENT GUARDIAN OF THE ARCTIC by Sheila Watt-Cloutier — The Globe and Mail
CLIMATE CRUNCH
The economic crisis is leading to falling carbon emissions - so why is it not good for the climate? By Oscar Reyes. Reyes shows how, in the midst of recession, Europe¹s carbon trading systems presents polluting industries a lifeline by cashing in their unwanted permits, while the Œprice signal¹ that is meant to change their polluting ways is rendered largely meaningless.
- CLIMATE CRUNCH by Oscar Reyes — Redpepper Magazine
Video: Leon Panitch, co-editor of Socialist Register , author of Renewing Socialism , explains why capitalist mechanisms like cap and trade won¹t end CO2 emissions.
- Thoroughly modern Marx Pt. 2 by Leo Panitch — Real News Network via Youtube
Economic Crisis and Food Sovereignty
Video: Around the world, hunger is growing, while millions of working farmers face ruin. Even in Canada, unsound and dangerous corporate practices menace our food supply. The worldwide movement for food sovereignty aims to ensure peoples¹ capacity to shape their own food production systems, free from control by agribusiness giants.
- Economic Crisis and Food Sovereignty — Climate and Capitalism Blog
The world should brace itself for millions of climate refugees in coming decades, a mass migration that will be larger than any in human history, says a new report.
- World faces daunting refugee crisis because of climate change by Martin Mittelstaedt — Globe and Mail
Even European governments, with the strongest public commitment to reduce carbon emissions, are using stimulus packages to subsidize fossil fuels to a far greater degree than renewable energy sources.
- More subsidies for fossil fuels in recovery plans by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service
While the recent convention of the Saskatchewan NDP passed an anti-nuclearization, pro-renewable development resolution, its newly elected leader Dwaine Lingenfelter’, is strong commitment to nuclear development and the linking of nuclear energy to the tar sands development in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
- Saskatchewan NDP divided on nuclear power by Don Kossick — Rabble.ca
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Obama and Climate Change for May 28th 2009
Obama’s Plans to Combat Climate Change
According to Jeffrey St. Clair /Joshua Frank, “after intense pressure from the pollution lobby, Obama’s approach to attacking with climate change has been whittled down to nothing more than weak market-driven economics that can too easily be manipulated politically.”
They credit Obama’s move to end funding for the planned nuclear waste repository at the Yucca Mountain. But this decision, they say, must be countered by the administration’s ongoing promotion of nuclear power as corrective to climate change. Both Chu and Obama’s chief science advisor John Holdren are pushing for federal subsidies for a new generation of nuclear power plants. And they are promising billions more for the nuclear lobby under the guise of research and development, the pipeline of federal subsidies that has kept the industry alive since Three Mile Island. Again, they credit Obama’s sweeping overhaul of the car fuel efficiency (CAFE) and exhaust emissions standards, which have languished unmodified for more than a decade, then draw attention to its drawbacks. These include the administration’s relentless push to replace oil with biofuels, which will push marginal agriculture lands into production of genetically-engineered and pesticide saturated monocrops, scalping topsoil and draining dwindling water supplies across the Great Plains and Midwest.
- The Politics of Bait-and-Switch: Obama and the Environment by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank — Counterpunch.org
James Handley of the Carbon Tax Center analyses President Obama¹s Cap and Trade emissions policy.
- Cap and trade won’t cut it by James Handley — Real News Network
George Monbiot describes the growing risk of doing little or nothing to combat climate change.
- Price of doing nothing costs the earth by George Monbiot — The Guardian
On March 2, 2009 around 4,000 people came to the Capitol Power Coal Plant in Washington, DC, with over 2,000 risking arrest through civil disobedience. Joshua Kahn Russell explains the strategy underlying this approach to building a mass-based climate justice movement.
- Climate Justice and Coal’s Funeral Procession by Joshua Kahn Russell — zmags.org
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Climate Change and the Environment for May 16th 2009
How should anti-capitalists intervene in coming IPCC meetings in Copenhagen? Cynthia Kaufman says she wrote this piece for Climate and Capitalism “to incite some serious conversation among anti-capitalists.
- Anti-capitalism, Climate Change, and Copenhagen by Cynthia Kaufman — Climate and Capitalism
Earth Talk, produced by The Environmental magazine, answers vital questions about the environment and climate change, in particular. Here is a sample from installment 05-10-09…
A critical analysis of the US Climate bill:
- U.S. Climate Bill: No Emission Reduction Until 2026 — Climate and Capitalism
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Environment and climate change for April 17th, 2009
These selections emphasize once more that a climate disaster is nearer than anyone thought only a year or so ago and that government targets for emissions reduction are nowhere near the mark
Obama’s emission cuts: pragmatic suicide By Gwynne Dyer — Winnipeg Free Press
Hansen: Coal-fired power plants are factories of death By James Hansen — Climate and Capitalism Blog
Climate change could mean a walk in the Arctic woods by Martin Mittelstaedt — The Globe and Mail
Monbiot: We cannot afford to surrender by George Monbiot — Climate and Capitalism blog
Meanwhile false solutions still abound and need to be exposed article from climate and capitalism; more radical solutions are being advanced and more radical actions including civil disobedience needs to be organized;
The Auto Crisis: Placing Our Own Alternative on the Table by Sam Gindin — The Socialist Project
Hansen: Protests and direct action needed to stop emissions By David Adam — Climate and Capitalism blog
Stopping the Alberta Tar Sands would be an excellent choice for civil disobedience. A new environmental justice movement organized by indigenous activists indicates one vital campaign that needs to be supported.
Yesterday’s fuel, yesterday’s deal By Gordon Laxer — The Globe and Mail
Tar Sands: Environmental justice, treaty rights and Indigenous Peoples by Clayton Thomas-Muller — Canadian Dimension
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