Thursday, 26 January 2023 — Media Lens
People in power get nervous when the population’s trust in national institutions plummets. It has often been a precursor of significant social unrest, even revolutions.
Category: Climate Change
90% of world’s people to face combined extreme heat and drought
Monday, M9 January, 2023 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Compound threats will most severely affect poor people and rural areas
More than 90% of the world’s population is projected to face increased risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought, potentially widening social inequalities as well as undermining the natural world’s ability to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere — according to a study from Oxford University’s School of Geography.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf: The Best of 2022
Saturday, 31 December 2023 — — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Ian Angus selects his favorite red and green books from the past year
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, December 2022
Saturday, 10 December 2022 — — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Six important new books on fungi and racism and building socialism and wheat and more
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Rich nations doubly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions
Tuesday, 6 December 2022 — JOMO
Hezri A. Adnan and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 06, 2022 (IPS). Natural flows do not respect national boundaries. The atmosphere and oceans cross international borders with little difficulty, as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other fluids, including pollutants, easily traverse frontiers.
“South Africa’s ‘Just’ Transition climate deal with the west is a betrayal of the working class”
Sunday, 20 November 2022 — Peoples Dispatch
South Africa is set to implement an $8.5bn plan funded by western countries to transition from coal-based energy to renewables. The country’s biggest union NUMSA has warned this plan will only intensify privatization while burdening South Africans with debt and poverty.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the International Partners Group at the JET Investment Plan meeting on the sidelines of COP27. Photo: @PresidencyZA/Twitter
‘Capital’s attack on nature endangers humanity’
Monday, 14 November, 2022 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
MST Calls for Action
Brazilian peasant leader: Build a global movement to save humanity and our common home!
Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (Brazil), Projeto de Mural (‘Mural Project’), 1950.
João Pedro Stedile
Speech by João Pedro Stedile, a leader of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and the global peasants’ organization La Via Campesina, at the Vatican in late October. English translation first published by Vijay Prashad in the newsletter of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
‘On The Highway To Climate Hell’ – The Climate Crisis, Activism And Broken Politics
Monday, 14 November 2022 — Media Lens
Last month, the United Nations environment agency issued arguably its starkest warning yet about the climate crisis. The failure by governments around the world to cut carbon emissions means there is ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’. Limiting the rise of global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels was the international agreement at COP21, the UN Climate Summit in Paris in 2015.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, November 2022
Wednesday, 9 November 2022 — Climate & Capitalism
Six new books and six recent essays: important reading for reds and greens
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Green Capitalism in Crisis: The End of a Chimera
Saturday, 8 October 2022 — Internationalist 360°
In the face of the global climate crisis, which is now evident in the destructive force of meteorological events, the question arises once again as to how to deal with this phenomenon, the causes of which are associated with the civilizational model that has spread from the United States and Europe to the rest of the world.
1.5°C warming may trigger multiple tipping points
Tuesday, 13 September 2022 — Climate & Capitalism
Five of sixteen identified tipping points are already in the danger zone
Click to enlarge: The location of climate tipping elements in the cryosphere (blue), biosphere (green) and ocean/atmosphere (orange), and global warming levels their tipping points will likely be triggered at. Summary Map by Earth Commission/Globaïa.
Multiple climate tipping points could be triggered if global temperature rises beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to a major new analysis published in the journal Science. Even at current levels of global heating the world is already at risk of passing five dangerous climate tipping points, and risks increase with each tenth of a degree of further warming.
Climate Scientists Call For Civil Disobedience
Tuesday, 30 August 2022 — Countercurrents Collective
(Photo: FridaysForFuture/Flickr/cc)
A group of climate scientists have said: Time is short to secure a livable and sustainable future; yet, inaction from governments, industry and civil society is setting the course for 3.2 °C of warming, with all the cascading and catastrophic consequences that this implies. In this context, when does civil disobedience by scientists become justified.
Unseen Heat: Is this the ‘End Game’ of the Climate?
Tuesday, 23 August 2022 — Global Research
We are experiencing a very hot and dry summer. Some people quite like it and for our governments there is nothing wrong yet. But actually, we should sound a big alarm. According to experts, if we do not change course soon, we risk ending up in the ‘climate end game’. In the meantime, the orchestra on the Titanic is continuing to play.
How corporations are stealing the sea
Tuesday, 16 August 2022 — — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Overfishing, seabed mining, corporate greed: it’s time to take back control
by Guy Standing
For most of human history, the oceans have been seen as a global commons, the benefits and resources of which belong to us all in equal measure. But our seas – and the marine environment as a whole – are being ravaged by exploitation for corporate profit. The result is a social, economic and ecological crisis that threatens the very life support system of the Earth.
Eco-Socialism, Democratic Communism: Common Sense
Sunday, 14 August, 2022 — Legalienate
“Are present ecological stresses so strong that if not relieved they will sufficiently degrade the ecosystem to make the earth uninhabitable by humans? Obviously no serious discussion of the environmental crisis can get very far without confronting this question.”
Barry Commoner in The Closing Circle: 1971
More than fifty years after Commoner wrote those words, the environmental problem is almost infinitely worse and what is presently called climate change once thought to affect future generations is engulfing the entire planet right now. While warnings from a scientific community not on corporate payrolls grow more desperate the global political power of capitalism, the primary cause of nature’s breakdown under stress, especially at its fading but still essential center in the USA, is making things worse not just by the hour or minute but every second.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, August 2022
Sunday, 14 August, 2022 — — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Seven new books for people who know that the point is to change the world
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly Climate & Capitalism feature, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Europe Dries Up
Sunday 14 August 2022 — The New Dark Age
By Dr. Binoy Kampark
Scenes and pictures have been circulating of broken earth, lacking moisture, cracked and yearning. But these are not from traditional drought-stricken parts of the planet, where the animal carcass assumes near totemic power amidst dry riverbeds or desert expanses. Neither Australia nor Africa feature on these occasions – at least in a prominent way. Europe, continent of historical arable sustainability, is drying up.
Books: Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods
Friday, 5 August, 2022 — — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
To stop illegal logging we must understand the poachers
Lyndsie Bourgon
TREE THIEVES
Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods
Little, Brown, 2022
Reviewed by Martin Empson
Forests are one of the world’s most important biological reserves. They suck about a third of humanity’s carbon emissions out of the atmosphere each year. According to the United Nations, forests also “contain 60,000 different tree species, 80 percent of amphibian species, 75 percent of bird species, and 68 percent of the world’s mammal species.” Despite this importance, tree cover is being lost at an alarming rate, and as Lyndsie Bourgon’s new book details, significant damage to our forests comes from the illegal trade in wood, driven by the poaching of trees.
Uneven Earth’s Monthly Readings August 2022
Tuesday, 2 August 2022 — Uneven Earth
Summer readings
On our burning planet, the impact of private jets, socialist solidarity, and the growth of degrowth
Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: news you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, July 2022
Tuesday, 12 July 2022 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Summer reading for greens and reds. New books on work, extractive industry., empire, pandemics, organizing, and socialism
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
The New Dark Age 