17 February 2019 — Climate & Capitalism
Six new books expose environmentalism’s false friends, analyse the idea of ‘environment’, explain renewable energy, trace the history of oceans, expose Monsanto’s Round-Up, and examine UK science denialClimate & Capitalism can’t review every book we receive, but this column lists and links to those that seem relevant to Climate & Capitalism’s mission, along with brief descriptions. Titles described here may be reviewed in future.
13 February 2019 — Climate & Capitalism
How can socialism be rejuvenated to ensure social parity, democratic processes, and environmental sustainability for humanity?
Introduction. In a previous article, I described Hans Baer’s essay “Toward Democratic Eco-Socialism as the next World System” as “an important contribution that merits study and discussion among all ecosocialists.”
Now Hans has written a book that both elaborates on the ideas he expressed in that essay, and outlines the views of a range of socialists on the struggle against capitalism and for an ecological civilization.
12 February 2019 — Climate & Capitalism
Interviewed by by Vaios Triantafyllou
US Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez introduces Greem New Deal resolution, Feb. 8, 2019
To bring about meaningful change, the resolution proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez must be part of an ecological revolution with a broad social base.
A professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, John Bellamy Foster is also the editor of the socialist magazine Monthly Review. He has written widely on capitalism, Marxism and ecological crises. In this interview, Foster discusses why a Green New Deal is just an entry point to an ecological revolution, and why any economic-social system that hopes to address the climate crisis must transcend capitalism. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
11 February 2019 — GreenLeft – Marxist Sociology Blog
Climate change is often seen as a “new” kind of crisis of capitalism – one that throws into question the standard Marxist analysis as having a blind spot with respect to nature. This has led to a whole host of intellectual efforts to “green” Marxism, or to argue an ecological Marxism must go beyond class to incorporate the “new” social movement of environmentalism.
8 February 2019 — Global Research
Eminent climate scientist Professor James Hansen has published a must-read, 55-page summary of the worsening climate emergency.
In short, to correct the Earth’s presently disastrous energy imbalance we must urgently reduce the atmospheric CO2 to 342-373 ppm CO2 from the present disastrous 407 ppm CO2.
31 January 2019 — Socialist Project – The Bullet
That the “extermination, enslavement, and entombment of the aboriginal population in mines […and] the transformation of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black skin” was essential to capitalism’s emergence has long been recognized. Few, however, realise that capitalism has been changing the climate since its “rosy dawn.”1
27 January 2019 — Alternative Information and Development Centre
The end of the human race is a very real prospect in the context of climate change and ultimately a heating world. Global warming at increases of 3, 4 or 5 degree Celsius means planet earth will no longer be habitable for human and most non-human life. There is scientific evidence that this has happened to other planets like Venus but was caused through natural processes. Our end is not inevitable and neither can it be prevented by false solutions. As a scientific process, climate change is the result of the sun’s rays (energy flows) being trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases (such as carbon and methane). This is creating a heating planet. This article engages with this challenge from a climate justice perspective.
22 January 2019 — Media Lens
What will it take for governments to take real action on climate? When will they declare an emergency and do what needs to be done? How much concerted, peaceful public action will be required to disrupt the current economic and political system that is driving humanity to the brink of extinction?
16 January 2019 — Global Research
I’m standing atop Rush Hill on Alaska’s remote St. Paul Island. While only 665 feet high, it provides a 360-degree view of this tundra-covered, 13-mile-long, seven-mile-wide part of the Pribilof Islands. While the hood of my rain jacket flaps in the cold wind, I gaze in wonder at the silvery waters of the Bering Sea. The ever-present wind whips the surface into a chaos of whitecaps, scudding mist, and foam.
16 January 2019 — Media Lens
It is clear even from their titles that corporate newspapers are objective, balanced and impartial. Or so we are to believe. The Telegraph and Mail are disinterested systems of communication – the prejudices of telegraphists and postmen/women certainly do not influence the content of the messages they deliver. The Times and Financial Times simply reflect the key events of our time, as of course does the Mirror. The Sun impartially spreads illumination to the benefit of all life on earth. As does the Independent, with no shadows cast by the Russian oligarch by which it is owned or the adverts on which it depends. The Observer looks on and records, a mere Spectator. Only the Guardian hints at political engagement. A staunch defender of ‘free’ comment and ‘sacred facts’, the title is commonly understood to indicate the paper’s determination to act as a guardian of ordinary people against powerful interests.
14 January 2019 — Climate & Capitalism
Click on image to download AMS Report on Extreme Weather
New report shows that recent extreme weather could not have happened without warming caused by human-induced climate change.
The U.S. Northern Plains and East Africa droughts of 2017, floods in South America, China and Bangladesh, and heatwaves in China and the Mediterranean were all made more likely by human-caused climate change, according to new research published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS).
10 January 2019 — Climate & Capitalism
The oceans are heating up faster than predicted, and the speed is accelerating. Expect higher seas, stronger storms, and extreme precipitation.
Heat trapped by greenhouse gases is raising ocean temperatures faster than previously thought, concludes an analysis of four recent ocean-heating observations. The results provide further evidence that earlier claims of a slowdown or “hiatus” in global warming over the past 15 years were unfounded.
