Climate change and the struggle against capitalism

[ckaihatsu]

What can nearly two-thirds of a million bucks buy you? If you're a Texas oil corporation or its local allies in British Columbia, it might help get your controversial pipeline approved, according to a lawsuit against the provincial government and firm being heard in court on Monday.


More... (http://m.metronews.ca/#/article/news/vancouver/2017/06/25/kinder-morgans-trans-mountain-pipeline-bc-donations-lawsuit.html)

[ckaihatsu]

The number of dead trees in California's drought-stricken forests has risen dramatically to more than 102 million in what officials described as an unparalleled ecological disaster that heightens the danger of massive wildfires and damaging erosion.


More... (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-dead-trees-20161118-story.html)

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

A scientific study published Monday concludes that the planet is already seeing its sixth mass extinction—the first since humans evolved.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/12/exti-j12.html)

[ckaihatsu]

Political economist and climate justice expert Patrick Bond comments on the prospects for a progressive anti-capitalist agenda in the face of increasing alt-right populism, xenophobia, climate denialism and economic-political exceptionalism.


More... (https://entitleblog.org/2017/07/07/climate-justice-movements-need-to-hit-trump-where-it-hurts-most-an-interview-with-patrick-bond)

[ckaihatsu]

The Carbon Majors Report, from the Carbon Disclosure Project, found that just 25 of those companies are the source of more than half of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 – the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established.


More... (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/100-companies-responsible-71-per-cent-greenhouse-gas-emissions-global-warming-climate-change-shell-a7834031.html)

[ckaihatsu]

via wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)

The main obstacles to a rational climate policy are capitalist private ownership of the means of production and the division of the world into rival nation-states.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/14/pers-j14.html)

[ckaihatsu]

The Trudeau government has approved a 'tailings management facility' in the upper tributaries of Teigen and North Treaty creeks (which form part of the Nass River drainage system) near Stewart, British Columbia. That means that these water bodies will be used for the disposal of tailings.


More... (https://canadians.org/blog/trudeau-approves-schedule-2-destruction-teigen-and-north-treaty-creeks)

[ckaihatsu]

One of the biggest icebergs in history has snapped off the West Antarctic ice shelf, according to scientists who have been monitoring a growing crack for months. Satellite images confirmed that the trillion-tonne iceberg had broken away and was adrift at sea.


More... (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/trillion-tonne-iceberg-breaks-antarctica-170712095845744.html)

[ckaihatsu]

Wildfires ripping through Canada's western province of British Columbia since the weekend have forced people to flee and companies in the mining and forestry sectors to scale back or suspend operations.


More... (http://www.mining.com/control-canadas-wildfires-close-kinder-morgans-pipeline)

[ckaihatsu]

via investigaction.net (http://www.investigaction.net/en/)

Political players both in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and the region are repositioning themselves after the recent emergence of a coalition between Hamas and Mohammed Dahlan, the former leader […]

More... (http://www.investigaction.net/en/gaza-is-headed-for-a-deeper-political-and-humanitarian-crisis/)

[ckaihatsu]

Dr. David Suzuki discusses the environmental movement's failure to sustain its victories and the vision that will be needed to ensure public support for environmental protection.


More... (http://therealnews.com/t2/?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&jumival=19507)

[ckaihatsu]

The past few days there has been a lot of arguing about the end of the world. There have been a series of arguments and rebuttals around a recent New York Magazine piece that sets out how the planet is basically fucked and life will become nasty, brutish and short over the next century.


More... (http://novaramedia.com/2017/07/12/climate-apocalypse-vs-liberal-utopianism-the-arguments-for-and-against-the-end-of-the-world/)

[ckaihatsu]

Last year was the most perilous ever for people defending their community's land, natural resources or wildlife, with new research showing that environmental defenders are being killed at the rate of almost four a week across the world.


More... (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/13/environmental-defenders-being-killed-in-record-numbers-globally-new-research-reveals)

[ckaihatsu]

Answer: yes. It's a time to be hopeful -- but not to let up the pressure. The incoming BC NDP government will be appointing their cabinet next week and can finally get to work on the ambitious promises they made in their historic agreement with the BC Greens.


More... (https://dogwoodbc.ca/bc-tools-stop-kinder-morgan)

[ckaihatsu]

The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is sinking C$1.4 billion of members' retirement savings into a 45% stake in an offshore natural gas development in Ireland that local residents have been trying to stop for more than a decade.


More... (http://theenergymix.com/2017/07/14/canadian-pension-plan-sinks-1-4-billion-in-controversial-offshore-gas-field)

[ckaihatsu]

Fast forward to 2017, Gabriel finds herself back in the same place, face to face with the same town, this time over a housing development. The project according to Gabriel is encroaching on the pines, here Gabriel confronts the Mayor of Oka, Pascal Quevillon.


More... (http://aptnnews.ca/2017/07/13/27-years-after-the-oka-crisis-ellen-gabriel-is-once-again-defending-the-pines-on-the-mohawk-territory)

[ckaihatsu]

Would you advise someone to flap towels in a burning house? To bring a flyswatter to a gunfight? Yet the counsel we hear on climate change could scarcely be more out of sync with the nature of the crisis.


More... (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals)

[ckaihatsu]

The Canadian Press reports, 'The CPPIB will pay nearly $1.4 billion to become the largest partner in the Corrib offshore natural gas field, 83 kilometres off the coast of Ireland. The Toronto-based fund manager will initially buy a 45-per-cent interest in the project from a unit of the Shell energy business for £830 million.'


More... (https://canadians.org/blog/canada-pension-plan-invests-controversial-offshore-gas-project-threatens-irish-communitys)

[ckaihatsu]

Across B.C., 40,000 people live in communities that are under evacuation order due to raging wildfires. Another 17,000 are on alert. The numbers are dramatic, but not exceptional.


More... (http://www.cbc.ca/1.4208238)

[ckaihatsu]

Here's the future for a world that failed to act - By John Feffer.


More... (https://www.thenation.com/article/welcome-to-2050-the-climate-monster-has-arrived)

[ckaihatsu]

The intense lobbying effort comes as the Commerce Department faces a Sunday deadline to give the president a plan to require oil and gas pipelines use American-made steel, an idea Trump embraced in the initial days of his presidency.


More... (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-21/trump-s-america-first-pipeline-plan-draws-ire-of-american-oil)

[ckaihatsu]

In 2014, scientists found a new kind of of 'stone' on the beaches of Hawaii. It was made of sand, organic debris, volcanic rock, all swirled together with melted plastic. So they proposed the name 'plastiglomerate' and they suggested that, as plastic lasts pretty much forever, these stones could be a marker of the Anthropocene in the rock record. In the future, our time might be defined by our use of plastics.


More... (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/plastic-age/533955)

[ckaihatsu]

Today's announcement by Hydro One to acquire and merge with American utility giant Avista should raise red flags for every Ontarian who is struggling to pay their unaffordable hydro bills. This move to create a huge multinational utility means less control over our province's electricity system and more financial risk for Ontarians.


More... (http://www.ontariondp.ca/hydro_one_announcement_means_less_control_more_cos t_for_ontarians_ndp)

[ckaihatsu]

Canada's 'big five' banks are the largest backers of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline project, according to the company's financial documents. In total, 26 banks from Canada, the United States, Japan, Europe, and China have committed about $7.25 billion through a combination of share purchases and loans.


More... (http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/07/21/analysis/whos-banking-kinder-morgans-trans-mountain-pipeline)

[ckaihatsu]

Strange things have been happening in the frozen tundra of northern Siberia. Last August a boy died of anthrax in the remote Yamal Peninsula, and 20 other infected people were treated and survived.


More... (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/20/hell-breaks-loose-tundra-thaws-weatherwatch)

[ckaihatsu]

via socialistproject.ca (http://www.socialistproject.ca[/url)

http://socialistproject.ca/go3432.jpgWhen President Trump announced the US departure from the Paris Climate Accord on 1 June 2017, his enjoyment at walking over the efforts of national delegations and hundreds of pressure groups across the world who fought for that deal was palpable. I was in Paris in December 2015 during the negotiations, when the possibility of a global agreement was merely that, a fragile potential.

More... (https://socialistproject.ca/go.php?id=3432)

[ckaihatsu]

Annual study looking at the UN Convention on Biodiversity obligations shows country has done far less than other nations in preserving areas from development, leaving it in last place among G7 members.


More... (https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-lagging-behind-on-commitment-to-protect-lands-and-fresh-water-reportsays/article35779173)

[ckaihatsu]

At least since 2013, one of the biggest concerns in the climate change debate has been the so-called carbon budget -- a fixed limit to the volume of carbon dioxide emissions that we can put into the atmosphere before irrevocably committing to a considerably hotter planet.


More... (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/24/we-may-have-even-less-time-to-stop-global-warming-than-we-thought)

[ckaihatsu]

According to philosopher of science Bruno Latour, the rise of climate scepticism in public debates reflects the lack of political engagement from climate scientists. He argues that, having restrained themselves to a discourse of 'facts' and 'science', climatologists have been toothless in the face of a growing opposition to climate science, which wittingly seeds doubts about the quality of expert knowledge.


More... (https://entitleblog.org/2017/07/25/climate-politics-in-the-long-run/)

[ckaihatsu]

While President Trump moves to pull America out of the Paris climate accords, Canada's prime minister describes carbon pollution as one of the globe's biggest dangers. And not long after taking office in 2015, Trudeau unveiled a sweeping national plan to pivot Canada to a new economy based on renewable energy. He called it a 'down payment on [a] cleaner future.'


More... (https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-warrior-champion-of-big-oil-canadas-leader-wants-to-be-both)

[ckaihatsu]

Humanity has just three years left to accelerate action and drastically lower greenhouse gas emissions before risking a climate-safe world. That's according to a new commentary by a group of six experts, including former executive secretary of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.


More... (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/06/29/deadline-2020-just-three-years-say-experts-global-tipping-point)

[ckaihatsu]

A team of research oceanographers are currently analyzing the contents of a large patch of plastic garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean – and it is not the first discovery of its kind.


More... (https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/ocean-pacific-gyre-pollution-garbage-patch/84565)

[ckaihatsu]

The recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections to 2100 give likely ranges of global temperature increase in four scenarios for population, economic growth and carbon use.


More... (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3352.html)

[ckaihatsu]

It's long been clear that if we want to avoid catastrophic climate disruption on a scale that threatens human civilization, we need to leave vast amounts of fossil fuels in the ground.


More... (https://mronline.org/2017/08/04/talking-about-a-revolution/)