Tag: climate
-
The Merkley-Sanders Climate Bill Isn’t a Launchpad. It’s Quicksand.
350.org sees the "100 by '50 Act" as a Washington record-breaker, "the most ambitious piece of climate legislation Congress has ever seen.” But even if it does actually clear that decidedly low bar, it threatens to bog down efforts at preventing climate catastrophe. A climate bill known as the “100 by '50 Act” (S.987), introduced…
-
An Eco-Revolutionary Tipping Point?
—
by
The system of fossil-fueled neoliberal capitalism is indeed moving toward an end of history, but only in the sense of the end of any historical advance of humanity as a productive, political, and cultural species due to the increasingly barbaric socio-economic and environmental conditions the system creates. There is now no alternative to the end…
-
On the Beaten Track of Disaster: A Conversation
The reader of How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, From the Caribbean to Siberia must be agile. The book demands that one navigate between several modes of consciousness in order to face the reality of human input into the “weather on steroids” that is routine these days. How the World Breaks takes…
-
The 33 Percent Will Have to Pick Up the Tab for the Climate Conversion
The rapid mobilization that’s necessary to stop a greenhouse meltdown won’t be happening in the near future, given that in Washington the attitude toward effective climate action spans a spectrum from open hostility to timid torpor. In the meanwhile activism, exemplified by the April 29 People’s Climate March, is keeping hope alive, or at…
-
The Slow Confiscation of Everything
—
by
Climate change is a different prospect of calamity—not just elementally but morally different from nuclear exchange in a manner which has not been properly dealt with. The first difference is that it’s definitely happening. The second is that it’s not happening to everyone. For anyone who grew up in the Cold War, the apocalypse was…
-
As the Climate Melts, Democracy Must Be Rescued and Transformed; Capitalism Can’t Be
Both capitalism and electoral democracy impede effective climate action. But while we have to defend and transform democracy, there is no possibility that capitalism can be made compatible with either global climate mitigation or social and economic justice. Donald Trump plans to dismantle America’s already weak climate policy, potentially dooming not only this country…
-
The Ascendance of Trump Makes Broad-Based Climate Action Essential—and Achievable
On December 5, former vice president Al Gore met with Donald and Ivanka Trump in an effort to convince the president-elect that he should not gut federal policies and agreements dealing with climate change. Three days later, actor Leonardo DiCaprio also paid the Trump duo a visit, urging them to help build a green,…
-
Are Fair Skies Possible?
A Review of Brian Tokar's book Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Justice (Porsgrunn, Norway: New Compass Press, 2014). This expanded edition of Brian Tokar's book is a concise, valuable summing-up of the most important issue facing humanity today: how to stop runaway climate chaos while at the same time achieving…
