Environment

By Steve Turton | – Many parts of Australia have suffered a run of severe and, in some cases, unprecedented weather events this summer. One common feature of many of these events – including the Tasmanian heatwave and the devastating Townsville floods – was that they were caused by weather systems that parked themselves in […]

Climate Crisis

Capitalism vs. Socialism Is a False Choice: We need true democracy to Avoid self-extinction.

David Korten

( Yes! Magazine) – Economic power is—and always has been—the foundation of political power. Those who control the peoples’ means of living rule. In a democracy, however, each person must have a voice in the control and management of the means of their living. That requires more than a vote expressing a preference for which […]

Climate Crisis

Democracy and the Green New Deal Demand higher Taxes on Rich

Sam Pizzigati

( Inequality.org ) – Innovative proposals like tying income tax rates for America’s riches to the minimum wage for America’s poorest could help high tax rates survive over the long haul. Jan Schakowsky doesn’t need to apologize for anything. This veteran member of Congress from Illinois has a record second to none on issues that […]

Environment

Trump’s Wall an Ugly Scar Across Hot Zone of Biological Diversity, Threatening Endangered Species

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s Wall, like most Trump fantasies, is more symbolic than real, which is why he can never remember what its shape would be or what to call it. The fact is that it is just a projection of his racist anxieties, something standing between him and the rapists, murderers, and […]

Climate Crisis

School Climate Strikes: Children taking Radical Action and “Adults” have no Right to Object

The Conversation

By Rupert Read | – A worldwide wave of school climate strikes, begun by the remarkable Greta Thunberg, has reached the UK. Some critics claim these activist-pupils are simply playing truant, but I disagree. Speaking as both a climate campaigner and an academic philosopher, I believe school walkouts are morally and politically justifiable. Philosophy can […]

Climate Crisis

The Age of Environmental Breakdown: We need the Green New Deal Now!

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Lesley Rankin and Darren Baxter Februhe at the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain are warning in a new study as frantically as they can that “the extent, severity, pace and closing window of opportunity to avoid potentially catastrophic outcomes has led many scientists to conclude that […]

Climate Change

Pentagon Fears Climate Crisis, w/ Billions in Damage to US Bases & Societal Upheaval

AFP

Washington, DC (AFP) – Climate change and a deteriorating environment are likely to fuel social disorder and could threaten some US military bases, a top admiral said Tuesday. Admiral Philip Davidson, who heads the US military’s vast Indo-Pacific Command, told lawmakers he concurred with a recent assessment from the US intelligence community that listed climate […]

Pollution

No Insects, No Food: Pesticides, Deforestation have Caused Largest Extinction Event since Die-off of Dinosaurs

Marlowe Hood

By Marlowe HOOD | – Paris (AFP) – “Unless we change our way of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades,” concluded the peer-reviewed study, which is set for publication in April. The recent decline in bugs that fly, crawl, burrow and skitter across still […]

Climate Change

Climate Emergency: Australian Judge Strikes down Coal Mine in Part because of its Carbon Emissions

Juan Cole

Informed Comment (Ann Arbor) – In what is likely to be the first of many such rulings, an Australian court has ruled against a coal mine in part on grounds of the environmental damage that burning coal does by contributing to the climate emergency. Burning coal releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a powerful greenhouse […]