Published on Jan 6, 2015
In our news wrap Tuesday, Republicans took control of the House and the Senate. Despite warm words for getting much accomplished in the new year, there was confrontation between Republicans and the White House over the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline. Also, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was sentenced to two years in federal prison for taking bribes while in office.
[Excerpt]
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Published on Jan 6, 2015
The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto the first piece of legislation introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate, a bill approving the much-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline. (Jan. 6)
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Published on Jan 6, 2015
Senator Inhofe is sworn in for his fourth term in the 114th Congress.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life.
In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, Jamieson argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries.
Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality — it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
from Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin Plus 2 years ago / Creative Commons License:
At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, the economic crisis and growing inequality in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. Shift Change: is a new documentary that highlights worker-owned enterprises in North America and the remarkable Mondragon cooperatives in he Basque region of northern Spain. Broadcast nationwide on PBS in July of 2014.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Our fight, from indigenous people in Canada to ranchers in Nebraksa, now challenges the fossil-fuel industry at every turn. If the president sticks to his word, this will be a landmark win
It’s not as if we’re winning the climate fight – the planet’s temperature keeps rising – but we’re not losing it the way we used to. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters
Tuesday 6 January 2015 14.54 EST
When the news arrived from the White House on Tuesday that Barack Obama would veto the GOP’s Keystone pipeline bill – or at least “that the president would not sign this bill” as is – I thought back to a poll that the National Journal conducted of its “energy insiders” in the fall of 2011, just when then issue was heating up. Nearly 92% of them thought Obama’s administration would approve the pipeline, and almost 71% said it would happen by the end of that year.
Keystone’s not dead yet – feckless Democrats in the Congress could make some kind of deal later this month or later this year, and the president could still yield down the road to the endlessly corrupt State Department bureaucracy that continues to push the pipeline – but it’s pretty amazing to see what happens when people organize.
The fight against the XL pipeline began with indigenous people in Canada, and spread to ranchers along the pipeline route in places like Nebraska. And then, in the spring of 2011, when the climate scientist Jim Hansen pointed out the huge pool of carbon in the Canadian tar sands, the fight spread to those of us in the nascent climate movement. We had no real hope of stopping Keystone – as the National Journal poll indicated, this seemed the most done of deals – but we also had no real choice but to try.
See also:
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
The longtime Oklahoma senator is Capitol Hill’s most flamboyant critic of climate research. But he’s not alone. (Photo: Getty)
The swearing-in of the 114th Congress this week spells trouble for our food, water and environment, and for all those who seek to champion healthy, safe communities for our families. We may be looking at the most hostile Congress ever in terms of protecting the environment.
Here are a few examples of what we could face over the next few years:
James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a notorious climate change denier and an unabashed champion for the fossil fuel industry, will likely chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Expect the committee to intensify its bullying of environmentalists, especially in light of the game-changing decision by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to ban fracking.
We’ll also see attacks on the credibility of groups that do environmental work – in fact, we already have, and it will only get worse.
Last July, Inhofe released a report that targeted environmental groups and their funders in an attempt to silence groups working in the public interest. This should surprise no one, given that David Vitter (R-LA), who headed the minority staff at the time, receives a majority of his campaign cash from the oil and gas industry.
Then, in November 2014, a subcommittee released a report on fracking calling its opponents “extremists.” It’s chilling to see policymakers taking a page from industry-backed astroturf campaigns and front groups whose discredited attacks have no place in serious policy discussions.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
How fighting back against one arcane, Nixon-era trade negotiating procedure could put a stop to a global corporate coup.
(Photo: GlobalTradeWatch/flickr/cc)
When global justice groups wanted to halt expansion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999, they organized massive demonstrations in Seattle, where the official ministerial conference was being held.
Tens of thousands of people filled the streets. Groups held rallies, marches, and teach-ins, conducted civil disobedience, and in many cases faced attacks by police. With delegates unable to even reach the convention hall, the opening ceremony was cancelled, and the talks eventually fell apart. The “Battle of Seattle” not only succeeded in derailing the Millennial Round of negotiations, it also turned opposition to corporate globalization into international headline news.
Fifteen years later, the “movement of movements” has another opportunity to strike a dramatic blow to neoliberalism — this time by stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a deal the United States is negotiating with 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam) allegedly to boost “free trade.”
However, the pact goes far beyond traditional trade issues, to affect banking regulations, environmental protections, access to medicines, use of the internet, and much more. Most notably, the deal would undermine countries’ ability to make sovereign decisions and instead offer protections to transnational corporate investors. And full information about the TPP is not even available — the level of transparency is so low that all public access to the text has come from leaks.
The TPP is a corporate power grab clearly worthy of Seattle-caliber mobilization. But the fight against this reprehensible deal requires different types of tactics. And the place to start is by derailing “Fast Track,” the mechanism that would allow TPP approval to rush through the U.S. Congress with little debate and no amendments.
An End Run Around Popular Influence
Social movements’ success in Seattle has been enduring. Despite unfortunate recent “progress” in arcane areas such as trade facilitation, the WTO stalemate that took root in Seattle has on the whole been a lasting one, frustrating neoliberal expansion for a decade and a half.
In many ways, the TPP is an end-run around that peoples’ movement victory by corporations and their allies. Rather than continue facing the WTO’s ostensibly consensus-based decision-making process, transnational corporations are today using their proxy — the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative — to cherry-pick those countries most willing to play ball with their agenda. They’re pushing those governments to approve an omnibus package of corporate dream policies on energy, finance, intellectual property, agriculture, and more, which they’ve disguised as a trade deal. And since the TPP is a “docking agreement” — meaning that other countries can join over time — they can then pressure other nations, from China on down, to sign on once the rules have already been set.
In negotiating the TPP, U.S. president Barack Obama has not only faced the challenge of getting 11 countries into line with the proposal. He’s also had to overcome significant domestic opposition, including from members of his own party.
At a Business Roundtable meeting of CEOs in December, President Obama said, “Part of the argument I am making to Democrats is: ‘don’t fight the last war.’” He went on to say that conditions for the practices critics object to — like outsourcing production to countries with poor labor and environmental standards — already exist. In contrast, he said, the TPP will be “forcing some countries to boost their labor standards, boost their environmental standards, boost transparency, reduce corruption, increase intellectual property protection. And so all that is good for us.”
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
by Joe Romm Posted on January 5, 2015 at 9:09 amUpdated: January 5, 2015 at 11:55 am
“2014 Was The Hottest Year On Record Globally By Far”
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has announced that 2014 was the hottest year in more than 120 years of record-keeping — by far. NOAA is expected to make a similar call in a couple of weeks and so is NASA.
As the JMA graph shows, there has been no “hiatus” or “pause” in warming. In fact, there has not even been a slowdown. Yes, in JMA’s ranking of hottest years, 1998 is in (a distant) second place — but 1998 was an outlier as the graph shows. In fact, 1998 was boosted above the trendline by an unusual super-El Niño. It is usually the combination of the underlying long-term warming trend and the regional El Niño warming pattern that leads to new global temperature records.
What makes setting the record for hottest year in 2014 doubly impressive is that it occurred despite the fact we’re still waiting for the start of El Niño. But this is what happens when a species keeps spewing record amounts of heat-trapping carbon pollution into the air, driving CO2 to levels in the air not seen for millions of years, when the planet was far hotter and sea levels tens of feet higher.
The JMA is a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Regional Climate Center of excellence. The WMO had announced a month ago that 2014 was on track to be hottest year on record. Different climate-tracking groups around the world use different data sets, so they can show different results for 2014 depending on how warm December turns out to be.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Britain has been lobbying to reduce EU powers to act on countries’ failure to meet agreed emissions cuts of 40% by 2030
Ed Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change. The UK wants emissions cuts to be overseen with a ‘light touch’. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Arthur Neslen, Brussels
British lobbying to reduce monitoring of EU countries’ action on climate change has sparked outrage among MEPs and environmentalists.
EU states agreed last October to cut their carbon emissions 40% by 2030, but a UK plan co-authored with the Czech Republic proposes that countries’ emissions cuts should only be overseen with a ‘light touch’ regime with a diminished role for Brussels.
The unpublished paper places equal emphasis on business competitiveness and greenhouse gas reductions. It also calls for nuclear power and experimental carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to be given the same status as renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, and energy efficiency.
“It is very worrying that the UK government is now discussing how to ensure a light touch on the 2030 targets,” the Labour MEP Seb Dance told the Guardian. “In the past, the UK has led the way towards decarbonisation but that has to be combined with developing renewable and low carbon alternatives.”
…(read more).
For related articles see:
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Transition Studies 