Published on Jul 28, 2015
Du 3 au 5 juillet, des milliers de personnes partout au Canada se sont mobilisées pour le climat, la justice et la transition pendant 3 jours. Voici le récit de cette mobilisation. Pour en savoir plus: http://jobsjusticeclimate.ca/
Vidéo produite par Kai RW en collaboration avec Beyond Crisis Film. http://www.beyondcrisisfilm.com/
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Published on Oct 29, 2014
(http://climaterealityproject.org/EPA) In the two years since Superstorm Sandy ravaged the East Coast, communities worldwide have continued to suffer the effects of climate change – droughts, storms, wildfires, and biblical flooding – driven by the unlimited burning of fossil fuels.
In honor of the anniversaries of Sandy in the US and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, The Climate Reality Project hosted a webinar highlighting the connection between carbon pollution from fossil fuels and the extreme weather devastating our cities – and what people can do about it today.
Join The Climate Reality Project’s Ryan Towell, meteorologist and Director of Science and Solutions and Stephen Mills, Director of Strategic Partnerships, to learn more about:
How carbon pollution contributes to climate change
– How climate change impacts storms like Sandy and Haiyan
– Why the “speed limit” on hurricanes has increased
– What you can do to support limits on carbon pollution
Global Climate Change
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Uploaded on Oct 24, 2010
Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).
Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing”the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.” It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.
Global Climate Change
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Nuclear
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Due to its abundance and low market price, coal combustion is the largest source of energy production in the world, accounting for 40% of all electricity worldwide. In the USA it accounts for 45% of electricity generation, and approximately 75% in Australia.
Unfortunately, coal combustion is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions as well, accounting for 30% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide, and 72% of CO2 emissions from global power generation. In addition, non-power generation uses increase its contribution to global human CO2 emissions to a whopping 41% (as of 2005).
A major problem with coal is that its full costs are not reflected in its market price, and thus while we may seemingly purchase and burn coal cheaply, in reality we are paying a much higher cost in the long run, if we look at the big picture. Economists refer to the impacts on human and environmental health which are not reflected in the price of coal as “externalities”. Those who benefit from the seemingly cheap electricity don’t pay for these externalities directly, but the public eventually has to pay in the form of medical bills, environmental cleanups, etc.
In a new report published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Epstein et al. (2011) do a full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal, taking these externalities into account. Among the factors included in this analysis were:
….(read more).
Global Climate Change
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Published on Jul 28, 2015
Carmenza Robledo Abad WGIII Lead Author interview on the Fifth Assessment Report
Global Climate Change
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Published on Jul 28, 2015
A conversation about capitalism with two brilliant minds, Cornel West and Richard D. Wolff, together in a rare joint appearance. Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, and author most recently of Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown 2010- 2014/ Dr. Cornel West has written or edited dozens of books, including classics like Race Matters, and Democracy Matters. His most recent is Black Prophetic Fire, written in conversation with Christa Buschendorf. Also in the show, activist Manju Rajendran tells us about a small business that is successfully operating under an anti-capitalist economic paradigm. And Laura raises questions about the record-setting settlement with BP over drilling disaster in the Gulf Coast.
Global Climate Change
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Published on Jul 28, 2015
Excerpt from Global Research Radio 6/29/15
globalresearch.podbean.com
Producer & Host: Michael Welch
… first interview guest is Guy Mcpherson, Emeritus Professor of Natural Resources and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona, and author of the blog Nature Bats Last (guymcpherson.com) He has put together a workshop on Abrupt Climate change on the site onlyloveremains.org
www.guymcpherson.com
www.onlyloveremains.org
Message from Afrizen: “In my journey through the “DABDA” stages of grieving, regarding my understanding and expectation of what is to come in terms of anthropomorphic climate change, this song expresses my time in the first A – Anger. With time and reflection I’ve made it through to the second A, Acceptance, and my position regarding my lyrics has changed. They made sense when my assumptions were 1. that humanity and nature are separate, 2. that humanity is “committing crimes” against nature, and 3. that humanity will be punished for doing so. My thinking now is that 1. I don’t see a fundamental distinction between our species and the rest of nature, and 2. humanity is behaving exactly in accordance with its evolved genetic imperatives to survive, thrive and multiply today, regardless of the consequences tomorrow. I think my lyrics’ vitriolic theme and tone are misplaced and I suspect the song’s effect might possibly be to either foster or reinforce anger and bitterness in listeners. These are natural and appropriate emotions when first waking up to the predicament we are in (as I understand it) but, in my personal experience, anger and bitterness are unhelpful and detrimental if not worked through and overcome. The upsides of this new perspective for me are greater compassion and tolerance for my fellows, greater peace of mind and general happiness. I can only wish the same for others who are going through this.”
Global Climate Change
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Monday, Jul 27, 2015 11:43 AM EST
From The Secret to destructive management theories, unbridled optimism is just another way to ignore real issues
Depending on how you look at it, the mood in the United States of late has been either an overdue stock-taking — as we reckon with issues like racism, rape culture, runaway law enforcement and out-of-control income inequality — or relentlessly grim. Surely, unrelieved despair — either personally or more broadly, socially — can lead to paralysis. But despite a big Sunday Review cover piece in the New York Times, “We Need Optimists,” extolling the virtues of positive thinking, that habit without reflection can be just as dangerous, especially in our leadership.
As a society we don’t have a whole lot of patience for skeptics or even realists — our politics and popular culture has been dominated by people who tell us what we want to hear. Arthur C. Brooks, president of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, argues that we need more of that positive thinking. His Times story lists some indicators of our current dour state. “In 2014,” he writes, “a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll revealed that 76 percent of Americans did not feel confident that ‘life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us.’ This is 10 percentage points worse than the poll had ever recorded.”
If you’re one of the millions of Americans who feels these pressures — who sees the promise dying — this might be reason to try to identity the problems or work toward fixing this slide. Brooks, instead, blames “our politicians’ choosing the dark side. More than half of Americans said that our last presidential election was too negative, and complaints about the destructive, ad hominem discourse that dominates Washington have become a national cliché.”
Is our political sphere too negative? Sure, especially with the harsh noises in the reactionary echo-chamber. But it’s a symptom of a society that’s lost its direction, not a cause. If you want optimism, there are plenty of ways to find it — DVDs, motivational speakers, inspirational courses, churches begging for your money and promising riches. Here’s Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of an excellent book on the perils of optimism, “Bright-Sided,” which looks at the dangers both personally and politically:
But the question, before you whip out your credit card or start reciting your personal list of affirmations, is, What makes you think unsullied optimism is such a good idea? Americans have long prided themselves on being positive and optimistic — traits that reached a manic zenith in the early years of this millennium. Iraq would be a cakewalk! The Dow would reach 36,000! Housing prices could never decline! Optimism was not only patriotic but was also a Christian virtue, or so we learned from the proliferating preachers of the “prosperity gospel,” whose God wants to “prosper” you. In 2006, the runaway bestseller “The Secret” promised that you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, simply by using your mental powers to “attract” it. The poor listened to upbeat preachers like Joel Osteen and took out subprime mortgages. The rich paid for seminars led by motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and repackaged those mortgages into securities sold around the world.
…(read more).
See: Alternet listing
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Sheldon Adelson, David Koch (Credit: AP/Julie Jacobson/Reuters/Brendan McDermid)
Tuesday, Jul 28, 2015 07:59 AM EST
The Kochs will convene 450 of the top GOP donors this weekend. How much money will be thrown around — and to whom?
The most significant upcoming event in the GOP presidential nomination process is not the first debate August 6, or the litany of muppet stunts from marginal figures building up to it. It is not the Iowa state fair or whatever other day-dinner, cattle call, state party fundraiser thing that’s on the calendar. It is not any given Trump rally.
It is instead this Southern California “retreat,” wherein the biggest Republican millionayuhs and billionayuhs, as Bernie Sanders would put it, will convene the leading presidential candidates and order them to sing in their underpants, walk across hot coals, make out with wild animals and whatever other humiliating stunts they can come up with in exchange for large checks. The post-Citizens United, super PAC era has unrestrained the wealthy from fully purchasing our political system, and that’s terrible, but at least we can take some pleasure in the debasement as it happens.
David and Charles Koch will host their annual summer gathering this weekend under the banner of the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, “the umbrella group in the Kochs’ increasingly influential network of political and public policy outfits.” As Politico’s Ken Vogel reports, the event “is expected to draw 450 of the biggest financiers of the right for sessions about the fiscally conservative policies and politics that animate the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and many of the donors in their network.” Aside from Dave and Chaz, other billionaires famous for purchasing elections who will be in attendance include Sheldon Adelson, whose main concern is the nuclear obliteration of Iran, and the “vulture fund” billionaire Paul Singer.
The fat cats will audition each of the “big four” candidates (Bush, Walker, Rubio and Cruz) as well as Carly Fiorina, another human who is running for president. Rand Paul claims to have been invited but won’t attend. He memorably bombed at the last Koch retreat in January: the young man was dressed informally and said to be slouching in his chair, like some lousy liberal Democrat would. Paul has since fared poorly in the solicitation of large billionaire checks and considers his time better spent elsewhere. (His allies, meanwhile, have just launched a third pro-Rand super PAC to serve as a receptacle for all of that big money he is not getting.)
The stakes are high. As Politico writes, the candidates will be appealing to hundreds and hundreds of figures, any one of whom is capable and perhaps willing to donate seven- or eight-figures to one (or more) of them on the spot.
…(read more).
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Transition Studies 