Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., poses for a portrait before an interview, Wednesday May 20, 2015, in Washington.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wants ExxonMobil investigated by the Department of Justice.
In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Tuesday, Sanders charged the oil giant of engaging in a cover-up to intentionally mislead the public about the reality of human-caused climate change, and by extension the risks of its carbon-intensive product.
“It appears that Exxon knew its product was causing harm to the public, and spent millions of dollars to obfuscate the facts in the public discourse,” Sanders wrote. “The information that has come to light about Exxon’s past activities raises potentially serious concerns that should be investigated.”
The information Sanders cited was a recent investigation by Inside Climate News, which found that the ExxonMobil conducted research as far back as 1977 affirming that climate change is caused by carbon emissions from fossil fuels. At the same time, the oil giant gave millions of dollars to politicians and organizations that promote climate science denial, and spent millions more lobbying to prevent regulations to limit carbon emissions.
Sanders, like many, compared the allegations against ExxonMobil to the DOJ’s massive and successful lawsuit against the tobacco industry. That action found that a number of big tobacco companies engaged in racketeering by conspiring to hide the harmful impacts of smoking from the public.
In an interview with ThinkProgress on Monday, the attorney who prosecuted that case against the tobacco industry said an investigation into ExxonMobil by the DOJ is “plausible and should be considered.”
In this excerpt from the Oct. 6, 2015 California Coastal Commission meeting, Steve Schroeter, Research Biologist, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara reports on the SONGS Mitigation Monitoring Project, a long-term independent study aimed at seeing if it is possible to reduce the San Onofre nuclear plant’s devastating impact on local sealife. According to Dr. Schroeter’s report, it sounds like the answer is ‘not much.’
According to the Project’s website: http://marinemitigation.msi.ucsb.edu/
“The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Mitigation Monitoring Program is based at the Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara. Long-term monitoring and evaluation of the SONGS mitigation projects is a condition of the coastal development permit issued by the California Coastal Commission (CCC) for the operation of SONGS Units 2 and 3. The Permit requires Southern California Edison (SCE) as majority owner and operating agent of SONGS to design and build mitigation projects that adequately compensate for the adverse effects of the power plant’s once-through seawater cooling system on coastal marine resources. UCSB scientists working under the direction of the Executive Director of the CCC are responsible for designing and implementing monitoring programs aimed at determining the effectiveness of these mitigation projects. Funding for the SONGS Mitigation Monitoring Program is provided by SCE as a requirement of their coastal development permit for operating SONGS.”
For more info:
SanOnofreSafety.org
SecureNuclearWaste.com
Shashi Buluswar, Berkeley Lab’s Executive Director of the Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies (LIGTT) discusses the issue of urban food deserts and malnutrition in American inner cities.
For more information on LIGTT visit ligtt.org
To learn more about Berkeley Lab and to receive the Friends of Berkeley Lab newsletter visit friends.lbl.gov
Precision Urban Agriculture refers to a new range of agronomic techniques that sharply limit the inputs that are used to grow food. By growing without soil; controlling environmental factors like lighting, temperature and humidity; and reducing the distance between production and consumers Precision Urban Agriculture can put healthy food on the plates of urban consumers and help our environment at the same time.
Berkeley Lab is leveraging its scientific resources and facilities to address the questions and support the technological innovation that will help this emerging field develop.
In November 1998 Daniel Quinn and biologist Alan D. Thornhill met in dialogue with a small group in Houston, Texas, to forge a new tool designed to unseat the unexamined conventional wisdom that typically shapes all discourse on this subject.
This is the complete and slightly edited interview footage we shot with Daniel Quinn in 2005, in preparation for our feature-length documentary, What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire.
Daniel Quinn proposes that the modern environmental crisis has its origins in the agricultural revolution that began about ten thousand years ago. At that time, humans developed a vision of themselves as the pinnacle of creation–a species for whom the entire earth was intended. salvation depends upon our reclaiming our ability to live in harmony with the natural world.
Daniel Quinn is the prize-winning author of the controversial best-seller Ishmael, The Story of B and Providence.
Award winning author Daniel Quinn discusses how to save the world with teacher Aaron Wissner in an exclusive, uncut, two-hour, high-definition interview. This is part 1 of 2. Please subscribe to be alerted to new videos.
Quinn is best selling author of Ishmael, Providence, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization. In 1990, Ted Turner offered a $500,000 prize for the best unpublished novel offering positive solutions to global problems. Quinn submitted Ishmael, which was selected as the grand prize winner, by a panel of distinguished authors, out of 2500 entries.
Wissner is a teacher, writer and speaker specializing in peak oil, climate change, money and debt, and cultural transition. He is founder and president of Local Future.
Local Future is a non-profit organization which educates the public on topics including: sustainability, localism, community resilience, renewable energy, modern economics, environmentalism and permaculture.
What are humans place in the world? What is the Law of Limited Competition?
Award winning author Daniel Quinn discusses how to save the world with teacher Aaron Wissner in an exclusive, uncut, two-hour, high-definition interview. This is part 2 of 2. Please subscribe to be alerted to new videos.
Quinn is best selling author of Ishmael, Providence, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization. In 1990, Ted Turner offered a $500,000 prize for the best unpublished novel offering positive solutions to global problems. Quinn submitted Ishmael, which was selected as the grand prize winner, by a panel of distinguished authors, out of 2500 entries.
Wissner is a teacher, writer and speaker specializing in peak oil, climate change, money and debt, and cultural transition. He is founder and president of Local Future.
Local Future is a non-profit organization which educates the public on topics including: sustainability, localism, community resilience, renewable energy, modern economics, environmentalism and permaculture.
Daniel Quinn (1935- ) grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where he graduated from Creighton Prep in 1953. He studied at St. Louis University, the University of Vienna, and Loyola University of Chicago, receiving a bachelor’s degree in English, cum laude, in 1957.
During a twenty-year career in educational and consumer publishing in Chicago, he served as Biography and Fine Arts editor at the American Peoples Encyclopedia, managing editor of the Greater Cleveland Mathematics Program (Science Research Associates), head of the mathematics department at Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, Executive Editor of Fuller & Dees Publishing (a division of the Times Mirror Corporation) and Editorial Director of the Society for Visual Education (a division of the Singer Corporation).
Mr. Quinn is best known as the author of Ishmael, the novel that in 1991 won the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, established to encourage authors to seek “creative and positive solutions to global problems.” Ishmael has been in print continuously since its publication in 1992 and has been made available in more than 25 languages. Throughout the U.S. and Canada and in other countries as well, Ishmael is used as a text in a broad range of classes that include anthropology, ecology, history, literature, philosophy, ethics, biology, and psychology, at age levels from middle school through graduate level.
He followed Ishmael with an autobiography, Providence (1994), The Story Of B (1996), a novel that continues the philosophical and religious exploration begun in Ishmael; and My Ishmael: A Sequel (1997), in which it’s learned that, unbeknownst to the narrator of Ishmael, Ishmael was working with another pupil, a twelve-year-old girl. Other works include Beyond Civilization (1999), a nonfiction work that explores, among other relevant topics, tribal ways of making a living that work here and now; After Dachau (2001), a novel that critics have compared to Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984; The Man Who Grew Young, a graphic novel that tells the unique and fascinating story of a man who lives backward through time and history; The Holy (2002), a metaphysical thriller that has been compared to John Fowles’ The Magus (and which won the 2003 Independent Publisher Award for Mystery/Suspense/Thriller of the Year); Tales of Adam (2005), written as part of an early version of the book that ultimately became Ishmael, illustrated by Michael McCurdy; Work, Work, Work, (2006), a children’s book with Quinn’s own illustrations; and If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways, in which the author investigates the source of his own ideas (which so many readers have found mysteriously alien). His short fiction has appeared in The Quarterly, Asylum, Magic Realism, and elsewhere.
When Dave Pollard started his blog “How to Save the World” over a decade ago, he believed he might actually play a role in changing the world. After studying the three major systems of civilization — energy & resources, ecology, and economy — he finds all three unsustainable and out of control. Rather than trying to prevent the end of industrial growth civilization, Dave suggests four things we can do. Live a joyful life, while acting sustainably. Learn essential skills our grandparents knew — growing food organically, sewing clothing, fixing things, and mentoring young people in how to learn. Learn to live in community, where “we’ll have to live with and maybe even love people we don’t particularly like. That’s what people do in community.” Episode 296. [howtosavetheworld.ca]
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
The links are listed here to be used in whatever manner they may be helpful in public information campaigns, course preparation, teaching, letter-writing, lectures, class presentations, policy discussions, article writing, civic or Congressional hearings and citizen action campaigns, etc. For further information on this blog see: About this weblog. and How to use this weblog.
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