“Council of War”: Walden Bello on Biden’s Trilateral Summit with Philippines, Japan to Contain China

Democracy Now! – Apr 12, 2024

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President Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the White House on Thursday, the first meeting of its kind, which comes as the U.S. moves to expand its military presence in the South China Sea to counter China. The Philippines has deepened military ties with both the United States and Japan in recent years as maritime confrontations with China have escalated. The trilateral summit at the White House resembled a “council of war,” according to Filipino scholar Walden Bello. He says the U.S. is the primary driver of tensions with China, building up its military footprint in the region as Pentagon officials openly muse about war, while China has focused primarily on its economic reach. “This militarization of the Pacific is very dangerous,” says Bello.

Lost Futures: How greed is destroying our planet | Dying Earth: E1 | Featured Documentary

Al Jazeera English Apr 10, 2024 #documentary #ClimateChange #DyingEarth

Some of the ‘prophets of doom’ of the 60s whose warnings went unheeded assess the current environmental fragility. The effects of climate change were already being felt as far back as the 1960s, but scientists who linked fossil fuels with climate change were labelled “prophets of doom”. This episode traces the trajectory of climate change over the past 60 years and examines how and why – despite the stark warnings – we failed to halt the climate catastrophe we are currently experiencing, and why it appears politics and science are at odds when it comes to this issue.

Years of propaganda and greed from oil companies created a world where profit trumped the health of the planet, the consequences of which are now being felt today. Lost Futures explores the effects of corporate greed. In Louisiana, we see firsthand how small coastal towns will succumb to the devastating effects of years of drilling from oil companies, and what this means for a generation which has had little to do with causing the devastation but is forced to live with its consequences.

See related:

• Setting the Record Straight: The Depth, Severity and History of the Scientific Evidence on Earth’s Unfolding Climate Catastrophe
• Rhodes Scholars Warn of Dramatic Transformations Required by Global Climate Crisis
• Climate Change – Warming Warning – 1981 (Gus Speth, George Woodwell & others)
• They Knew: The US Federal Governments Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis | James Gustave Speth, Julia Olson, Philip Gregory
• Needed: An Honest Cost-Benefit Analysis of Fossil Fuels to Avoid Extinction

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