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Why the Climate Change Committee should reconsider their approach to farming

November 20, 2021

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/why-the-ccc-should-reconsider-their-approach-to-farming/

 

The Divestment Movement’s Big Month

November 17, 2021

The decades-long push to get large investment funds to pull their money from destructive oil, gas and coal has made several major leaps forward in the past month. One of the biggest occurred Oct. 18 when the Ford Foundation, a nonprofit built on profits from the combustion engine, announced it would divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies.

The foundation also promised to invest in renewable energy companies and funds that “address the threat of climate change and support the transition to a green economy.”

Fossil fuels represented a relatively small percentage of the Ford Foundation’s total investment portfolio, but even a fraction makes a huge difference when you’re worth $16 billion.

That’s a point activists and community organizers have been making with increasing regularity over the past decade. And their growing success shows that collective voices for change can make a difference.

“Most people don’t have an oil well in their backyard, but everyone lives near some pot of money,” says climate activist Bill McKibben. “And so the climate fight has come to college campuses, to church denominations, to union halls with pension funds. It’s made the abstract very real for millions of campaigners.”

McKibben first advocated for fossil-fuel divestment in 2012 as a way to “revoke the social license of the fossil fuel industry.”

Today that goal seems even more relevant.

A report from the World Meteorological Organization on Oct. 25 revealed that greenhouse gases hit an all-time high last year. This follows a report from the UN Environment Programme that found world governments still have plans to blow way past their Paris Climate Accord commitments and keep extracting fossil fuels —

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

COP26 – Caught in a Net: Agriculture, Climate Change, and the Decarbonisation Agenda

November 17, 2021

COP26 – Caught in a Net: Agriculture, Climate Change, and the Decarbonisation Agenda

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, is the 26th of its kind. After a Covid-related postponement, it was held this year in Glasgow, Scotland between October 31 and November 12. Dr Chris Maughan has been in Glasgow for the first week of the event and reflects on the links between ‘corporate greenwash’ and the ‘net zero’ agenda, as well as what this means for social movements seeking just and agroecological transitions. 

COP is a notoriously difficult process to grasp – is it genuinely a space of negotiation, or just political theatre? And where does it happen? Is it in the negotiating arena of the ‘Blue Zone’, or is it somewhere else? Should we look to the ‘fringe’ events, the streets, or even Twitter to follow its tangled process?

While some impressive noises have been coming out of the Blue Zone this week – commitments to halt deforestation and reduce methane emissions by 2030, for example – or even the $100bn per year of ‘Climate Aid’ promised (but not yet delivered) to the Global South – similarly attention-grabbing noises could also be heard outside these spaces, from social movements articulating their own visions of climate justice, or those emphatically rejecting the mainstream process.

As COP26 draws to a close, this blog offers some reflections on the fraught relationship between the mainstream process and the social movements, and what this means for the fight for a just and agroecological transition.

COP26: A ‘Greenwash festival’?

Even before the event kicked off, activists were already preparing to highlight the inevitable wave of greenwash that would envelop COP26, warning of undue influence of the corporate sector…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Warning – Migrate from Urban Cities to the Suburbs

November 17, 2021

Warning – Migrate from Urban Cities to the Suburbs


I have warned that they were considering lockdowns for climate change. India has been the first to impose a lockdown in New Delhi all for air pollution. I strongly recommend that if you can, get out of the major urban cities before you find yourself locked in home imprisonment denied all human rights on the basis of climate. This is the New World Order and the end goal is to even eliminate office buildings and commuting.

Weather whiplash in Canada: extreme rains hit wildfire-devastated British Columbia

November 16, 2021

Weather whiplash in Canada: extreme rains hit wildfire-devastated British Columbia

Climate change is likely to increase extreme flooding from atmospheric river events like this one.
Flood damage
Flooding in British Columbia on November 15, 2021. (Image credit: BC Hydro)

An intense low-pressure system brought an atmospheric river of water vapor and torrential rains to southern British Columbia and northwestern Washington state on Monday, generating devastating flooding that virtually isolated the city of Vancouver from the rest of Canada. The floods came less than five months after the most extreme heat wave in global history affected the same region, fueling destructive wildfires.

Flooding and landslides from Monday’s storm cut the three main highways connecting the city of Vancouver, located on the Pacific coast, with the interior portions of Canada. Damage to some of these highways was extreme, and will result in months-long closures. In addition, all rail access to Vancouver was cut by the flooding, with closures expected to last days or weeks. These closures may have significant impacts on the Canadian economy, since the Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada, and fourth-largest in North America. Canada is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, and the flood damage will interrupt exports of wheat and vegetable oil, potentially causing a rise in global food prices, which are already at a 46-year high.

Over 10 inches of rain in 24 hours

On Monday, a large swath of southern British Columbia recorded four to 10 inches of rain in 24 hours, setting numerous records for most precipitation in a day. One of the highest 24-hour amounts observed was 11.59 inches (294.3 millimeters) in Hope, British Columbia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Limitarians and Cornucopians: what Surprises from Technological Progress?

November 16, 2021

Limitarians and Cornucopians: what Surprises from Technological Progress?

Resource depletion, ecosystem disruption, population growth, and technological change are interacting with each other in a tsunami of changes that always take us by surprise. The surprises that technological progress may be bringing are among the most unpredictable drivers of change. Yet, it is not impossible to reason about how our society could be transformed by some disruptive technological innovations. Here, Luca Pardi discusses the most recent report by “RethinkX,” a group of remarkably sharp and creative people. They are hard to define as “pessimists” or “optimists,” but they surely understand that change is unavoidable. 

*****

The debate among limitarians (Robeyns, 2017) and cornucopians is periodically morphing into that among doomsters and optimist-utopians. The limitarians have a generally gloomy view about the future availability of resources while the cornucopians tend to believe that shortages, always possible for many reasons in the short run, were proved not to be a problem in the past, so will not be in the future, at least in the long run. Doomsters-limitarians are also pessimistic about the environmental crisis and its paradigmatic representation: the climate change predicament. Optimists retort that the problem is amplified by anti-capitalistic ideological views and that a combination of technology and local and global policies will draw us, as has always been the case in history, out of dire straits. And the debate goes on forever!

There is a Think Tank named RethinkX that tries to be above or, better, ahead of this ideological deadlock. They are both: doomsters and optimists with a strong slant toward technological disruptive innovations. In a crescendo of techno-optimistic hypes they reach a climax in their last document Rethinking Humanity where they envisage that:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Forgotten, but not gone’: How governments have deliberately ignored the safety of contaminated sites in England – and why climate change makes this worse

November 14, 2021

‘Forgotten, but not gone’: How governments have deliberately ignored the safety of contaminated sites in England – and why climate change makes this worse

This is an over thirty-year long story about my involvement with contaminated sites, and helping communities to get action to clean them up[1]. It’s innately connected to my home town, Banbury: An average small town, on the border between the Midlands and the South East; yet in the 1980s, this place taught me about the issues of waste disposal and land contamination. Not because it was exceptional, but because these issues affect almost every community across Britain.

Generations of my family have lived here, from at least the early Nineteenth Century. By word of mouth I learned about local industrial sites, what they did, and where their waste was buried.

The problem with today’s highly mobile society is that such local knowledge is increasingly rare; and before the late 1970s, records of waste or pollution releases were rarely kept. Despite warnings about the issues of contaminated land since the 1960s, governments have failed to act to create a comprehensive system to track down, assess, and where necessary decontaminate these sites.

Just like other major ecological issues – such as climate change – the obstacle to change are the economic vested interests that pressure decision-makers not to act. Valuing profit over the lives of ordinary people, they prevent effective action.

‘What’s past is prologue’

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Satirical video slices and dices deceit of governments’ “Net-Zero by 2050” COP-26 pledges

November 14, 2021

Satirical video slices and dices deceit of governments’ “Net-Zero by 2050” COP-26 pledges

Fact is, say scientists, that “Net-Zero by 2050” really means we’re “net-fucked by 2050.” —

CAUTION: Readers may find the word “fucked” in this piece offensive. Personally, I find the reference to “government deceit” far more disturbing.

“The latest satirical video from The Juice Media takes aim at humanity’s inadequate response to the climate emergency. Humanity is on a catastrophic global heating trajectory that will pass what scientists call the ‘net fucked by 2050’ point and is risking ‘irreversible chain reactions beyond our control’ just so billionaires can grow even richer. ‘Being honest isn’t an option for us. Which is why we’ve come up with the next best alternative: net-zero by 2050.’ No, that’s not today’s report out of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. It’s the latest Honest Government Ads satire video from the Juice Media. The Australian company has been producing boat-rocking political and social satire videos since 2008, and now they’ve got humanity’s woefully inadequate response to a potentially existential planetary emergency in their sardonic crosshairs; specifically, insidious ‘net-zero’ pledges that dangerously delay the immediate carbon emission reductions needed to avert a worst-case climate scenario.” —Common Dreams / The Juice Media

The Juice Media is an Australian company that produces contemporary political and social satire. The video series Honest Government Ads is a satirical take on Australian Government advertising. Each video targets a current social or political issue and highlights potential consequences of the Government’s position and policy on that issue.

My repost is presented in three segments:

  • First: Common Dreams’ abridged introduction to the video with my added subheadings and text highlighting. Excluded from my repost are copies of three tweets.
  • Second: my embedded 3:45-minute You Tube video of Australia’s Juice Media’s blistering satirical attack on governments’ “Net Zero by 2050” pledges pedalled at COP-26.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Activities Which Can Help Us Deal With Climate Anxiety

November 12, 2021

Activities Which Can Help Us Deal With Climate Anxiety

Lake Powhatan Swimming Beach, Asheville, North Carolina

Recently, it has been brought to my attention that I’m getting older. [Well, big DUH there – as if any of us is getting younger!] One of the things that growing older often brings is more wisdom. Human beings have an awesome sense of cleverness, but we frequently lack wisdom or the foresight to see what kinds of consequences might result from actions we take today.

Most people even 50 years ago would have never thought about the consequences of thawing permafrost and melting glaciers and ice patches. There are both positive effects and negative effects. I have brought up the predicaments caused by ecological overshoot and climate change, but a new article from The New York Times points out how ancient wars and other historical secrets and long-extinct animals are emerging from these areas of permafrost and ice, adding to our knowledge and occasionally completely rearranging history as a result of these finds.

Meanwhile, the ongoing specter of the effects of ecological overshoot (and climate change in most people’s minds) brings to light the lack of discussion among society today, as if most people are afraid to look at reality. Caitlin Johnstone brings to light this phenomenon, quote:

“The way we’re just sitting around going about our lives like this isn’t happening reminds me of that experiment where participants sit in a waiting room that’s filling up with smoke without knowing that the experiment is already underway. If the participants are alone they’ll generally take action to do something about the problem, but if they’re in the waiting room with other people who are secretly in on the experiment and have been told to ignore the smoke, the participant will also ignore it…


…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. and China issue joint pledge to slow climate change

November 12, 2021

U.S. and China issue joint pledge to slow climate change

‘We both see that the challenge of climate change is an existential and severe one,’ Chinese envoy says in announcing agreement

U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry at the summit on Nov. 10. (Alberto Pezzali/AP)

GLASGOW, Scotland — The United States and China jolted the United Nations climate summit here with a surprise announcement Wednesday, pledging the two countries would work together to slow global warming during this decade and ensure that the Glasgow talks result in meaningful progress.

The world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters said they would take “enhanced climate actions” to meet the central goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord — limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) beyond preindustrial levels, and if possible, not to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. Still, the declaration was short on firm deadlines or specific commitments, and parts of it restated policies both nations had outlined in a statement in April.

To try to keep those temperature limits “within reach,” Chinese and American leaders agreed to jointly “raise ambition in the 2020s” and said they would boost clean energy, combat deforestation and curb emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

“The United States and China have no shortage of differences,” U.S. special climate envoy John F. Kerry said in announcing the agreement Wednesday evening. “But on climate, cooperation is the only way to get this job done.”

The United States and China, plus other major emitters such as the European Union, have come under fire in recent days for not yet delivering on some of the lofty rhetoric their leaders showcased last week.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Wealth Inequality Fuels the Climate Emergency: George Monbiot & Scientist Kevin Anderson on COP26

November 12, 2021

How Wealth Inequality Fuels the Climate Emergency: George Monbiot & Scientist Kevin Anderson on COP26

The United States and China made a surprise announcement on Wednesday at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow on a joint pledge to reduce methane emissions and slow deforestation. The United States is the largest historical emitter of carbon emissions, while China has been the largest emitter in recent years. As negotiations continue, we speak with British journalist George Monbiot and British climate scientist Kevin Anderson about how world leaders and even some climate scientists are downplaying the climate emergency. “Everything we’ve been hearing here and at the previous 25 summits is basically distraction,” says Monbiot, adding that global leaders could “fix” the worst impacts of the climate crisis “in no time at all if they wanted to.” Both guests highlight the role of extreme wealth in fueling the climate crisis, with Anderson noting it’s unfair to penalize nations like China, whose rising emissions correlate to the production of goods transported to wealthier countries. “Equity has to be a key part of our responses,” says Anderson.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. This is Climate Countdown. I’m Amy Goodman, in New York, also joined by Democracy Now! co-host Nermeen Shaikh. Hi, Nermeen.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Hi, Amy. And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go right now to the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where the United States and China made a surprise announcement yesterday about plans to work together to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including measures to reduce methane emissions and slow deforestation…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why is the world protesting so much? A new study claims to have some answers.

November 10, 2021

Why is the world protesting so much? A new study claims to have some answers.

Activists wearing cutouts of world leaders’ faces outside the COP26 summit on Nov. 2 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Peter Summers/Getty Images)

Are we in a historic age of protest? A new study released Thursday that looked at demonstrations between 2006 and 2020 found that the number of protest movements around the world had more than tripled in less than 15 years. Every region saw an increase, the study found, with some of the largest protest movements ever recorded — including the farmers’ protests that began in 2020 in India, the 2019 protests against President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests since 2013.

Titled “World Protests: A Study of Key Protest Issues in the 21st Century,” the study comes from a team of researchers with German think tank Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a nonprofit organization based at Columbia University and adds to a growing body of literature about our era of increasing protests. Looking closely at more than 900 protest movements or episodes across 101 countries and territories, the authors came to the conclusion that we are living through a period of history like the years around 1848, 1917 or 1968 “when large numbers of people rebelled against the way things were, demanding change.”

But why? Here, the authors highlight one particular problem: democratic failure. Their research found that a majority of the protest events they recorded — 54 percent — were prompted by a perceived failure of political systems or representation. Roughly 28 percent included demands for what the authors described as “real democracy,” the most of any demand found by the researchers. Other themes included inequality, corruption and the lack of action over climate change. But the study’s authors say policymakers do not respond adequately.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beware: Gaia may destroy humans before we destroy the Earth

November 9, 2021

Beware: Gaia may destroy humans before we destroy the Earth

Covid-19 may well have been one attempt by the Earth to protect itself. Gaia will try harder next time with something even nastier

Viewpoint Ponta do Sossego
‘I am not hopeful of a positive outcome at Cop26, knowing who is participating. I was not invited to Glasgow, though that is hardly a surprise.’ Photograph: Magdalena Bujak/Alamy

I don’t know if it is too late for humanity to avert a climate catastrophe, but I am sure there is no chance if we continue to treat global heating and the destruction of nature as separate problems.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, speaking in Brussels this Thursday

That is the wrongheaded approach of the United Nations, which is about to stage one big global conference for the climate in Glasgow, having just finished a different big global conference for biodiversity in Kunming.

This division is as much of a mistake as the error made by universities when they teach chemistry in a different class from biology and physics. It is impossible to understand these subjects in isolation because they are interconnected. The same is true of living organisms that greatly influence the global environment. The composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and the temperature of the surface is actively maintained and regulated by the biosphere, by life, by what the ancient Greeks used to call Gaia.

Almost 60 years ago, I suggested our planet self-regulated like a living organism. I called this the Gaia theory, and was later joined by biologist Lynn Margulis, who also espoused this idea. Both of us were roundly criticised by scientists in academia. I was an outsider, an independent scientist, and the mainstream view then was the neo-Darwinist one that life adapts to the environment, not that the relationship also works in the other direction, as we argued…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Video: Al Gore’s Latest ‘Solution’ To Climate Change Is Mass Surveillance

November 8, 2021

Video: Al Gore’s Latest ‘Solution’ To Climate Change Is Mass Surveillance

Meanwhile, new research finds that the carbon footprints of the wealthiest 1% are on track to be 30 times larger than the size compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C

Speaking from the private jet and super yacht owners gathering, otherwise known as the COP 26 summit, Al Gore touted his latest solution to curb carbon emissions, mass surveillance via satellites, sensors and artificial intelligence.

In the interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Gore declared that technology created by the so called Climate TRACE coalition will monitor greenhouse gas emissions and root out the culprits.

“We get data consistently from 300 existing satellites, more than 11,000 ground-based, air-based, sea-based sensors, multiple internet data streams and using artificial intelligence,” Gore explained, adding “All that information is combined, visible light, infrared, all of the other information that is brought in, and we can now accurately determine where the greenhouse gas emissions are coming from.”

Insert Man Bear Pig gif here.

Gore, who in 2008 said there would be no polar ice caps left within five years, continued, “And next year we’ll have it down to the level of every single power plant, refinery, every large ship, every plane, every waste dump, and we’ll have the identities of the people who are responsible for each of those greenhouse gas emission streams.”

And what, pray tell will happen to these climate criminals Al?

“If investors or governments, or civil society activists want to hold them responsible, they will have the information upon which to base their action and holding them responsible,” Gore proclaimed.

Watch:

What Gore and his 300 satellites will find is that it is the elite super rich luxury class who are the world’s largest polluters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Things Feel Bleak Because This Way of Life is Coming to an End

November 8, 2021

The Lesson of 2021 is Either We Change — or Things Collapse Around Us

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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