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climate crisis

Activists Target The Heart Of EU ‘Democracy’

Just as the European elections were fully underway, on Friday 7 June activists blockaded the European Commission over the political bloc’s inaction over the climate crisis and fossil fuels – demanding that politicians take action when elected. European elections: degrowth or bust At 7.30am in Brussels, around twenty scientists and activists from Scientist Rebellion, Growth Kills, and Extinction Rebellion blocked the entrances to the European Commission, preventing employees from getting to work during the European elections. Some stuck their hands to the doors, others held up posters and banners with slogans such as ‘Green growth is a myth’, ‘Ban over-consumption’, ‘Measure well-being, not GDP’, and ‘Create citizens’ assemblies’.

The Next Great Human Migration: America’s Future Climate

A 2022 report from the International Panel on Climate Change observed that more than 3.3 billion people around the world are “highly vulnerable to climate change.” And more than one billion people could be exposed to “coastal-specific climate hazards by 2050.” Here in the U.S., the Census Bureau calculated that 3.2 million adults were displaced or evacuated due to natural disasters of all kinds in 2022. And while climate migration is not easily measurable, as there are multiple factors involved, it is no doubt happening.  Investigative reporter at Politico Abrahm Lustgarten delved into the topic of U.S. climate migration in his new book, On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America. 

World’s Oceans Face ‘Triple Threat’, Study Finds

A new study has found that the planet’s oceans are experiencing a “triple threat” of oxygen loss, extreme heat and acidification. The researchers discovered that, as global heating has worsened, increasing stress has been placed on marine species, with as much as 20 percent of the world’s oceans affected by these threats. “The global ocean is becoming warmer, more acidic, and losing oxygen due to climate change. On top of this trend, sudden increases in temperature, or drops in pH or oxygen adversely affect marine organisms when they cannot quickly adapt to these extreme conditions,” the study said.

Electric Trains Are The Powerhouse Electric Vehicles

Lawmakers and business leaders alike are touting electric cars as a game-changer for climate change. And it’s true that cutting carbon pollution from vehicles is critical. The transportation sector accounts for about 29 percent of greenhouse-gas pollution in the US. The on-road emissions in Texas alone account for nearly ½ of 1 percent of all carbon-dioxide pollution globally. But the hype around electric cars is misplaced. Electric trains are the true powerhouse EV in the fight against climate change. And it’s not even close. Data from the UK shows that the national rail system is about 25% more energy efficient than electric cars, and London’s subway system is about 40% more efficient.

Texas Needs Radical Solutions For Water Conservation

South Texas is facing a water crisis decades in the making. Much of the region’s growing population relies on the Rio Grande as its sole source of drinking water. Yet in recent years, as climate change has gripped Texas and caused hotter, drier summers, the river’s flow has diminished to a trickle in some areas. This year, months before summer has officially set in, major reservoirs on the Rio Grande are nearly empty after reaching historic lows last year. Falcon Reservoir is less than 15% full as of mid-April, and Amistad Reservoir hovers below one-third full. Last month, Hidalgo County issued a disaster declaration as a binational agreement with the Mexican government fails to deliver water from the Rio Grande, as it is obligated to do under the terms of a 1944 treaty. Farmers fear losing their crops.

Texas Has ‘The Most Aggressive’ Well-Plugging Program In The US

After a century and a half of oil and gas production in the United States, the nonprofit environmental watchdog Climate Tracker published a sobering report in 2020: Some 2.6 million unplugged onshore wells lay scattered across the country. Plugging all those derelict holes, from the rocky Appalachian hill country of western Pennsylvania to the dry plains of West Texas and the tundra of Alaska, and countless points between, might cost as much as $280 billion. And that figure from the report did not include undocumented wells — the ones that have vanished from the books, if they were ever recorded in the first place.

Brazil’s Flood Of Austerity And Climate Catastrophe

Meteorological agencies and officials predicted the events with eerie precision. A week into the flood, experts pointed to the extraordinary rainfall as the primary cause. Estael Sias, managing director of the weather forecaster MetSul, wrote that this was not ‘just an episode of extreme rain’, but ‘a meteorological event whose adjectives are all superlative, from extraordinary to exceptional’. The seemingly unending rain, she wrote, ‘is absurdly and bizarrely different from what is normal’. It will take a very long time for this region of Brazil to recover from the flood. Within the floodwaters are several encampments and settlements of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), about which we published a dossier last month to commemorate the movement’s 40th anniversary.

The Climate Crisis Is Directly Related To Inequality

In an interview with Rachel Donald of the podcast Planet: Critical, science historian Naomi Oreskes spoke about her new book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, cowritten with Erik M. Conway. She explored why our climate is in crisis, detailing how institutions, lobbyists, and corporations continue to undermine democracy; and why a renewable world threatens the powers that be. Ultimately, Oreskes points out that the climate crisis is not a scientific problem, but a political, economic, and social issue. Oreskes is a professor at Harvard University who co-authored the bestselling book Merchants of Doubt, and has written nearly 200 scholarly papers and popular articles.

If You Want To See White ‘Supremacy’ At Work, Don’t Go To A Trump Rally

Last week, Professor Jerel Ezell (University of California, Berkeley) penned a piece for the New York Times suggesting that Joe Biden and the Democrats greatly underestimate how salient an issue climate change is for the Black voters who will certainly have a marked impact on the outcome of the upcoming elections in November. In their piece, Ezell posits, “Democratic strategists seem to see climate change as a key political issue only for white liberal elites and assume that other groups, like Black voters, are either unaware or apathetic about it.” Unfortunately, this sentiment is held not only by, majority white and affluent, Democratic Party strategists, but has also long been held  by the environmental nonprofit apparatus as well as far too many liberal and conservative elements of the Black Misleadership Class who continue to transmit a feckless notion that environmentalism is a “white people’s thing.”

Fertiliser Giant Yara Must Tackle Massive Emissions, Shareholders Say​​

Investors are calling for Yara, Europe’s largest fertiliser manufacturer, to make deep cuts to polluting emissions of greenhouse gases. Five shareholders in the company have filed a vote calling for Yara to strengthen its climate targets at its AGM later this month (28 May). If successful, the motion would see the corporation forced to set climate targets in line with a 1.5C warmed world – the vital internationally agreed goal for limiting temperature rise. The Norwegian chemical giant is the largest natural gas user in the EU. At almost 63 tonnes a year, its carbon footprint is equivalent to the annual emissions of over 16 coal-fired power plants – according to sustainable finance organisation ShareAction, the group behind the investor call.

Alaska Youth On The ‘Front Lines Of The Climate Crisis’ Sue To Stop LNG Pipeline

Eight young people from Alaska are suing their state government, claiming a major new North Slope natural gas project is in violation of their constitutional rights.

Climate Activists Demonstrate At FERC Calling For No Gas Exports

Washington, DC, — Activists and frontline leaders against fossil fuels rallied outside the headquarters of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) this morning. The Biden Administration has put a one year pause on any approvals by the Department of Energy of permits for LNG export terminals in the Gulf South, as they assess what is the “public interest” regarding these massive and destructive fossil fuel projects. But FERC, the other federal agency that must approve permits for LNG export terminals, has not yet taken similar action. Activists also called on FERC to reject the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request to go into service on the same day (May 23) given major widespread safety issues.

Half Of Pasture Lands On Earth Degraded By Climate Change, Overuse

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has found that as much as half of the natural pasture land on Earth has been degraded by the impacts of climate change and overexploitation, putting a sixth of the planet’s food supplies at risk. The new UNCCD report — Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists — emphasizes the importance of rangelands and points to ways to better manage and restore them while protecting pastoralism. “Degradation of Earth’s extensive, often immense natural pastures and other rangelands due to overuse, misuse, climate change and biodiversity loss poses a severe threat to humanity’s food supply and the wellbeing or survival of billions of people,” a press release from UNCCD said.

The Democrats Have Lost Their Trump Card

Samuel Clemens’ (aka Mark Twain) sage aphorism, “History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” is certainly one of the more accurate ways to describe the Democratic Party’s approach to the 2024 presidential election in that it eerily, though not surprisingly, mimics the neoliberal, corporate party’s methodology during the 2016 election - paint Donald Trump as a megalomaniac demagogue and dictatorial mad man who will unilaterally destroy  “democracy” to generate  so much fear in voters that they would have no other choice but to choose the Democrats. This strategy, of course, failed and resulted in the ignominious defeat of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as down ballot Democrats, which handed Trump a “trifecta” government.

Portugal’s Proposed Ecocidal Airport Grounded

The Portuguese government has grounded an ecocidal airport that would have decimated a biodiverse wetland. However, it isn’t the end of the climate-wrecking air travel plan. Specifically, the government is still hurtling ahead with plans to build the new airport at a different location. Of course, this will be disastrous for the climate crisis and nature. Portugal’s airport plans In 2019, the Portuguese government announced plans to build a new airport outside of Lisbon. The government planned to build this in the Tagus Estuary, close to Portugal’s capital. However, it is one of the main estuaries in Western Europe and Portugal’s most important wetland for waterbirds.

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