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climate crisis

Ideas For Living Through The Great Unraveling

December 24, 2023 Rob Dietz, Resilience. , , ,
This year Post Carbon Institute has leaned into the “Great Unraveling” as a label for framing what’s happening in modern society and the natural world. In short, the Great Unraveling represents humanity’s comeuppance from overshoot, a time when debts are coming due and the promise of everlasting growth is fading. Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve experienced an unprecedented expansion of the human footprint, mostly driven by fossil fuel consumption and marked by inequality, that has put us in a precarious position. Humanity’s use of energy and materials, as well as the scale of our polluting emissions, have surpassed what the Earth’s biosphere can sustain.

Climate Criminals Put Profits Over Humanity At COP28

December 21, 2023 Indigenous Environmental Network. , , , ,
Dubai, UAE — The outcomes of the UNFCCC 28th Conference of Parties has left Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities across the world sitting in disappointment as world leaders put forward watered-down climate commitments and text that continue to compromise our future. The biggest takeaway from this year’s climate summit is the grotesque depth of greed and disregard for humanity as a whole. There was a huge missed opportunity to implement real climate solutions, but bullies from the Global North reaffirmed their false solutions to maintain their extractive economies, and so, lined their pockets with their reinforcement of settler-colonialism and imperial dominance over the Global South.

80+ Groups Descend On DC, Demand Gaza Cease-Fire, Migrant Rights

December 20, 2023 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. , , , , , , ,
Activists from more than 80 advocacy groups took to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to protest what they called the Israeli genocide in Palestine and "cruel" immigration policies here in the United States. The demonstrators demanded a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, an end to American military aid for Israel, and protection for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. "As the Biden administration and Senate Democrats indicate a willingness to advance cruel immigration proposals in order to pass a spending package that will send billions of dollars to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza, we come together as a coalition of immigrant, Palestinian, and allied organizations dedicated to fighting for justice and liberation.

Activists Block Several Airports In Belgium – Ground Private Jets

December 20, 2023 The Canary. , , ,
On Saturday 16 December, supporters of campaign group Code Rouge-Rood from several European countries entered Lìege Airport in a peaceful direct action to denounce the injustice and climate impact of aviation and demand a drastic reduction of flights This happened just after hundreds of activists were arrested around Antwerp, while preparing to block Antwerp International airport, one of the biggest private jet airports in Belgium. Despite police targetting activists, a large group managed to enter Antwerp Airport and achieved success: no private jets took off from Kortrijk or Antwerp today.

Americans Abandoning Neighborhoods Due To Rising Flood Risk

December 20, 2023 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , ,
As flooding becomes more common due to the shifting and strengthening weather patterns and sea-level rise associated with climate change, so does climate migration. New research by the First Street Foundation (FSF) has combined historic population change trends with flood risk data to reveal climate migration patterns happening in areas with high flood risk across the United States. “Much of the world’s population is exposed to some kind of extreme weather event exacerbated by climate change. These events have been directly connected to impacts on human systems including economic, social, and political crises,” the authors of the study wrote.

False Transitions And Global Stocktakes: The Failure Of COP28

December 19, 2023 Binoy Kampmark, Counter Punch. , , ,
The time has come to treat the sequence of UN Climate Change Conferences, the latest concluding in Dubai, as a series of the failed and the abysmally rotten.  It shows how a worthless activity, caked (oiled?) with appropriately chosen words, can actually provide assurance that something worthwhile was done.  Along the way, there are always the same beneficiaries: fossil fuel magnates and satirists. COP28, which featured 97,000 participants, including the weighty presence of 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists, was even more of a shambles than its predecessor.  Its location – in an oil rich state – was head scratching. 

The Deadly Influence Of The Military Industrial Complex At COP28

December 18, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
We hear about the growing influence of fossil fuel, nuclear and Big Agriculture corporations over the United Nations' Conference of Parties (COP) meetings, but hardly anything about the presence of weapons makers and NATO leaders. Clearing the FOG speaks with Canadian environmental lawyer and peace activist Tamara Lorincz, who reports about the meetings and outcomes of the recently-concluded COP28. She is part of an organizing effort to highlight the carbon footprint of Western militaries and the significant contributions of NATO countries to the climate crisis. Lorincz points out the great discrepancies between what Western countries spend each year on their militaries (hundreds of billions of dollars) and what they are willing to contribute to the climate change fund (tens of millions of dollars) for reparations and relief in impacted nations.

Scientists Say COP28 Is A Blank Cheque For More Deadly Delay

December 18, 2023 The Canary. , , , , ,
The UN climate summit, hijacked by the fossil fuel cartel, has gifted a blank cheque to rich countries and Big Oil to kill one billion people and force billions more to flee their homes by 2100. The so-called ‘historic’ outcome of COP28 fails to deliver the most basic and necessary measures which would have prevented societal and earth systems collapse, as outlined by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and halt all new gas and oil projects. Instead, the new resolution includes numerous loopholes which will allow polluters to greenwash emissions through fictional carbon capture, meaningless carbon credits, and the re-classification of methane (“natural gas”) as a transition fuel.

Youth Climate Lawsuit Against Canadian Climate Policy Can Go To Trial

December 16, 2023 Dana Drugmand, DeSmog. , , , , ,
A federal appeals court in Canada breathed new life into a youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit against the Canadian government, allowing it to proceed towards trial on a narrower scope and partially reversing the trial court’s ruling that the entire case should be tossed. In its opinion issued on December 13, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal determined that one part of the legal claims asserted in the case was viable and that a trial would help assess whether that claim violates the constitution. Initially filed in 2019 by 15 young Canadians, La Rose v. His Majesty the King alleges Canada’s policies and actions that perpetuate fossil fuels and worsen the climate crisis amount to violations of youths’ fundamental rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Climate Movement Wins ‘Transition Away From Fossil Fuels’ Language

December 15, 2023 Climate Justice Alliance. , , ,
Thanks largely to the work of climate and environmental justice leaders from around the world, we won the inclusion of ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ language in the final agreement. The inclusion is a big win in a COP held in an oil state, overseen by an oil executive, and where we witnessed the largest number of oil and gas lobbyists in attendance ever. However, we must be clear that this language does not meet the full, rapid, fair, and funded fossil fuel phase out without abatement technology that civil society demanded. It also falls immensely short because net zero is not an adequate solution to the climate crisis we find ourselves in. Instead, the agreement excludes oil and gas from phase down language, and uplifts false, unproven solutions– techno fixes like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), hydrogen, and language on transition fuels which yet again leaves the door open for the expansion of the gas sector across the world.

What We Can Learn From One Florida Community About Climate Resilience

December 14, 2023 Danielle Arigoni, Next City. , , , , ,
The health and safety we enjoy as individuals and the opportunities for employment, education, and recreation available to us are shaped to a large degree by the built environment in which we live. For the past 70 years, the vast majority of new housing development has followed the example of Levittown, New York. The city now serves as the poster child for a seemingly endless wave of car-dependent greenfield suburban sprawl developments that not only helped to generate the carbon emissions that contribute to the climate crisis we now face but also modeled a form of growth that provided opportunity for wealth creation for some households and not others.

NDN Collective’s Second Week At COP28 In Dubai

December 13, 2023 Demetrius Johnson and Sherrie Anne Hart, NDN Collective. , , , ,
For three weeks, members of NDN Collective’s Policy and Advocacy, Regional Deep Dive program, NDN Fund, Communications, Tactical Media, and Creative Resistance Teams, have been on the ground in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Our second week of being on the ground began with the official opening of the  United Nations 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) and opening of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Pavilion. It was also filled with panels and discussions with panels, side events, participating in actions to uplift the Indigenous caucus’ priorities, and tracking negotiations and meeting with government officials.

The Method Behind Just Stop Oil’s Madness

December 13, 2023 Sam Light, Waging Nonviolence. , , , , ,
Not a lot of people like Just Stop Oil. Its own members would admit to being annoying. Journalists and politicians spend a lot of time denouncing and criminalizing the group’s chosen forms of protest. Even those who sympathize with the cause are inclined to criticize the group’s brand of civil disobedience as unreasonable or counterproductive. The most common thing I am asked as someone who researches Just Stop Oil, or JSO, is why they disrupt the daily lives of the general public. Wouldn’t it make more sense to disrupt the flow of oil directly? Whatever the answer, it is rare that JSO members are given a platform to properly answer these questions.

Latest COP28 Draft Does Not Mention Fossil Fuel Phaseout

December 12, 2023 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , ,
As the United Nations COP28 climate talks entered the final stretch, the most recent draft of a climate deal left out the crucial “phase out” language regarding fossil fuels, the main demand expressed by many developing countries, particularly those vulnerable to climate change, as well as the European Union. The draft deal is the precursor to a final round of negotiations over whether or how long fossil fuels will continue to be a part of the transition to a renewable energy future. COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber encouraged those present at the summit to finalize a deal before the conference ends on Tuesday, reported Reuters.

Give Climate Change The Name It Deserves: Fossil-Fueled Destruction

December 12, 2023 Mark Shapiro, DeSmog. , , ,
There’s always a lag between a rupture of the status quo and settling on a word for it. The planet is heating at a life-threatening pace. And yet the two words we use to describe this rupture — “climate” and “change” — are beginning to seem too stiff and one-dimensional for conveying the violence to life-sustaining ecosystems that threaten the world as we have known it. As delegates from 196 countries attempt, for the 28th time, to reach a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gases, it is time for a new language. The violence of the atmospheric shifts, their deeply uneven impacts and the implications of mass extinctions that are expected at current emission levels, add up to much more than “climate change.”
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