climate crisis

Campaign For Public Rail: Private Rail Companies Put Profits Over Safety

August 26, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG climate crisis, Corporatism, Electrification, Public ownership, Railroads, Worker Rights

Private railroad corporations are failing their workers, their clients and the public in general. Their drive for profits means fewer workers, longer hours and neglecting basic safety protocols, unpredictable schedules for freight customers, which is devastating for farmers, and delays for passengers as well as deterioration of railway infrastructure. Clearing the FOG speaks with Maddock Thomas, the author of a new white paper, "Putting America Back on Track: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System," who explains the problems with the current system and how a public, electrified rail system would cost less, have a lower carbon footprint, and benefit workers and customers. Thomas is part of a new campaign, Public Rail Now.

Two Years And $300 Billion Into Biden’s Climate Plan, Emissions Are Higher

August 26, 2024 Peter Gelderloos, In These Times. Educate! Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Inflation, Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden

August 16 marked the two-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), legislation that has funneled hundreds of billions of dollars into green energy and electric vehicles. While the Act made unprecedented investments in renewable energy, it also faced criticism for being too little, too late and for compromising on fossil fuel extraction. In response, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan acknowledged the bill’s shortcomings but explained the administration’s approach: “We’re using every tool in our toolbox to drive down climate pollution as much as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Capitalism Facilitates Firestorms, Floods And Tornadoes

August 24, 2024 Zoe Johnson, Workers' World. Educate! Capitalism, climate crisis, Climate Justice, Extreme weather, Socialism

Summer 2024 has been host to severe and persistent wildfires and tornadoes throughout the United States. Long before the summer, just from January through March alone, more than 2,669 square miles were charred in the United States. That’s larger than the area of Delaware and was already half of the total area impacted in 2023. Moreover, the National Weather Service confirmed 180 tornadoes in July, the most the country has had since 1997, when there were 190. Most of these tornadoes resulted from two storm systems: Hurricane Beryl and the July 15 Derecho — a very long-lived and damaging thunderstorm that can itself be as damaging as a tornado — that impacted Chicago.

Global Water-Related Conflicts Reached A Record High In 2023

August 24, 2024 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Report, Violence, Water, Water Scarcity

According to a new report from the nonprofit Pacific Institute, violent conflicts over water increased sharply in 2023. The report found there were nearly 350 water-related conflicts globally last year, a record high. The latest update to Pacific Institute’s Water Conflict Chronology has revealed a huge increase in the number of water-related conflicts in 2023 compared to just 2022, with around a 150% rise. In 2022, there were 231 recorded conflicts over water, compared to the 347 recorded for 2023. In comparing to recent decades, the contrast is even more stark. In 2000, there were just 22 water-related conflicts worldwide, Pacific Institute reported.

SADC Holds 44th Annual Summit In Zimbabwe

August 23, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. Create! Africa, climate crisis, Economic Development, Liberation

President Emmerson Mnangagwa of the Republic of Zimbabwe has emerged as the regional chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) 44th Annual Summit which was held in Harare on August 17. SADC is a 16-member regional organization composed of states and their affiliates extending from the Republic of South Africa to the Seychelles and as far north as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Since 1980 when its predecessor organization, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), was founded in Lusaka, Zambia which later transitioning towards SADC in Windhoek, Republic of Namibia in 1992 to the present era, the mission of the grouping is to foster economic cooperation, peacekeeping operations and solidarity with other oppressed and exploited people in Africa and around the globe.

What Would A Real Renewable Energy Transition Look Like?

August 22, 2024 Richard Heinberg, Resilience. Strategize! Clean Energy, climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Transformation

Humanity’s transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to instead using alternative low-carbon energy sources is sometimes said to be unstoppable and exponential. A boosterish attitude on the part of many renewable energy advocates is understandable: overcoming people’s climate despair and sowing confidence could help muster the needed groundswell of motivation to end our collective fossil fuel dependency. But occasionally a reality check is in order. The reality is that energy transitions are a big deal, and they typically take centuries to unfold. Historically, they’ve been transformative for societies—whether we’re speaking of humanity’s taming of fire hundreds of thousands of years ago, the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, or our adoption of fossil fuels starting roughly 200 years ago.

Los Angeles Has A Climate Crisis And A Housing Crisis

August 22, 2024 Awoenam Mauna-Woanya, Christopher Rhie and Christopher K. Tokita, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Housing, infill housing, Los Angeles

Since taking office, Mayor Karen Bass has rightly focused on housing and homelessness in Los Angeles. But given the growing climate crisis, it’s crucial to maintain this focus while empowering our city to take effective climate action. Already, the City and County of Los Angeles have committed to an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. To reach this critical target, we must make serious changes — especially in how we build our cities and suburbs. This fundamental factor in our carbon footprint is so often overlooked in climate action plans. It’s also the key to tackling both our environmental challenges and our city’s housing affordability crisis simultaneously: infill housing, or the practice of building new housing on vacant or underused land in cities.

Hundreds Converge For 44th Annual Earth First! Gathering

August 16, 2024 Sean Summers, Unicorn Riot. Organize! Action Camp, climate crisis, Direct Action, Earth First

Walking up the path to the Kirkridge Retreat Center outside Bangor, Pennsylvania in early July, you may have sensed something was afoot. Cars with license plates from far-flung states lined the driveway and wild-haired twenty-somethings mingled with kids, tweens and adults in their 30s, 40s and beyond. A hand painted cardboard sign reading simply “EF!” would have directed you, with an arrow pointing to the activity. A blend of laughter, music, and fragments of conversations about climate catastrophe quickly sets the tone before you reach a folding table strewn with literature, hand sanitizer, masks and snacks. “Welcome,” a smiling volunteer would greet you. “Are you here for Earth First?”

Climate Disaster Survivors Call For Investigation Into Fossil Fuel Industry

August 16, 2024 Michael Riojas, EcoWatch. Resist! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Fossil Fuels, Legal System

More than 10,000 survivors and loved ones of survivors of “climate-driven disasters” have signed an open letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) urging an investigation into fossil fuel companies for “climate-related crimes.” Of the signatories, more than 1,000 were survivors of these disasters and more than 9,000 were loved ones. Public Citizen said they, along with Chesapeake Climate Action Network, delivered the letter to the DOJ. The letter comes at a time of increased public pressure against the fossil fuel industry and during which climate-related civil lawsuits have increased at an unprecedented pace, and have been mostly successful.

Fire Reveals How Oil Industry Environmental ‘Solution’ Spurs Climate Crisis

August 14, 2024 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. Educate! Carbon Capture, climate crisis, Energy, False Solutions, Fires, Oil and Gas

The trouble began at Piñon Midstream’s Dark Horse Treating Plant in Jal, New Mexico, on November 25, 2023, with an unexpected loud “pop” in the early afternoon, the company would later tell state regulators. A poisonous mix of flammable gasses hissed out from a pipeline feeding into the plant. Within a minute, a worker radioed in to the plant’s control room that a dense cloud of vapor had enveloped part of the plant. Within two minutes, Dark Horse was ablaze in what the company would later call an “intense and sustained fire.” Within 15 minutes, more pipes ripped open, and a towering fireball tore through the plant.

Rural ‘Buffer Ring’ Can Reduce Urban Heat Island Effect

August 11, 2024 Ada Carpenter, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Global heating, heat islands, Urban Design

Rural land cover surrounding a city has the potential to reduce the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect and cool the city centre by more than 0.5C, new research shows. While heatwaves around the world are becoming more frequent and intense because of human-caused warming, they are made even more severe in cities by the UHI effect, which traps heat in urban areas and keeps them warmer than their rural surroundings. The study, published in Nature Cities, analyses 20 years of data from 30 cities in China and finds that a ring of rural land around a city can bring the urban temperature down. A buffer ring that is at least half the city’s width can have the biggest cooling effect.

The Messy Middle Paths Through Climate Breakdown

August 7, 2024 Jamie Bristow and Rosie Bell, DeSmog. Strategize! Biodiversity, climate crisis, Optimism, Realism, Sustainability

In the escalating drama of climate breakdown — especially as we navigate the apparent crossing of the 1.5C warming threshold — a binary is emerging that wastes a huge amount of time, energy and passion, needlessly limiting our vision to confront and adapt to our situation at all levels of society: Are we (optimist) solutionists or (realist) doomers? As “optimists” we’re committed to the idea that it’s not too late to fix things (think ever steeper net zero pathways dependant on direct air capture). As “realists,” we’re committed to telling “the truth” of just how bad things are already (think cascading tipping points and trajectories towards Hothouse Earth).

DC Circuit Rules Against FERC Approval Of LNG And Pipeline Projects

August 6, 2024 Lindsay Stafford Mader, Sierra Club. Resist! climate crisis, Environment, FERC, Pipelines, Texas, Victory

On Tuesday, Aug. 6, the D.C. Circuit Court issued a decision that effectively cancels the previous approval of three harmful methane gas projects in South Texas by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), marking the first time a court has vacated FERC approval of an LNG terminal. In 2023, FERC reapproved Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, and the Rio Bravo pipeline, despite widespread concerns for the harm the projects would cause to the surrounding communities and the climate. The Sierra Club, the City of Port Isabel, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and Vecinos para el Bienestar de la Comunidad Costera sued FERC for failing to adequately consider the environmental justice impacts and greenhouse gas emissions of the three projects, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Natural Gas Act.

Cry, The Beloved World

August 5, 2024 Gus Speth, Resilience. Strategize! Biodiversity, climate crisis, Environment, Sustainability

Here is a topic miles away from the 2024 elections, though it should not be. Its political salience is just about zero, but it concerns the future of life on Earth. I could be referring to the recent surge in spending on nuclear weapons, but the devastation I will write about is slower yet no less problematic. If you are of a certain age, you may remember the children’s book, The Wump World. It first appeared in 1970, the year of the first Earth Day. Its message was clear. The bountiful, bucolic world of the Wumps, with its lovely bumbershoot trees and plentiful grasses for grazing, was denuded and impoverished by the Pollutians, who had colonized the Wump’s planet because they had destroyed their own.

Why So Many Congestion Pricing Critics Change Their Tune

August 4, 2024 Akielly Hu, Next City. Create! Air Quality, climate crisis, Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuels, New York City (NYC), Transportation, Urban Design

New York City’s plan to charge most vehicles $15 to enter downtown Manhattan would have eased traffic, cut pollution, and raised billions for mass transit. But Governor Kathy Hochul — in an 11th-hour reversal — placed congestion pricing on hold indefinitely, leaving a $15 billion gap in the city’s transit upgrade plans. Hochul, a Democrat, cited a slow economic recovery from the pandemic and the burden the tolls would place on low-income residents, but sources say she also feared upsetting swing district voters who could decide key elections this fall. Most people balk at the idea of paying more for anything, and congestion pricing plans are no exception.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources