Following closely on the the better-publicized IPCC Report, another UN-related group, the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, yersterday released Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable. It’s well worth reading, despite...
Latest Posts
Canadian Left Views on Climate Change
Climate and Capitalism previously featured Confronting the Climate Change Crisis, which was first published in the e-zine Socialist Voice. The following articles reflect the views of three other Canadian left-wing groups: the International Socialists, the New Socialist Group, and the New Democratic...
Exploding the Myths of “Carbon Offsets”
Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate...
Is the New UN Global Warming Report Too Conservative?
It’s not surprising that the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has generated controversy. What’s surprising is that the people challenging it aren’t the usual global warming deniers, but leading climatologists who view this new IPCC report as too conservative...
The War Machine is Addicted to Oil
by Ian Angus Some statistics from Energy Bulletin: The US Air Force has 5,986 aircraft. The US Navy has 285 combat and support ships, and about 4,000 operational aircraft. The US Army has about 28,000 armored vehicles 4,000 combat helicopters and several hundred airplanes. In addition, the Army and...
The Dialectics of Climate Change
by Roy Wilkes Greenhouse gas emissions are arguably the most dangerous by-product of capitalist accumulation. They constitute a cancer which is attacking the vital organs of our ecosystem. And like the most dangerous of cancers, its full impact will not become apparent until after it is too late...
Carbon Neutrality
by Ian Angus I recently heard a radio interview with one of my favorite Canadian bands, the Barenaked Ladies. Much of the discussion concerned their efforts to be carbon neutral by investing in various projects that supposedly offset the greenhouse gases they create while touring. I’ve been a...
The Engine of Eco Collapse: Jared Diamond Ignores His Own Lessons
Jared Diamond: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005) reviewed by by Richard Smith For decades, environmentalists who warned of impending disasters were dismissed as extremists and alarmists. No more. Today, all the mainstream of scientific organizations, notable...
Green Lefts and Left Greens Perspectives on Climate Disaster…
by Dave Riley The almost universal deference now reluctantly being paid in the establishment forums to the actuality of climate change presents us with a major opportunity to advance the ideological envelope. What is required is a very open and public discussion about what we need to do about this...
Human Rights Commission to Hear Inuit Challenge to U.S. on Global Warming
The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights has agreed to hear an unprecedented challenge to U.S. policy on greenhouse gas emissions. As reported in the article below, a delegation representing Inuit peoples from the US, Canada, Russia and Greenland will argue that global warming is destroying...