The Ecosocialist Resources column is published at irregular intervals. It features links to new articles, reports, talks and videos that are relevant to Climate & Capitalism’s mission and goals.
Inclusion of a link does not imply endorsement, or that we agree with everything (or even anything!) the item says.
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- Did Consumers Cause the BP Oil Disaster?Liberal journalists, pale greens and others are trivializing the BP/Deepwater oil spill and distracting attention from the social roots of environmental destruction. It’s time to dump the myth of ‘consumer sovereignty’ by Ian Angus Following the BP/Deepwater oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, many commentators have tried to explain why it happened. Many blame greed and arrogance ...---READ-->>
- News and Video: Australians Walk Against WarmingAugust 15, 2010. Walk With the People, Not the Big Polluters Thanks to Peter Boyle …. +++++++++ The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Tens of thousands of protesters – and a few sceptics – have taken to the streets across Australia to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change. Both Labor and the coalition have failed to ...---READ-->>
- Is Africa Still Being Looted?In a debate broadcast on Canada’s CBC radio network last week, a leading World Bank official defended neo-liberal policies, denied the reality of African economics, and even ignored the Bank’s own research by Patrick Bond (Patrick Bond directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is the author of Looting Africa: The Economics ...---READ-->>
- Ecosocialism, Mumia and MOVEDespite decades of imprisonment, Mumia Abu-Jamal remains a prophet — a voice articulating a politics that challenges capitalism and imperialism while speaking for the earth. by Derek Wall Green Left Weekly, August 8, 2010 Mumia Abu-Jamal — on death row for more than 30 years in Pennsylvania for a murder he didn’t commit — is an iconic figure. Yet ...---READ-->>
- U.S. Cities: Too Hot, and Getting HotterExcerpts from a new supplement to the National Wildlife Federation’s 2009 report More Extreme Heat Waves: Global Warming’s Wake-Up Call Many Americans in the eastern and southern United States have been sweltering during summer 2010. As global temperature records have been set for the early summer months, states and cities are also setting hundreds of temperature records. ...---READ-->>
- Bolivia's Ambassador on Climate Negotiations and Water as a Human RightCorporate interests, economy, profits have more weight in the negotiation than preserving life and biodiversity and Mother Earth … there are too many things in the negotiation that really make things even worse. August 10, 2010 — Democracy Now! — Even as the world faces a series of extreme weather events that scientists warn is related ...---READ-->>
- Conspicuous consumption and destructive wealth The case of Ira RennertThere is no question that excessive consumption damages the environment, but are consumers really driving the runaway train? I offer the following as an indication that different drivers are in charge. By Ian Angus If you want to start a campaign focusing on grossly conspicuous consumption as an environmental crime, then an appropriate poster boy would be ...---READ-->>
- Downstream Community Members to Hold Healing Walk Through Tar Sands RegionOn Saturday, August 14th the Keepers of the Athabasca, a network of First Nation, Metis and settler community members along the Athabasca river will host a ‘healing walk’ through the tar sands. Local First Nation and Metis elders from communities directly affected by tar sands operations are leading the walk and will be joined by other ...---READ-->>
- Wet'suwet'en and Unis'toten Nations Rise up Against Big OilIn this country, known as Canada, which is actually the stolen native land of Turtle Island, Indigenous communities are rising up to join the tide of resistance to neocolonialism by fighting the imposition of pipelines and the tar sands in Western Canada. by Julien Lalonde Julien Lalonde is a Climate Justice activist with Toronto Bolivia Solidarity ...---READ-->>
- Video: Raj Patel on the battle for the world food systemRaj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing and Stuffed and Starved, interviewed by Jill Hickson and Simon Cunich for Green Left Weekly and Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal. The battle for the world food system: an interview with Raj Patel from Jill Hickson on Vimeo.---READ-->>
- Vulture capitalists versus the Global SouthHedge funds, bankers and other speculators are buying everything from farmland to mines across the Global South, fueling exploitation half a world away by Mark L. Thomas Socialist Worker (UK) July 31, 2010 A single commodity trader in London hit the headlines this month when he snapped up 7 percent of the world’s entire cocoa bean production. His ...---READ-->>
- Populationism: A Weapon of Political ConservativesA promise to rein in population growth is useful for the right wing because it substitutes for the fundamental social and economic changes needed to really deal with these problems. by Simon Butler Green Left Weekly, July 24, 2010 Forget about the climate science and the record high temperatures. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has decided she ...---READ-->>
- How Racist Anti-Immigrant Groups are Trying to Recruit EnvironmentalistsXenophobes have launched a cynical campaign to recruit environmentalists to their cause by blaming immigrants for urban sprawl and other environmental problems. by Heidi Beirich Southern Poverty Law Center In January 2010, national leaders in ecology, sustainable business, and the larger environmental movement gathered in Washington to grapple with the problem of building “The New Green Economy.” Hosted ...---READ-->>
- Via Campesina Meeting Debates Climate Change and Social ChangeSpeakers at the “National Encounter for Environmental and Social Justice” in Mexico City discussed key aspects of the global environmental crisis and its impact on the countries and peoples of the global south by Javier Sethness On July 24, the North-American section of Via Campesina held a National Encounter for Environmental and Social Justice in Mexico City. The ...---READ-->>
- 41 Countries that Oppose Making Water a Human RightThese are the 41 countries that abstained in the July 28 UN General Assembly vote on Bolivia’s resolution to recognize access to water and sanitation as basic human rights. Rather than honestly vote “no,” they abstained to avoid being labelled as opponents of access to water, but many made statements that reveal their hostility to the ...---READ-->>
- No Room for Doubt: Global Warming is RealU.S. and U.K. government climate scientists agree: “the climate is unequivocally warming” From the Met Office Hadley Centre (July 28, 2010) Unmistakable scientific evidence that our world is warming has been released today in the ‘2009 State of the Climate’ report, issued by US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The report draws on data from 10 key ...---READ-->>
- UN Declares Water a Human RightSpeech by Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the UN, the the General Assembly on July 28. Bolivia’s resolution passed unanimously, but 41 countries abstained. “The Human Right to Water and Sanitation” Mr. President, Allow me to begin the presentation of this Resolution by recalling that human beings are essentially water. Around two thirds of our organism is comprised ...---READ-->>
- Appendix to Part Two: Rates versus RatiosPart Two of this series considered per capita statistics, which “conceal substantial inequalities within populations and between people.” This supplement summarizes a related argument made by Allan Schnaiberg, who addressed the same issue thirty years ago.---READ-->>
- 'Sustainable Population?' Australian PM Targets Immigrants and RefugeesGillard (and Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott) blame population growth for the decline of living standards, because that lets government off the hook. by Graham Matthews Green Left Weekly, July 24, 2010 In one of her first policy changes after replacing Kevin Rudd as leader of the Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister Julia Gillard dumped Rudd’s idea ...---READ-->>
- Worse Than Hiroshima: The Toxic Legacy of the U.S. Assault on Fallujah“To produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened” By Patrick Cockburn The Independent, July 24, 2010 Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the ...---READ-->>