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.
If you read or write an article that might be appropriate for this column, please post your suggestion in the Climate and Capitalism Facebook group.
- The Photosynthetic Ceiling: Don’t Duck Your Head Just YetIs humanity is about to bump its collective head against a physical limit to growth? Will we soon be using all of the available resources?---READ-->>
- Video: Patrick Bond on the Global Fight for Climate JusticeVideo of Patrick Bond’s talk in Toronto on March 4 Socialist Project has posted video of Patrick Bond’s talk at: http://www.socialistproject.ca/environment/patrick_bond.html Many thanks to Pance Stojkovski for the video and the SP website.---READ-->>
- Carbon Storage: A Silver Bullet for Emissions?Canada’s federal government says Carbon Capture and Storage is the key to cutting greenhouse gases by Ian Angus This week, Canada’s federal government revealed new details about its supposed plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Last year in Canadian Dimension, I described the plan as “a complete and total fraud” and “a recipe for inaction and delay.” The ...---READ-->>
- Minority and Indigenous Peoples Hardest Hit by Climate ChangeA new report shows that minorities and indigenous groups are disproportionately suffering — both from climate change itself and from “solutions” like biofuels A study of several recent environmental disasters across the world shows that it is minority and indigenous groups that have been worst affected by changing weather patterns but in most cases when a disaster ...---READ-->>
- Video: Urban Farming in CubaThe BBC program “Around the World in 80 Gardens” (2008) shows some of the urban food gardening in Havana, Cuba. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRz34Dee7XY A tip of the hat to Dave Riley, host of Left Click, for bringing this video to our attention. Related reading: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil---READ-->>
- Tar Sands: Environmental Justice, Treaty Rights and Indigenous Peoples“The exploitation of the tar sands is a human-rights issue, an environmental-justice issue and an indigenous treaty-rights issue” Clayton Thomas-Muller, writing in the March-April issue of Canadian Dimension: For the most part, however, the public in Canada and the U.S. has not been made sufficiently aware of what is going on in northern Alberta. The public still ...---READ-->>
- Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero EmissionsNew scientific research shows that greenhouse gas emissions cuts must be much steeper than previously thought A paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters (subscription required) says that greenhouse gases must be cut to “near-zero” as quickly as possible. If that isn’t done, future emissions “will commit the climate system to warming that is essentially irreversible.” H. ...---READ-->>
- Population Control and Climate Change, Part Two: The Socialist AlternativeThe world needs radical policies that challenge the economic power of capitalism, not repressive population control measures against the oppressed Part One of this article outlined how, after a 10-year lull, establishment figures are again raising the issue of (enforced) population control as a means of tackling the environmental crisis. Now the focus is on climate ...---READ-->>
- Fourth International Calls for Redefining Socialism as EcosocialismContinuing our series of articles and statements reflecting a wide range of Left Views on ecology, socialism, and ecosocialism. [This draft resolution was approved by a leadership committee of the Fourth International, following a five-day seminar on climate change held in the Netherlands in February. There is a report on the seminar, in French, here. [Acronyms ...---READ-->>
- Carbon Taxes: Nudging the Free Market FairyThe authors of Hot Air believe that a carbon tax will magically stop greenhouse gas emissions. Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge. by Jeffrey Simpson, Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 2007. Reviewed by Ian Angus The Church of the Free Market Fairy is divided into two denominations. The fundamentalists believe that the Free ...---READ-->>
- Patrick Bond Speaks on Fighting for Climate JusticePatrick Bond, director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, spoke in Toronto on Tuesday March 4. A major snowstorm was predicted, and there were at least two other important public meetings on environmental and antiwar issues being held nearby at the same time. Nevertheless, attendance was very good ...---READ-->>
- Offsetting DemocracyBy Kevin Smith The concept underpinning the whole system of carbon trading and offsetting is that a ton of carbon here is exactly the same as a ton of carbon there. That is, if it’s cheaper to reduce emissions in India than it is in the UK, then you can achieve the same climate benefit in ...---READ-->>
- Population Control and Climate Change, Part One: Too Many People?Population control is once again being touted by some in the green movement as an answer to climate change and other environmental problems. By Phil Ward Why is population control an issue? There is a long history of intersection between the ecological movement and the advocates of population control. Sometimes, views on this issue are not explicitly reactionary, ...---READ-->>
- The New Climate Science: Governments Gamble With Our SurvivalOfficial climate reports, though often disturbing, have not been nearly as frightening as they ought to be By Renfrey Clarke Almost universally, governments are refusing to recognize the scope and urgency of the changes demanded by global warming. The menace, however, is real, and the time available for concerted action to combat it is frighteningly brief. ...---READ-->>
- Treaty Chiefs Unanimously Demand a Halt to New Oil Sands Approvals“Oil sands development has all but destroyed the traditional livelihood of First Nations in northern Athabasca watershed” Calgary – From Wednesday to Friday of last week, Treaty Chiefs representing the Treaties 6,7 and 8 nations of Alberta met and passed a resolution, unanimously, to support the calls for no new oil sands approvals until Treaty First ...---READ-->>
- An African Call for a Moratorium on Agrofuel DevelopmentsThe agrofuels ‘revolution’ is replacing millions of hectares of local agricultural systems, and the rural communities working in them, with large plantations We, the undersigned members of African civil society organizations, as well as organizations from other parts of the world, do urgently call for a moratorium on new agrofuel developments on our continent. We need ...---READ-->>
- “Climate change is a trade union issue”Some 300 people participated in the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Conference in London on February 9. Socialist blogger Liam Mac Uaid reports that “the majority of them were neither part of the far left nor any of the established environmental groups.” Liam’s blog includes reports on the event by himself and by conference ...---READ-->>
- Fidel Moves OnSome personal thoughts on an ecosocialist hero by Ian Angus In January 1960, the newspapers reported that Fidel Castro would be visiting Ottawa after speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. I immediately tried to organize my school friends to go to the airport to greet him. Unfortunately the visit to Canada didn’t happen, ...---READ-->>
- Climate Chaos and the Global SouthEconomic growth in India and China is portrayed as a key contributor to climate change. But the problem is mainly caused by the global rich not poor countries. by Suzanne Jeffery Socialist Worker (UK), February 5 2008 It was announced last year that China had overtaken the US as the world’s ...---READ-->>
- Scientists Identify Tipping Points of Climate ChangeBy Steve Connor The Independent, February 5, 2008 A major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists has found that the “tipping points” for all nine scenarios – such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice or the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – could occur within the next 100 years. The scientists warn that climate ...---READ-->>