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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- Full Tanks at the Cost of Empty Stomachs: The Expansion of the Sugarcane Industry in Latin AmericaStatement prepared by Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) SAO PAULO, FEBRUARY 28, 2007: We, representatives of organizations and social movements of Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, gathered at a forum on the expansion of the sugarcane industry in Latin America, declare that: The current model of production of bioenergy is sustained by ...---READ-->>
- Exploding the “Emissions Intensity” HoaxBy Ian Angus As I’ve written previously, the Climate Change Denial Industry is still active despite the IPCC Report — but it’s also true that it has become unfashionable as an explicit political stance, at least in Canada. After years of inaction, politicians of every stripe are actively seeking to outdo each other in pledges to ...---READ-->>
- Canadian Dimension: A 12 Step Program to Combat Climate ChangeContinuing our series of articles and statements reflecting a variety of “Left Views on Climate Change.” Canadian Dimension, founded in 1963, describes itself as “a magazine which shows there is an alternative to the corporate agenda and the dictates of the global market; that the dream of a better society is still alive.”The March-April 2007 issue features ...---READ-->>
- 'Acts of God' or Products of the System?by Zoe Kenny In early February, rains that flooded up to 70% of Jakarta and displaced some 450,000 people began. Across Indonesia, 85 people died, according to a March 12 Agence France-Presse report. Bloomberg’s wire service reported on March 6 that, according to government estimates, the floods caused a direct economic loss of “at least 5.2 ...---READ-->>
- Climate Change Denial: The Swindle ContinuesBy Ian Angus Last month’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the science is absolutely clear. Climate change is real and human activity is the primary cause. That ended the debate, right? Wrong. Anyone who expects rational behaviour from the most vehement defenders of the badly-misnamed “free enterprise system” will be sadly disappointed. ...---READ-->>
- British Airways' Offset GreenwashEighteen months ago, in September 2005, British Airways announced a plan that allowed travellers to “offset” their travel-generated emissions by paying to have trees planted. Anyone care to guess the total impact so far? Assuming that the offsets actually did what they were said to do (not a safe assumption) — in 18 months, the British ...---READ-->>
- The Sting in the Bio-Buzzby Jutta Kill Biofuels are flavour of the month for carmakers and politicians keen to be seen as green without directly addressing the problem of everrising transport emissions. The bio-buzz has now caught on strongly in the EU. On 10 January, the European Commission presented its new energy and biofuels blueprint. It is bad news all ...---READ-->>
- United States and Brazil: The New Ethanol Allianceby Raúl Zibechi Translated by Laura Carlsen from: Estados Unidos y Brasil: La nueva alianza etanol for the IRC Americas Program Raúl Zibechi is a member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, teacher and researcher of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to social groups. He is ...---READ-->>
- Marxism versus ‘Anxiety-Driven Ecological Catastrophism’?From “Notes from the Editors” in the March 2007 Monthly Review. Our friends Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, editors of the Socialist Register, have recently published Coming to Terms with Nature: Socialist Register, 2007 (Monthly Review Press, 2006), which includes contributions by a distinguished group of analysts addressing crucial environmental issues—dealing with everything from “fossil capitalism” ...---READ-->>
- Next IPCC Report Predicts Droughts, Flooding, Disease“Global warming” is just the beginning, and it may be the least of the problems caused by greenhouse gases. Capitalism is really fouling things up. WASHINGTON – (Associated Press, March 11, 2007) The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people ...---READ-->>
- Hot Topics in the NewsClimate Change and Human Health … Bangladesh Already Feels the Heat … The Big Green Fuel Lie … Biofuels and the Cost of Food. Recent articles from various sources for the activists’ arsenal. A Cost of Climate Change that Can’t Be Counted in Dollars – Survival QUOTE: “Much of the early public debate about climate change focused ...---READ-->>
- Socialist Candidate Speaks on Climate ChangeSpeech by Pip Hinman, Socialist Alliance candidate for Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia, to a candidates’ meeting organized by Marrickville Climate Change Now! March 6, 2007 The big question in NSW is how to tackle the coal question: there are two arguments: there’s the government and Liberal opposition which want to continue with business as usual, ...---READ-->>
- Business As Usual for U.S. EmissionsA leaked report says that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will grow almost as much in this decade as they did in the last one. The United States Climate Action Report, obtained by the New York Times, was supposed to be released in January 2006, under the terms of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change. It’s ...---READ-->>
- The Global Blueprint for a Biomass Economyby Almuth Ernsting A year ago, my MEP sent me a curious statement which said that growing biofuels could not just reduce carbon emissions, but would actually cool the planet. I believed that he had been misinformed, perhaps by proponents of the biofuel industry. I was wrong. Those claims, improbable as they are, pervade top scientific ...---READ-->>
- An Activists’ Handbook on Global WarmingFor political grounding and stimulating ideas for action, this small booklet is indispensable. It should be on every socialist campaign stall and bookshelf. UNITY Published by Socialist Worker, New Zealand. December 2006, NZ$5 Order from socialist-worker@pl.net reviewed by Ben Courtice “System change not climate change” reads the cover of the December edition of the New Zealand Marxist journal Unity. The ...---READ-->>
- The Ethanol ScamBy Robert Bryce The ethanol scam just keeps getting more and more absurd. In January, three U.S. senators — two Democrats, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barack Obama of Illinois, along with Indiana Republican Richard Lugar — introduced a bill that would promote the use of ethanol. It also mandates the use of more biodiesel and ...---READ-->>
- Venezuela's Green Agenda: Chávez Should Be Named the 'Environmental President'“We are an oil producing country and that obligates us to take even more care of the environment — on an extreme level — and to avoid contamination, and to reduce contamination in all areas: earth, water and air.” – President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, February 24, 2007. By Eva Golinger Did anyone from Greenpeace or Earth ...---READ-->>
- Another UN Climate Change Report …and Other Recommended ReadingFollowing 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 the authors’ naïve advocacy of emissions trading as a solution. ”Two starkly different futures diverge from this time ...---READ-->>
- Canadian Left Views on Climate ChangeClimate 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 Party. International Socialists From Socialist Worker, February 13, 2007 Will Kyoto Be Enough? As we approach the ...---READ-->>
- 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 change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice ...---READ-->>