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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- The War Machine is Addicted to Oilby 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 Marines have about 140,000 “High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles.” On top ...---READ-->>
- The Dialectics of Climate Changeby 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. There are two reasons for this: time lag ...---READ-->>
- Carbon Neutralityby 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 fan of BNL since they were playing in church ...---READ-->>
- The Engine of Eco Collapse: Jared Diamond Ignores His Own LessonsJared 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 corporate CEOs, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and even the ...---READ-->>
- 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 impending disaster. While there is a shallow ...---READ-->>
- Human Rights Commission to Hear Inuit Challenge to U.S. on Global WarmingThe 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 their way of life and that the United States is ...---READ-->>
- The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil“Try to image an airplane suddenly losing its engines. It was really a crash”… A crash that put Cuba into a state of shock. There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up to 16 hours per day. The average daily caloric intake in Cuba dropped by a third… So Cubans started to ...---READ-->>
- The Obscenity of Carbon TradingWhile there are differences in emphasis and details, all four of Canada’s major political parties are proposing “emissions trading” as a key component of their proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similar schemes have been operating in Europe for some time. Kevin Smith, a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch, offers this evaluation of the European ...---READ-->>
- Australian Text Demolishes Neoliberal Environmental PoliciesSharon Beder: Environmental Principles and Policies: An Interdisciplinary Approach. University of New South Wales Press (Sydney, Australia) 2006. 336 pages Reviewed by Ben Courtice Students and critics of official environmental policy probably despair at the Orwellian doublespeak and ostensibly well-meaning waffle that clouds most governmental policy. In Environmental Principles and Policies, Sharon Beder has carefully dissected the ...---READ-->>
- Omission and Censorship Mark Climate Change Debateby Zoe Kenny Global warming has “very likely” been caused by humanity’s actions. This is one of the main conclusions of the fourth assessment report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on February 2. The IPCC’s assessment is that it is at least 90% sure that humanity has caused global warming, up from ...---READ-->>
- Addendum to: Climate Change Doesn't Scare the Financial Postby Ian Angus Canada’s Financial Post isn’t the only big-time business paper that puts ideology ahead of science on climate change. The Wall Street Journal is just as bad. Like the Post, the WSJ claims that the IPCC’s recent Summary for Policy Makers “is backpedaling on some key issues.” While everyone concedes that the Earth is about a ...---READ-->>
- Climate Change Doesn't Scare the Financial Postby Ian Angus Clear away the steamy language and the rhetoric from the climate hysterics and in many ways the new report reads like a scaled-back version of the 2001 report…. the fact is that beyond the rhetoric, the actual summary doesn’t look all that scary.” So wrote Terence Corcoran, editor of the Financial Post, one of ...---READ-->>
- Listen Gore: Some Inconvenient Truths About the Politics of Environmental CrisisBy Mitchel Cohen Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” raises the issue of global warming in a way that scares the bejeezus out of viewers, as it should since the consequences of global climate change are truly earth-shaking. The former Vice-President does a good job of presenting the graphic evidence, exquisite and terrifying pictures that document ...---READ-->>
- Fidel Castro on Ecology and Climate Change“An important biological species is in danger of disappearing due to the fast and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: mankind.”---READ-->>
- The Greening of Stephen Harperby John Allemang Ignore the Arctic’s melting caps The warnings on the weather maps, The ozone layer’s gaping holes, But Stephen, don’t ignore the polls. When worried voters all go green, A nation’s leader must be seen To turn his platform on a dime And shift convictions just in time To save, if not the polar bear, At least his party’s market share. Your climate’s changed, ...---READ-->>
- 1000 Years of Global WarmingFEB. 2, 2007: WorkingGroup 1 of the UN Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change today issued its Summary for Policy Makers, summarizing the main conclusions of the major report on the Physical Science Basis of climate change that will be published in the spring. Among the most important conclusions: global warming is real, it’s happening faster than ...---READ-->>
- Venezuela – An Ecologically Sustainable Revolution?By Zoe Kenny At a meeting in Brazil on April 26, 2006, plans moved ahead between Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil for a major transcontinental oil pipeline. The pipeline would be 10,000 kilometres long and would link the four countries plus Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez said the pipeline would be integral to economically ...---READ-->>
- Taking the Monbiot Challenge: The Global Emergency of Climate ChangeA number of books have on climate change hit the shelves over the past year, but perhaps the most important of the recent titles on this subject is George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning (Random House, 2006). Monbiot, a widely read columnist with the UK Guardian, delivers a clear and stark ...---READ-->>
- Confronting the Climate Change CrisisPoliticians and oil companies are jumping on the green bandwagon, but they have no solutions to a crisis that is rooted in capitalism By Ian Angus This month, we’ve been treated to the bizarre spectacle of George Bush and Stephen Harper each declaring their deep concern about “the serious challenge of global climate change.” The U.S. president ...---READ-->>
- Carbon Trading: A Corporate Scamby Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada & Graham Erion With climate change posing as one of the gravest threats to capital accumulation – not to mention humankind and our environment – in coming decades, it is little wonder that economists such as Sir Nick Stern, establishment politicians like Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and US Democrat ...---READ-->>