“We’ve now got tangible figures of the quantities and locations of fossil fuels that should remain unused in trying to keep within the 2C temperature limit,” said Christophe McGlade, at University College London (UCL), and who led the new research published in the journal Nature.
Naomi Klein rightly blames capitalism for climate change. But she doesn't go far enough.
Reader Comments - Selma; Civil Rights Tour led by Julian Bond; Ferguson Grand Jury; Police, NYPD, PBA, de Blasio; Women telling their Story; Wealth and Inequality; Sports - A Radical Proposal; BDS, Israel, Palestine, Solidarity; Sony; The Interview; Privatization and Hucksterism; Climate Change, Marx and Nature; Healthcare; Superbugs; the Ukraine;
Announcements - The American Labor Movement At A Crossroads; Elections in Greece: Can Syriza Break with Austerity?
We are skilled at assuming things cannot change and that we, the people, do not have the power to change them. Yet our country and our world have always been changing, are in the midst of great and terrible changes, and are occasionally changed through the power of the popular will and idealistic movements. The changing climate now demands that we summon up the energy to leave behind the Age of Fossil Fuel (and maybe some portion of the Age of Capitalism as well).
We need to end the age of fossil fuels the way the French ended the age of absolute monarchy. As New York State and the town of Richmond just demonstrated, what is possible has been changing rapidly.
On the eve of the latest United Nations Climate Summit in Lima, Peru, even the New York Times noted November 30 that scientists and climate-policy experts "warn that it now may be impossible to prevent the temperature of the planet's atmosphere from rising by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. With so much at much at stake, why have world leaders done so little to embrace comprehensive, mandatory solutions, relying instead on modest, market-based proposals for voluntary reductions?
Reader Comments - Darren Wilson Acquittal - Reader Responses; Black Friday Protests; Election Lessons for the Left; Immigration Reform; Ursula K. Le Guin, Pension Reform(?); Water Grab; Facebook Drivers Vote Union; Berlin Wall's Fall - Reflections from the GDR; Israel Lobby and Ukrainian Fascists; Mexico - 43 students murdered; Israel, Palestine and Rasmeah Odeh; The Selfless Gene;
Announcement - New Politics Forum on the Environmental Crisis - New York - Dec. 9
Reader Comments- Keystone XL-What Next; Mexico; Elizabeth Warren; Voter Suppression; War and Democracy; A White Manifesto?; US-China Climate Accord; Responses to Naomi Klein; Schools and Prisons; Housing Discrimination; FBI Plot - Martin Luther King Suicide; Net Neutrality; Global Economic Divide; COSATU and NUMSA;
Announcements - 2014 & Looking Forward to 2016- New York- Dec 2; Voter, Civil & Workers Rights- New York- Dec 11; She's Beautiful When She's Angry- showings
Naomi Klein argues the urgency of climate crisis could form the basis of a powerful mass movement weaving all the seemingly disparate issues into a coherent narrative to protect humanity from the ravages of a savagely unjust economic system and a destabilized climate system. Climate activist Ted Glick responds, is it realistic to think, by 2018 or 2019, a mass social movement with an essentially revolutionary agenda is going to bring about the change in power relations?
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