A major climate change march in New York September 21 may be a tipping point for labor movement participation in global warming activism.
Climate initiatives are still controversial in the labor movement. But dozens of unions in New York, jarred by memories of Superstorm Sandy, have lined up to join the People’s Climate March, planned to coincide with a United Nations summit that will draw world leaders to the city.
(What will mass migration from California do to climate change mean for British Columbia?) A shocking 58 percent of the state of California is now in a state of "exceptional drought," according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. (1)
"The drought's incredible three-year duration has nearly depleted both the state's topsoil moisture and subsoil moisture reserves, according to Brad Rippey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who wrote the Drought Monitor report," reports the Washington Post. (2)
A major oil spill in Canada's western Arctic would likely spread quickly and foul oceans around Alaska, and possibly as far west as Russia.
The research, funded by the World Wildlife Fund, comes as the National Energy Board prepares to consider blowout prevention plans in two separate proposals for offshore energy drilling.
Last year in Monthly Review, I debated Eddie Yuen, an anarchist who believes it is a mistake for radicals to focus on telling the truth about the global environmental crisis, because “awareness of climate crisis does not necessarily lead to increased political engagement.” Not only can such awareness lead to apathy, he wrote, but “environmental catastrophism is very likely to be mobilized by economic and national elites to reinforce existing inequalities and expand enclosures, commodification, and militarization.”[1]
There are two points of common agreement amongst almost all sections of the Left. We are in the midst of a fundamental turning point in the earth's environment from climate change, with many catastrophic consequences unfolding, from species extinction to habitat loss to enormous obstacles and costs for human adaptation; and the Left remains, in almost all zones of the world, but especially in North America, on the margins as a social force in the face of a reconstructed and more authoritarian neoliberalism. How to respond in such a situation?
. . . Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger declared a province-wide state of emergency on Friday and asked the federal government to have Canadian Armed Forces soldiers in Manitoba to assist with flood relief efforts.
On Saturday, Selinger said upwards of about 400 troops could be on the ground, helping out with sandbagging and assisting homes in flooding hotspots.
Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, gave this remarkable opening talk at the summit of the Group of 77 plus China, meeting in Santa Clara, Bolivia, on June 14, 2014.
. . . We have recovered our nation for all of us. Ours was a nation that had been alienated by the neoliberal model, a nation that lived under the old and evil system of political parties, a nation that was ruled from abroad, as if we were a colony.
. . But drama over the pipelines obscures a larger problem — a broken policy process. Both Canada and the United States treat oil-sands production, transportation, climate and environmental policies as separate issues, assessing each new proposal in isolation. A more coherent approach, one that evaluates all oil-sands projects in the context of broader, integrated energy and climate strategies, is sorely needed.
. . . After explaining the results of Ian Wood’s review, Baroness Kramer revealed that the government had accepted his recommendations in full. Then she dropped her bombshell. The government now plans
“to introduce measures in the Bill to put the principle of maximising economic recovery of petroleum in the UK into statute.”
Into statute. Maximising the production of crude oil will, if the bill is passed, become a legal requirement.
