May 21, 2019 - All agree that there are no jobs on a dead planet, writes Linda Flood. But the road to fewer emissions is full of opinions.
The trade unions’ solution for a greener world is new jobs with good working conditions. The critics argue that there’s not enough time. ”We can either protect industrial jobs in the global north or save the climate,” says political scientist Tadzio Müller.
Politicians, businesses, and unions all agree: there are no jobs on a dead planet. But the road to fewer emissions is full of opinions.
Humans are pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate. But climate change is a cumulative problem, a function of the total amount of greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the sky. Some of the heat-trapping gases in the air right now date back to the Industrial Revolution. And since that time, some countries have pumped out vastly more carbon dioxide than others.
The main argument against expanding fossil fuel use is catastrophic global warming. If you accept that, then economic and employment counterarguments had better be solid.
["A very good article analyzing union options in the struggle sparked by GM's decision to close its Oshawa plant (and others). Embedded in the article is also a very good short video by the Democratic Socialists of America on the green opportunities presented by the situation. " Gene McGuckin]
February 2, 2019
Two months after the GM Oshawa closure announcement, Unifor’s big idea is a campaign to boycott GM cars made in Mexico. The union is even spending huge money on a Super Bowl commercial that will reach about 5 million Canadians.
[Editor: This is motivated by a desire to protect citizens from possible spills from a three-mile-long fracked-gas LNG pipeline. John Horgan, are you listening? ]
BC’s new climate plan, Clean BC, is a big and visionary document and was instantly lauded by environmental groups and businesses alike. In this post, I recap the key components of the plan and do a bit of a reality check against the hype, in particular the challenge of fitting liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the plan.
The images from the streets of Paris over the past weeks are stark and poignant: thousands of angry protesters, largely representing the struggling French working class, resorting to mass civil unrest to express fear and frustration over a proposed new gas tax. For the moment, the protests have been successful. French President Emmanuel Macron backed off the new tax proposal, at least for six months. The popular uprising won, seemingly at the expense of the global fight against climate change and the future wellbeing of our planet.
