Despite decades of promises to prevent a climate crisis, the primary cause of it — global fossil fuel burning — continues to increase rapidly. Last year's record-breaking burn was a doozy.
Global investment of more than $1 trillion in planned LNG plants at risk
Employees work next to tanks for liquefied natural gas at a factory in Xian, China in June. China is a prime customer in a worldwide LNG expansion. (Reuters)
We should live in a simple way for others to be able to live as well.
Mahatma Gandhi
He who is richer is not who has more, but who needs less.
Zapotec saying, Oaxaca, Mexico
2010 - We suffer the severe effects of climate change, of the energy, food and financial crises. This is not the product of human beings in general, but of the existing inhuman capitalist system, with its unlimited industrial development. It is brought about by minority groups who control world power, concentrating wealth and power on themselves alone.
The New Deal and World War II are reminders of past transformative times, reverberating in current severe hardships and extreme dangers. Emergencies can bring clarity and reason about what to do, though at the opposite end, crises can elicit the worst outcomes, such as outlined by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine.
Mining lithium and copper to supply the battery boom and fight climate change is wrecking a fragile ecosystem in Chile.
The oases that once interrupted the dusty slopes of the Atacama desert in northern Chile allowed humans and animals to survive for thousands of years in the world’s driest climate. That was before the mining started.
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.
