Canada has no immediate plans to raise its targets for cutting emissions, despite pressure from the United Nations to step it up or risk the failure of the Paris climate change agreement.
Tami Thomas-Pinkney’s house in Port Arthur, Texas, was not damaged when Hurricane Harvey soaked the city with up to 28 inches of rain on August 29. But a month and a half after the storm, she is preparing to move. Across the street from her family’s home is a temporary dumpsite for storm debris, which she says is endangering her family’s health and making her home unlivable.
OK, so the fight against climate change isn’t going flawlessly. But there is some cause for optimism, right? Money is plowing into cheap solar energy, China is leading the world in green investment and Tesla has released a nice new electric car. Already, over a fifth of the world’s electricity comes from renewables, set to rise to 29 percent by 2040, according to current trends.
“No Is Not Enough” is not a new theme for Naomi Klein. I remember vividly reading an article that quoted Naomi in the Nation magazine in October 2011 at the height of the Occupy movement. She stressed the need then for resistance to the economic system of corporate greed causing inequality, the 99% vs 1%, saying “no”, but also the need for creating alternative institutions on a local level as models for a larger vision of a system we want for a sustainable, just, democratic and more equal society, saying “yes”.
The past year has seen communities around the world dealing with major weather events. Here in Canada flooding in Quebec and unprecedented wildfires in BC displaced tens of thousands, while the southern U.S. and South East Asia suffered from intense storms. Forget about polar bears – these communities are the new face of climate change.
In principle, free transit advocacy can also be an element in a broader vision to reorganize urban life and restructure the social order along red (working class-based, working toward socialism) and green (environmental) lines. This requires working through a host of open questions that go far beyond lowering the cost of fares. These include:
"Whether we like it or not, we are going to be the main ones affected by the consequences that climate change entails."
Seven children in Portugal have hit their crowdfunding target for a lawsuit they are mounting against are 47 member nations of the Council of Europe—which they say are not doing enough to fight climate change.
The children initially hoped to raise £20,000 (about $26,000)—a goal they reached Thursday after less than a month of crowdfunding. They're now hoping to raise a total of £100,000.
