Climate Change

The fight by the Standing Rock Sioux to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline has emerged as one of the defining climate justice fights in the United States.

It has also become a central focal point of the ongoing worldwide struggle by indigenous peoples to have their treaty and land rights respected by other governments and corporations. (The fact that corporations operate as de facto government is a galling example of the need for the Green Party).

Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System (New York: Monthly Review Press)

(Full disclosure: Ian Angus and MR Press sent me a review copy of this book, which isn’t otherwise available in the UK yet, and Angus re-posted a piece from Made Ground at Climate & Capitalism the other day.)

Dharna Noor of Real News Network interviews C&C editor Ian Angus about the proposal to declare a new geological epoch, and his new book, ‘Facing the Anthropocene.’

Scientists’ warnings that the rise of the sea would eventually
imperil the United States’ coastline are no longer theoretical.

Vancouver — Climate change is the greatest global health threat of the 21st century, one of Canada’s leading advocates on the subject, Dr. James Orbinski, told physicians attending the Canadian Medical Association annual meeting Monday, urging them to do more to lessen harms.

Orbinski, a humanitarian and founding member of the Nobel-Prize winning Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), said climate change is unrelenting as evidenced by the fact that 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history and 2016 is projected to surpass it.

TransCanada’s Energy East project is the largest tar sands pipeline proposed yet. Stretching from Alberta to New Brunswick, Energy East could carry over 1 million barrels per day of tar sands crude to the Atlantic coast. Despite TransCanada’s promises that Energy East is for domestic gain, they are making plans to export the vast majority and leave us to bear the real costs of climate change, spills and clean-up.

This year’s Fraser River sockeye run is the lowest in more than 120 years, and the Watershed Watch Salmon Society says it all has to do with climate change.

“The salmon are suffering because of the changing environment of which we, as British Columbians, have some responsibility for,” said WWSS fisheries adviser Greg Taylor of the fishery, which ended Aug. 12.

“There ‘s a great link between (Premier) Christy Clark’s inaction on climate change and river temperatures that are lethal to salmon.”