At least 227 land and environment defenders were killed in 2020, making it the deadliest year on record — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, according to a report released by international NGO Global Witness this week.
Demonstrators take part in a protest on Sept. 11 against the soaring living costs of tenants in Berlin. In a referendum later this week, voters will be asked if they support expropriating more than 200,000 rental housing units from the city's biggest landlords. (Paul Zinken/AFP/Getty)
Climate policies commit us to a calamitous 2.9C of global heating, but catastrophic changes can occur at even 1.5C or 2C
If there’s one thing we know about climate breakdown, it’s that it will not be linear, smooth or gradual. Just as one continental plate might push beneath another in sudden fits and starts, causing periodic earthquakes and tsunamis, our atmospheric systems will absorb the stress for a while, then suddenly shift. Yet, everywhere, the programmes designed to avert it are linear, smooth and gradual.
By 2049, Michael T. Klare says China will be a climate disaster zone, not a military superpower.
In recent months, Washington has had a lot to say about China’s ever-expanding air, naval and missile power. But when Pentagon officials address the topic, they generally speak less about that country’s current capabilities, which remain vastly inferior to those of the U.S., than the world they foresee in the 2030s and 2040s, when Beijing is expected to have acquired far more sophisticated weaponry.
Efforts are being blocked by the fossil fuel industry—probably the most powerful set of interests on earth.
For years, it was assumed the world wouldn't start seriously tackling climate change until we were directly confronted with its horrors—thereby revealing how truly reckless humans are.
A key point in the text is the need for one or more political organizations that have the organizing capacity to go beyond unions in fostering an understanding of the need for CLASS Solidarity! - Gene McGuckin
