"People's misery makes capitalists' superprofit," said one critic as commodity traders make a killing off worldwide food and energy chaos.
Russia's war on Ukraine has wreaked havoc on global commodity markets, driving up energy and food prices and exacerbating hunger emergencies around the world.
"We're in a market where speculators are driving prices up."
"Fossil fuel subsidies are a roadblock to a more sustainable future," said the head of the International Energy Agency.
An analysis published this week found that government subsidies bolstering the production and consumption of coal, oil, and gas nearly doubled in 2021, even as climate scientists warned that fossil fuel development must be rapidly cut off if the international community is to have any hope of stopping runaway planetary warming.
No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design.
This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
U.S. and U.K. financial institutions have been among the leading investors in Russian “carbon bomb” fossil fuel projects, according to a new database of holdings from recent years.
The Inflation Reduction Act is being hailed by the mainstream climate movement, Congress members, and the media as the most important climate bill in U.S. history. That's a pretty low bar, and it says more about our government's long record of failure on climate than it does about whether this law can prevent dangerous temperature increases in coming decades.
Some strategic points are definitely overlooked in this article (including the need for democratic planning and the absolute requirement for international solidarity). But his emphasis on cooperatively prepping for capitalism’s systemic breakdown, already in progress, is often ignored by the rest of us.
- Gene McGuckin
Canada was quietly trying to muscle in on Europe’s gas market months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed the continent’s energy security to mainstream attention, documents obtained by Canada’s National Observer reveal.
Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before we can head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientist
The publication of Bill McGuire’s latest book, Hothouse Earth, could not be more timely. Appearing in the shops this week, it will be perused by sweltering customers who have just endured record high temperatures across the UK and now face the prospect of weeks of drought to add to their discomfort.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death” – Martin Luther King.
Everything is interconnected: armed conflicts – human rights violations – environmental pollution – climate change – social injustice…
