MAY BOEVE – The results of the November 4, 2014 election were pretty rough. But when times get tough, it’s really important to remember to breathe, and focus on how we’re going to fix this problem together. Here’s my early sense of what this election means for the climate movement:
Tag: fossil fuel
The Battle Against Big Energy’s Rush to Ruin Our Planet
DARYL HANNAH – “That’s all happened when you raise the temperature of the earth one degree,” says author Bill McKibben, “[t]he temperature will go up four degrees, maybe five, unless we get off coal and gas and oil very quickly.” Additional temperature rises could compromise our safety and cause incalculable damage from a large number of billion-dollar disasters in coming years – if we don’t address our emissions, insist upon an appropriate climate policy and curtail the rogue fossil fuel industry.
Climate Change is Already Damaging Global Economy, Report Finds
FIONA HARVEY – Climate change is already contributing to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP, according to a new study. The impacts are being felt most keenly in developing countries, according to the research, where damage to agricultural production from extreme weather linked to climate change is contributing to deaths from malnutrition, poverty and their associated diseases.
Three Ways to Fix the Climate in 2012 and Beyond
EBAN GOODSTEIN – It’s hot. It’s going to get hotter. And despite the politics of the moment, extreme weather will eventually drive a national consensus on climate action. What can each of us do to insure we get there soon, rather than too late? There are three answers. The first is to build political power. Elect clean-energy champions at the municipal, state, and national levels who can pass policies enabling a clean-energy revolution. The second is to stop expansion of the global carbon infrastructure. This will cut pollution — some — but will also build the morally grounded movement that must ultimately drive a strong clean-energy politics. Answer three? Grow the green shoots of the emerging sustainable economy.
Groups Propose Clean Energy Agenda for U.S.
MICHAEL MARIOTTE – Fed up with the undue influence of the energy companies, utilities, lobbyists and other interests that are making it impossible for Washington to move forward decisively in achieving America’s clean energy future, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and 35 other citizen organizations with more than 1.1 million combined members are joining forces to advance a nine-point “American Clean Energy Agenda†and to push for a serious renewable energy agenda no matter who is the next President or which party controls Congress.
How (Not to) to Organize a Community
DMITRY ORLOV – Just in time for Halloween comes a fascinating thought piece about some real-life horror: one vision of how some of today’s most positive community-building activities to could turn on us in the face of declining access to oil. Avoiding this future is another strong reason to do the peace visioning Oregon PeaceWorks has been calling for and facilitating. People who do not want to live in the world Orlov posits must take up the challenge of strategizing ways to avoid it. – Editor