Archive | September, 2019

Around the year 2030, we will be in a position where we probably set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.


Today, Secretary Elaine Chao (Department of Transportation) and Administrator Andrew Wheeler (EPA) officially released their attack on California’s Advanced Clean Car standards, which reduce global warming emissions and tailpipe pollution from new cars and require manufacturers to sell a minimum number of electric vehicles in the state.

“Dr. Doom.” fellow students joked as we walked out of our department seminar. It was 1998 and the presenter was Richard Gammon, a co-author of the first IPCC report. I didn’t share my fellow University of Washington grad students’ joke. I was uneasy, wondering about the timing of forecasts and feedback loops.

Researchers and policymakers rely on computer simulations called integrated assessment models to determine the best strategies for tackling climate change. Here, scientists present opposing views on the suitability of these simulations.

One of Marx’s brightest concepts, perhaps his profoundest dialectical construct in Capital, is the “fetishism of commodities.” It emphasizes something very important about the foggy world of appearances and how can forget what lies within, behind what is immediately apparent. We can read it as a parable in which Marx tries to bring to life (and light) the “secret” of the ostensibly trivial commodity, the genie that exists within the magic bottle.

Self-determination is still an unknown concept to many despite the efforts of the movement for Black lives and related organizations.

The week from September 20 till September 27 has been designated as the week of the ‘Climate Strike’. It is an unprecedented event in its ambition to disrupt business as usual.

More than seven million Kashmiris remain suffocated by the Indian government. The curfew that went into effect on 5 August is still in place. The media is not able to get into the state and offer a report of the situation. Telephone and internet services have been shut down.

Russian oil giant Rosneft blasted threats of U.S. sanctions as “unfair competition.”

It is very common for leftist commentators to use the term ‘neoliberalism’ in their analysis of a political situation or social struggle. The term is frequently used in socialist political economy, cultural studies, and even mainstream liberal newspapers.

The Network in Defense of Humanity joins the worldwide mobilization in protest against the ecological disaster caused by the fires in the Amazon and against the transnational corporations and politicians directly responsible for the catastrophe.

A Review of Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area: The History, Origin, and Development of Irrigated Agriculture by Boris V. Andrianov, and Soviet Archaeology: Schools, Trends, and History by Leo S. Klejn

The leader of the Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Association is a symbol of the fight against the old order.

In 2018, one of the longest dry spells on record left part of the Rhine in Germany at record low levels for months, forcing freighters to reduce their cargo or stop using the river altogether. 

The months ahead will show how many degree traces of the revolutionary spirit—exemplified by two recent events in Berlin—will somehow find their way into the Berlin and German political scenes.

As a part of Great Housing Mission Venezuela, the national program guarantees citizens’ access to adequate housing.

The death of Immanuel Wallerstein deprives us of an exceptional mind and an astute critic of capitalist society. This is a doubly lamentable loss at a moment as critical as the present, when the international system suffers under the combined pressures of the tensions provoked by the decline of U.S. imperialism and of the systemic crisis of capitalism.

In 150 NYT, CNN and Fox articles, ‘oligarch’ seems reserved for Slavic billionaires

There are some very obvious facts in British politics which nobody seems to be saying.

Activists of All Ages, Labor Groups, Faith Leaders, Businesses and More Join Youth-Led Climate Strikes in Intergenerational Demand for Climate Action