Subjects Archives: Environment

‘Time to call a spade a spade ….’

Luxury cruises are an expression of capitalism’s worst instincts.

Sanctions against Russia and Europe’s worst drought in 500 years are amplifying the energy crisis in countries such as Italy, France, and Germany.

The unprecedented move arrives as southwestern states wrangle over how to cut water use.

It’s not a mirage. Across China, heat waves are becoming more frequent, lasting longer, and getting hotter — with deadly consequences.

Nicolas Graham’s book on forces of production and fossil-fuel capitalism gives an important analysis of why fundamental change is needed to solve the climate crisis, finds John Clarke

Because the changes needed to achieve sustainable well-being for everyone are so big, they require determined social movements with wide participation. But while history shows that inertia and defeatism can become self-fulfilling, it also shows that governments ultimately have to respond to popular pressure–or be replaced by it.

Scenes and pictures have been circulating of broken earth, lacking moisture, cracked and yearning. But these are not from traditional drought-stricken parts of the planet, where the animal carcass assumes near totemic power amidst dry riverbeds or desert expanses.

Reservoirs in the Rio Grande Valley are running dry—sparking emergency water conservation measures.

Without class struggle the emancipatory potential of degrowth will fail to be realized. A revolutionary pedagogy can help to unify them.

In some cases, these “chemical releases” aren’t illegal. In others, state regulators give polluters the benefit of the doubt.

In his latest book, Socialism or Extinction: The Meaning of Revolution in a Time of Ecological Disaster, Martin Empson neatly lays out his argument as to why the climate crisis cannot be solved under capitalism.

For most of human history, the oceans have been seen as a global commons, the benefits and resources of which belong to us all in equal measure. But our seas–and the marine environment as a whole–are being ravaged by exploitation for corporate profit. The result is a social, economic and ecological crisis that threatens the very life support system of the Earth.

Our contemporary era of perpetual crises demands, we contend, a critical reappraisal of the state’s potential role, to supplant the predominant market-led responses to crisis, to advance a more equitable society. Historically, all major theories of the state—liberal and radical—have been generated in tumultuous eras.

Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead is dangerously close to dead pool status for the first time since construction in the mid 1930s. A vicious hammering drought sequence for over two decades throughout the West threatens to bring America’s biggest water reservoir to its knees.

The new climate package furthers the U.S.’ most profligate pastimes: drilling oil and driving big cars.

The global biodiversity crisis is one of the great threats to planetary health.

Cuba has more than 380,000 urban farms producing 1.5 million tons of vegetables each year.

When Exxon’s CEO is celebrating, you know there’s a problem. But there’s also a solution.

China has vowed to accelerate the installation of clean energy. Rooftop solar installations have emerged as a major force to achieve that. Nearly 53 gigawatts of solar capacity were added in 2021, with more than half coming from rooftop installations.