Topic: Less of What We Don’t Need
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“Net Zero,” Smoke, and Mirrors
With more than 135 nations, including the United States, now having set targets for achieving net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 or so under the Paris Agreement, hope has once again been bubbling through the climate movement. But “net zero” is not zero, and these pledges are not as ambitious as they seem. …
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Is AltE Truly the Best Solution to Climate Catastrophe?
Child Labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo “Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!… Accumulation for the sake of accumulation, production for the sake of production: this was the historical mission of the bourgeoisie in the period of its domination …” Karl Marx, Capital, Vol…
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Solidarity with Resistance to Extraction
Resisting Line 3, Enbridge Pipeline People the world over are opposing fossil fuel extraction in an incalculable number of ways. It is now clear that burning fossil fuels threatens millions of Life forms and could be laying the foundation for the extermination of Humanity. But what about “alternative” energy? As progressives stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those…
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The Rush for White Gold
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On January 15, the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved a lithium mine at Thacker Pass, the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the United States. Through its subsidiary Lithium Nevada, Vancouver-based Lithium Americas plans to dig a 1,000-acre open-pit mine to tap into the estimated $2.6-billion resource over the next…
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Apple finally admits its products are difficult to repair
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Major tech brands like Apple and Microsoft must now give their smartphones and laptops “repairability” scores in France — and the initial results don’t look good.
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Capitalism’s Fake Solutions to the Climate Crisis
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The name dropping of an array of these high-tech “solutions” to the climate crisis was a feature of US President Joe Biden’s Earth Day summit in April. Among those in which Biden has promised to invest US$35 billion as part of his proposed American Jobs Plan are carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, nuclear, floating offshore…
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Chile shifts left to rewrite Pinochet-era constitution, as Goldman Sachs eyes its copper reserves
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And let’s not forget that, between Peru and Chile, there is more than 60% of the world’s copper reserves. Those are the two main copper-exporting countries. And between Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, there is more than 80% of the world’s lithium… So this is a very strategic issue. And that was one of the reasons…
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Turning the Tide on Large-Scale Hydropower
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Photo by Daniel Henryk Rasolt. In Colombia, activists and scientists are boosting mega-dam resistance by showing the cumulative impacts of these destructive projects. When El Quimbo was constructed, its reservoir flooded 80 square kilometers of forest and fertile agricultural land, displaced around 450 families, and killed the livelihoods of fishermen downstream.
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Getting From Here to There
Photo by: Robert Collins. To secure the future we need to reduce resource exploitation and pollution by reducing consumption. Belt tightening however lacks broad appeal. Pointing out what we can reclaim works better: more time for relationships, appreciation, service, sport, creativity, learning and the like. Such life-based activities can be…
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What Would a Deep Green New Deal Look Like?
Drawing by Priti Cox. The Green New Deal has attracted perhaps the greatest attention of any proposal for decades. It would guarantee Medicare-for-All, Housing-for-All, student loan forgiveness and propose the largest economic growth in human history to address unemployment and climate change. But the last of these hits a stumbling block. Creation of all…
