Topic: Less of What We Don’t Need
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The UN’s Devastating Climate Change Report Was Too Optimistic
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The UN report demands radical change, but all encapsulated within a seemingly unquestionable assumption: that economic growth will and must continue. The report authors, says Heinberg, “don’t explicitly mention the possibility of ditching growth as a primary policy objective, presumably because government leaders might then be moved simply to dismiss the whole raft of recommendations.”…
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Toward a Socialist Land Ethic: the Foundation of an Ecosocialist Future
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There will be no future on a dead planet, socialist or otherwise. If the left is to seize power and bring our planet into the rational egalitarian age we envision, we will need to simultaneously tackle a host of environmental crises. Failure to do so will mean that our project is doomed from the…
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How engineering the climate could mess with our food
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On June 15, 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew its top in an eruption of staggering proportions. It sent an ash cloud 28 miles high, filling surrounding valleys with deposits 660 feet thick and destroying almost every bridge within 18 miles. Over 800 people lost their lives. The volcano also ended up affecting humans all…
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On “Bullshit Jobs”
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Referring to cultural Marxism, especially the Frankfurt School, Noam Chomsky once said, “I don’t find that kind of work very illuminating… The ideas that seem useful also seem pretty simple, and I don’t understand what all the verbiage is for.” While I think there’s much of value in the so-called Western Marxist tradition—for instance, I’m…
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Did the Club of Rome Ever Disavow “The Limits to Growth”? A Story of Ordinary Disinformation
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The Club of Rome is inextricably linked to the legendary report that it commissioned to a group of MIT researchers in 1972, “The Limits to Growth.” Today, nearly 50 years later, we still have to come to terms with the vision brought by the report, a vision that contradicts the core of some of humankind’s…
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Killing for Coal (Literally)
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n August 1921, sheriff’s deputies in West Virginia — later joined by federal troops — massacred striking mineworkers using machine guns and aerial bombardment, in what’s now known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. Nearly a century later, the government is again going to war in support of mine owners by deregulating coal-fired power plants.…
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Puerto Rico’s Unnatural Disaster Rolls On Into Year Two
One year ago, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, one of the most disaster-vulnerable parts of the United States. In the days leading up to this anniversary, the U.S. president, backed up by his FEMA director, made cruel, petty, false claims about the death toll, mocking the grief of many thousands of people who lost loved…
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Big Food Wants You To Believe Obesity is Caused by Lack of Exercise not Junk Food and the Spin Is Working
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There are now more than 700 million obese people worldwide, 108 million of them children, reported the New York Times in 2017. In Brazil, food giant Nestle sends vendors door to door hawking its high-calorie junk food and giving customers a full month to pay for their purchases. Nestle calls the junk food hawkers, who…
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Kerala Floods, Development And Fossil Fuels
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In the light of the devastating floods of 2018 many people are coming forward with suggestions for the future of Kerala’s development. I too came up with a ten point agenda for Kerala.
