Environment

BY JUDY ROHRER Ironwoods at Kailua Beach Park, photo by Judy Rhorer. We got off the plane from California and headed to the windward side of O’ahu. We immediately took off our shoes, changed into shorts, and headed for the beach. My heart sank encountering the ironwoods at Kailua beach park, their roots exposed, desperately trying to hold on, like fingers reaching out as we waded past in the shore break. It wasn’t this way when I was in high school, and it’s accelerating – there’s so much more erosion than when I was here in January. Recent news about climate change has not been good, but those grasping roots demanded I pay more attention. In February 2022 NOAA, NASA and five other agencies released a report projecting a foot of sea level rise by 2050 – and that’s r...

The solution to the current food crisis is small and local, including growing food locally. But how to fund local food co-ops without pricey loans from big banks?By Ellen BrownGlobal Research, “Deglobalizing” and “dedollarizing” have been much in the news. Reducing dependence on the global supply chain and the U.S. dollar are trends that are happening not just internationally but locally. In the United States, we have seen movements both for local food independence and to divest from Wall Street banks. The burgeoning cryptocurrency movement is another push to “dedollarize” and escape the international bankers’ control grid. This article is a sequel to one discussing home gardens and community food co-ops as local counter-measures to an impending food crisis. The question to be...

BY PATRICK MAZZA ile international law emerged in challenges by The Netherlands to Iberian control of the seas. The Dutch, succeeding Portugal in Asia, used their wealth to create a new form of secular and republican society, and created the essential institutions of capitalism, including the first stock market and the first corporation in the form of the Dutch East India Company. With the triumph over France by 1815, Britain consolidated a global trading empire based on free trade and freedom of the seas. Moving from being the leading slave trading nation, Britain abolished the trade and became the main enforcer of a ban it sought to impose on other nations. But this shift away from human muscle power was only made possible by the growth of fossil power in the form of the ...

  by: beyondnuclearinternational European Parliament by TPCOM/Creative Commons. European Parliament votes to include nuclear and gas in the EU “green” taxonomy This is a quick report in French for our many Francophone readers from our colleagues at Réseau sortir du nucléaire. For information in English, please see our article on the Beyond Nuclear website. C’est un jour noir pour l’environnement et le climat. Réunis en plénière à Strasbourg, les parlementaires européens ont validé à 328 voix contre 278 la proposition de la Commission Européenne d’inclure le nucléaire et le gaz dans la taxonomie verte. Nous dénonçons avec force les lobbies à la manœuvre et le rôle délétère majeur joué par la France. Ce vote marque l’aboutissement d’un sinistre feuille...

  By: beyondnuclearinternational Promoting nuclear power as a solution to climate change is short-sighted By Kim Friedman We must think holistically about what constitutes “clean energy” when we consider climate change investments and our energy future. President Biden’s recent announcement of his $6 billion effort to save “distressed” nuclear (fission) power plants is misguided and short-sighted. Although reducing carbon emissions is critical to slowing the pace of climate change, it must not be our only litmus test for moving toward a “clean” energy future, similarly to how our overall health cannot be measured solely by our blood pressure or weight. In the case of nuclear power, we must consider its high cost compared to renewable energy sources, such as wind and sol...

BY TED FRANKLIN Image by Markus Spiske. West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency completes a trifecta of long-sought court victories for the right. What New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v Bruen did to gun control and Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization to reproductive rights, West Virginia v EPA has done to climate. The 6-3 Supreme Court decision stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of much of its power to regulate U.S. industries that are pumping out greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The court held that EPA had no authority to cap coal’s contribution to national electricity generation at 27% by 2030. The goal had been announced in Obama’s 2014 Clean Power Plan that never took effect, but still m...

BY ALEX KOTCH - MARIA BUSTILLOS https://www.youtube.com/embed/XjXWdw4cpv8 Who’s to blame for a lack of action on climate change? “There’s simply no reason to take drastic action now.” The oil companies, most obviously; “Energy! Environment! Some say it’s either/or… I don’t buy it.” PR and ad agencies paid to hire chipper young adults urging viewers to become “energy voters”; “Members…need to start focusing on the issues that are impacting everyday Americans, and the consequences of an overly ambitious and unrealistic climate agenda.” Politicians who carry water for the fossil fuel industry. These are all easy to blame. But without the complicity of corporate and legacy media, none of the fossil fuel industry’s propaganda would fly. Outlets including Th...