Tag: climate change

Slamming China Won’t Save Fossil Capitalism From Itself 

Nationalizing fossil fuels could be a path to a postcapitalist ere, a revolutionary step here assessed in terms of a reformist track…???

Only the mentally impaired now doubt the reality of climate change. Only the ideologically blind question that human burning of fossil fuels has caused it. In just a few weeks, we had once-in-millennium floods in Germany and Belgium, a once-in-a-millennium heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Fires. Melting Arctic ice and permafrost. Mudslides in India. Floods in the New York City subway. Record floods in China, with a year’s worth of rain falling in a single day in Zhengzhou. More

Source: Slamming China Won’t Save Fossil Capitalism From Itself – CounterPunch.org

5 Months Left in 2021 But Humanity’s Used Up Earth’s Ecological Budget

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/29/turn-destruction-around-5-months-left-2021-humanitys-used-earths-ecological-budget

Critical Measures of Global Heating Reach Tipping Point, Study Finds 

A new study tracking the planet’s vital signs has found that many of the key indicators of the global climate crisis are getting worse and either approaching, or exceeding, key tipping points as the earth heats up.Overall, the study found some 16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, including greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content and ice mass, set worrying new records.

Source: Critical Measures of Global Heating Reach Tipping Point, Study Finds | Portside

 

According to the best climate models, large swaths of the United States will experience several weeks of hot wet bulb temperatures by the middle of this century—that’s in 30 years. “By 2050, parts of the Midwest and Louisiana could see conditions that make it difficult for the human body to cool itself for nearly one out of every 20 days in the year,” ProPublica reported in September. During these periods of deadly heat, shade and hydration won’t save you. Any human without access to reliable air conditioning risks death.

Source: When will it get too hot for the human body to survive?

 

So capitalism-induced climate change is here. The world is hotter, and large swaths of the globe, namely the Arctic and sub-Arctic, as far south as the American Northwest are undergoing a rapid, violent and probably permanent transformation of their climate. Burning oil, gas and coal has altered weather in these places. Period. Foods that grew in Oregon five years ago, may very well not grow there in another five. Summers will be brutally hotter and winters will no longer follow the pattern of millennia. Capitalism is a catastrophe. It is the enemy of life. And the sooner our politicians wake up to this and find the courage to address it, the sooner our survival chances improve. But don’t look to the bipartisan war-and-inequality party for that.

Source: Suing to End Autocracy – CounterPunch.org