Massive Earthquake Hits Haiti, Help By Supporting AIDG
There is a fantastic NGO here in Boston that works with Haiti, AIDG, we have highlighted their fantastic work in the past, but they need your help. They are knowledgeable, and effective, and money sent to them is money well spent.
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Dear AIDG Supporters,
At approximately 4:55 pm Eastern on Tuesday Port Au Prince experienced a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, with aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.7. There is widespread damage to infrastructure with numerous collapsed buildings. It is anticipated there will be a high casualty rate
Additional photos can be found here: twitter.com/photomorel
Here is what we have learned:
The National Palace has collapsed (eyewitness photo)
The UN headquarters has been seriously damaged (source: UN)
The Hotel Montana has sustained collapse with 200 missing (source: associated press france)
A Hospital has collapsed (source:NYtimes)
We will provide more information by twitter. www.twitter.com/aidg and our blog www.aidg.org/blog as it becomes available.
We are currently developing opportunities for AIDG to aid in reconstruction with the help of partners. We will make another announcement on this shortly.
As you all know we are a small organization. We require some basic additional budget resources immediately to help run an assessment that will determine this longer term response aimed at infrastructure and reconstruction. If possible mail checks to:
AIDG
P.O. Box 104
Weston, MA 02493
We will actually receive these funds faster than online donations. We will be running a larger campaign in concert with our reconstruction announcement.
For those wishing to have an immediate direct impact on populations in Port Au Prince we are recommending supporting the medical response teams of Partners In Health. www.pih.org They are working with a field hospital set up by the UNDP that immediately needs pain meds, bandages and other medical supplies.
We ask you all to hold Haiti in your hearts and prayers as this tragedy unfolds.
Sincerely,
Peter Haas
Executive Director, AIDG
350.org: Right-ish Message, Wrong Method
24 October 2009.
Remember that date, because in the future hundreds of thousands of people who took part in thousands of events worldwide will look back and say to themselves: “Why did I think that would do any good?”
Those thousands upon thousands of people are not the people I am blaming for thinking that by marching, letter writing, lobbying, petitioning and otherwise taking part in all sorts of conventional “actions” great changes would begin to take place. No, I have no problem with those people because, quite frankly, what else are they supposed to do? After all, the environmental groups, writers and high-profile campaigners that are regarded as the leaders of the “environmental movement” (sorry for all the quotes) told them that’s what they needed to do — and promised so much. To quote the website largely responsible for this most recent phenomenon:
To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year. This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn’t meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn’t pass the 350 test.
In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we’re harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009. We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world – from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community – and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.
If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.
To take this at face value, it would be inconceivable to think that by taking thousands of photos and getting them into the media, these leaders (our leaders, we are told) would not make sufficient changes in policy to bring atmospheric carbon dioxide down to that critical figure of 350 parts per million. Why would you think any other way — these people told you it would be enough:
Bill McKibben
Rajendra Pachauri
Vandana Shiva
Abp. Desmond Tutu
Dr. James Hansen
Liz Thomson
Pres. Mohamed Nasheed
Bianca Jagger
David Suzuki
Van Jones
George Monbiot
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Will Steger
Barbara Kingsolver
Hermann Scheer
Alex Steffen
Mathis Wackernagel
Colin Beavan
Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt
Homero Aridjis
Paul Loeb
Deepa Gupta
Ross Gelbspan
Keibo Oiwa
Claudio Angelo
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Bo Ekman
Bulu Imam
Well, perhaps not those precise words, for in the world of soundbites and voxpops, it’s very easy to get carried away and lend your name to something simply because it seems like a good thing to do.
“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”
That’s James Hansen, quoted on www.350.org. Where did he say that by taking photos and getting them on the agendas of political high-ups the problem would be consigned to history? It wouldn’t be too strong to suggest that some of these people have been duped by 350.org, and that the people behind the campaign are so deluded by their own concept of “action” that they couldn’t possibly imagine that anyone would think anything different.
I’m not making this up; here is an exchange from way back in May 2008, when the group was first set up, and I found their MySpace page:
From: Keith
Date: May 28, 2008 4:33 AM
Hi 350 (or rather sub-350)
Glad to see someone taking a realistic look at things. I wrote a short article recently on The Sietch, which you might like to look at, based around this subject:
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2008/04/03/climate-stability-we-have-already-passed-the-limit-time-to-go-in-reverse/
Keep up the good work, and if you have any radical (not symbolic) ideas for “things to do” then let me know.
keith@theearthblog.org
Best
Keith
Keith,
Thanks for the note. Something radical (not symbolic) that you can do is raise awareness in your community by holding a 350 event, and then make sure everybody calls their elected leaders asking them to push for legislation that has strong enough carbon cuts to get to 350 ppm.
Best,
Phil Aroneanu
350. org
At the time I had nearly completed writing my book, and had come to understand very clearly the huge gulf between the effectiveness of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic actions. Phil’s response demonstrated a level of delusion I had not come across since that realisation: he really thought that by holding an event and appealing to “elected leaders” the 100% cuts in industrial nations’ emissions necessary by 2030 (or earlier) would happen. He really did.
Dear Phil
I need to take this discussion off MySpace, as I think your response (see below) has doomed any chance of 350.org working, and you need to know this as soon as possible.
“Something radical (not symbolic) that you can do is raise awareness in your community by holding a 350 event, and then make sure everybody calls their elected leaders asking them to push for legislation that has strong enough carbon cuts to get to 350 ppm.”
Could you please explain in what way doing exactly the same thing that has repeatedly failed in the past to achieve even modest cuts in emissions is going to achieve the 100% cut required to return to 350ppm? Could you please explain how “holding a 350 event” is radical?
I really thought 350.org was the cusp of something different, yet you still are still trying to convince people that “their elected leaders” will do anything that turns its back on the existing consumer culture (a.k.a. Culture of Maximum Harm) — the very culture these “elected leaders” and the brainwashed public are convinced is the only way to live.
I wish you well with your campaign: I don’t want to say it will fail, but it will. If you want to know how to actually get the carbon levels down adequately then the non-technological, non-political, non-symbolic answers are out there — I have some of them, as do a number of other people who have been ostracised by the environmental mainstream: you only have to ask. Bill McKibben was *almost* there about three-quarters of the way through “The End of Nature” then he seemed to lose his nerve, and has deradicalised considerably in the last few years. The environmental movement has singularly failed to address the root cause of the problem, largely because the environmental movement is a big part of the problem.
Please read this quote from my book (www.amatterofscale.com) and then maybe you will start to understand:
—– Start of quote —–
So, go and protest, make some noise, wave some banners, sign a petition: just make sure you stay within the law. I mean it – protest of some form or another is permitted in most nations, but the severity and the type of protest allowed depends in the legislation that is in place; both standing legislation and the widely used “state of emergency” which, in fact is simply an extension of the existing laws. As the Zimbabweans ponder their electoral fate, the Mugabe regime has imposed “emergency” laws to prevent any form of gathering that may threaten the government. What the Mugabe regime knows only too well is that in Zimbabwe, as with many other African, South American and Asian states, protest often takes an entirely different form to the type of protest the people of the industrial West have become accustomed too. The Mugabe regime know that real protest is capable of overthrowing governments; whereas in the USA, for instance, it almost goes without saying that protest will lead to nothing more than a warm feeling in the hearts of those taking part:
One will find hundreds, sometimes thousands, assembled in an orderly fashion, listening to selected speakers calling for an end to this or that aspect of lethal state activity, carrying signs “demanding” the same thing.and – typically – the whole thing is quietly disbanded with exhortations to the assembled to “keep working” on the matter and to please sign a petition.
Throughout the whole charade it will be noticed that the state is represented by a uniformed police presence keeping a discreet distance and not interfering with the activities. And why should they? The organizers will have gone through “proper channels” to obtain permits. Surrounding the larger mass of demonstrators can be seen others.their function is to ensure the demonstrators remain “responsible,” not deviating from the state-sanctioned plan of protest.[i]
Laughable, isn’t it, that such a well controlled event – and this is the way every official rally I have ever been on works – should be considered a “protest” by the organisers? The laws in each country are tailored to suit the appetite of the population for change: a country full of people that want to fight for change needs to be kept tightly controlled; a country full of catatonic, drip-fed consumers can march all they like, be given a well-controlled soapbox on TV – and the voltage on the tasers can be turned right down.
That is, unless someone decides to break the law.
….
Every day, in all sorts of ways, we hand over the responsibility of our actions to other parties. We entrust religious leaders to act as proxy supreme beings, to give us blessings and pray for the delivery of our souls and, as is becoming more common, the protection of the natural environment. We entrust politicians to justly run districts, states, countries, the whole planet, on our behalf, and deliver whatever is in their jurisdiction from whatever evils we have asked them to deal with. We ask the heads of corporations to use profits wisely, to provide fair wages, allow union representation and listen to their staff and respond appropriately – we ask them not to destroy the planet. We ask environmental organisations to look after the planet on our behalf, to lobby fiercely and petition prudently, to give us a world worth living in.
We are guilty of a mass dereliction of responsibility.
When we vote we hope the politicians will do the right thing after they have been elected. When we buy a product from a company, we hope that company are acting in the best interests of everyone and every thing they impact. When we sign a petition, go on a protest march or write a letter, we hope that it will change things for the better. But it is never that simple.
Voters vote for different things: your hope that a politician will increase pollution controls will be running counter to the hope of another voter that pollution controls will be weakened. Your entrustment of a company that they will act ethically runs contrary to the basic needs of a shareholder in that same company, that demands an increase in profits, which requires poorer labour standards, increased use of natural resources, corner cutting and cost slashing across the board. Your petition or protest march may give you hope that something will change when in fact you have simply channelled your anger and concern into a symbolic action that threatens not a single media executive, company director or head of state. You innocently believed that right would out simply because you placed your demands on the wings of dear hope.
When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free – truly free – to honestly start working to thoroughly resolve it. When hope dies, action begins.[ii]
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[i] Ward Churchill, “Pacifism As Pathology”, AK Press, 2007.
[ii] Derrick Jensen, “Endgame Volume I: The Problem Of Civilization”, Seven Stories Press, 2006.
—– End of quote —–
Your campaign seems to be based on the hope that something magical will change through holding “events” and lobbying politicians and corporations to change. This approach has pointedly failed for the last 40 years, and yet continues because it feels like something is being done, even while, all the time, the emissions keep going up. There is not one shred of evidence to suggest such an approach will ever work. The point is, emissions will keep going up all the time industrial civilization owns humanity.
I don’t expect you to understand, though, just as 99% of people brainwashed by this culture do not understand. The answers do not lie within the system, the answers lie within ourselves — people who may be addicted to the system but are still individuals who can decide to step out of the toxic river, and maybe knock out a few shopping malls, power plants and TV stations as they go.
Yours in desperate times
Keith Farnish
keith@theearthblog.org
www.theearthblog.org
www.sub350.org
He never did respond. I didn’t expect him too.
If you are planning to go to a 350.org event, then please go, but don’t go expecting the group’s aims to change anything: go with a view to helping people understand that only by rejecting the system that the group’s organisers are still pandering to, can the atmospheric carbon levels go below 350 parts per million. Either that, or the Earth will reject humanity.
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This was taken from The Unsuitablog. Keith Farnish is author of “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis.”
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EDIT: Have amended the title because, as we all know, even 350ppm isn’t low enough, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for giving anyone a false sense of security.
New Climate Change Denial Groups Need Your Input
The Copenhagen climate change conference is coming and, quite frankly, I don’t expect it to change a thing: the focus will still be on ensuring economic growth in the face of a heating Earth, and most of the money pledged will go into building walls (both metaphorical and actual) to make people feel like they are being protected from the striking changes in environmental conditions expected when the full impact of climate change starts to hit us. If anything is agreed then it won’t be anything like enough to even slow down the impact of climate change, let alone stop it — as leaders in a world dominated by consumption and industrial might, the decision makers at Copenhagen can either say goodbye to power and the way of life they have become accustomed to; or they can make us all think everything is going to be fine in their hands.
That’s my position, and it isn’t going to change: you have my word. On the other hand, there are an increasing number of good people who really do want to change the way that they live; oridinary people who are growing increasingly restless and just need a bit of help to guide them down the road out of the industrial, consuming way of life. These are the people that the latest climate change denial groups, CO2 Is Green and Plants Need CO2, are determined to push back into the wheels of the machine.
Both of them are fronted by H. Leighton Steward, a geologist and wetland geographer who has taken a recent interest in denying the science of climate change (remember, even the conservative IPCC are more than 90% sure that [civilized] humans are behind the suddenly changing climate). He has the following biography (my emphasis):
Leighton Steward is a geologist, environmentalist, author, and retired energy industry executive. He has written about the reasons for the loss of much of the Mississippi River delta (Louisiana’s National Treasure) and has given advice on how the nation can achieve “no net loss” of wetlands in the future; advice that has been accepted by the EPA and U. S. Corps of Engineers. Leighton was lead author on a book about nutrition and health (Sugar Busters) that gave advice on how to lose weight and prevent and or treat diabetes. The book became a #1 New York Times Best seller for sixteen weeks and made a significant contribution to the changes that have occurred regarding the availability of no-sugar-added, higher fiber, and low-glycemic products in the super markets. More recently, he has written a book (Fire, Ice and Paradise) that is an endeavor to educate the non-scientist about the many causes of global climate change so that the reader will be better prepared to understand what they hear, see, and read about in the media and from the politicians. In recognition of his many environmental efforts, Leighton has received numerous environmental awards, including the regional EPA Administrator’s Award for environmental excellence.
He is Chairman of the Board of The Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at SMU, was Chairman of the National Wetlands Coalition, and was twice Chairman of the Audubon Nature Institute. Leighton currently serves on the boards or boards of visitors of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, EOG Resources, The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Southwest Research Institute, and is an emeritus member of the Tulane University board.
Leighton’s current interest lies in helping to educate the general public and the politicians about the tremendous benefits of carbon dioxide (CO2) as it relates to the plant and animal kingdoms and their related ecosystems and habitats, and the general health of humanity.
That biography, taken from the site, “Plants Need CO2” conveniently forgets to mention a few key things, which are elucidated so well by this more objective version, from the Forbes website:
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H. Leighton Steward
Director
EOG Resources, Incorporated
Houston , TX
Sector: BASIC MATERIALS / Independent Oil & Gas
74 Years Old
Mr. Steward is author-partner of Sugar Busters, LLC, a provider of seminars, books and products related to helping people follow a healthy and nutritious lifestyle. He retired from Burlington Resources, Inc., an oil and gas exploration, production and development company, in 2000, where he had served as Vice Chairman since 1997. Mr. Steward is former Chairman of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association and the Natural Gas Supply Association, and is currently an honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute.
————————————————————
Isn’t it strange that he missed out so many things that would link him to the oil and gas industry so intimately; aspecially the API which is one of the most active climate change denial advocacy groups in the world, and whose 1998 Global Science Communications Plan was leaked to DeSmogBlog. Among the explosive statements contained in this pro-oil plan were the following words:
Unless “climate change” becomes a non-issue, meaning that the Kyoto proposal is defeated and there are no further initiatives to thwart the threat of climate change, there may be no moment when we can declare victory for our efforts. It will be necessary to establish measurements for the science effort to track progress towards achieving the goal and strategic success.
“Victory” was essentially to be achieved when the public were utterly confused about the realities of climate change, and thus could be manipulated to support the views of the oil and gas industry — the “strategic success”.
H. Leighton Steward is a director of this organisation, yet he describes himself as an “environmentalist”.
Given the rather inauspicious motives of the two groups, CO2 Is Green and Plants Need CO2 it’s clear that they are dangerous. I encourage you to spend a little time navigating the sites and seeing exactly how much peer-reviewed science they quote in defence of their position: you will find none. What you will find are lots of former oil cronies and PR companies employed by the oil and gas industry. One of these PR companies is The Patriot Group, whose Principal, Ryan Gravatt has set up a Facebook Group on behalf of Plants Need CO2.
In fact, Facebook is a major part of the efforts of these groups: the CO2 Is Green Facebook Group is rather slick, and has been expertly managed so that “discussions” are filtered to different tabs, and “fans” are banned from posting should they say anything too challenging.
This is where you come in. In order to counter the toxic messages these groups are putting around (remember, they use no objective science and are funded by the oil industry), there are two really good things you could do:
1) Repost the videos and links to their web sites with a clear message that these groups are a complete joke and are surely hoaxes because they are so laughable. Make the same kinds of comments on their YouTube videos and channels:
http://www.youtube.com/user/co2isgreen
http://www.youtube.com/user/plantsneedco2
2) Join the Facebook groups and cause havoc. Post contrary comments and links (if you are allowed to) everywhere:
CO2 Is Green: http://www.facebook.com/pages/CO2-is-Green/129006936661
Plants Need CO2: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115687686620
Have fun!
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Keith Farnish is an environmental blogger and campaigner who has written a book which might help fix this mess, called “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis.“
Donald Trump Is A Money-Obsessed Prick (Come On Don, Sue Me!)
It only takes a small thorn to hurt a lot, especially if that thorn is pushed into a very sensitive part of your body. One day, one of these thorns is going to hurt Donald Trump so much that he realises what a supercilious, money-obsessed prick he is being, and there are plenty of people, not just in the north-east of Scotland who are working to get them in the right place. But for now, Trump doesn’t worry about thorns, for he has bulldozers, earth-movers, concrete mixers and all the chemicals he could wish for in order to liquidate and destroy an irreplacible piece of the Scottish coast so that he can construct his dream golf course.
More than that, he has the lascivious, wet-lipped attention of a host of Scottish politicians, mouths open waiting for the dew-drops of wealth to plop onto their tongues from their sugar-daddy Trump. He gets whatever he wants because he is very rich indeed. The little people don’t stand a chance, and the wildlife and landscape will be changed according to Trump’s grand plan.
Here’s a little background from a previous article I wrote on The Sietch:
I have just got off the phone after speaking to Neil Hobday, the Project Director for the proposed Trump Golf links golf resort development in eastern Scotland. I would like to say that he seemed a reasonable man, but that would be untrue because despite trying to interest him in the views of the rest of life on the irrepairable damage that will be caused to 1400 acres of pristine sand dune habitat, he was clearly stuck in the lie that the economy was far more important than our life support system. He really believed that tourism and leisure was more important than habitat – a view that is shared by most of us in this culture of consumption. Poor guy: brainwashed from birth to be morally bankrupt.
So, here’s the deal Neil. You go ahead with the project, described on the Trump Golf Scotland web site thus: “The development will also include a luxurious clubhouse with sea views, a 450 room, five-star resort hotel with associated conference and banquet facilities, full-service spa, tennis courts and recreational facilities, a state-of-the-art golf academy, maintenance facility with turf grass research center, 36 luxury four- and eight-bedroom golf lodges, as well as 950 holiday homes with sea views. Future plans include additional residential units.” Go on, tell Mr Trump with his billions of dollars in property investments, private jets, yachts, golf courses, pesticides, bulldozers, irrigation, herbicides and worldview about as compatible with the world as a gun aimed at a cat’s head that Keith said it was okay. Go on, roll out the fairways, greens and tees, have a good time breaking the ecological web.
I forgot to mention that a deal has two sides to it. So, you go ahead with the development, but Trump has to choose one member of his family to be sacrificed, and do it himself. I’m being generous here – imagine the families of the animals being torn out of their homes, what do you imagine they will feel?
The project moves on in haste, and not even the fact that a great chunk of land Trump wants for his expanding empire is owned by four people who have no intention of ever selling it: the little people have to understand that when so much money is at stake, it’s a simple case of utilising Compulsory Purchase Orders, and there is nothing the little people can do. Never mind that Compulsory Purchase is a process reserved for wartime and the development of “critical national infrastructure” – godammit! this is critical; this is a billionaire’s golf course!
Donald Trump has won another crucial victory in his bid to build the “world’s greatest golf course” after planners approved his plans to expand the £1bn project onto land which is owned by his fiercest opponents.
The billionaire property developer has been allowed to exploit a quirk of Scottish planning law after Aberdeenshire council gave him outline permission to develop six plots of land he does not yet own, including the 25-acre property owned by Michael Forbes, his most famous critic.
The decision immediately provoked a furious row, with affected landowners promising to take legal action against the council to prevent it taking the next step – trying to seize their land using compulsory purchase powers.
The move brings Trump a step closer to eventually demolishing Forbes’s home, which sits at the heart of his planned resort, next to a proposed golfing academy and the second hole of the main 18-hole championship course, and within sight of the proposed five-star hotel.
Forbes’s land includes his mother’s static caravan, old out-buildings and rusting tractors used for fishing off the nearby coast, but the salmon fisherman has repeatedly rejected Trump’s offers, leading the tycoon to lambast Forbes and condemn his property as “a disgrace” two years ago.
Speaking from his home, Forbes said he was not surprised by the outcome of today’s hearing and restated that he would not be selling his property.
“I hope it goes to compulsory purchase now, I want it to go to compulsory purchase because it will drag on for years.
“They won the public inquiry because they said they had enough land, they didn’t need anyone else’s land, so there should be another public inquiry.
“It’s a vengeance thing now, it’s become personal to Trump I think. He wants everybody who went against him all out, because he’s a child.”
Only two owners of the six plots of land affected – the council itself, and a driving school instructor who lives next to Forbes – are believed to want to sell.
Trump now has to persuade councillors to use their compulsory purchase orders to seize the other four plots, including Forbes’s land and the house at Hermit Point owned by the anti-Trump campaigner David Milne. Many councillors are thought to be deeply unhappy at the proposal, which is expected to be debated by Aberdeenshire council next month.
Forbes was not at the hearing, but another affected resident, Susan Munro, 56, who has lived at Leyton Cottage for 28 years, said Trump had promised her that he did not need her land. “The last thing Mr Trump said to me was, ‘Susan, I don’t need your house, I don’t need your land, I have plenty, we’ll be good neighbours’.
“It’s been my home for almost 30 years, but the council will just give in to Trump. It’s our heritage, a protected bit of land, I think it’s a disgrace we sold out to the Yanks.”
Milne, who owns an old coastguard station close to Trump’s proposed timeshare blocks, said he and his neighbours would challenge the decision in court.
“My home is not for sale, my intention at the end of the day is to leave there horizontally in a box. I can’t make it any clearer than that,” he said.
He said the Scottish government’s decision last December to grant Trump permission for his resort “specifically excluded” his land and the other contested plots, and that Aberdeenshire planning department had been wrong to say that Trump did not need to provide environmental impact studies to support his new applications.
The developer’s son, Donald Trump Jr, said he was “very happy at the decision” and that the family would try to reach a deal with the residents. Trump’s consultants “have been tasked to develop and come up with the best masterplan possible and that entails these pieces of land. They are critical to the process,” he said.
George Sorial, the Trump organisation’s managing director of international development, said the organisation was in talks with the property owners “The discussions are ongoing, we are still talking to all the neighbours and that’s a process. Irrespective of what happened today, that will be ongoing. If we can resolve this amicably and fairly, that’s what we intend on doing.”
The two men made an unexpected visit to Forbes’s estate today. The pair arrived in casual clothes and driving a green farm buggy, but after an anxious wait at the door, they were chased off by Forbes who unleashed a torrent of abuse at them. Sorial said as they left: “This is what we have to deal with.”
Oh, Sorial, how very naive of you. Forbes is not the only person resisting this; from his example so much more resistance can flow. Try this campaign for size (and for anyone else reading this, join the campaign!)
Link: http://www.trippinguptrump.com
Waxman-Markey Bill: A Suicidal Move For Humanity
If I wasn’t such a cynic, I swear I wouldn’t have believed my eyes when I saw Greenpeace on the same side as the American Petroleum Institute and the National Pork Producers Council. But then I looked in the other column, and found that the Sierra Club and the Union Of Concerned Scientists were siding with Rio Tinto and DuPont. What the hell!?
The title of this article is a big giveaway, but that doesn’t make the split between different interest groups any less remarkable: take a look at http://maplight.org/map/us/bill/83265/default for yourself.
It’s really difficult to summarise Waxman-Markey, or the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 in a few sentences, but David at The Good Human has done a decent job, so if you want to read what it’s all about then go here first. But why would a Bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions cause such a remarkable alignment of apparently opposing interests? The clue is in the subtitle:
To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.
Of the four key points, only one of them indicates a desire to protect the natural environment in any way; the other three, in order: promote economic growth, promote economic growth and promote economic growth. The main supporters of the Bill are therefore, unsurprisingly, all those companies and lobby groups that sit in the mainstream of the global market, among them some of the most destructive companies ever to disgrace the planet. In the best traditions of greenwash, the “environmental” supporters are largely organisations that have historically been comfortable working with these corporate monsters.
“So what’s wrong with economic growth?” you may ask. You can go to The Earth Blog for the full story, but here is a quick extract:
Trade is synonymous with Economic activity in the modern, globalized world. Unlike the self-sufficient Amazonian tribe that finds all it needs within walking distance, nations are no longer content to remain within their Economic borders: they cannot gain the diversity and level of growth they “need” simply by using (and exhausting) what they have, especially not if their consumers have become accustomed to a materially high standard of living. They must trade to create the necessary flow of materials, goods and capital to feed a growing Economy. More that just this, though, as corporations demand transparent borders and global channels, they – not the national governments – end up dictating the way the Economy operates: workers in China, raw materials in Uganda, oil in Saudi Arabia, customers in the USA – no problem! Who needs local economies when you can have a global Economy?
So Trade is the measure of the strength of the Economy and, as only a person immersed in an ocean of denial could refute, the production of Carbon Dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere, the oceans and the exhausted biosphere is a direct function of the power of that economic machine.
The listed opponents are those groups that either oppose any attempt to cut greenhouse gases (which makes them look pretty stupid, considering the nature of some of the supporters) or have seen through the pseudo-environmental veneer of the Bill and stared into its pro-industrial, inhuman heart. You only have to consider the trivial greenhouse gas cuts that are being bandied around — anywhere between 12% and 17% by 2020 — in relation to the urgent need to cut emissions by a minimum of 95% in the USA by 2030, to realise that support of Waxman-Markey is support for the continued, irreversible destruction of the global ecology and thus humanity itself.
James Hansen puts it like this:
Burning just the oil and gas sitting in known fields will drive atmospheric CO2 well over 400 ppm and ignite a devil’s cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide, coal, we have a chance to bring CO2 back to 350 ppm and still lower through agricultural and forestry practices that increase carbon storage in trees and soil.
The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well.
This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won’t get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.
For all its “green” aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like “cap-and-trade” scheme.
As I explained in “Time’s Up!” there are, in fact, no solutions to our terrible position that lie within the realms of Industrial Civilization: the addiction this system has to economic growth means that it has to effectively gut itself before it can ever be sustainable; nevertheless, a good start would be to recognise that nothing that is being supported by such chemical and carbon monoliths as DuPont, Ford and Alcoa, has any chance of giving us a survivable future.
If you still support Waxman-Markey after this, then I can only assume you have a death wish.
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