(2020-07-05). The Democrats' New Climate Plan: Improved But Weirdly Isolationist. zcomm.org Shaped by mass demand, Congressional Democrats' June 30th report on the climate crisis is a welcome improvement. But, in addition to its weak response to fossil fuel expansion, the report adopts an America First strategy to solve a global problem.
(2020-07-05). The Democrats' Disastrous, Militarist Climate Plan. popularresistance.org Don't believe for a minute that the Democrats climate plan even means what it says. Its solutions include disastrous scams like "biofuels" and nuclear energy. It proposes no fundamental change in lifestyle, no reduction in personal consumption, and no halt or reduction in eating meat (but renewable energy production on land used for livestock, so that the same land can mitigate the unacknowledged damage it is doing). It offers no proposed federal budget with any major moving of the money to where it's needed, and no plan to extract any resources from billionaires and corporate giants. | This plan has been critici…
(2020-07-04). Who's Insuring the Trans Mountain Pipeline? commondreams.org NO PIPELINES ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND: Climate campaigners and Indigenous peoples across Canada have spent the past several years protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline. (Photo: Mark Klotz/flickr/cc) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/kinder-morgan-protest-955px.jpg …
(2020-07-04). [Correspondence] Time for WHO to declare climate breakdown a PHEIC? thelancet.com At the opening plenary of the World Health Assembly in May, 2019, Richard Horton urged member states and the Secretariat of WHO to recognise climate change as a planetary emergency. A few days later, during a side event on air pollution, climate change, oceans, and health sponsored by the Government of Sweden, the Minister of Health for the Seychelles Jean Paul Adam argued that climate change has to be recognised as a public health emergency at the international level. Johan Giesecke1 once stressed that as public health emergencies of international concern (PHEICs) evolve into more complex forms, it becomes neces…
(2020-07-04). [Comment] Offline: It's time to convene nations to end this pandemic. thelancet.com A historic and calamitous milestone was reached this week. WHO reported more than 10 million cases of COVID-19 and over 500‚Äà000 COVID-19 deaths. The world's political leaders have been tested and they have been found wanting. It's hard to recall a more lamentable response to a global emergency. Even the climate crisis had its Kyoto and Paris agreements. But despite the urgency of this continuing human catastrophe, despite the immediacy of the economic collapse we are witnessing, there has still been no moment when nations have been convened to reflect on lessons to be learned, to coordinate ac…
(2020-07-04). The Rebellion Returns, September 1. zcomm.org 10 years ago, scientists identified 16 potential tipping points in the earth system that could spell disaster. Today, there is evidence that 9 of these are already active…
(2020-07-04). Tunisia MPs reject motion to blacklist Brotherhood. yenisafak.com The Bureau of Tunisia's House of Representatives (parliament) has rejected a petition to blacklist the Muslim Brotherhood group.The opposition Free Constitutional Party (PDL), which holds 10 seats in the 217-member parliament, had submitted the petition to classify the Brotherhood as a "terrorist" organization.The petition, however, was turned down by the parliament's bureau, which is consisted of the parliament speaker, his deputies and 10 lawmakers representing all parties in parliament.Ennahda party, which holds 54 seats in parliament, earlier described the PDL draft as a "waste of time".Ennahda lawmaker Sayyi…
(2020-07-03). Green structural adjustment in the World Bank's resilient cities. mronline.org 
Cities across the world are facing a double-barreled existential problem: how to adapt to climate change and how to pay for it.
(2020-07-03). Tokyo olympics and Fukushima 'revival'. mronline.org 
At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics a young man born on the day of Hiroshima nuclear bombing was selected to be the last torch bearer on the relay, to signify that Japan had stood up from nuclear ruin. In an attempt to replicate the 1964 Olympic theme, the Abe government has constructed the idea of a …
(2020-07-03). The U.S. Military Is the World's Biggest Climate Destroyer. No to War and Occupation! No to Environmental Degradation. globalresearch.ca Talk by Alison Bodine at the United National Antiwar Coalition National Conference held from February 21—23, 2020, at the People's Forum in New York City. | *** | To begin, I hope everyone has been able to see actions across Canada in …
(2020-07-02). Friday 7/3: Virtual Independence Day Rally: Climate Change & Systemic Racism in America. indybay.org Online via livestream: www.facebook.com/firedrillfriday/…
(2020-07-02). Killing Koalas: The Promise of Extinction Down Under. dissidentvoice.org 
The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was "the most boring of animals". Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its slow metabolism. But the spectacle of these singed, toasted animals was a terrifyingly cruel one to behold. As good stretches of Australia burned over the …
(2020-07-02). Beavers born in Essex 'for first time since Middle Ages'. thecanary.co 
Beavers have been born in Essex for the first time since the Middle Ages, conservationists have said.The mammals had been hunted to extinction for their meat, fur and scent glands in the UK by the beginning of the 16th Century but have since been reintroduced. | A pair of Eurasian beavers were brought to the Spains Hall Estate in Finchingfield last year as part of a project to help reduce flood risk.They were the first to be brought to Essex in 400 years, and now they have had two babies — known as kits.Darren Tansley, river catchment coordinator at Essex Wildlife Trust, said: "We always hoped that having be…
(2020-07-02). IEA Report Misses the Mark on 'Sustainable Recovery' by Sidelining 1.5 ∞C. commondreams.org While the IEA has led with welcome rhetoric about the importance of putting clean energy at the heart of stimulus efforts, the actual contents of the report fall short on climate ambition—a chronic problem for the IEA. (Photo: Electrek) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/solar.png …
(2020-07-02). The Climate Emergency Won't Wait for the Press to Play Catch-up. commondreams.org The public sees the urgency and actually wants more climate news. (Photo: Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/labor_climate_strike.jpg …
(2020-07-02). New Democratic Climate Action Plan Is Woefully Inadequate. popularresistance.org "This is not an emergency response." | That is how Laura Berry, director of research and policy at the Climate Mobilization (TCM), responded to reporting on a congressional "action plan" for the planetary emergency from the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which the panel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled Tuesday. | The climate roadmap features hundreds of policy proposals under 12 key pillars. Specifically, the 538-page plan calls for selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2040, and net-zero U.S. emissions economy-wid…
(2020-07-02). The Fed Is Bailing Out Polluters While Cities Struggle. popularresistance.org Ever since bailout talk began this spring, climate campaigners have worried funds would be funneled to Big Oil and other polluting giants. Now it seems that fear was more than justified. While economic recovery money is being disbursed through multiple channels, including the Main Street Lending Program and various tax breaks, on Sunday the Federal Reserve released the list of bonds it has purchased so far through its BlackRock-managed Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, in its attempt to prop up the investment-grade corporate bond market. | The Fed's disclosures show the institution is making it easier f…
(2020-07-02). Tuesday 7/7: Environmental Racism: People of Color & Indigenous on Front Lines of Climate Change. indybay.org Online via Zoom…
(2020-07-01). The Climate Emergency Won't Wait for the Press to Play Catch-up Again. thenation.com The Climate Emergency Won't Wait for the Press to Play Catch-up Again…
(2020-07-01). Wasteful, Secret and Vicious: The Absurd Prosecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery. dissidentvoice.org This week has not been a good one for the Australian legal system. For those who feel that an open justice process requires abuses of power to be exposed and held to account, it was particularly awful. It began with the Q&A program on the national broadcaster, the ABC, which supposedly gives an airing to …