Monthly Archives: August 2020

2020-08-27: News Headlines

W. T. Whitney, Jr. (2020-08-27). Under capitalism Black Lives are adrift and vulnerable. mronline.org Post-Civil War arrangements by which the victorious North settled with the defeated slavocracy ensured that many Black people would not matter much and that some would die. A thousand or so were murdered in the South in 1866, reports W.E. B Du Bois.

Carly Nicole Sanchez (2020-08-27). Ranch 2 fire sweeps Azusa Canyon in California. liberationnews.org Leaving vulnerable populations without protection from the man-made crisis of global warming would be avoided with a new socialist system that centers the struggles of the people.

pip.hinman (2020-08-27). The climate action we need today. greenleft.org.au

editors (2020-08-27). "Don't let them take democracy away from you" indybay.org "United we can and will overcome the time of darkness in America," he said. After four years of Trump's presidency, the Biden-Harris team wants to reunite the country, overcome the Corona crisis and boost the economy with millions of new jobs. In addition, the challengers want to provide an answer to "racial injustice" and take decisive action against the climate crisis [1].

Party for Socialism and Liberation (2020-08-27). Friday 8/28: Online Socialism Forum – Climate Change or System Change! indybay.org Register at bit.ly/planet-not-profits…

Chris Hedges (2020-08-26). How Corporate Tyranny Works. commondreams.org Oil sludge from one of the hundreds of waste pits that Chevron left in the Ecuadorean Amazon. (Photo: via Indian Country News) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/ecuador-oil-sludge_0.jpg

Juan Cole (2020-08-26). As Party of Climate Denial Meets, Wildfires Rage and Hurricanes Target Gulf Coast. zcomm.org The Republican Party cannot solve the climate emergency just as it cannot solve the pandemic. It is about making money for its billionaire clientele, not about delivering better lives to working Americans.

The Canary (2020-08-26). Antarctica ice platform nearly four times size of UK 'at risk of collapse'. thecanary.co A platform of ice surrounding Antarctica which is nearly four times the size of the UK is at risk of collapse, according to a new study.It suggests that more than 350,000 square miles of floating ice shelves could split if fractures on their surface are submerged due to the effects of climate change. Such a sudden loss of the supportive structures could raise sea levels around the world.A team involving geoscientists from the University of Edinburgh used a process called hydrofracturing to analyse satellite images of the area.A map of Antarctica with the vulnerable areas of ice shelf marked in red (Nature 2020/PA…

Andrea Germanos, staff writer (2020-08-26). Threat of Devastating Hurricane Laura Highlights a GOP With 'Absolutely No Plan to Deal With the Climate Crisis'. commondreams.org "The Green New Deal is not radical," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Having a president in office who calls climate change a hoax—that's radical." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/hurricane_laura_1.png

_____ (2020-08-26). Overfunding The Military Drives Climate Crisis And White Supremacist Culture. popularresistance.org As the U.S. now approaches the third month since protests erupted following the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless Black Americans calls to defund and abolish the police are resonating throughout public consciousness. While the Black Lives Matter movement rightfully pushes for the defunding and abolition of a white supremacist institution, it must be recognized that another institution — U.S. militarism — is also an overfunded structure responsible for violence, oppression, and white supremacy.

_____ (2020-08-26). Exxon Booted From Dow As Oil And Gas Falls. popularresistance.org Spending 92 years doing anything is an accomplishment, so let's cheers to Exxon Mobil Corp., which spent more than nine decades as a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, pillaging the planet, lying about climate change, and making rich people even richer. | Now, those days have come to an end. One of the biggest oil companies on Earth has hemorrhaged money this year, and now it's been booted from the Dow Jones because it just isn't the superpower it once was. I almost feel bad for Big Oil these days. Almost. | The news of Exxon's removal from the Dow Jones comes amid a pandemic that has absolutely crushed…

_____ (2020-08-26). Wildfire, Hurricanes, Floods And Droughts Quadrupled In Cost Since 1980. popularresistance.org In the last 40 years, 663 disasters linked to climate change in the United States killed 14,223 people. The total cost: an estimated $1.77 trillion, a bit more than Canada's Gross National Product in 2018. | Economic losses in Europe resulting from climate-linked extreme weather from 1980 to 2017 were lower, totaling $537 billion. The difference was the cost of tropical storms, which don't affect Europe but accounted for nearly half of the U.S. total costs. | The report analyzed data going back to 1980 from several sources, including a database of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that ca…

Brett Wilkins, staff writer (2020-08-26). 'Sudden Collapse': Study Suggests 60% of Antarctic Ice Shelves Face Fracture Risk. commondreams.org Massive southern shelves split by climate-induced hydofracturing can collapse in hours—or even minutes—fueling dangerous sea level rise and coastal flooding. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/ice_6.jpg

Staff (2020-08-25). Headlines for August 25, 2020. democracynow.org Trump Claims Dems Trying to Steal Election, Biden Will "Destroy" Country, as RNC Kicks Off, WI Calls in National Guard as Protests Intensify over Police Shooting of Unarmed Black Man, FDA Head Says Plasma Treatment Results Were Overstated as Schools Grapple with Reopening, Hong Kong COVID-19 Patient Becomes Reinfected; Reports of Brutal Repression in Xinjiang Pandemic Response, Gaza Goes into Lockdown After New COVID-19 Cases; Libyan Doctors Warn System Can't Cope with Pandemic, Death Toll in Climate-Fueled California Wildfires Climbs to 7 as 600+ Blazes Burn Across the State, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Fails…

Staff (2020-08-25). "A Human Tragedy": Wildfires Reveal California's Reliance on Incarcerated Firefighters. democracynow.org As climate-fueled wildfires engulf California, tens of thousands of firefighters have been deployed across the state to combat the blazes amid a record heat wave and deadly pandemic. We look at how more than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters — who are annually deployed to the frontlines in California for just $1 an hour — are fighting back the blazes as coronavirus outbreaks in state prisons limit how many are available to fight the fires, and lay bare the state's reliance on prison labor to control its ever-growing wildfire season with an exploitative system many have called slave labor. "What they're…

Brett Wilkins, staff writer (2020-08-25). 'Underwhelming and Inadequate': Green Groups Slam New Senate Democrats' Climate Report. commondreams.org The Green New Deal is mentioned only once in the 263-page report—in the footnotes. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gnd_0.jpeg

news.un (2020-08-25). Devastated by pandemic, tourism sector must be rebuilt in a safe, equitable and climate friendly way — UN chief. news.un.org Tourism is much more than visiting cultural landmarks or swimming in tropical beaches; it is "one of the world's most important economic sectors", the UN chief said on Tuesday.

news.un (2020-08-25). Rights expert denounces lack of investigation into 2017 killing of journalist in South Sudan. news.un.org Lack of investigation into the killing of a journalist three years ago in South Sudan is indicative of a wider climate of hostility towards journalists in the country, an independent UN human rights expert has said.

_____ (2020-08-25). California And Colorado: Climate-Driven Transformation Of Wildfires. popularresistance.org The wildfires that exploded over the past few days in California and Colorado show clear influences of global warming, climate scientists say, and evidence of how a warming and drying climate is increasing the size and severity of fires from the California coast to the high Rocky Mountains. | They may also be the latest examples of climate-driven wildfires around the world burning not only much bigger, hotter and faster, but exploding into landscapes and seasons in which they were previously rare. | For tens of thousands of Californians enduring evacuations, and millions more suffering through smoke that has brou…

Staff (2020-08-25). California's Dependence on Incarcerated Labor Exposed as Wildfires Rage. truthout.org As climate-fueled wildfires engulf California, tens of thousands of firefighters have been deployed across the state to combat the blazes amid a record heat wave and deadly pandemic. We look at how more than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters — who are annually deployed to the frontlines in California for just $1 an hour — are fighting back the blazes as coronavirus outbreaks in state prisons limit how many are available to fight the fires, and lay bare the state's reliance on prison labor to…

commondreams (2020-08-25). Senate Dems Climate Report: Underwhelming and Inadequate. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Lisa Newcomb, staff writer (2020-08-25). 'What's Radical Is Doing Nothing': Attacked as an Extremist, Sanders Condemns GOP for Ignoring Climate Crisis at Convention. commondreams.org "It would be a moral disgrace if we left to future generations a planet and that was unhealthy, unsafe, and uninhabitable." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/getty-sanders-aoc-gnd.jpg

commondreams (2020-08-25). Democrat's Climate Report Misses the Mark. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Sasha Abramsky (2020-08-25). The Climate Apocalypse Has Arrived. thenation.com The Climate Apocalypse Has Arrived…

teleSUR (2020-08-24). Greenland Had Massive Ice Melting in 2019 Due to Global Warming. telesurenglish.net Greenland lost over 580 billion tons of ice in 2019 due to atypical high temperatures, which provoked an irregular sea-level increase according to a study published in Communications Earth & Environment. | RELATED: | "More and more often, we have stable [atmospheric] high-pressure systems over the ice sheet, which favor the influx of warmer air from the midlatitudes, one of the conditions promoting melt," said Alfred Wegener Insti…

_____ (2020-08-24). How Much Will Earth Really Warm By? Here's The Latest Research. popularresistance.org A major new study has been published – one that gives much more certainty on the extent of future warming we might expect. | Along with many other international climate scientists, it was led by my colleague, climate scientist Steven Sherwood from the University of New South Wales in Australia. So, I asked him a few questions about it, to drill down what this means for us and the future. | We know Earth's climate warms as greenhouse gas concentrations like carbon dioxide rise in the atmosphere. From the 1950s, NASA temperature data show Earth has warmed ~0.8 ∞C up until the latest decade.The scale of future…

2020-08-26: News Headlines

Juan Cole (2020-08-26). As Party of Climate Denial Meets, Wildfires Rage and Hurricanes Target Gulf Coast. zcomm.org The Republican Party cannot solve the climate emergency just as it cannot solve the pandemic. It is about making money for its billionaire clientele, not about delivering better lives to working Americans.

The Canary (2020-08-26). Antarctica ice platform nearly four times size of UK 'at risk of collapse'. thecanary.co A platform of ice surrounding Antarctica which is nearly four times the size of the UK is at risk of collapse, according to a new study.It suggests that more than 350,000 square miles of floating ice shelves could split if fractures on their surface are submerged due to the effects of climate change. Such a sudden loss of the supportive structures could raise sea levels around the world.A team involving geoscientists from the University of Edinburgh used a process called hydrofracturing to analyse satellite images of the area.A map of Antarctica with the vulnerable areas of ice shelf marked in red (Nature 2020/PA…

Party for Socialism and Liberation (2020-08-26). Friday 8/28: Online Socialism Forum – Climate Change or System Change! indybay.org Register at bit.ly/planet-not-profits…

editors (2020-08-26). "Don't let them take democracy away from you" indybay.org "United we can and will overcome the time of darkness in America," he said. After four years of Trump's presidency, the Biden-Harris team wants to reunite the country, overcome the Corona crisis and boost the economy with millions of new jobs. In addition, the challengers want to provide an answer to "racial injustice" and take decisive action against the climate crisis [1].

_____ (2020-08-26). Overfunding The Military Drives Climate Crisis And White Supremacist Culture. popularresistance.org As the U.S. now approaches the third month since protests erupted following the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless Black Americans calls to defund and abolish the police are resonating throughout public consciousness. While the Black Lives Matter movement rightfully pushes for the defunding and abolition of a white supremacist institution, it must be recognized that another institution — U.S. militarism — is also an overfunded structure responsible for violence, oppression, and white supremacy.

_____ (2020-08-26). Exxon Booted From Dow As Oil And Gas Falls. popularresistance.org Spending 92 years doing anything is an accomplishment, so let's cheers to Exxon Mobil Corp., which spent more than nine decades as a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, pillaging the planet, lying about climate change, and making rich people even richer. | Now, those days have come to an end. One of the biggest oil companies on Earth has hemorrhaged money this year, and now it's been booted from the Dow Jones because it just isn't the superpower it once was. I almost feel bad for Big Oil these days. Almost. | The news of Exxon's removal from the Dow Jones comes amid a pandemic that has absolutely crushed…

Staff (2020-08-25). "A Human Tragedy": Wildfires Reveal California's Reliance on Incarcerated Firefighters. democracynow.org As climate-fueled wildfires engulf California, tens of thousands of firefighters have been deployed across the state to combat the blazes amid a record heat wave and deadly pandemic. We look at how more than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters — who are annually deployed to the frontlines in California for just $1 an hour — are fighting back the blazes as coronavirus outbreaks in state prisons limit how many are available to fight the fires, and lay bare the state's reliance on prison labor to control its ever-growing wildfire season with an exploitative system many have called slave labor. "What they're…

Staff (2020-08-25). Headlines for August 25, 2020. democracynow.org Trump Claims Dems Trying to Steal Election, Biden Will "Destroy" Country, as RNC Kicks Off, WI Calls in National Guard as Protests Intensify over Police Shooting of Unarmed Black Man, FDA Head Says Plasma Treatment Results Were Overstated as Schools Grapple with Reopening, Hong Kong COVID-19 Patient Becomes Reinfected; Reports of Brutal Repression in Xinjiang Pandemic Response, Gaza Goes into Lockdown After New COVID-19 Cases; Libyan Doctors Warn System Can't Cope with Pandemic, Death Toll in Climate-Fueled California Wildfires Climbs to 7 as 600+ Blazes Burn Across the State, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Fails…

Brett Wilkins, staff writer (2020-08-25). 'Underwhelming and Inadequate': Green Groups Slam New Senate Democrats' Climate Report. commondreams.org The Green New Deal is mentioned only once in the 263-page report—in the footnotes. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gnd_0.jpeg

Fight Back (2020-08-25). Minnesota's Line 3 pipeline protests get results. fightbacknews.org St. Paul, MN – The Climate Justice Committee organized an action to protest Joe Biden's climate proposal on August 18, as Committee members and climate activists gathered outside the Governor's Mansion here, demanding Governor Walz re-file the state's appeal of the decision to allow the Line 3 oil pipeline to be rebuilt and expanded. The new pipeline would be an environmental disaster and violates federal agreements with indigenous governments. | Both the Climate Justice Committee and members of the Giniw Collective, an indigenous-led group that protested outside the mansion earlier in the day, held the street an…

news.un (2020-08-25). Rights expert denounces lack of investigation into 2017 killing of journalist in South Sudan. news.un.org Lack of investigation into the killing of a journalist three years ago in South Sudan is indicative of a wider climate of hostility towards journalists in the country, an independent UN human rights expert has said.

news.un (2020-08-25). Devastated by pandemic, tourism sector must be rebuilt in a safe, equitable and climate friendly way — UN chief. news.un.org Tourism is much more than visiting cultural landmarks or swimming in tropical beaches; it is "one of the world's most important economic sectors", the UN chief said on Tuesday.

_____ (2020-08-25). California And Colorado: Climate-Driven Transformation Of Wildfires. popularresistance.org The wildfires that exploded over the past few days in California and Colorado show clear influences of global warming, climate scientists say, and evidence of how a warming and drying climate is increasing the size and severity of fires from the California coast to the high Rocky Mountains. | They may also be the latest examples of climate-driven wildfires around the world burning not only much bigger, hotter and faster, but exploding into landscapes and seasons in which they were previously rare. | For tens of thousands of Californians enduring evacuations, and millions more suffering through smoke that has brou…

Staff (2020-08-25). California's Dependence on Incarcerated Labor Exposed as Wildfires Rage. truthout.org As climate-fueled wildfires engulf California, tens of thousands of firefighters have been deployed across the state to combat the blazes amid a record heat wave and deadly pandemic. We look at how more than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters — who are annually deployed to the frontlines in California for just $1 an hour — are fighting back the blazes as coronavirus outbreaks in state prisons limit how many are available to fight the fires, and lay bare the state's reliance on prison labor to…

commondreams (2020-08-25). Democrat's Climate Report Misses the Mark. commondreams.org ______________________________…

commondreams (2020-08-25). Senate Dems Climate Report: Underwhelming and Inadequate. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Lisa Newcomb, staff writer (2020-08-25). 'What's Radical Is Doing Nothing': Attacked as an Extremist, Sanders Condemns GOP for Ignoring Climate Crisis at Convention. commondreams.org "It would be a moral disgrace if we left to future generations a planet and that was unhealthy, unsafe, and uninhabitable." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/getty-sanders-aoc-gnd.jpg

Sasha Abramsky (2020-08-25). The Climate Apocalypse Has Arrived. thenation.com The Climate Apocalypse Has Arrived…

Staff (2020-08-24). As Democrats Hedge on Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Biden Misleads on Plan. therealnews.com Welcome back to TRNN's Climate Crisis News Roundup. We are in the dog days of summer, with record heat waves and extreme weather events happening throughout the United States and the world. Meanwhile, one of the global oil majors has a professed climate solution: powering its oil drilling with wind and solar energy across the…

teleSUR (2020-08-24). Greenland Had Massive Ice Melting in 2019 Due to Global Warming. telesurenglish.net Greenland lost over 580 billion tons of ice in 2019 due to atypical high temperatures, which provoked an irregular sea-level increase according to a study published in Communications Earth & Environment. | RELATED: | "More and more often, we have stable [atmospheric] high-pressure systems over the ice sheet, which favor the influx of warmer air from the midlatitudes, one of the conditions promoting melt," said Alfred Wegener Insti…

_____ (2020-08-24). How Much Will Earth Really Warm By? Here's The Latest Research. popularresistance.org A major new study has been published – one that gives much more certainty on the extent of future warming we might expect. | Along with many other international climate scientists, it was led by my colleague, climate scientist Steven Sherwood from the University of New South Wales in Australia. So, I asked him a few questions about it, to drill down what this means for us and the future. | We know Earth's climate warms as greenhouse gas concentrations like carbon dioxide rise in the atmosphere. From the 1950s, NASA temperature data show Earth has warmed ~0.8 ∞C up until the latest decade.The scale of future…

Benjamin Wehrmann (2020-08-23). Thunberg, other activists tell Merkel to 'abandon fossil industry contracts'. zcomm.org Thunberg said the activists were looking to find leaders who "prioritise the future over the past" and argued that the letter merely describes "the very minimum" of what needs to be done to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

_____ (2020-08-23). DNC Featured Native Speakers But Their Issues Remain Under-addressed. popularresistance.org The various caucus meeting speakers repeatedly stated that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be good for Indian Country. Some Native people are skeptical, though. Harris has a record of going against the sovereign interests of California tribal nations. Many Native people haven't forgotten the broken promises made by the Obama-Biden administration. Not only did the administration advance the Keystone XL Pipeline, but it also sat silently for months as Native people, accomplices and media were arrested, brutalized, and physically and sexually assaulted while trying to defeat the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

sputniknews (2020-08-23). Bayern Wins UEFA Champions League Final for Sixth Time: How They Claimed Five Others. sputniknews.com On Sunday night, Bayern Munich defeated French League 1 winner PSG with a total score of 1-0 in the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League Final.

Jamie Henn (2020-08-23). Stop Adding (Fossil) Fuels to the Fire. commondreams.org Fire season isn't new to the West, but it's getting worse. And scientists are clearly pointing the finger at climate change and our ongoing use of fossil fuels. (Photo: Pixabay/CC) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/wildfire-california.jpeg

Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Anuna De Wever and AdélaàØde Charlier (2020-08-22). After two years of school strikes, the world is still in a state of climate crisis denial. zcomm.org We can have as many meetings as we like, but the will to change is nowhere in sight. Society must start treating this as a crisis…

RT (2020-08-22). Kamala Harris, 'pranked' by Russian comedians posing as Greta Thunberg, 'accepts' hoax kompromat on Trump. rt.com It seems pranksters Vovan and Lexus have successfully duped another politician, with audio suggesting Democrat VP nominee Kamala Harris was eager to accept a fake recording of Donald Trump, believing the caller was Greta Thunberg. | Vovan and Lexus, whose real names are Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, posed as the teenage climate activist and her father Svante to make a phone call in January to Harris, just months before she became Joe Biden's running mate. | "Congratulations on all your leadership. I'm so inspired by your courage and your voice," Sen. Harris (D-California) tells the pranksters, in th…