This is an archived newsroll page on A Socialist In Canada, consisting of headlines and weblinks, with occasional news summary and brief analysis, for the months indicated. For the current, ‘Ecology newsroll’ website page, go here.
Ecology newsroll headlines on A Socialist In Canada, June 2022
Transcending the ‘imperial mode of living’: An interview with German political scientist Ulrich Brand, interview by James Wilt, with German scholar Ulrich Brand (co-author of the 2021 book The Imperial Mode of Living), interview published in Canadian Dimension, June 24, 2022 read the interview here in pdf format: Imperial mode of living
Unprecedented heat wave bakes western Europe with temperatures hitting 43°C, Euronews, June 20, 2022 …In France, nearly three-quarters of the population — some 45 million people — were issued with red or orange heat alerts in what is the earliest heatwave ever recorded in the country…
Scientists breed honey bees to fight deadly mite parasite, Science Magazine, April 7, 2022
Prolonged heat wave baking much of central, eastern states in U.S., Washington Post, June 15, 2022 Extreme heat is predicted to rebuild this weekend and deliver more record-challenging temperatures into next week
Related: Health and safety concerns as extreme heat wave hits 100 million in U.S. midwest, Washington Post, June 15, 2022 …Over the past decade, the highest annual death toll from heat in Clark County (including the city of Las Vegas) came in 2021, when 153 died, a rate of 6.4 deaths per 100,000 residents. A quarter of those were homeless… Read the article here in pdf format: Health and safety and extreme heat
The Colorado River is in crisis, and it’s getting worse every day, feature report in Washington Post, with maps and interactive features, May 14, 2022
The 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed the world, by Emma Pattee (writer in Oregon), published in The Guardian, June 14, 2022
Related: America’s automobile culture and the road not taken, by Bill McKibben, Yale Environment 360, June 9, 2022
Particulate pollution is reducing global life expectancy by more than two years, by Sharon Udasin, The Hill, June 14, 2022
How extreme heat kills, sickens, strains and ages us, New York Times, June 13, 2022 Researchers are drilling down into the ways life on a hotter planet will tax our bodies, and looking for protections that, unlike air-conditioning, don’t make the problem worse.
The three scourges of imperialist war, global warming and social inequities, by Roger Annis, A Socialist in Canada, June 12, 2022 John Bellamy Foster is a leading Marxist theoretician and writer on the global warming emergency. He is the editor of Monthly Review, a leading journal of environmental Marxism and ‘ecosocialism’, with a related publishing house, Monthly Review Press. His latest essay on the global warming emergency is briefly reviewed in this present essay.
Reference: Notes on ‘exterminism’ for the 21st century ecology and peace movements, by John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review, May 1, 2022 (This is the lead essay (12 pages, plus notes) in the May 2022 issue of Monthly Review. Find subscription information to Monthly Review at the above weblink. You can read the essay here in pdf format: Notes on ‘exterminism’, May 2022.
As the Great Salt Lake dries up, Utah faces an ‘environmental nuclear bomb’, New York Times, June 7, 2022 Explosive population growth of greater Salt Lake City [pop. 2.5 million] is diverting more and more water from the three large rivers that feed Great Salt Lake, adding to the deleterious effects of global warming and agricultural demands for water. The lake’s surface area covered about 3,300 square miles in the late 1980s. It has since shrunk to less than 1,000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Ecology newsroll headlines on A Socialist In Canada, May 2022
Sandstorm wave sweeps Middle East, sending thousands to hospitals, Washington Post, May 26, 2022 Climate change and land use practices are increasing the frequency of such storms across the region Read the article hee in pdf format: Sandstorm wave sweeps Middle East
Hawaii looks to solar power to generate its electricity, New York Times, May 29, 2022 …The state has increased the use of renewable energy in large part by getting electric utilities to accept rooftop solar rather than fight it, as energy companies in California, Florida and other states have been doing… Less than a decade ago, Hawaii’s utilities pressed state lawmakers to reduce incentives for rooftop solar, a tactic that the utility industry has used across the country… Power plants fueled by oil supplied nearly two-thirds of Hawaii’s electricity last year. Rooftop solar, by comparison, supplied about 14 percent, up from 6 percent in 2014…
Facing a power crisis and searing heat, India falls back on coal, Washington Post, May 28, 2022 India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and one of the foremost victims of climate change in the world. Its reliance on burning coal for electricity is growing, not diminishing. Read the article here in pdf format: India falls back on coal
Are the climate wars ‘over’ in Australia following the national election on May 21? Not even close, by Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, May 27, 2022
Who is most at risk from stranded fossil fuel assets?, by Gregor Semieniuk and Philip Holden, The Conversation, May 26, 2022 …In a study published on May 26, 2022 in the journal Nature Climate Change, we traced the ownership of over 43,000 oil and gas assets to reveal who ultimately loses from misguided investments that become stranded. Private individuals own over half the assets at risk, and ordinary people with pensions and savings that are invested in managed funds shoulder a surprisingly large part–more than a quarter of all losses…
Reference: Stranded fossil-fuel assets translate to major losses for investors in advanced economies, research paper by multiple authors, published in Nature Climare Change, May 26, 2022
Climate breakdown and state-corporate madness, by the publishers, Media Lens (UK), May 20, 2022 …Time is running out too rapidly to fundamentally reform society and create a real democracy that people deserve. The immediate priority is to exert insurmountable pressure on existing power structures, not least our own governments, to change course away from climate catastrophe…
Report by World Meteorological Organization warns that all indicators showing rapidly warming world, report summary published in Climate And Capitalism, May 18, 2022 Four key climate change indicators – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification – set new records in 2021. The ‘State of the Global Climate in 2021‘ report (57 pages) confirms that the past seven years have been the warmest seven years on record…
Plans are revived to build dam on Poyang Lake, cutting it off from Yangtze River during dry season, report in South China Morning Post, May 17, 2022 (Find this article also in Yahoo Finance, here.) Poyang Lake is China’s largest freshwater lake and is rich in biodiversity. The project to regulate the lake’s flow has been shelved several times, primarily because of objections from environmentalists.
Related:
* China bans fishing on upper reaches of ailing Yellow River. Report by Global Times, Apr 21, 2021
* China fears more devastating floods as Yangtze River’s levels rise again, Associated Press, July 2020
So much for the electric vehicle revolution. You cannot make the machines without the metals that power them, by Eric Reguly, Globe and Mail, May 13, 2022 read the article here in pdf format: The electric vehicle revolution
Related: The dark side of clean energy and digital technologies: Review of ‘The Rare Metals War’, review by Leon Vlieger (Holland), published on his website The Inqisitive Biologist, April 29, 2022
The ‘Elephant Hill’ megafire raged for three months in British Columbia in 2017. No one is on the hook for its emissions, investigative report in Washington Post, Apr 20, 2022 …A recent Washington Post investigation found an enormous disparity between the emissions that countries report to the United Nations and what these independent data have documented. The most substantial part of that disparity stems from how countries account for their emissions from land…
California braces for extreme summer drought after dismal wet season, Washington Post, May 14, 2022 Reservoirs and snowpack are wildly below average, causing officials to enact summer water restrictions
Related:
* Facing a new climate reality, Southern California lawns could wither, Washington Post, May 9, 2022 The region has adopted unprecedented water conservation measures to cope with its relentless drought, the worst in 1,200 years
* Cities in U.S. southwest learns to thrive amid drought, by Jim Robbins, Yale Environment 360, April 26, 2022 Urban growth comes with serious problems, from traffic gridlock, to air and water pollution, to the destruction of nature. Right now, running out of water is not one of those problems for most of the larger cities of the West.
Atmospheric CO2 hits another all-time high, report by The Energy Mix, May 8, 2022 Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels measured at Hawai’i’s Mauna Loa Observatory breached 420 parts per million (ppm) in April for the first time in human history…
The continued use of fossil fuels is creating a financial time bomb in the form of stranded assets, by John Timmer, published in Ars Technica, May 9, 2022 (Ars Technica is owned by Conde Nast publisher, which also publishes Wired magazine.)
Related: ExxonMobil is planning on climate failure despite its ‘Advancing Climate Solutions’ report outlook, by Mike Coffin, Carbon Tracker, Feb 8, 2022
Ecology newsroll headlines on A Socialist In Canada, April 2022
Leading ‘ecosocialists’, including at Monthly Review, backtrack on their opposition to the imperative of degrowth. Reference: For an ecosocialist degrowth, by Michael Löwy, Bengi Akbulut, Sabrina Fernandes and Giorgos Kallis, published in Monthly Review, print edition of April 2022
Without fast action on global warming, ocean species facing mass extinction, report published by Smithsonian Institute, Apr 28, 2022 and read: report in Washington Post, Apr 28, 2022
Reference: A stark future for ocean life, research paper published in Science Magazine, Apr 28, 2022 (paywalled)
The world’s banks continue fueling global warming; it’s business as usual, by Pete Dolack, published on his website Systemic Disorder, Apr 27, 2022 The gap between what needs to be done to save the Earth from the environmental disaster of unchecked global warming and what is actually being done continues to widen. A new report from seven environmental organizations finds that 60 of the world’s biggest banks have invested US$4.6 trillion in fossil fuel projects since the Paris Climate Accord was signed in 2015… [The writer explains, “Growth for growth’s sake, and without controls — capitalism is a cancer.” This can be read as a summation of the imperative of a degrowth strategy for the environmental movement. But this writer and all but the most advanced thinkers amound environmentalists continue to shun that path or fail to outline the transitonal steps that should be taken.]
China is sticking with decarbonization and sustainable development, commentary by Keith Lamb, published in CGTN, Apr 19, 2022
Thawing permafrost is roiling the Arctic landscape, driven by a hidden world of changes as the climate warms, by Mark Lara (U of Illinois), The Conversation, Apr 12, 2022
How the U.S. and its allies subverted goals of 1990 Kyoto Protocol on global warming in order to preserve their military power, special report by RT, Apr 6, 2022
New report by IPCC chronicles the world’s ‘fast track’ to global warming disaster, by The Energy Mix, April 4, 2022 (This is the introduction to an in-depth dossier by The Energy Mix analyzing the report issued on April 4, 2022 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2,913 pages long. Find the entire dossier at the above weblink; here are several selections:)
* ‘Terrifying’ report by IPCC chronicles ‘fast track to climate disaster’, shows narrowed path to 1.5°C, lengthy analysis by The Energy Mix, April 4, 2022
* Pathways to 1.5°C still possible, but only with steep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, new IPCC report concludes, by Tim Radford, The Energy Mix, April 4, 2022
* Slam brakes on carbon to avert ‘humanity’s biggest emergency’, IPCC observers urge, by Mitchell Beer, The Energy Mix, April 4, 2022
Europe followed by China suffered the world’s worst financial losses from flooding in 2021, South China Morning Post, Apr 4, 2022
Ecology newsroll headlines on A Socialist In Canada, March 2022
Cuba prepares for global warming and natural disasters, essay and book review by Don Fitz, published in Green Social Thought, Mar 22, 2022 (also published in Resilience.org) Reviewing: Disaster Preparedness and Climate Change in Cuba: Adaptation and Management, edited by Emily J. Kirk, Isabel Story and Anna Clayfield, published by Lexington Books, Aug 2021, 258 pages (Don Fitz is the author of the 2021 book Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution, Monthly Review Press, 2020. The book is reviewed here and here.)
Scientists urge Canadian gov’t to end primary forest logging, by Jennifer Skene, National Resources Defense Council, Mar 23, 2022 Scientists from around the world have warned that Canada’s logging practices are incompatible with climate leadership and global climate goals. In a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, nearly 100 leading scientists from around the world make clear that Canada’s logging of climate-critical primary forests is wildly out of step with the exigencies of the climate crisis. For years, Canada has evaded accountability for its industrial logging practices, hiding behind claims of sustainable forestry and flawed representations of logging’s true climate impact…
Brown carbon (from burning of biomass) is fueling global warming and wildfires, report by Xinhua, Mar 22, 2022
Reference: Brown carbon from biomass burning imposes strong circum-Arctic warming, research paper by multiple authors, 14 pages, March 2022, published in One Earth [Black carbon is primarily released by high-temperature combustion; brown carbon is emitted mainly by biomass combustion. These are the two most important light-absorbing substances in the atmosphere.]
It’s 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted, Washington Post, Mar 18, 2022 read also: report by Associated Press, Mar 18, 2022 [This news of catastrophic temperature rises in Antarctica shows exactly one of the big reasons why the NATO countries chose to provoke war with Russia in Ukraine. ‘Delay and deflect’ is the official, albeit unspoken, policy of the wealthy imperialist countries towards the global warming emergency. What better way to ‘deflect’ than to spark a pointless war against Russia in Ukraine and promote unprecedented degrees of hate and hostility against Russia and its people? For similar reasons, anti-China hate has become all the rage in Western media.]
U.S. Congress approves Biden regime budget containing billions for weapons and war, a fraction of that for the global warming emergency. Report by Associated Press, Mar 11, 2022 The $1.5 trillion budget includes nearly $14 billion for more weapons to Ukraine and Europe and $1 billion for global warming mitigation. This is far short of the Biden regime’s earlier promise to spend $11.4 annually on global warming mitigation by 2024, much of that destined for the less wealthy countries.
Related: Environmental groups cry ‘betrayal’ as Biden regime and Congress approve just $1 billion in climate finance for developing countries in 2022, Climate Home News (UK), Mar 11, 2022 The Biden Administration committed to deliver $11.4 billion a year in climate finance by 2024, but Congress has approved a mere fraction of that. The Biden regime budget is only $387 million more annually than Trump-era spending accordingh to calculations by Joe Thwaites, a researcher on global climate finance at the World Resources Institute…
These climate scientists are fed up and ready to go on strike, New York Times, Mar 1, 2022 Evidence on global warming is piling up. Nations aren’t acting. Some researchers are asking what difference more reports will make.
Reference: The tragedy of climate change science, research paper by Bruce Glavovic (Massey U. New Zealand), Timothy Smith (U. of the Sunshine Coast, Australia) and Iain White (U. of Waikato, New Zealand), published on Dec 24, 2021 read the six-page paper here in pdf format: The Tragedy of Climate Science, Dec 2021
Methane gas emissions are setting record highs, by Robert Hunziker, CounterPunch, Mar 15, 2022
These climate scientists are fed up and ready to go on strike, New York Times, Mar 1, 2022 Evidence on global warming is piling up. Nations aren’t acting. Some researchers are asking what difference more reports will make.
Reference: The tragedy of climate change science, research paper by Bruce Glavovic (Massey U. New Zealand), Timothy Smith (U. of the Sunshine Coast, Australia) and Iain White (U. of Waikato, New Zealand), published online on Dec 24, 2021 read the six-page paper here in pdf format: The Tragedy of Climate Science, Dec 2021, six pages
Overnight degrowth, by Kirk Hall, published in Illuminen, Feb 5 2022 In which the writer imagines a scenario where one government in the world, then another, then another go beyond platitudes to recognize the gravity of the global warming emergency. They begin to legislate an end to capitalist growth for the sake of capitalist growth. They begin to recognize ‘The grand goal of perpetual growth that we have all been told to work towards is actually causing our downfall.’
Cheap blood test detects lung cancer at an early and treatable stage, New Scientist, Feb 2, 2022 Lung cancer screening has always been expensive, but a simple blood test that detects lipids associated with tumours may offer a cheaper alternative. The procedure was developed by researchers at Peking University (Beida) in China.
Related: Resesarchers in China are first to use blood testing for early diagnosis of lung cancer and less invasive surgery to remove tumours, South China Morning Post, Mar 11, 2022
Another global warming worry: Parts of Earth could become uninhabitable, by Pete Dolack, published on his website Systemic Disorder, Mar 9, 2022
Harrowing IPCC report cites limits to climate adaptation, stresses climate justice, by Mitchell Beer, The Energy Mix, Mar 2, 2022
Related: Five takeaways from the UN’s 2022 climate impacts report, Climate Home News, Feb 28, 2022 We can adapt to many changes brought by an overheating planet, but some things will be lost forever, scientists warn in blockbuster report
Scientists warn seawalls can make damage from rising waters worse in the long run, by Joe Lo, Climate Home News, Mar 3, 2022
Climate impacts of tropical deforestation worse than previously thought, study finds, by Cecilia Keating, Business Green, Mar 1, 2022
Reference: Doubling of annual forest carbon loss over the tropics during the early twenty-first century, research paper published in Nature Sustainability, Feb 28, 2022
Reaching peak carbon early could save hundreds of thousands of lives in China, study says, South China Morning Post, Mar 2, 2022 Reaching peak carbon emissions before its 2030 target could help China to avoid more 600,000 deaths from exposure to the most deadly small particles over the following two decades, a study has found. Researchers from China and the United States led by a team at Nanjing University found that the earlier peak emissions were reached, the larger the long-term benefits…
Pandemic behind it, China ramps up its urban rail transport boom, South China Morning Post, Mar 2, 2022 China’s urban rail transit system expanded at an unprecedented rate last year, adding 62 brand-new metro lines in 35 cities, according to researchers with the China Association of Metros. These projects increased the total length of China’s urban rail transit by over 15 per cent to 9,192km (5,711 miles), accounting for about one quarter of the world’s total…
Ecology newsroll headlines on A Socialist In Canada, February 2022
Picturing the future of flooding of coastal cities caused by global warming negligence, interactive report by Climate Central, with extensive maps, Oct 21, 2021
UN report warns climate change could spur 50 per cent more wildfires by 2100, Grist magazine, Feb 23, 2022 …The annual number of wildfires around the globe could rise 50 percent by the end of the century. This will exacerbate global warming by releasing the carbon stored in trees, creating a vicious cycle in which climate change and wildfires intensify each other…
The coronavirus pandemic reminds us how far humans have come in fighting infectious diseases… and far we still have to go, essay and book review by David Dodwell, South China Morning Post, Feb 21, 2022 read the essay here in pdf format: Plagues Upon the Earth Reviewing: Plagues Upon the Earth, by Kyle Harper, Princeton University Press, Oct 2021, 704 pages
Related: On Kyle Harper’s ‘Plagues Upon the Earth’, critical essay by Monica H. Green, in LA Review of Books, Oct 18, 2021
New report by U.S. climate agencies warns of accelerating impacts from sea level rise, by Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, Feb 16, 2022 An updated report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA using new satellite data and climate models along with improved evaluations of historic data from tide gauges dating back more than 100 years shows that sea levels on U.S. coasts will climb 10 to 12 inches in the next 30 years and two feet by the end of the century.
The road paving industry is the largest recipient of Biden regime’s ‘Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’, New York Times, Feb 20, 2022 …The infrastructure package allocates at least $350 billion over five years to highways and bridges, according to the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit transportation think tank in Washington, compared with about $91 billion for mass transit. An additional $19 billion to the Transportation Department to fund major projects, like underwater vehicular tunnels or bridge replacements, could augment the pavement spending…
Related:
* How paving with plastic could make a dent in the global waste problem, Yale Environment 360, Feb 11, 2021
* Asphalt on roads may soon be greater source of air pollution than cars, New Scientist, Sep 2, 2020 read the article here in pdf format: Asphalt and air pollution
* Can white roofs in place of asphalt help cool the world’s warming cities?, Yale Environment 360, Mar 7, 2018
Lithium fields: Beautiful from the air, trouble on the ground, by Gege Li, New Scientist, print edition of Jan 29, 2022 read the article here in pdf format: Lithium fields THE vivid swathes of minerals in this lithium extraction field make for a dazzling sight, but also represent a troubling aspect of our rapidly electrifying world…
The world’s rivers are polluted with pharmaceuticals, reports study led by York University in UK, The Hill, Feb 15, 2022
Reference: Pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers, by multiple authors, published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (National Academy of Sciences), print issue of Feb 22, 2022
Pollution is the forgotten global crisis and we need to tackle it now, by Graham Lawton, staff writer, New Scientist, (print weekly), print edition of Jan 29, 2022 read the article here in pdf format: Pollution is the forgotten global crisis
Ten million deaths per year from polluted air, essay by David Wallace-Wells, in London Review of Books (biweekly), edition of Dec 2, 2022 read the essay here in pdf format: Ten million deaths per year
Megadrought in western U.S. worsens to driest conditions in at least 1,200 years, report by Associated Press, Feb 15, 2022 Forty two per cent of the drought conditions are directly from human-caused warming, modelling shows and read: The megadrought in the U.S. West is the worst in 1,200 years, CNN, Feb 14, 2022
Scientists fear soaring methane levels confirm global warming feedback loop has arrived, Common Dreams, Feb 8, 2022
European Commission labels natural gas and nuclear energy as ‘green’, prompting accusations of ‘greenwashing’, Washington Post, Feb 2, 2022 [The European Commission si the executive arm of the European Union.].
Related:
* European Union faces down critics over green investment label for gas and nuclear power, Financial Times, Feb 2, 2022 read the article here in pdf format: EU’s ‘green’ investment labelling
* EU Commission’s taxonomy plan is a ‘licence to greenwash’, statement by Greenpeace Europe, Jan 1, 2022
Record fossil fuel extraction in the U.S., Canada and Norway, despite fervent pledges to reduce emissions, The Energy Mix, Jeb 2, 2022
How the production of chemicals is interfering with nature, calculated in absolute figures, Phys.org, Feb 1, 2022 For the first time, researchers at ETH Zurich have calculated in absolute figures the extent to which the production of chemicals is currently interfering with nature worldwide—and the results are staggering. In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, the new method also takes land use and freshwater consumption into account…
U.S. gov’t to subsidize capping oil and gas wells with $1.15 billion, Courthouse News, Feb 1, 2022
Related: $1billion estimate for cost of orphaned oil and gas well cleanup in Canada ‘leaves out the most expensive part,’ critics say, CBC News, Jan 25, 2022 The parliamentary budget officer has found the cost of cleaning up orphaned oil and gas wells in Alberta and Saskatchewan already dwarfs the money collected from industry to pay for it. But critics immediately called Yves Giroux’s estimated $1 billion by 2025 price tag a massive underestimate [because it leaves out the cost of cleaning up from tar sands extraction in the two provinces]…
Ecology newsroll headlines on A Socialist In Canada, January 2022
Florida orange juice prices could skyrocket due to citurs disease, winter freezes and supply chain blockages, Washington Post, Jan 29, 2022 …Florida is the largest producer of juice oranges in the U.S., at its peak producing 244 million boxes of oranges annually. This year, the USDA predicts that will fall to only 44.5 million. Florida has lost 50 percent of its growers because of consolidation, land development and growers just quitting the business. The primary culprit for what is expected to be such a small crop is something called citrus greening, an incurable disease decimating Florida orange groves, spread by a creepy, lice-like bug. Florida citrus was a $9 billion industry, employing 76,000 workers; now it’s $6.7 billion and 33,000 jobs…
Related: New research in U.S. takes aim at devastating citrus greening, AgriLife Today, Nov 30, 2021 …Since Citrus greening, or Huanglongbing disease, was detected in Florida in 2005, Florida’s citrus production has fallen by 80 per cent. The disease also threatens other citrus producing states…
Four experts from careers in the nuclear industry say nuclear energy as climate solution is ‘fiction’, Common Dreams, Jan 25, 2022 …The statement comes as a direct challenge to a nuclear industry trying to bill itself as a reliable part of the world’s transition to a more sustainable energy system… “The reality is nuclear is neither clean, safe, or smart; but a very complex technology with the potential to cause significant harm.”…
Florida’s waters are choking on fertilizer, dead fish and red tides. Big Ag floats above it all, commentary in Washington Post, Jan 25, 2022 read the commentary here in pdf format: Florida waters
A devil’s current, a hairpin turn: Aboard a tanker in the risky Bosporus Strait that passes through the heart of Istanbul, population 15.5 million, Washington Post, Jan 12, 2022 read the article here in pdf format: Tankers in the Bosporus Strait [This article sheds light on one of the rarely discussed consequences of globalized hyper-capitalism, namely, the danger to narrow waterways and the people who live along them by the massive, global shipping industry that keeps hyper-capitalism operating.]
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs kill more people than AIDS or malaria, reports study published in The Lancet, Deutsche Welle, Jan 20, 2022
China to expand its high-speed railway network by 32 per cent to 50,000 km by 2025, equal to the five next largest country networks, South China Morning Post, Jan 20, 2022
The past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history, new data shows, Washington Post, Jan 13, 2022 …In 2021, global temperatures were between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial average, according to new data from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Berkeley Earth. The year 2021 was roughly tied for sixth-hottest ever observed, scientists say. All of the seven hottest years on record have happened in the last seven years…
Related: NOAA, NASA name 2021 sixth-hottest year on record, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 13, 2022 Each of the the past eight years — 2014 through 2021 — is among the eight warmest years on record for the globe.
Oceans break heat record for third year in a row, Scientific American, Jan 12, 2022 The year 2021 broke the record from 2020 by about 14 zettajoules, or 20 times the world’s annual energy consumption
Related: The oceans are overheating, by Robert Hunziker, CounterPunch, Jan 14, 2022
New documentary film: ‘Cuba’s Life Task: Combating Climate Change’, documentary film, 55 minutes, narrated by Helen Yaffe, premiered on YouTube on January 11, 2022 (with related, recommended readings included at the posting on A Socialist In Canada.)
‘Cuba’s Life Task: Combating Climate Change’ premiered at the ‘COP 26’ international conference on global warming in Glasgow, Scotland on Nov 1, 2021. The film follows narrator Dr. Helen Yaffe (Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History, University of Glasgow) as she investigates ‘Tarea Vida’ (Life Task), Cuba’s long-term state plan to protect the population, environment and economy from global warming.
Cuba shows how to take action on climate change, by Helen Yaffe, Jacobin, Jan 10, 2022
Cuba, a small island besieged by the United States, is taking concrete measures to reorient its economy in the fight against climate change. It’s an example that the whole world should take seriously.
Related: Cuba shows an alternative to Big Pharma hegemony through global solidarity, by Richa Chintan, Newsclick (India), Jan 8, 2022 (and re-published in People’s Dispatch, Jan 10, 2022) Cuba puts people before profits – showing the world an alternative to the monopolistic practices of Big Pharma. It promotes a public health system, state-funded research and shows global solidarity through tech transfer and vaccine delivery to developing countries.
Why Cuba’s extraordinary Covid vaccine success could provide the best hope for low-income countries, CNBC, Jan 13, 2022
Billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, report with charts and maps by National Centers for Environmental Information (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), January 2022
The U.S. has sustained 310 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2021). The total cost of these 310 events exceeds $2.155 trillion. In 2021, there were 20 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect the United States.
Vancouver’s oceanside walkways torn apart in places by winter storm on January 7, by Roger Annis, A Socialist In Canada, Jan 10, 2022
U.S. emissions surged in 2021: Six charts show why, by Ariel Gans, Inside Climate News, Jan 10, 2022 Powered by transportaton and coal, carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. are headed back to pre-pandemic highs after years of small but steady declines.
A critique of degrowth, by David Schwartzman, published in Climate and Capitalism, Jan 5, 2022
[The Climate and Capitalism website has published this new and largely incoherent attack (above) against the ‘degrowth’ strategy for combatting global warming. Among several outlandish claims in the article is this one: “Leading degrowthers advocate a global reduction in energy consumption, which is a prescription for mass death for most of humanity…” The article dismisses the idea that Cuba’s health care system is superior to that of the U.S. And here is the writer’s concluding paragraph: “An ecosocialist [Global Green New Deal] has the potential of facilitating a path to electrified solar communism in the 21st century, the Solarcommunicene. Foster and Clark [two leading writers and editors at Monthly Review] have named the post-Capitalinian (world dominated by capital reproduction) age the Communian.”
[A small but growing number of writers and theoreticians are wrestling with key strategic questions in the fight to combat the global warming emergency. These include Don Fitz (U.S.), Jason Hickel (UK) and Giorgis Kallis (Spain). They are wrestling with such questions as:
* Can the capitalist order be modified to meet the ecological challenge, for example through vast increases in the production of non-fossil fueled energy and a switchover in transportation to ‘green’ modes of transport such as electrics vehicles?
* What are the transitional, incremental measures needed to commence a sweeping reduction in all the productivist expansionism inherent to the capitalist economic order?
* What are the new and novel forms of class alliances and governments needed to carry out sweeping societal changes needed in order to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
Sadly, these vital questions and many more like them continue to be largely ignored in the pages of Climate and Capitalism and its allied sponsor, Monthly Review. Instead, we are offered bizarre puzzles such as the ‘Solarcommunicene’ and the ‘Capitalinian’ as the path to the future.
More than 40 percent of Americans live in counties hit by climate disasters in 2021, Washington Post, Jan 5, 2022 More than four in ten Americans live in a county that was struck by climate-related extreme weather last year, according to a new Washington Post analysis of federal disaster declarations, and more than 80 percent experienced a heat wave… At least 656 people died amid the onslaught of disasters, while the cost of the destruction tops $104 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, even before officials calculate the final toll of wildfires, drought and heat waves in the West…
The Fossil Fuel Production Gap Report, 2021, published jointly by the United Nations Environmental Program and several major environmental research institutions. Press release here
The 2021 Production Gap Report, by leading research institutes and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), finds that despite increased climate ambitions and net-zero commitments, governments still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Find the executive summary and full report (104 pages) at the weblink above.
Previously reported: report in Common Dreams, Oct 20, 2021
Logging in Pacific coastal watersheds are among stressors for flooding disasters and declining salmon populations, experts say, The Canadian Press, Jan 3, 2022 The compounding effects of climate change and logging are contributing to the degradation of Pacific salmon habitat, experts say, adding a reassessment of watershed logging and restoration practices will be key to helping struggling fish populations…
Film ‘Don’t Look Up’ captures the stupidity of our political era, by Branko Marcevic, Jacobin, Jan 2, 2022 (‘Don’t Look Up’ can be viewed on Netflix or in selected theaters)
Cuba embarked on cooperation with China on alternative energy, China Daily, Dec 28, 2021
