Energy, Environment & Global Warming
Climate Change: We Forget We Have Solved Similar Problems Before
Background - A huge stumbling block for the Climate Change community is that we seem to be approaching this great cause as if humans had never solved any problem like this before. Our response is to keep doing what is easy, instead of what will work. It is easy to focus on raising awareness and to put ads on TV showing the problem and mentioning some incremental approaches to the solution, like windmills or solar installations, or hybrid cars. It is easy to marshal our forces to call Senators and Congresspersons, asking them to pass a particular piece of legislation.
Thinking Big Podcast 3: Green Jobs and America's Role in the World
Commonweal Institute Senior Fellow Patrick O'Heffernan interviews Jason Walsh, National Policy Director of Green For All, and Jim Harkness, President of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, about building a global economy that works for the long-term sustainability of our planet. From the new book from the Progressive Ideas Network, Thinking Big: Progressive Ideas for a New Era.
Press play to listen, or click here to download.
The Denial Industry
For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story.
Exxon station in California
Tags: smoking, phillip moris, IPCC, global warming
Notes for a Global Warming Survival Guide
Is it too early to begin talking about how to survive the collapse of civilization? If the more pessimistic predictions about global warming are to be believed — and there is reason to believe them — within a decade or two the trend may become irreversible, leading to an accelerating global environmental catastrophe and, as a possible consequence, the breakdown of many of the social and economic systems that much of the world has come to take for granted.
Global Warming: Be Part of the Solution
Despite the ongoing campaign to discredit the science of global warming, a recent TIME/ ABC News/ Stanford University poll reports some encouraging, if surprising, news about American attitudes toward the problem. According to the survey, 85% of Americans now believe that global warming is underway and 80% believe that human activity is contributing to the problem — although two-thirds still think, incorrectly, that there is significant scientific disagreement on the issue (this is one baneful result of the Right's disinformation campaign).
Paradise Warming
With every passing month, it gets harder to see the United States's refusal to address the problem of global warming as anything other than craven prostitution to the fossil fuel industry, a betrayal of future generations, and a suicidal commitment to the status quo. The most recent affront came at last month's international talks on climate change in Montreal. Shortly after midnight on December 9, as delegates were hashing out ideas on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. -- joined by China, the world's other largest polluter -- threatened to pick up its toys and go home.
Lessons from the Right: Saving the Soul of the Environmental Movement
The environmental movement, alongside the larger progressive network, has failed to recognize the incredibly effective strategies that have allowed the Right to take over the political systems of the country. Jeni Krencicki and Dahvi Wilson identified ten lessons that environmentalists and progressives more broadly must master in order to elevate their cause to a position equal to that of the Right.
Read the report.
Taking Us Backward: The Energy Act of 2003
By now, the importance of energy legislation must be obvious, especially to those who experienced the August blackout or lost revenue because of it, not to mention the millions who are paying nearly $2 for a gallon of gas and looking ahead anxiously to the winter's heating bills.
In the coming weeks, Congress will finally finish work on the sprawling Energy Act of 2003, which will determine how much you and I pay for energy in the short term, and what direction we pursue in the long term toward a more self-reliant and sustainable energy future.
On the Precautionary Principle
Where medical knowledge goes, perhaps environmental policy should follow. Over the past half century, as we know, modern medicine has increasingly emphasized a proactive, preventive approach to bodily affliction. Better to cut cholesterol, the thinking goes, than to call the heart surgeon. The same thinking underlies a recent concept in ecology called the “precautionary principle,” which aims at identifying environmental risks and implementing policies that will head off environmental damage before it occurs.
