Yearly Archives: 2024

Jewish US Army Major Explains Why He Resigned Over Gaza

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Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Harrison Mann, a Jewish U.S. Army major who resigned from the Defense Intelligence Agency over U.S. support for Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, appeared on Mehdi Hasan’s show on June 5, 2024.  (Photo: Zeteo/screenshot)

“I knew that as long as I stayed, I’d be contributing to this campaign that had already demonstrated basically it was going to be indiscriminately killing civilians at an industrial scale,” said Harrison Mann.

After Harrison Mann’s resignation from the U.S. military was finalized on Monday, the Jewish U.S. Army major who worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency gave a pair of interviews this week explaining his decision to resign over American support for Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

“We saw, even from the first days of the Israeli air campaign, willingness to inflict very high civilian casualties,” Mann toldCBS News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod in a conversation that aired Tuesday.

Even before the Hamas-led October 7 attack prompted the ongoing Israeli bombardment, ground assault, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance deliveries into Gaza, the United States gave Israel billions of dollars in annual military aid. U.S. weapons and diplomatic support for the Middle East ally has increased over the past eight months, as the death toll has topped 36,500.

Journalists and human rights groups have documented Israel’s use of U.S. arms to kill and injure civilians in Gaza. Asked by Axelrod whether Israeli forces were intentionally doing so, the Mann responded, “I don’t know how you kill 35,000 civilians by accident.”

During Mann’s first televised interview, Axelrod also asked, “You felt your work was directly connected to starving children?”

The 13-year Army veteran simply said, “Yes.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, said in an interview this week that he doesn’t think Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war, contradicting conclusions by global human rights organizations and the International Criminal Court.

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action CEO Jamie Beran, whose group has historically stayed out of the decadeslong Israel-Palestine conflict, wrote in a Tuesday letter to Biden that “we, as American Jews, are sounding an alarm: U.S. support for continued violence in Gaza is putting American safety and U.S. democracy in danger.”

In his CBS appearance, Mann read from his resignation letter, in which he notes his experience as a Jewish person, writing that “as the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing—my grandfather refused to ever purchase products manufactured in Germany—where the paramount importance of ‘never again’ and the inadequacy of ‘just following orders’ were oft repeated.”

Mann addressed his decision to make his letter public on LinkedIn last month after distributing it internally at DIA on April 16. He cited the Biden administration’s May report—which critics called a “Friday news dump”—about Israeli assurances regarding the use of U.S. weapons in Gaza and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

That administration’s report states that although “it is reasonable to assess” that Israeli forces used U.S. arms in Gaza in manners inconsistent with their international law obligations and expresses “deep concerns” about Israel’s action and inaction on humanitarian aid, American support for the Israeli war effort can continue.

Mann also appeared Wednesday on Mehdi Hasan’s new show for Zeteo, the media platform that the journalist launched following the cancellation of his program at MSNBC after he aired content critical of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

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https://zeteo.com/p/jewish-american-soldier-quits-biden

Jewish-American Soldier Quits Biden Administration Over Gaza: “I Feel it’s Appropriate to Invoke ‘Never Again’”

Mehdi speaks to newly-resigned Major Harrison Mann. Plus: the forgotten genocide in Sudan.

While Joe Biden struggles to draw a red line for Israel in its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a handful of principled officials within the administration are making their red lines very clear. This week on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’, Mehdi dives into the ]

Mann told Hasan that he started his resignation process in November but revealed why in April, saying that “the war in Gaza and our role in it and my contribution to that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and the reason I ultimately understood I could not do this work anymore.”

By November, “I knew that as long as I stayed, I’d be contributing to this campaign that had already demonstrated basically it was going to be indiscriminately killing civilians at an industrial scale,” Mann said. He added that it was clear that the U.S. would continue to provide Israel with “unwavering” support.

Others who have quit their jobs over U.S. government support for the Israeli war include Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant in the Department of the Interior and the first Jewish political appointee to resign in protest; Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American who worked as a policy adviser in the Education Department; and Stacy Gilbert, Josh Paul, Hala Rharrit, and Annelle Sheline, who all left the State Department.

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Rate of Global Warming Reaches All-Time High, Report Shows

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Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Firefighters set a backfire to protect homes during a wildfire in California in September 2020.  (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

“The devastation wrought by wildfires, drought, flooding, and heatwaves the world saw in 2023 must not become the new normal,” the report’s author said.

Climate scientists published a report Wednesday showing that the rate of global warming reached an all-time high in the 10 years up to and including 2023 and that the record-breaking heat of last year was primarily due to that human-caused heating rather than other factors such as El Niño.

The scientists found that from 2014 to 2023, the Earth warmed 0.26°C—higher than any previous 10-year period. The report, published in Earth System Science Data, was completed by 57 scientists who used the methods of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which produces major reports only every five to 10 years, with the next one expected in 2027. The report authors sought to fill the gap and, at least in one case, to galvanize climate action.

“Rapidly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases towards net zero will limit the level of global warming we ultimately experience. At the same time, we need to build more resilient societies,” lead author Piers Forster, a climate physicist at the University of Leeds in the U.K. and an IPCC author, said in a statement. “The devastation wrought by wildfires, drought, flooding, and heatwaves the world saw in 2023 must not become the new normal.”

Over the course of 2023, temperatures were on average 1.43°C above preindustrial levels, Forster and co-authors found, with an estimated 1.31°C of that due to human-caused global warming, and the relatively small remainder due to variability from events such as El Niño and La Niña.

The report also shows that the Earth’s remaining “carbon budget”—how much can be emitted before reaching 1.5°C of warming, the Paris agreement target—is now roughly 200 gigatonnes, which will take only five years or so for the global population to use. This is down from the 500 gigatonnes that the IPCC estimated remained in the budget as of 2020.

Adam Vaughan, environment editor at The Times, a U.K. newspaper, drew attention to the short time period in which humanity has to act, writing on social media that the 1.5°C target could be “blown” if emissions didn’t go down.

In a guest post in Carbon Brief, Forster and another co-author explained that their report was “nothing short of alarming, yet it does contain some encouraging news.”

“Greenhouse gas emissions have not yet risen beyond pre-pandemic levels and there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the past decade has slowed compared to the 2000s,” they said.

Forster, who also led the annual report in its first iteration last year, spoke to reporters in such a way as to avoid doomsday rhetoric.

“If you look at this world accelerating or going through a big tipping point, things aren’t doing that,” he told TheAssociated Press. “Things are increasing in temperature and getting worse in sort of exactly the way we predicted.”

However, the climate news remains dire: Researchers working with even more up-to-date data—through May—have found that the average temperature increase above preindustrial levels is now 1.6°C, and each of the last 12 months has been the hottest on record for that month. Those findings are from data released by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and reported by The Washington Post.

Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingRate of Global Warming Reaches All-Time High, Report Shows

Green Party responds to UN Secretary General’s climate speech

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Ellie Chowns, Green Party parliamentary candidate for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Ellie Chowns, Green Party parliamentary candidate for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.

Responding to UN Secretary General António Guterres speech, Green Party parliamentary candidate for North Herefordshire, Ellie Chowns, said:

“The UN Secretary-General has reiterated today that the climate crisis is here and it’s hitting us hard. He made clear that if we are to have a liveable future we need to act with extreme urgency.

“Yet the Conservatives are in denial, being reckless with our future, pushing to extract more fossil fuels. And Labour are tinkering at the margins, ditching their green investment plan and will leave the UK limping towards its climate targets.

“Only the Green Party is offering real hope and real change when it comes to the climate crisis.

“Green MPs will push the next government to stop all new fossil fuel extraction projects, cancel recently issued fossil fuel licences, including Rosebank, one of the largest undeveloped oil and gas fields in the UK.

“They will also press for significant investment in the green economic transformation – something that will be good not just for our environment, but also the economy, creating thousands of new jobs. This investment makes good economic sense as the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of climate action.  

“This is an emergency. We don’t have long to act. Only the Green Party are offering the policies for a fairer greener country.”

Continue ReadingGreen Party responds to UN Secretary General’s climate speech

Is Carbon Capture Just Climate Delusion?

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Original article by BASAV SEN | JIM WALSH republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Officials pose with shovels for a photo opportunity for the groundbreaking ceremony for Oxys Direct Air Capture facility called Stratos in West Texas on Friday, April 28, 2023.  (Photo: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Direct air capture and similar technologies come with glossy brochures and lofty promises but we must not be fooled. They are a distraction and a scam orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry.

A newly opened facility in Iceland that will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been heralded as a hopeful turning point in the urgent fight to stop climate catastrophe. In reality, it is further evidence of a new type of techno-optimism that is not quite old-fashioned climate denial, but something you might call climate delusion.

On its face, the technology known as direct air capture (DAC) seems like a plausible, painless solution to the climate crisis: Giant machines pull greenhouse gasses out of the air, and they are either injected underground or integrated into consumer products.

For years, we have been hearing that a massive breakthrough is just around the corner. The clamor grew much louder when the Climeworks facility in Iceland came online. It is the world’s largest DAC facility—and yet is designed to capture just 36,000 tons of CO2 annually—which is, for the sake of comparison, just one percent of the pollution generated by a single coal power plant. There are much larger DAC plans in the works: Occidental Petroleum is part of a group building a facility in Texas that they claim will capture 500,000 tons of CO2 per year.

Handing out free money to polluters is not only broadly unpopular, it is also terrible public policy. Congress must stop the public funding and support for these climate scams.

And while that theoretical capability sounds impressive, it is still less than 0.01 percent of annual U.S. carbon emissions. And these projections become even less impressive when we consider the track record of carbon removal so far. Another recent Occidental project, the Century carbon capture facility, failed to capture more than a third of its capacity before they liquidated this asset.

There is another more fundamental problem with most of these carbon removal technologies: When the captured carbon is used to squeeze out oil from existing wells (a process known as enhanced oil recovery), is it of any climate benefit at all? There is no doubt that Occidental sees direct air capture as a tool to help it continue extracting fossil fuels; when they are touting ‘net zero oil,’ one cannot escape the conclusion that the goal is to greenwash oil extraction as a climate solution.

Breaking ground on the world’s largest DAC facility

www.youtube.com

To hear proponents of DAC explain it, science tells us this technology is a necessity at this stage in the race to stop climate catastrophe. This is misleading; there is a wide range of modeled pathways for slowing down the rate of global temperature increase, and they do not all rely on carbon removal that have not been shown to work.

Even if DAC was shown to be effective, its costs are astronomical. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the cost range of early-stage DAC plants is $600-$1,000/ton of carbon dioxide; and operating DAC at a meaningful scale would consume an estimated one-sixth of the world’s energy output.

By promoting the adoption of technologies they insist will eventually work as advertised, fossil fuel giants can delay the transition away from fossil fuels.

Instead of viewing techno fixes like DAC as a necessity, many in the scientific community warn that reliance on DAC is a risky move that could “obstruct near-term emissions reduction efforts.” This is exactly what makes DAC and carbon capture so appealing to major polluters: By promoting the adoption of technologies they insist will eventually work as advertised, fossil fuel giants can delay the transition away from fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, U.S. taxpayers are funding these false climate solutions; billions of dollars in subsidies are available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and similarly lucrative corporate tax credits are a major part of the Inflation Reduction Act. There is ample evidence that this is a poor investment. A 2020 Treasury Department Inspector General investigation found that nearly 90 percent of tax credits claimed for carbon capture operations were done so with no accompanying verification that any carbon was actually being captured.

Instead of taking corrective action, Congress massively expanded these tax credits, making this scam even more lucrative than before. To make matters worse, the IRS will not release information about which companies are benefiting from this billion dollar taxpayer-funded boondoggle.Handing out free money to polluters is not only broadly unpopular, it is also terrible public policy. Congress must stop the public funding and support for these climate scams. Continuing to encourage the expansion of direct air capture will waste precious money and time and perpetuate further harms on communities most affected by fossil fuel pollution.

Original article by BASAV SEN | JIM WALSH republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

UN Chief Calls for Global Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising

‘Dystopian’: UAE Used Global Climate Summit to Push $100 Billion in New Oil Deals

Climate Groups Call for Rich to Pay More as International Meetings Begin

Continue ReadingIs Carbon Capture Just Climate Delusion?

‘Dystopian’: UAE Used Global Climate Summit to Push $100 Billion in New Oil Deals

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

United Arab Emirates’ minister of industry and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, speaks at an event in Houston on March 6, 2023.  (Photo: Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images)

“Make no mistake, COP28 was hijacked by the interests of the fossil fuel industry,” said one campaigner.

A new analysis released by human rights and anti-corruption group Global Witness on Wednesday left no room for doubt, said one campaigner, that the host country of last year’s United Nations climate summit, the United Arab Emirates, prioritized fossil fuel interests over the planet.

“Make no mistake, COP28 was hijacked by the interests of the fossil fuel industry,” said Patrick Galey, senior investigator for Global Witness, referring to the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The analysis showed that the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) used the COP28 presidency of its CEO, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, to seek deals worth nearly $100 billion with oil, gas, and petrochemical companies in at least 12 countries.

Fossil fuel firms, said Galey, “weren’t content simply to block or stall genuine climate policy but used the opportunity to pursue more climate-wrecking oil and gas deals.”

Al Jaber previously denied that ADNOC used COP28 to further its business interests after a leak of briefing documents that instructed the company to discuss fossil fuel deals with at least 16 states that were present at the talks.

According to Global Witness, the company sought deals with at least 11 of those countries and at least one other that had not been included in the leaked documents.

The group’s investigation found that the UAE redoubled its investment in oil and gas in Egypt in 2023, the year Al Jaber presided over COP28. ADNOC finalized a deal with TotalEnergies Marketing Egypt, purchasing a 50% stake in the company for a reported $200 million—resulting in the UAE now jointly operating 240 service stations across the country and contributing to its record profits posted in 2023.

Other deals sought by ADNOC with COP28 participants include a joint venture with BP to buy a 50% stake in NewMed Energy in Israel and multiple bids for a stake in Braskem, the largest petrochemical producer in Latin America. The company is part-owned by Brazil’s state-run oil and gas producer Petrobas.

ADNOC also finalized deals worth an estimated $17 billion with Lukoil in Russia and Wintershall in Germany to develop the Hail and Ghasha gas field in the UAE.

Global Witness’ findings bolstered a report by the Center for Climate Reporting and the BBC in November, which showed Al Jaber used his position at COP28 to push for fossil fuel deals with foreign governments.

The report confirms the worst fears of climate campaigners, who were incensed in early 2023 when Al Jaber was named the president of the U.N.’s largest annual climate conference and warned of conflicts of interest due to his position at the helm of ADNOC.

As it turns out, said Galey, “the UAE knew exactly what it was doing and was not let down—COP28 seems to have been molded towards the benefit of its state oil company.”

“As depressing as it is dystopian, climate talks must never be allowed to create more climate chaos,” he added.

The analysis was released weeks after U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) led 24 Democratic lawmakers in writing to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House Senior Advisor John Podesta, urging them to support conflict of interest guidelines ahead of COP29, which is scheduled to take place in November in Baku, Azerbaijan.

With Mukhtar Babayev, the country’s ecology and natural resources minister who worked for a state-owned oil and gas company for more than 20 years, set to preside over the conference, Galey said that “COP28 seems to have provided other petrostates with a sinister playbook to copy and paste from.”

“As the UAE passes the baton onto Azerbaijan, we are now looking at the possibility of consecutive COPs being hijacked for the interests of big polluters and their profits,” said Galey, noting that scientists have warned the planet is “dangerously close” to heating that exceeds 1.5°C.

Global Witness pointed to recently announced plans to partially privatize the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) ahead of COP29, “with its downstream and petrochemical subsidiaries made available to help attract foreign investments.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who signed the letter spearheaded by Merkley and Schakowsky, said Global Witness’ report “is a disturbing warning about the potential for further fossil fuel corruption at COP29, which incredibly will also be hosted by another fossil fuel executive.”

“I will continue urging the U.S. and UNFCCC to adopt new policies to prevent these absurd conflicts of interest that frustrate the international community’s work to address the urgent threats of climate change,” she said.

Global Witness reached out to ADNOC, SOCAR, and COP29 for comment regarding its investigation, and was told that ADNOC is working to “secure, reliable, and responsible supply of energy to support a just, orderly, and equitable global energy transition and that allegations regarding Al Jaber’s deal-making at COP28 are “false, not true, incorrect, and not accurate.”

A COP29 spokesperson said Azerbaijan is “100% committed to bringing countries together with the ambition of keeping the 1.5° target within reach.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), said in a statement Wednesday that Babayev should be removed “from any leadership role at COP29.”

“It is an absolute scandal that the UNFCCC has two years running put an oil and gas executive in charge of this event,” she said, “thus putting foxes in charge of the henhouse.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Dystopian’: UAE Used Global Climate Summit to Push $100 Billion in New Oil Deals