THE STATE WE’RE IN :: Capitalism
We can’t escape the fact that we all exist under the all-encompassing system known as Capitalism. Capitalism is about concentrating power in and enriching a tiny minority at the expense of the vast majority. Capitalism involves huge inequalities so that the vast majority of people are denied any opportunity to realise their potential.
The climate crisis – the state we’re in – has developed under Capitalism. Capitalism is concerned only with creating and accumulating private and corporate wealth. Capitalism has no concern for the environment or the climate crisis it has created. Big oil knew fifty years ago that it was destroying the planet and did it regardless. There were groups and projects promoting ‘alternative’, renewable energy in the 1970s.
There is a huge problem that many people cannot even imagine a system other than Capitalism. It is regarded as the natural order because it is so pervasive. Business as usual continues despite the climate crisis because people are so set in their ways/thinking.
There is the further huge problem that we are constrained by Capitalism. Capitalism is creating wealth by destroying the planet through burning fossil fuels. This is the reason for calls for system change.
Real wealth is about having good health, friends and relationships, about leading a good life, caring for others and enjoying a healthy, natural environment.
We should realise that Capitalism is not the natural order and that is is instead permitted, allowed [11.55am tolerated] to destroy the planet.
Likely to be revised.
[11.55am Police helicopter harassing me since I posted this. Policeman in car harassing me yesterday.]
Climate Crisis :: ‘No doubt left’ about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts
The scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming is likely to have passed 99%, according to the lead author of the most authoritative study on the subject, and could rise further after separate research that clears up some of the remaining doubts.
Three studies published in Nature and Nature Geoscience use extensive historical data to show there has never been a period in the last 2,000 years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in recent decades.
It had previously been thought that similarly dramatic peaks and troughs might have occurred in the past, including in periods dubbed the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. But the three studies use reconstructions based on 700 proxy records of temperature change, such as trees, ice and sediment, from all continents that indicate none of these shifts took place in more than half the globe at any one time.
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“This paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate cycle. This paper shows the truly stark difference between regional and localised changes in climate of the past and the truly global effect of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions,” said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London.
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Climate Crisis :: July on course to be hottest month ever, say climate scientists
Record temperatures across much of the world over the past two weeks could make July the hottest month ever measured on Earth, according to climate scientists.
The past fortnight has seen freak heat in the Canadian Arctic, crippling droughts in Chennai and Harare and forest fires that forced thousands of holidaymakers to abandon campsites in southern France and prompted the air force in Indonesia to fly cloud-busting missions in the hope of inducing rain.
If the trends of the first half of this month continue, it will beat the previous record from July 2017 by about 0.025C, according to calculations by Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, and others.
This follows the warmest-ever June, which was confirmed this week by data from the US space agency Nasa, following Europe’s Copernicus satellite monitoring system.
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The scientists stressed that this outcome is uncertain because conditions could change in the second half of the month, but it underscores a broader pattern of steadily rising temperatures caused by increasing emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants, deforestation, cars, planes and other sources.
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