Environment featured

California Wildfires Signal the Arrival of a Planetary Fire Age

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Another autumn, more fires, more refugees and incinerated homes. For California, flames have become the colors of fall.

Free-burning fire is the proximate provocation for the havoc, since its ember storms are engulfing landscapes. But in the hands of humans, combustion is also the deeper cause. Modern societies are burning lithic landscapes – once-living biomass now fossilized into coal, gas and oil – which is aggravating the burning of living landscapes.

Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

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So I present an unpopular but fact-based argument in the form of two “Am I wrong?” queries. If you accept my facts, you will see the massive challenge we face in transforming human assumptions and ways of living on Earth.

I welcome being told what crucial facts I might be missing. Even a realist — perhaps especially a realist in present circumstances — occasionally wants to be proved incorrect.

Of warnings and their ripple effects

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The problem with this warning, and perhaps also why it is shedding supporters, is that it says all the right things but feels like it is speaking to an empty room. It has all been said before. I confess I have the same issue with street protests. At some point, you have to put down the placard and actually do something about the situation.

Corporate Climate Commitments: Who Should Lead Climate Action?

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There are more possibilities than a marginally less-bad business-as-usual future.  Effectively and justly achieving deep emissions cuts requires fundamentally changing the system, not merely modifying it or slapping its beneficiaries’ wrists.  Real change requires state programs and regulations as well as trying out new forms of ownership and governance.

When Wildfires Sweep through California, Who Gets Left Behind?

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The wildfire crisis, one that is expected to get worse in the Golden State in the coming years as the full effects of climate change kick in, illuminates a glaring disparity. When fires rip through a community, its most vulnerable members — the old and sick, domestic workers, construction workers, and incarcerated folks — get left behind.

What is ‘Ecological Economics’ and Why Do We Need to Talk About it?

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As environmental crises and the urgency to create ecological sustainability escalate, so does the importance of ecological economics. This applied, solutions-based field of studies is concerned with sustainability and development, rather than efficiency and growth.

With XR Disrupting London’s Streets

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And what I say to those who choose to criticise XR is please by all means criticise us, and come up swiftly and proactively with something better we can do to meet the challenges of imminent climate catastrophe and ecological disaster. I would be the first to be behind you. But if you cannot then I would think very carefully about what you are going to say to the present generation, Greta’s generation, today’s children and grandchildren when they ask, ‘What did you do when we had our last chance to avoid catastrophe?’  Think very hard about that question.

A ‘Council for the Future’ Could Break Australia’s Climate Paralysis

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Like most people, I hoped climate policy would improve, but years of infighting and adversarial politics have resulted in a dearth of climate action, where cooperation might well have yielded positive results.

One solution to this frustrating deadlock is to place the responsibility for climate policy at arm’s length from political actors. We need a Council for the Future, tasked with the long-term thinking that eludes so many of our elected representatives.

Ordinary Life has Vanished in Fire-Ravaged California

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California is the fifth-largest economy in the world and likes to shout about its genius at innovation, but it is a victim of its lack of energy innovation. It’s a climate disaster zone, with the new reality of hotter, dryer conditions made far worse by the outdated power grid and corrupt private corporation in charge of distributing gas and electricity.

The Flawed Social Science Behind Extinction Rebellion’s Change Strategy

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Given that XR’s recent Autumn action did not produce the same level of success and change as the previous actions, we now have fairly clear empirical evidence that XR’s present strategy may be reaching its ‘peak’. If it is to continue to scale as a movement, this needs to be confronted head-on. XR now has the opportunity to review and enhance its strategy, and I offer this critical appraisal in that spirit as a humble contribution to augment such efforts.

What is Greta Doing Next?

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Greta Thunberg’s tour of North America continues this week with a visit to Los Angeles to participate in the Youth Climate Los Angeles event at City Hall on Friday, Nov. 1. If you’re wondering why her attention has come to California, which has an image as being one of the most progressive and greenest states in the US, you might be surprised to learn that Los Angeles actually has the largest urban oil field in the nation.