Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Life actively contributed to the creation and maintenance of conditions on Earth that are favourable for higher organisms. In the words of Janine Benyus, the founder of the Biomimcry Institute: “Life creates conditions conducive to life.” Over the course of the last forty years James Lovelock’s hypothesis has matured into a new field of scientific investigation that is referred to as Gaia theory or Earth Systems Science.
There is no carbon budget left for 1.5°C climate warming target, which means that to achieve this outcome every tonne of emissions must be matched by a tonne of drawdown of atmospheric carbon from now on. For that reason, carbon budgets and emissions target should be complemented by a carbon drawdown budget and target.
In short, the biggest inhibitor to effective action in the face of the current convergence of crises is a fundamental lack of collective intelligence on the part of the human species as a whole.
The last time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were this high, millions of years ago, the planet was very different. For one, humans didn’t exist. On Wednesday, scientists at the University of California in San Diego confirmed that April’s monthly average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration breached 410 parts per million for the first time in our history.
But I always fall back to one question: how do we compel our fellow citizens and politicians to vote/protest/embrace these critical systemic changes if we don’t appear to be taking the issue seriously enough to make the radical changes we’re preaching?
Plan C is a concerted effort to encourage and support the use of ballot measures allowing voters to have a direct say in the climate-related laws and policies of their states. Ballot initiatives are as close to a pure democratic practice as one is likely to find.
Identifying where our campaigning aims overlap through a fossil fuel lens will enable us to expel the industry on a grand scale, and in turn enable us to transform our city on an equally grand scale- fairly, cleanly, and democratically.
What the Keeling Curve shows, then, are two separate but connected rifts in Earth’s metabolism. First, an increase in total CO2 that breaks with at least 800,000 years of history. Second, increased CO2 is changing the way that plants absorb and emit CO2, and that in turn is altering a seasonal cycle that has likely been unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.
Environmentalists weren’t able to block the confirmation of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator based on his horrendous record of climate change denial and plundering natural resources. But Pruitt’s growing corruption scandal has given them new hope.
I have been writing a lot lately about the rising number and variety of environmental lawsuits being filed in state and federal courts. The hundreds of active climate-related cases exhibit a wide range of purpose.
When Marx was writing, the science of metabolic cycles was in its infancy: an enormous amount has been learned since then, especially in recent decades. To be true to Marx’s method, ecosocialists must, as he did, base our understanding of nature on the best contemporary scientific work.
The record-breaking marine heatwave in 2016 across the Great Barrier Reef has left much of the coral ecosystem at an “unprecedented” risk of collapse, research shows. A new study published in Nature finds that the surge in sea temperatures during the 2016 bleaching event led to an immediate and long-lasting die-off of coral.
