84. CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #84, JULY 18, 2022. It’s stupid to try to keep cool by burning carbon.
Chris Hedges and John Feffer’s dystopian novels.
Garzón Espinosa. Limits of and solutions to Growth.
Dick. Biden’s $1 billion pledge to increase air traffic capacity.
Sullivan. From a War to a Peace Economy.
The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with John Feffer JUL 8, 2022 | ||
Chris Hedges speaks with the author John Feffer about his novels set in a future disrupted by climate chaos. | ||
The Limits to Growth: Ecosocialism or Barbarism
Alberto Garzón Espinosa (July 5, 2022). Mronline.org (7-2-22).
A major deficiency of the growth-obsessed model driving global neoliberal economic policy is its lack of understanding on the Earth System on which it—and indeed, all life on Earth—
relies. | more…
BUSINESS AS USUAL: GROWTH OF WAR/WARMING ECONOMY
7-6-22 The Biden Admin./FAA pledged $1 billion to increase air traffic capacity. Nobody wants to be on the cutting edge of urgently needed change if you are called a spoilsport on Page One and children cry when flights to Disney World end. To the contrary. We cheer Congress for giving the Federal Amusement Agency $1billion dollars to make flying more accessible. Yes, even though flying is a significant source of CO2 surpassing cars, and the Biden Admin. declared the reduction of CO2 one of its goals, it is giving air travel $1 billion a year extra for five years. Paying no attention to the chaos ahead wrought by airplane fossil fuels emissions, disregarding George Monbiot’s cogent case against flying except for necessity and “love flights”( to visit our loved ones), and despite the number of desperate people facing food insecurity around the world having climbed by 150 million since the pandemic began, hitting 828 million, the FAA under the Airport Terminal Program is contributing $13 million to XNA’s infrastructural improvementscosting a total of $40 million. For what? To fund conveniences: a skybridge between the parking deck and the terminal, new elevators and escalators, new baggage carousels, and a lobby facelift. XNA urgently needs these improvements? No, but they “will help meet future demand for travel” (As will the planned new approach highway to the airport.) An XNA spokesperson thanked the Biden Admin. for recognizing the importance of these improvements.
But hush, beware spoilsport sarcasm cruel to children! 7-8-22
(On disastrous growth, read"The Triumph of Death" by Chris Hedges, June 20, 2022).
“Moving from a War Economy to a Peace Economy.” By Mary Beth Sullivan, for mic50.org [Posted on 22 October 2011 by David Swanson. Also pub. with minor variations in The Humanist Jan-Feb 2012. --Dick]“It behooves the peace movement to create a vision that the populace can get excited about – a vision that will capture people’s imagination. A vision that sees skills and talents of our engineers and scientists creating the renewable energy infrastructure that is critical to surviving the 21st Century; a vision that engages peace activists, environmentalists, labor, students, artists, food security folks in creating plans for how we will heat homes, feed people, transport people in the year 2040. This is the true security need for the U.S., and the world.”