CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #115, FEBRUARY 20, 2023
Looking Back to Look Ahead
Dick. Thanks to Mother Jones 2008.
Tom Engelhardt. “Terracide.” 2013.
Zack Roberts. Delaying a Baseball Game. 2022.
Dick Bennett. BUSINESS AS USUAL NOVEMBER 2008: Are We Making Progress?
Looking back helps us measure our gain or loss in the present. Here’s a note I wrote in 2008
I feel heartened by the many initiatives imagined and performed for reducing CO2 and methane reported in our daily newspapers. Locally: “UA Hosts Sustainability Contest for Campus” (The Arkansas Traveler, 11-14-08). Arkansas: “LR Event Stresses Energy Efficiency” (Weatherization Day)(ADG10-31-08). “LM Glasfiber Touts Plant” (wind turbine blade company in LR has 630 employees, 10-29-08). USA: “Winery Sees Clear Benefits in Lighter Bottles” (trimming packaging cuts costs and environmental impact) (ADG 11-1-08). But actually they are distractions from reality.
Unfortunately, the enthusiasm masks massive insufficiency, for many reasons; for example, also in 2008 gigantic enterprises were making $billions from fossil fuels (“Exxon’s $14.83 Billion in Quarter Sets Record,” ADG 10-31-08), and such egregious profits have continued. It’s way past time to be merely indignant, or mournful, but we must say with Mother Jones: organize and make trouble. --Dick
“TERRACIDE AND THE TERRARISTS:
DESTROYING THE PLANET FOR RECORD PROFITS.”
By Tom Engelhardt. TomDispatch, May 23, 2013.
Tom Engelhardt is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear.His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet:The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.
We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide. And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment: ecocide. But we don’t have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the world as humanity had known it until, historically speaking, late last night. A possibility might be “terracide” from the Latin word for earth. It has the right ring, given its similarity to the commonplace danger word of our era: terrorist. . . .
In the case of the terrarists — and here I’m referring in particular to the men who run what may be the most profitable corporations on the planet, giant energy companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell — you’re the one who’s going to pay, especially your children and grandchildren. You can take one thing for granted: not a single terrarist will ever go to jail, and yet they certainly knew what they were doing. MORE https://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/05/23/terracide-destroying-the-planet-for-profit/
Delaying Business as Usual for a Moment: What Would Mother Jones Think?
Zach Roberts. “Climate Protesters Delay Congressional Baseball Game”. DeSmog. Popular Resistance.org (8-7-22). The Congressional Baseball Game is an annual tradition that dates back to 1909. It’s supposed to be a time for both sides of the political system to come together and join in a peaceful nine innings of the national pastime. But this year’s game, held on Thursday, July 28 at the Washington Nationals’ ballpark in Washington, D.C., was less sleepy than the average baseball game. Now or Never, a group of justice, faith, and climate organizations, held a protest in an attempt to disrupt the event and draw attention to the urgent need for large-scale climate action. -more-