OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #201, OCTOBER 21, 2024. Compiled by Dick Bennett
Sueellen
Campbell. Where Do the Candidates Stand
on CC?
Nicholas Kusnetz. Vote to save the Inflation Reduction Act.
Book: Carton and Malm. Overshoot (the 1.5 limit).
Greenpeace. Amassive
drawdown in fossil fuel production and usage is urgently needed.
New Books from Climate and Capitalism.
These
articles will get you up to speed as you prepare to cast your vote in U.S. elections
for president, Senate, House, and other races.
“Election Throws Uncertainty Onto
Biden’s Signature Climate Law” By
Nicholas Kusnetz.
Inside Climate News.
President Joe Biden’s signature
climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed Congress by the narrowest of
margins, without a single Republican in favor. GOP leaders have attacked the
bill and promised to repeal it. Read the full story
Inside Climate News is covering what’s at stake for the
climate throughout this election season. Sign up.
The
following article by Wim Carton and Andreas Malm is drawn from their book, Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate
Breakdown. 2024.
“Overshoot-and-return: A dangerous climate change
illusion.” Climate and Capitalism (October 14, 2024).
“BURY THE FANTASY!
HOW MAINSTREAM CLIMATE SCIENCE ENDORSED THE FANTASY OF A GLOBAL WARMING
TIME MACHINE.”
Once the
1.5°C limit is passed, there will be no going back. . . . MORE
click on title.
Here is the conclusion:
By conjuring up the fantasy of overshoot-and-return, scientists invented a
mechanism for delaying climate action and unwittingly lent
credibility to those (and they are many) who have no real interest in reigning
in emissions here and now; who will seize on any excuse to keep the oil and gas
and coal flowing just a little longer.
The findings of this
new paper make it perfectly clear: There is no time machine
waiting in the wings. Once 1.5°C lies behind us, we must consider that
threshold permanently broken. There then
remains only one road to ambitious mitigation of climate change, and no amount
of carbon dioxide removal can absolve us of its inconvenient political
implications. Avoiding climate breakdown
demands that we bury the fantasy of overshoot-and-return and with it another
illusion as well: that the Paris targets can be met without uprooting the status-quo.
One limit after the other will be broken unless we manage to strand fossil fuel
assets and curtail opportunities for continuing to profit from oil and gas and
coal.
We will not mitigate climate change without confronting and
defeating fossil fuel interests. We should expect climate scientists to be
candid about this.
This article is republished from The
Conversation under a Creative Commons
license. Read the original article.
|
Dick, Did you see my email about our upcoming livestream? [This
livestreaming has passed, but its announcement speaks loudly alongside
Carton and Malm.]
From: Destiny,
Greenpeace USA, “Permit to Kill — A Live Conversation.”
Destiny:
Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Milton. Devastating and destructive flooding in
Nepal. Our reality is bleak but certain
— the world is currently embroiled in climate chaos. While there is no avoiding
climate change, the scientific community has been nothing but clear: a massive drawdown in fossil fuel production and
usage is bold, drastic, and necessary to stem the worst impacts of
climate disasters.
Amid
this climate chaos, the U.S. Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) industry is attempting
to scale up at a troublingly fast pace. The recent report Permit to
Kill1, a collaborative research effort of
Greenpeace USA and Sierra Club, explores the public health impacts and
implications of LNG expansion for communities in close proximity and beyond.
New Books from Sept. and Oct. Climate and Capitalism
Andrew Greenfield. LIFEHOUSE: Taking Care of
Ourselves in a World on Fire. Verso.
Drawing lessons Black Panther survival programs, the Occupy Sandy
disaster-relief effort and solidarity networks of crisis-era Greece, as well as
autonomous Rojava, Greenfield argues that mutual care and local power
can help shelter us in a time of global catastrophes.
On Barak. HEAT,
A HISTORY: Lessons from the Middle East for a Warming Planet.
University of California P.
Despite record-breaking temperatures, most people fail to fully grasp the
gravity of global heating. Using examples from the hottest places on earth,
Barak shows how we have become desensitized, and charts a way out of short-term
thinking, towards meaningful action.
Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer. BUILDING THE CRITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF CLIMATE CHANGE: Towards a Socio-Ecological Revolution. Routledge.
Baer and Singer open a dialog with contending perspectives in the anthropology
of climate change, including the perspectives of elite polluters and the
all-too-often regrettable contributions of anthropologists and other scholars.
They aim to lay the foundation for a brave new sustainable world that is
socially just, highly democratic, and climatically safe for humans and other
species.
Olivier de Schutter. THE POVERTY OF GROWTH. Pluto Press
The quest for growth not only undermines planetary sustainability, it erodes
human rights, widens inequality, and modernizes poverty without eliminating it.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights calls
for a new path in which progress is no longer focused on wealth and profit.
Arturo Casadevall. WHAT IF FUNGI WIN? John Hopkins UP.
While pharmaceutical researchers focus on
bacteria and viruses, fungal pathogens may produce the next global outbreaks,
pandemics for which no vaccine and few medications exist. Global warming
is forcing fungi to evolve, and in the process making them more dangerous to
bats, amphibians, and food crops — and to immunocompromised humans.
[People
ask me: what can I do, I’m just one
person? The preceded short reports and
of course the books contain dozens of needed actions. And try to do them with another person. Time, the most precious commodity in a
warming world, hurries on.]
END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #201,
OCTOBER 21, 2024. Compiled by Dick
Bennett