Avaaz.org has just launched a new international campaign called "Climate Wake Up Call" and it features a TV ad that will airing this month in key world capitals.

The ad shows major world leaders sleeping through our impending climate crisis and urges people around the world to "wake them up". You can watch the ad here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action/

As part of the campaign we are also asking people around the world to sign a petition demanding world leaders get to work on negotiating post-2012 Kyoto arrangement ASAP. The TV ad and petition are the beginning of a campaign to pressure G8 leaders to make tackling climate change the top of their agenda at their June summit.

Something I have been pushing for some time now. Nice to get some confirmation from an informed and influential journalist: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807G.shtml Down with the rich. Place limits on wealth accumulation. Save the environment. Help the poor. Before its too late.

Dust From One African Valley Feeds Brazilian Rainforest

REHOVOT, Israel, January 3, 2007 (ENS) - Much of the dust needed for fertilizing the entire Brazilian rainforest originates in a single valley in the African country of Chad and travels thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, newly published research shows.

Based on satellite data, the study was conducted by an international research team headed by Dr. Ilan Koren of the Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot........................

That is just in case anyone thinks that climate and everything else, including the economy is not interrelated.

Simms, Who wrote THE HUMAN RACE IS LIVING BEYOND IT´S MEANS for THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER IN LONDON, OCT. 6, 2006, SAID..................

It is shockingle easy for politicians, economists, and planners to forget that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.   

According to CNN, Bush is going to go to Congress to ask for a "bipartisan" (meaning "My way or the Highway") approach to spending or he will veto anything that he doesn't like. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/03/bush/index.html According to the article he will submit a budget that balances by 2012 and will ask for priority spending during that time on the "War on Terror". He wants to find ways to drastically reduce Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The article did not mention environmental issues at all, but you can guess. He is also asking for Line Item Veto power....good luck to him on that. He wants to "spend the people's money wisely".... ;-) Excuse me while I throw up....

Biodiversity suffers when the planet's biocapacity cannot keep pace with human consumption and waste generation

The Ecological Footprint  tracks this in terms of the area of biologically productive land and water needed to provide ecological resources and services – food, fibre, and timber, land on which to build, and land to absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) released by burning fossil fuels.

The Earth's biocapacity is the amount of biologically productive area – cropland, pasture, forest, and fisheries – that is available to meet humanity's needs.

Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot  – the Ecological Footprint has exceeded the Earth's biocapacity – as of 2003 by about 25%.

Effectively, the Earth's regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.

Humanity is no longer living off nature's interest, but drawing down its capital.

This growing pressure on ecosystems is causing habitat destruction or degradation and permanent loss of productivity, threatening both biodiversity and human well-being.

READ IT AND WEEP!!!!!

didnt see the movie, I'll download the damn thing..

Paul -

Your works and courage are leading to a social and economic Revolution in America that I hope for the sake of my kids will be peaceful.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

Gore spelled it out. Everyone, worldwide should see his movie based on hard science.  We are in a global Crisis. Corporate America won't act and our government is corrupt. 

Two articles appeared in the Jan07 issue of Harpers that are relevant to the social and economic changes/disasters that will take place, unless we take back our government. I for one believe it's too late. 

Chalmers Johnson's "Republic or Empire" lays out why the US Government is headed for bankruptcy. Essentially "Military Keynesianism" has financially destroyed America. As an example -Between 1940 and 1996 we blew $4.5Trillion on 32,000 Nuclear Weapons we hopefully will never use. FYI our current national debt is $8.6Trillion and growing. He lays it out in a very well written article. I've been studying numerous issues that have caused the problem for several years and I believe he is on the money. David Walker, Comptroller General of the US is telling a similar story -without the blame - and no one is listening. Your drum beating is on the money. He sounds like you.

David Graeber "Army of Altruists" argues that most Americans are in fact and practice -Noble. Very thought provoking article that raises issues I frankly never thought about, although he does discuss how human nature can lead one to act altruistically. The left simply does not understand Joe Q Public - any he lays out why and how the left lost the "working class".  Fascinating Article.

Keep up the good work. Your beliefs and writings are noble.

Less and less filters between pure shit, and whatever we eat.

The only ( common ) way to afford food with less shit-value and other seriously degrading deficiencies is to parttake in reducing the value of the food-pool. Toxins and exterminations and deforestations and all the gamoot. They ( we ) actually reward decimations and allow the worst polluters, pillagers and poisoners, ( costefficiencypoisoning as well as addictivitypoisoning ) to live amongst us like they were mere pedophiles or killers in affect !

Reducing the filters between the excrement ( including toxic ), and the human society is a dangerous gamble. One should beware that the harvest raped from such killing fields remains a blooded beast with a craving for controll over more life and a certain paranoia that can lead tp persecutions of indigenous for resources and those in diaspora just for making a show for the rest of the humans. Both those afraid for their privilege, and those believing their bare subsistence and their new plastic toy is a privilege and not a basic right.

Apart from the plasic hell of wrappings and their peddler-mermerisms I have come somehow clean by leaving the evil ways of the monotheistic lands and have settled in India. This country that still holds the echo of religion as our ancient common stories. Not as monotheistic nightmares of warlike fathergods and and female slavery.

Hi Ron,

Potential catastrophic ecological issues have been around for many, many years as I am sure we all are aware. And they continue to worsen, as noted.

I continue to wonder: what are we doing individually to contribute to the SOLUTIONS that are out there?

Aside from the evident madness that is more and more evident, it should never stymie our efforts. How many of us are actively using alternatives in: transportation, energy, food sources, sustainables? There are untold things that everyone can do to participate.

Far too often, (in the media's doom and gloom depictions) the criticism(s) overwhelm solutions. I am and have been aware for many, many years of "solutions" that contribute to the global crises that are currently upon us. Regardless of the cost to me, I make the effort as best I can to do my part. Commuting to work is one example....by bicycle. Not everyone can do it, but we can certainly promote it, locally -- trails, programs, advertising, etc. Don't we all (at least those of us living in larger metro areas) get a bit tired of commute traffic, especially the fact that cars are the biggest polluters in the mix?

Energy sources? How many of us are aware of the local utility programs that provide rebates for "netmetering" of one's residence? The use of the wind (with wind turbines) and the sun (with photovoltaics) should be looked at much more seriously by our local "leaders" who, more than not, are not the least bit interested in getting a reputation as a rabble-rouser...especially in the "land of the great land developers" and auto dealerships, and transportation lobbies, and energy (gas and oil) giants, and others who are so seriously in denial about anything that disrupts their respective efforts to keep us all under their thumbs.

The concept of thinking globally and acting locally really, truly applies in this respect. The battles for these alternative approaches have been and continue to be hard fought, quite the same as many of the historic battles for labor, women's rights, civil rights...although the scope and depth, historically, of these battles are well documented. How will future history depict what we all did to overcome the crises that confront us...and in what depth and scope?

The problems do present themselves more clearly as one investigates and the solutions then become more clear. We all need to think about solutions and then press the so-called "leaders" into action, or kick them the hell out of their cushy ladder climbing positions.

Off subject somewhat but still related, I might point out (from a cynical and soured perspective) that in my state elections last November...congressional races...that, in every single race, the winner of that race was the one who spent the most money in that race. Unbelievable but true. (see: www.opensecrets.org)

BTW, thank you all for your contributions.

R

I agree with Earthian and Paul - this is a global crisis of first order magnitude and should be treated every bit with the urgency of a supposed War on Terror, or Any war, or any economic risk. The Stern Report gives it an economic flavor, but it's really like trying to place a value on life. You can do it, but does it have significance? I assure you that when the Stern Report says that we will have a 20% downturn in the global economy, he is not taking into account the REAL issue - that continuance of the status quo will ultimately result in the likely destruction of much of life as we know it on Earth.

Paul Street wrote:

"The climate crisis isn't some sort of future problem . . . My sense (and I'll be writing more on it in 2007) is that it is unambiguously the greatest single human-generated crime and tragedy of our time." 

I agree with the importance Paul makes of the crisis--it is humanity's ultimate challenge and eclipses all others--but as with many issues, what we call it is as crucial as how we describe its details, for its identifying label will largely determine its public meaning and thus our likelihood of solving it or reducing its magnitude. 

"Climate crisis" is not my favorite choice as a term for one reason: it is too narrow, because the actual crisis of the human impact on this planet has many dimensions beyond just climate. The last chapter in Jared Diamond's recent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, lists several related global problems, any of which he says will do us in unless we solve them. In Diamond's concept, each of these 12 problems is crucial and they interact in many ways. They include:  destruction of natural habitats; wild food depletion, especially fish; loss of biodiversity, including extinctions; soil erosion; depletion of fossil fuels, especially oil, natural gas and coal; loss of fresh water; reaching the limit of photosynthetic capacity; toxic chemical pollution; proliferation of alien species into new ecosystems; increase of global warming gas pollution and its effects on climate; population growth; and the large and increasing per-capita impact of people on the environment. 

Diamond argues that "they are linked: one problem exacerbates another or makes its solution more difficult." To his list of 12, I would add six more: the proliferation of nuclear weapons; the spread of illegal violence (such as the crimes of Bush and bin Laden); increasing extreme poverty and the increasing rich/poor gap; diseases and pandemics; economic disruptions; and massive and frequent human migrations. For details, see two archives: 

http://www.greenfacts.org

http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php

What should we call this emerging, unprecedented, human-caused total disaster-in-the-making? Because "climate crisis" is too narrow, perhaps "the global crisis" or "the twenty-first century crisis" or "ecocide" or "civilicide," or something else would be a fitting label for this enormous tragedy. 

In any case, what Paul said about it, the "greatest single human-generated crime and tragedy of our time" is exactly right. And he is right about the corporate media avoiding it for the reason that the corporate-congressional-military system they uphold and depend upon is its primary cause. To identify and understand it as it unfolds before our eyes is a prerequisite to solving it, for we need to know its magnitude and meaning: this global crisis, if not solved, is the death of civilization and threatens to deprive all the generations of tomorrow of life--which is surely, unless we get a grip on our collective conscience and act now to prevent it, the worst imaginable crime and the ultimate tragedy.

There is always a way to make a buck, isn't there!

But there ARE Canadians, aren't there?.... ;-)

Bush,Cheney and Rumsfeld must be sorry, there is no arabs in the artic to kill for the oil..

I came across this article many months ago:

U.S., CANADA DEBATE CONTROL OF ARCTIC WATERWAYS 

Canadian Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper rebuked the United States

for its failure to recognize Canada's sovereignty over Arctic waters.

Canada has argued for many years with the United States, Russia, Denmark

and Norway over control of the Northwest Passage and the Beaufort Sea.

But differences between Canada and the United States over the Arctic

have rarely surfaced in a public dispute, and leaders of both countries

have preferred to cooperate on Arctic research.

But recently, the Arctic has become increasingly important because of

climate change. With Arctic ice rapidly thinning, commercial navigation

and tourism boats are making northern passages with increasing

frequency. That has obliged Canada to begin planning security measures

to protect waterways from smugglers and to prepare for the possibility

of accidents and oil spills.

Experts estimate that by 2050, an Arctic shipping route could reduce a

London-to-Tokyo sea trip from 13,000 miles to 9,950 miles, and generate

millions of dollars per year for nations with ports along the way.

The United States and Canada also have conflicting claims in the

Beaufort Sea, in an area that is thought to have oil and natural gas

reserves.

Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead.

R

 

 

 

MSNBC actually had this banner for a story: “Bush: Biggest Villain of 2006? President beats out Bin Laden, Saddam and Satan in new poll.” (25% if votes) (Commentators safely and “reasonably” agreed this was unfair, and noted he was also “biggest hero” in the same AP poll- 13% of votes). (Favorite Barack Obama tied Jesus Christ with 3% apiece for hero).

I agree with Tim and Victor: great post Paul. Thanks also to Tim for pointing out the various eco-socialists, I'm looking forward to studying them further in the future—Derek Wall looks very interesting, imo, as does Joel Kovel (I share their respective interests in Zen and Psychiatry + Heidegger too). Is it just my imagination, or did you, Paul, add “and Corporate Media” to the “Climate Change and Corporate Media” blog entry title as a second thought? I think you've hit a major problem right on the head, but I think the public is aware of global warming even though this issue threatens some conservatives of a free economic market/libertarian bent head on. I recall public debate about the “CO2 is good, plants breath it,” campaign, so it's not as if every media employed commentator is bought off—although you'd hope the weather reporters, would be a little more alarmed and alarming!

Tim—although I'd agree that the ecological crises and socio-economic crises are interrelated, I'm severely skeptical that it is necessarily a “capitalist” economy that is to blame, but rather think any type of economy that tries to maintain a “comfort zone” & non minimalist economy for the masses, be it socialistic, Parecon, democratic regulated capitalism, etc., is going to have problems with the possible trade off between growth and environment. It's not for lack of trying that less capitalistic nations than the US don't contribute as much pollution to our air—such illustrates that their economies aren't as strong. I'm not a fan of choking economies, whatever the type, to save the ecology, but rather a fan of what I think might be Kovel's Quality v. Quantity suggestion. It seems to me that economic growth whatever the economic base type can be regulated by any type of government—and possibly oriented towards efficient renewable energy and virtualized or dematerialized and recyclable materials: sustainable growth. If capitalistic economies evolve quicker—both growing & adapting— they should help provide the technologies that non-capitalistic economies can exploit for their own sustainability. Consider more “socialistic” China on the way to the “American” Dream, yet possibly slower to get there: even though it might take longer to pollute as much, wouldn't it take longer to correct the problems as well? Of course they might not have myopic corporate asses diverting attention from emissions trading, etc.

It was actually the terriers that were deemed important to be protected, but for reasons known only to the pooches, they wouldn't enter the tornado shelter without the Bushes, so the Secret Service relented.

Links have been added though cannot link ZNet pieces (something is up with the web site). How perfectly insane is this story (below). George, Laura and their two scottish terriers were put into an armored vehicle during a tornado warning yesterday. I'm not making this up: Bushes take shelter in tornado warning Stormy weather swirls at president's Texas ranch The Associated Press Updated: 5:33 p.m. CT Dec 29, 2006 CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were moved to an armored vehicle on their ranch Friday when a tornado warning was issued in central Texas, the White House said. The vehicle was driven to a tornado shelter on the ranch at 1:30 p.m. CST, and the president, his wife and their two Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley, sat inside until the weather cleared, deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said. They were never moved into the shelter, he said. The shelter is a few hundred yards away from the president's house on the ranch. "The was in the vehicle for about 10 minutes and then he went back to the house," Stanzel said, adding that other members of the staff at the ranch were sheltered as well. The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch at 12:40 p.m. CST. This was scheduled to last until 8:30 p.m. At 3:47 p.m. the watch was upgraded this to a tornado warning, which lasted for less than an hour. The rush to the tornado shelter interrupted Bush's day at the ranch where he cleared some cedar and was kept abreast of plans to execute Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The windy day of rain and thunder began with morning calls to wish him a happy new year from outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is visiting Miami, also called Bush to talk about Iraq. Stanzel said Bush also spent time contemplating the new plan for U.S. policy in Iraq that he plans to announce in the new year. Bush hosted a National Security Council meeting at his ranch on Thursday. © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16396938/

It depends upon what "age" means. If we are really referring to modern history, I would list the following as great tragedies: 1. The creation of the central banking/investment house starting in the 16th century, providing the framework for the establishment of huge central banking houses in the UK/US/Europe controlled by a relative few families/organizations over many generations, and the concept of a growth-based economic strategy which was eventually to sweep the world 2. The creation of the corporation which ultimately was recognized as a legal person by law with the prime court-appointed responsibility of making a profit for its owners regardless of social and environmental costs, and was to serve a the prime vehicle by which the above investment bankers extended their influence and wealth throughout the world. 3. The codification of the capitalist ideology as a religious basis for extension of the above by gaining the dogmatic support of and protection by the masses 4. The founding of the United States of America in the 18th century to provide the engine to drive the above on a global scale to all corners of the world in the guise of "freedom" and "free markets" and to aggressively protect the interests of the investment community 5. The adoption of cheap/available/portable, but limited, fossil fuels (oil/coal/gas/uranium) to meet the huge energy needs of that engine in the 19th and 20th centuries, resulting in a global explosion of industry and technology and further resulting in a looming environmental disaster, over-population with sharply growing demand for those limited resources, global physical/psychological warfare for both money and resources and the rise of global fascism. Five great interrelated, codependent tragedies. The love of money drives all the above, and is possibly the greatest tragedy of all.

What would cost less and bring more benefit to the world? 1. Continue pouring $1B per day into Iraq and Afghanistan hoping to protect depleting oil resources? OR 2. Pour $1B per day into fixing the global climate problem, and reducing or eliminating our dependence upon fossil fuels and the accompanying risk of terrorism?