Spaceship Earth Has No Escape Capsule!!

      While reputable scientists tell us we have a very short limited time to get free from fossil fuels, or face human disaster on an unprecedented scale, the UK government makes noises of approval while voicing vacuous promises. Then goes on to grant fracking licenses to greedy corporate bodies who don't give a shit about the planet, and only have eyes for profit.
       The planet is not dying, it is being murdered, by corporate greed, and by our inaction, we are complicit. A fine gift for our grandchildren.

      As usual, quiet voice of reason from that excellent site, Not Buying Anything. 

          Humans are killing the planet, and we seem unable to stop. But hey, nobody's perfect. A recent report shows that since the 1970s our actions have caused the deaths of 60% of invertebrates. And the news is not good for insects, either.
         Humanity is facing the most extreme challenges in 200,000 years, and no one seems worried enough to take any kind of meaningful and collective evasive action.
        “We have known for many, many years that we are driving the planet to the very brink. This is not a doom and gloom story; it is reality. Our day-to-day life, health and livelihoods depend on a healthy planet. There cannot be a healthy, happy and prosperous future for people on a planet with a destabilized climate, depleted oceans and rivers, degraded land and empty forests, all stripped of biodiversity, the web of life.” - Marco Lambertini, director general of the WWF

       The majority reaction is that "nobody's perfect", and that we will just have to ride this thing out and see what happens. Too bad about all the extinctions.
That is the all-too convenient truth, and it overrides all the inconvenient truths confronting us.
       We are far from perfect, but approaching perfection is a goal we should continually strive toward. If we did, we could tackle all our challenges with creative, life-enhancing solutions. For a dumb species, we can be pretty smart when we want to, or when faced with imminent death.
     We CAN do better, and we will have to. If we fail to act, and soon, before long it will be human populations crashing.
There is nothing convenient about that.

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Our Home Is On Fire.

         Just what are we doing to the our home, planet Earth? The Amazon fires have grabbed the headlines recently, but it seems that it is not the largest or most widespread of the world's fires. Forests are being cleared at an alarming rate, some by natural events, though this is accelerating due to rising temperatures, and an increasing amount of fires are to increase farmland. However without forests life on this planet is in extreme danger of a dramatic change. Without our forests the CO2 would rapidly fill our atmosphere greatly accelerating the temperature rise and rapid demise of most large forms of life, including humans. No doubt bacteria, viruses and certain insects would survive for a certain amount of time, they would probably be the last inhabitants of planet Earth.

       All this "slash and burn" extravaganza is nothing more than the capitalist system at work, a system where every piece of the planet must be turned it a profit making entity. Forests are seen as profit generating timber factors, or a hindrance to developing other profit making ventures. In this capitalist system nothing is for what it actually is, it has to produce financial profit or it is deemed to be useless. The profit from a healthy planet is not on their balance sheet.

       Seeking to change capitalism into a humane green system is being naive in the extreme. To save our home, planet Earth, from burning, capitalism has to be destroyed and replaced with a sustainable system of mutual aid and co-operation, freed from the profit motive, that sees to the needs of all our people. We have to decide which system we want and we don't have a lot of time to make that decision. As one placard said "The wrong Amazon is burning".

 This from Void Network:

         While the Amazon burns, many other fires are burning across the world, some even larger and more widespread than those in the Amazon.
        The fires in the Amazon have been among the top news stories in the world for the past week because it is such an iconic location that is so important to the global ecosystem. However, it is important to note that these events come at a time where many other fires are burning across the world, some even larger and more widespread than those in the Amazon.
        The areas affected include Angola, Congo, Spain, Greece, Alaska, and Siberia.
        The World Meteorological Organization announced that this fire season has been unprecedented for the Arctic Circle, with over 100 major fires reported in the region.
        In Siberia, it has been reported that over 21,000 square miles of the forest were recently damaged. Some reports, from Global News and other outlets, have indicated that these fires were started intentionally to conceal illegal logging activities, but these reports have not been confirmed.
       Also last week, the Greek island of Evia was under a state of emergency after multiple large fires broke out. Earlier this month, a huge fire in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Territory damaged over 1 million hectares of forest.
        Alaska and Greenland, both known for cold temperatures, have also faced serious fires this summer. Last month, Denmark sent a team of firefighters to Greenland to put out huge fires that were spreading across the island nation.
         A fire in Spain’s Canary Islands cased 9,000 people to evacuate. Another Spanish island off the northern coast of Africa, Gran Canaria, lost about 46,000 square miles of woodland due to fires this year.
        At this moment, it seems that the largest fires in the world are currently burning in Angola, Africa.
        According to MODIS satellite data analyzed by Weather Source, 6,902 fires broke out in Angola in the 48 hours between August 21st and 23rd. During the same time, 3,395 fires were reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 2,127 in Brazil.
        Large wildfires are not uncommon in Central Africa this time of year, but once again, many of these fires are intentionally set by humans attempting to clear space for agriculture businesses.
        According to data from the NASA Aqua satellite, more than 67,000 fires were seen in just one week during June of last year.
        Experts believe that most of these fires are the result of a farming technique, known as slash and burn, which as the name implies, involves the burning of forest to make room for crops. Obviously, there are other far less-reckless ways of getting the job done, but burning everything down just happens to be the fastest and the cheapest. The ash also provides nutrients to the crops that will eventually be planted, but environmentalists warn that this practice could cause deforestation, soil erosion and a loss of biodiversity.

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Another Lie.

        Look at the image carefully, look closely at the names and the business empires that they are associated with and ask yourself, "Are these the people and bodies that we can trust to take care of the planet?". The very same group that has and is destroying the planet for nothing more than greed for profit. The same corporate bodies that are ever looking for new ways and means of increasing their wealth and power irrespective of the cost to planet and people.

        These are the groups that are tasked with creating "Protected Areas" and the "New Deal For Nature". Surely history tells us something, and the history of this gang of ruthless thugs are hardly likely to in any way jeopardise their flow of greed driven profits. The very fact that this bunch of robbing vandals are collected in one organisation should have us running to join protest groups across the planet. New Deal For Nature is just another one of those big fat lies dressed up in a green disguise, capitalists are not planet savers, they are planet destroyers.

The following is an extract from another interesting article in ACORN:

     Protecting the environment has surely got to be A Good Thing.
     Creating “protected areas” for nature in various parts of the world might therefore seem to be a positive move.
     However, when these areas are being promoted by the same capitalist system which brought nature to her knees in the first place, the alarm lights start flashing!
       Protected Areas” are in fact one aspect of the global capitalist scam being sold to us under the label of the ‘New Deal for Nature’.
     Because, in typical capitalist style, this scam has been wrapped up in shiny green packaging and promoted by the well-known WWF, the New Deal for Nature initially attracted little opposition.
      But in recent weeks, thanks to the truth-spreading efforts of the No Deal for Nature campaign and its supporters, support has been slipping away.
     The human rights charity Survival International has been doing a great job of blowing the whistle on what is nothing other than a new phase of industrial capitalist imperialism, aiming to displace indigenous peoples and further exploit Mother Nature for the profit of the usual tiny and greedy elite.
   Warns Survival director Stephen Corry: “The latest idea to be heavily promoted by big conservation NGOs is doubling the world’s so-called ‘Protected Areas’ (PAs) so that they cover thirty percent of the globe’s lands and oceans.
    “This is now their main rallying cry and response to two of the world’s biggest problems — climate chaos and loss of biodiversity.
     “It’s a marketing gimmick designed to funnel even more money to those who have for decades demonstrated their failure to mitigate either climate change or biodiversity loss.
    “Many PAs aren’t really protected at all. They include industrial exploitation — mining, logging, plantations, trophy hunting concessions, or extensive, usually high-end, tourist infrastructure.
      “The locals are thrown out as the land is grabbed by one or other industry, partnering with one or other big conservation NGO.
     “It’s a new colonialism, the world’s biggest land grab, supposedly ‘green’ and supposedly to save the world — a really big lie. As Odette, a Baka woman from Congo, says of such imposed conservation projects which don’t work, ‘We’ve had enough of this talk of ‘boundaries’ in the forest. The forest is ours’.”
     The alert is also being sounded via the World Rainforest Movement, notably in a statement entitled “Protected Areas feed corporate profiting and destruction”.

 Read the full article HERE:

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"---The Madness Of Men."

         The following is an article from The Tyee, thanks Loam for the link. I print the article in full, as don't think there is a more pressing problem than the survival of our species. We live in an infinitely varied and precarious environment that depends on balance for its survival, we ride roughshod over that finely balanced structure at our peril. The situation described in detail in the article is an indictment of the economic system under which we live. We have developed a system of perpetual economic growth, aimed at profit, with no thought to sustainability or the needs of our people. As humans we seem to have virtually unlimited capacity for self-delusion, and a cavalier attitude to self destruction. The rapid depletion of the planet's finite resources, both living and material, is having, and will continue to have, a disastrous effect on that delicate balance of the ecosystems of our planet, that is all the life that depends on that planet. Sadly, I believe that we will not address these problems as long as we cling to the economic system that is responsible for this impending disaster, namely capitalism. Until we understand that problem, the other problems will only be exacerbated by that greed driven exploitative economic system of capitalism. We would do well to remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule.

 

 

          A curious thing about H. sapiens is that we are clever enough to document — in exquisite detail — various trends that portend the collapse of modern civilization, yet not nearly smart enough to extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicament.
       This was underscored once again in October when scientists reported that flying insect populations in Germany have declined by an alarming 75 per cent in the past three decades accompanied, in the past dozen years, by a 15 per cent drop in bird populations. Trends are similar in other parts of Europe where data are available. Even in Canada, everything from casual windshield “surveys” to formal scientific assessments show a drop in insect numbers. Meanwhile, domestic populations of many insect-eating birds are in freefall. Ontario has lost half its whip-poor-wills in the past 20 years; across the nation, such species as nighthawks, swallows, martins and fly-catchers are down by up to 75 per cent; Greater Vancouver’s barn and bank swallows have plummeted by 98 per cent since 1970. Heard much about these things in the mainstream news?
       Too bad. Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors — habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect and bird populations. But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the “competitive displacement” of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise.
        On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species necessarily drives the contraction and extinction of others. (Politicians take note — there is always a conflict between human population/economic expansion and “protection of the environment.”)
       Remember the 40 to 60 million bison that used to roam the great plains of North America? They — along with the millions of deer, pronghorns, wolves and lesser beasts that once animated prairie ecosystems — have been “competitively displaced,” their habitats taken over by a much greater biomass of humans, cattle, pigs and sheep. And not just North Americans — Great Plains sunshine also supports millions of other people-with-livestock around world who depend, in part on North American grain, oil-seed, pulse and meat exports.
       Competitive displacement has been going on for a long time. Scientists estimate that at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, H. sapiens comprised less than one per cent of the total weight of mammals on the planet. (There were probably only two to four million people on Earth at the time.) Since then, humans have grown to represent 35 per cent of a much larger total biomass; toss in domestic pets and livestock, and human domination of the world’s mammalian biomass rises to 98.5 per cent!
      One needs look no further to explain why wildlife populations globally have plunged by nearly 60 per cent in the past half century. Wild tigers have been driven from 93 per cent of their historic range and are down to fewer than 4,000 individuals globally; the population of African elephants has imploded by as much as 95 per cent to only 500,000 today; poaching drove black rhino numbers from an already much reduced 70,000 in 1960 to only 2,500 individuals in the early 1990s. (With intense conservation effort, they have since rebounded to about 5,000). And those who still think Canada is still a mostly pristine and under-populated wilderness should think again — half the wildlife species regularly monitored in this country are in decline, with an average population drop of 83 per cent since 1970. Did I mention that B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population is down to only 76 animals? That’s in part because human fishers have displaced the orcas from their favoured food, Chinook salmon, even as we simultaneously displace the salmon from their spawning streams through hydro dams, pollution and urbanization.
        The story is similar for familiar species everywhere and likely worse for non-charismatic fauna. Scientists estimate that the “modern” species extinction rate is 1,000 to as much as 10,000 times the natural background rate. The global economy is busily converting living nature into human bodies and domestic livestock largely unnoticed by our increasingly urban populations. Urbanization distances people psychologically as well as spatially from the ecosystems that support them.
        The human band-wagon may really have started rolling 10 millennia ago but the past two centuries of exponential growth greatly have accelerated the pace of change. It took all of human history — let’s say 200,000 years — for our population to reach one billion in the early 1800s, but only 200 years, 1/1000th as much time, to hit today’s 7.6 billion! Meanwhile, material demand on the planet has ballooned even more — global GDP has increased by over 100-fold since 1800; average per capita incomes by a factor of 13. (rising to 25-fold in the richest countries). Consumption has exploded accordingly — half the fossil fuels and many other resources ever used by humans have been consumed in just the past 40 years. (See graphs in: Steffen, W et al. 2015. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, page(s): 81-98.)
        Why does any of this matter, even to those who don’t really give a damn about nature per se? Apart from the moral stain associated with extinguishing thousands of other life-forms, there are purely selfish reasons to be concerned. For example, depending on climate zone, 78 per cent to 94 per cent of flowering plants, including many human food species, are pollinated by insects, birds and even bats. (Bats — also in trouble in many places — are the major or exclusive pollinators of 500 species in at least 67 families of plants.) As much as 35 per cent of the world’s crop production is more or less dependent on animal pollination, which ensures or increases the production of 87 leading food crops worldwide.
       But there is a deeper reason to fear the depletion and depopulation of nature. Absent life, planet earth is just an inconsequential wet rock with a poisonous atmosphere revolving pointlessly around an ordinary star on the outer fringes of an undistinguished galaxy. It is life itself, beginning with countless species of microbes, that gradually created the “environment” suitable for life on Earth as we know it. Biological processes are responsible for the life-friendly chemical balance of the oceans; photosynthetic bacteria and green plants have stocked and maintain Earth’s atmosphere with the oxygen necessary for the evolution of animals; the same photosynthesis gradually extracted billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in chalk, limestone and fossil fuel deposits, so that Earth’s average temperature (currently about 15 C) has remained for geological ages in the narrow range that makes water-based life possible, even as the sun has been warming (i.e. stable climate is partially a biological phenomenon.); countless species of bacteria, fungi and a veritable menagerie of micro-fauna continuously regenerate the soils that grow our food. (Unfortunately, depletion-by-agriculture is even faster — by some accounts we have only just over a half-century’s worth of arable soils left).
       In short, H. sapiens depends utterly on a rich diversity of life-forms to provide various life-support functions essential to the existence and continued survival of human civilization. With an unprecedented human-induced great global die-off well under way, what are the chances the functional integrity of the ecosphere will survive the next doubling of material consumption that everyone expects before mid-century?
       Here’s the thing: climate change is not the only shadow darkening humanity’s doorstep. While you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media, biodiversity loss arguably poses an equivalent existential threat to civilized existence. While we’re at it, let’s toss soil/landscape degradation, potential food or energy shortages and other resource limits into the mix. And if you think we’ll probably be able to “handle” four out of five such environmental problems, it doesn’t matter. The relevant version of Liebig’s Law states that any complex system dependent on several essential inputs can be taken down by that single factor in least supply (and we haven’t yet touched upon the additional risks posed by the geopolitical turmoil that would inevitably follow ecological destabilization). read more
       Which raises questions of more than mere academic interest. Why are we not collectively terrified or at least alarmed? If our best science suggests we are en route to systems collapse, why are collapse — and collapse avoidance — not the primary subjects of international political discourse? Why is the world community not engaged in vigorous debate of available initiatives and trans-national institutional mechanisms that could help restore equilibrium to the relationship between humans and the rest of nature?
      There are many policy options, from simple full-cost pricing and consumption taxes; through population initiatives and comprehensive planning for a steady-state economy; to general education for voluntary (and beneficial) lifestyle changes, all of which would enhance global society’s prospects for long-term survival. Unique human qualities, from high intelligence (e.g., reasoning from the evidence), through the capacity to plan ahead to moral consciousness, may well be equal to the task but lie dormant — there is little hint of political willingness to acknowledge the problem let alone elaborate genuine solutions (which the Paris climate accord is not).
         Bottom line? The world seems in denial of looming disaster; the “C” word remains unvoiced. Governments everywhere dismissed the 1992 scientists’ Warning to Humanity that “...a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided” and will similarly ignore the scientists’ “second notice." (Published on Nov. 13, this warning states that most negative trends identified 25 years earlier “are getting far worse.”) Despite cascading evidence and detailed analysis to the contrary, the world community trumpets “growth-is-us” as its contemporary holy grail. Even the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are fixed on economic expansion as the only hammer for every problematic nail. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases reach to at an all-time high, marine dead-zones proliferate, tropical forests fall and extinctions accelerate.
        Just what is going on here? The full explanation of this potentially fatal human enigma is no doubt complicated, but Herman Melville summed it up well enough in Moby Dick: “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”

Capitalism Is Exploitation And Destruction.

 

       Every now and then our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spout an amazing disclosure, of a large company exploiting its workers. Of course this dreadful revelation implies that all the other companies and corporations are behaving impeccably, regards their treatment of their employees. The latest one for the UK is ASOS, facts are revealed about how shockingly the workers are treated. The nice little scheme devised by the firm who runs their warehouse, called "flexing", means being asked, at times at very short notice, to work overtime, and the extra hours will be paid to you away in the future. Of course refusing to "flex up", can see your job in jeopardy. Not so long ago it was Sports Direct and its policies of zero hours contracts, penalties and intimidation.

        Of course we all know, or should know, the entire capitalist system is based on exploitation. As far as these two greedy arsehole companies are concerned, they are small fry. It is their immediate employees that they try to screw. However, the big boys in the capitalist game, well, they go for anybody and everybody. The general public, employees, the environment, all fair game to be polluted, exploited, plundered and left to stew the mess the corporate greed machine leave behind. Remember Bhopal?

       The entire list of large corporations can all be stood in the court of decent human behaviour and be found guilt. The ravishes inflicted on our planet, the destruction of the entire world environment, causing unpredictable climate change, the pollution being spread across the earth, causing illnesses and suffering, and the extinction of thousands of the planet's species. All this is not a natural phenomenon, it can all be laid at the feet of the greed driven corporate world and the system of capitalism on which it is based.

This from Labour Rights:

Coca-Cola

       Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.
        In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
         Coca-Cola is also one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions.

       For more on the companies that make up the world's 14 worst corporate, people and planet destroyers, well known names such as, Nestles USA, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Pfizer, Kellogs group, and see the true face of the capitalist cancer that is killing the population and destroying the planet, 

Read HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Cruel Farce.

        Any thinking person who looks at the various states and their proclamations on green energy and planet climate change, must see it as a farce. How do you clean up the planet's pollution if you don't include the world's largest polluter  in the equation? There is no doubt that the Pentagon with its massive war mongering budget is the world's largest polluter, but is never taken into account when talks of cleaning up the planet are taking place. Obviously the war mongers don't want anything to impede their murderous drive to maintain their power, wealth and privileges, even if it means the destruction of the all life on the planet.

 The following from Roots Action:

         As a result of final hour demands made by the United States during negotiation of the 1997 Kyoto treaty, military carbon emissions are exempted from climate negotiations.
            But the U.S. military is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world and a key contributor to climate collapse!
            U.S. climate envoy designate, John Kerry, is right; the Paris Agreement is “not enough.”
             We're organizing around this new petition:
             To: John Kerry and the U.S. Congress
             From: ---- -----
          All emissions need to be included in order to justly meet international pledges made to protect the earth's climate. There must be no more exception for military pollution.

Add your name by clicking here!

Turn your thermostat down one degree to help save the planet!!!

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk    

COP-OUT26.

 

        Come November 1st.-12th. 2021, Glasgow will host COP26, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, the 26th pretend conference on saving the planet. Even though it is glaringly obvious that the destruction of the planet is the direct result of the dominant economic system of capitalism, there will be no voices raised to get rid of capitalism. As they discuss their various half-baked ideas on how to cut emissions, there will be no mention of the world’s largest polluter, no attempt to put the hems on that monumental world polluter, the Pentagon. The world’s largest user, transporter and hoarder of weaponry and all its polluting machinations of war, death and destruction. The gigantic scale of this powerhouse of death and destruction, is by scientific evidence the world’s largest polluter, however, don’t expect COP26 to address this planet killer. Instead we will be told to insulate our homes, drive electric vehicles, which by the way still require all the mining, transportation and pollution from the car production industry as internal combustion cars, plus the extra pollution of massive production of lithium batteries. We will be told to change our life style but still follow the dream of capitalism, continuous growth, continuous consumption. We can expect the planet to spin headlong into oblivion if we sit back and expect the managers and minders of capitalism to supply the answers to environmental destruction. 

 

         The answer lies outside the COP26, it lies in our communities, the saving of the ecological systems of the planet lies in our energies and planning getting behind the destruction of the polluters, capitalism and the attendant Pentagon. Any other direction is an illusion, we have to attack and destroy the root cause of our problems, capitalism.

 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk    

Green???

 

           The world faces a crisis in CO2 emissions and the people are crying out for an end to fossil fuels among other methods of cutting those emissions, and hopefully in doing so save the planet and humanity. However, as we approach COP-OUT26, to be held in Glasgow later this year, the UK's response to this impending doom is to build a third runway at Heathrow to increase air traffic, have you ever seen a green jumbo jet? Another plan by the UK government that will be a slap in the face of those trying to cut emissions and end the of burning fossil fuels, is that they plan to drill more oil wells in the North Sea. At the same time they spout about being the greenest government on the planet, all hog wash and bullshit. These plans of insanity go ahead because a few millionaires could become billionaires and a spin off to their greedy leeches and hangers on. They are blind to the fact that they are driving at speed to suicide, which would be well and good, but sadly they will take us all with them, but we will not share in their looting of the planet. Not that it will make much difference, after the demise of humanity.
            The capitalist world will never work at saving the planet, there is too much profit to be made from plundering the earth's resources for personal gain. The profit grabbing enterprises of the capitalist economic system offers the corporate plunderers far too much wealth, power and privileges, at the expense of everybody and everything else for them to stop, they are junkies on a trip of power and wealth, fed by the sweat of you and I. We have to be the ones to stop this madness before it destroys us all and all life on the planet. This is not a painting of doom, this is a statement of facts.

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What Is Wrong With Extinction Rebellion?

           Though I have always believed that the people have to take to the streets in a drive to change society to one that sees to the needs of all of society, not just the privileged few, I just can’t accept the direction of this particular protest. Yes I accept that climate change is a rapidly impending disaster, and yes we have to tackle it head on. However to ignore the root cause of this looming disaster, which is the capitalist economic system, which is part and parcel of the state system, is doomed to failure. This particular protest is aiming to get the state apparatus to legislate for “green capitalism”, a mythical beast that belongs in the category of fairy tales. Capitalism, green or any other shade, can only survive by continual growth, ever increasing consumption and growth of profit for the few. These are its essence, its blood vessels for survival, and it is obvious that these very goals are the very cause of the climate disaster that we face. To “save the planet” we have to stop the drive for continued growth, drastically cut consumption and end the mantra of everything must produce a profit. In other words we must destroy capitalism if we are serious about “saving the planet”. 

 

 

       I consider it naive in the extreme to expect capitalism ever to embark on a drive that will destroy it, an end to perpetual growth, and to work towards a continual cut in consumption, as both these aims would destroy its need for ever growing profits. Profit, wealth and power is what capitalism is all about, no matter its colour. If you wish to “save the planet” then get behind those who wish to destroy capitalism and its bastard twin, the state, as that is the only direction that will take you down the road to “saving the planet”. 

       Yes, take to the streets, grow your numbers, create disruption, stop the city, but have no illusions about who your real enemy is, capitalism brought us to this catastrophe, it can never get us out of it. Capitalism of any shade or colour and “save the planet” ideals, will never make pleasant bed-fellows, one will have to kill the other to survive, they are totally incompatible. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Attack The Root, Don't Pluck At The Petals.

       I and countless of thousands of others have repeatedly stated that the climate change protests as they stand are delusional. They are appealing to the state to legislate to turn the capitalist destructive monster into a nice friendly green capitalist destructive monster. The planet cannot and will not be saved by states in conjunction capitalists, they are the bedfellows of the destructive system that is capitalism, a system that feeds them unimaginable wealth and power. The answer is obviously outside the state/capitalist way of thinking, capitalism needs perpetual growth, perpetual growth is the destruction of the planet. It is impossible to push for perpetual growth on a planet with finite resources, something has to give. If we continue with this economic model then in the not too distant future, we lose, and the planet goes on for countless more centuries without us. We have to attack the root of the problem, not pluck at the petals. The following article from Contra Madriz puts it much better than I could.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

        Various institutions, environmental groups, trade unions and student groups gathering under the name “Fridays for Future” have announced a so-called “Week for Climate” from the 20th to the 27th of September. Basically this week consists of programmed and alienating demonstrations in which the State and other institutions (UN, G7 etc) are being asked to remedy or take action against the disaster they are causing. In their simplistic and reformist discourse they never criticize the cause of the ongoing devastation: industrial techno capitalism and its technocratic organization of the world.
       They are the ones who criticize climate change without criticizing those who produce it: they have a corpse in their mouths, those who defend the myth of progress, of sustainable development and of a ‘comfortable’ life in exchange for slavery and the commodification of every aspect of our lives, a life sold to technological domination. They are the ones who have purchased the new fashionable product, climate change, from the supermarket of rebellion.
      Fridays for Future? Today more than ever the future does not exist, we live in an eternal present and any vestige of the past has been erased. The technological prostheses that surround and colonize us make us live in a continuous state of sleepwalking, where the catastrophe is not about to come as they insist on warning us, the catastrophe is here and now, the catastrophe is the alienating life directed by the algorithms of our ‘virtual assistants’, the catastrophe is a world already devastated by industry.
      Climate change is just one more of the thousands of harmful consequences of the industrial revolution (the only revolution, that began two centuries ago, that has reached all parts of the planet and colonized and commodified all lifeforms). Climate change is inseparable from the techno industrial system: deforestation, acidification of the oceans, desertification, extinction of thousands of animal and plant species, thousands of chemical products that doom our existence, pollution of land, air and water are just some of the the harmful consequences of this system. We believe that to speak only of climate change without criticizing the techno industrial system is to fall into a reductionism and to not go to the root of the problem.
       Climate change and all the toxicity are the consequences of the technocratic project that manages and administers our lives. A project that consists of colonizing, dominating and commodifying all lifeforms. Once nature has been colonized and dominated, the next objective is human beings, a project based on the convergence of technologies known as NBIC (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences) to which we can also add robotics and artificial intelligence, their greed has no end. If everything is commodified right down to our daily activities, their profits will not stop increasing. To turn the world and everything that inhabits it into a programmed machine where nothing escapes its control: world-machine, human-machine. This leads us to a mechanistic vision of the world, of ourselves and everything that surrounds us.
     Hundreds of research programs with multi million dollar investments are dedicated to finding new sources of energy. This need for energy for the world to function results in the devastation of territory and annihilation of millions of human and non-human animals. Industrial energy runs the world, it is necessary for the production and distribution of all those unnecessary products that we find around us, it is the economy and it is war. The system has identified and understood as a big business that only ‘renewable’ and ‘clean’ energies will allow to it operate, expand and survive. The new technocratic project is ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’, it is ecological. This new project also covers the entire territory, from the industrial deserts of solar panels and wind farms (also causing climate change, devastation of the territory, diseases etc) to eco-cities (non-places where everything is controlled, optimized and automated, also producing hundreds of harmful products and an alienating life). So, to defend green energy is to defend the project that is hurtling us at great speed and a huge rate of progress towards the abyss, it is to defend those who are creating a totalitarian world, it is to defend the project of those who manage and administer our robotized lives.
        This is why we are calling for a week of struggle against climate change and all harmfulness from the 20th to the 27th of September from an anarchist perspective, which goes beyond the limits imposed by social democracy. One more week, in which by means of diverse forms of direct action various groups and individuals will confront the techno industrial system. The week of September 20-27 is only a goal for liberal and statist ecologism, but for those of us who aim for the elimination of the State, capitalism, patriarchy and the techno-industrial system, it is an opportunity to escape the narrow margins of domestication and initiate an autonomous, anti-capitalist and anarchist path against techno-industrial toxicity.

Neither the State nor techno-science will save us.
The struggle is the only way.

(via Contra Madriz)

*Translation note [AWW] – the original title for the week of action translates directly as ‘Week of Struggle Against Climate Change and All Harmfulness’, which sounds fine in the original Spanish language text but does not translate well into English. We toyed with using the word ‘toxicity’ rather than harmfulness, but in the end decided to just leave it out.

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Out Of The Mouths Of Babes!!!

       "Out of the mouths of babes", I think the adult population should hang their heads in shame, at the state of the planet we are handing the next generation. The youth of the world are showing us how it should be done, From one concerned young girl in Sweden, we now have a world wide movement of youngsters taking to the streets against the insanity of our economic destructive system. The cause they are fighting for is one that none of us can escape, it is the survival of the human race. 

    We have to give these young people our unflinching support and take to the streets in solidarity with them. This is not a fun thing with a bunch of kids dodging school, these are intelligent concerned young people who are showing us the way. It is not just a local phenomenon, this is a world wide protest against the rule of our lives by the greedy corporate and financial juggernaut. A call for sanity and a stop to the rape and plunder of our planet just to feed a small cabal of rich and powerful people. What are we doing to our next generation when they can make statements like the one by the young Swedish girl who started this protest, Miss Thunberg,   "I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day." We are handing our youngsters a disintegrating planet and a future of fear. We can still do something about this poisoned legacy we are hand our children and grandchildren. We can join them on the streets across the globe, and take control of our and their future. Of course my own personal view is that the planet is not dying, but the planet is being murdered, and we know who by.

     Glasgow was no exception in this concern for the future, the young people of our city took to the streets on Friday and joined that world wide movement for sanity and a future. The banners that festoon the protest were loud proclamations of the truth that needs to be grasped, "Change the politics not the climate" and the truth that our "lords and Masters" view with blinkers on, "Stop denying our earth is dying", and a blatant truth that we should all grasp,  "If the world were a bank, it would have been saved." Who can deny any of these statements, from the mouths of our youth.

Some photos from Glasgow, thanks Keith.

      Two photos from Glasgow, courtesy of The Herald, (Colin Mearns Newsquest)

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Spaceship Earth Has No Escape Capsule.

 

       States, councils and corporate bodies, talk the talk on climate change, but never walk the walk. Grand words, but actions that are mainly to protect the profits of the large corporations, who have billions wrapped up in fossil fuels. As the corporate juggernaut grinds its way through our planet, plundering for greed driven profit, our planet limps to a dubious future, where human life is doubtful. All unnecessary, all preventable, if we act now, but time is running out. We would do well to remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule. This is our only place for humanity, there is no other planet waiting for the Earth's population. Screw this one up and we are finished, no second chance. If this generation allows this greed driven suicide to continue, we condemn our grand children to an unimaginable, unlivable dystopia of our own making, surely they deserve better. 

        There are those who are fighting this murder by profit, our solidarity should be guaranteed and unstinting, more power to their efforts. This from Enough is Enough:

Climate protectors occupy coal-ship transfer port in Rotterdam
       Rotterdam: This morning (March 9) dozens of climate activists from ‘We Stop Coal’ occupied the coal-ship port of the EMO Rotterdam. The participants of the protest state that it is time to break the power of the fossil industry. They say they will not leave until this renewed contract of EMO is made public and destroyed. There has been a huge international outcry about the continuation of the biggest coal harbour of Europe.
       If the Netherlands wants to take their responsibility regarding limiting the warming of the planet by 1.5 C°, then the port of Rotterdam should stop facilitating fossil fuels as soon as possible. “The port of Rotterdam and counsellor Visser are guilty of climate destruction. By not acting on their responsibility regarding the lease contract of the EMO transfer company they are equally responsible for the destruction of our Earth. People in the Global South and our children will be the ones facing the costs of the decisions of EMO.” Albeit spokesperson Maria Rietberg. “This is a Code Red for the climate. Rotterdam is the biggest coal dealer in Europe. If the government does not take action, it is up to us.”
       The port of Rotterdam is a crucial cross-section of the global fossil fuel trade. “Fossil fuels belong to the past. If we do not intervene right now, our planet will slide into a situation where their inhabitants are unable to live any longer”. Says Rietberg. “Rising sea levels, melting icecaps, millions of people on the move because of hunger due to failed harvest: the cause of this is partly to be found in Rotterdam.”
In the city council of Rotterdam, the behaviour and (lack of) responsibility of D66 councillor Adriaan Visser have triggered antipathy and a feeling of disbelief. Many local political parties urged their followers to take part in the climate march for a coal-free Rotterdam. The march is organized by the Climate Initiative and will leave this afternoon from the City House towards the port company at 13:00 h.
        In the port of Rotterdam, 28 million tonnes of coal is transferred yearly. The burning of this coal equals 47% of the total Dutch CO2 emissions. The majority of this coal is exported by train and inland ships to Germany. In November, hundreds of Dutch citizens joined the protests during the climate summit in Bonn at the Ende Gelände coal mine actions. Four thousand citizens joined the demonstration against the RWE brown coal mine. These people forced RWE to stop their destructive work.
German outrage
       The passive display of the Rotterdam city board has caused international dismay, both in Germany and England. In an open letter, international environmental organizations called upon mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, port company director Allard Castelein and the city council to phase out the coal transfer. “The international willingness for action to come to the Rotterdam port for big scale actions has increased enormously” Albeit spokesperson Micha Vos. “International anti-coal coalitions state that the Netherlands is avoiding their responsibility. With this unacceptable decision, the City Council acts against the Paris climate agreement.
Just transition for the port workers
       ‘We Stop Coal’ aims for a just transition. The coal port workers whose families depend on their income can be part of the immediate transition to renewable energy. The action group supports the call of the FNV -the workers union, for a Coal Fund for the workers of the coal branch. “We think it is necessary that the shareholders give a compensation back to the workers; have they not profited for years from their labour?” states Vos. “Renewable energy provides many opportunities for a new future in the port. The continuation of the status quo through failing government policy has enormous consequences. That is why we now stand up for the climate and demand climate justice for everyone”, albeit Rietberg.
We put a Stop to Coal, March 9, 2018.

Tomorrow’s World!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile

as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,

Chasing profit as it goes

firing millions of ordinary folk.

Raping and polluting land after land,

starting bloody wars.

Toxic waste, sweat shop wages

and oil covered sea shores.

Where have all the flowers gone

beneath this ozone free sky?

To join the birds, to join the fox

on yonder plutonium field to die.

Mercury fish, strontium lamb

trees that never show a leaf,

radio active beaches, toxic streams

good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.

In a world of epidemic, plague and famine

it’s bottled water and chemical food.

Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice

so you know its got to be good.

Beneath a sky that’s always black,

hurricane winds and endless drought,

its oxygen masks for the toxic air,

corporate profit’s what its all about.

It doesn't have to be that way.

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