Compiled by Dick Bennett. https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/11/omni-climate-memo-mondays-155-november_30.html
Continued: What’s stopping USA from reversing rising temperature, or at least from slowing it down?
People who whitewash and delay consensus and public education of the UN IPCC Reports by recommending additional study of the Assessments. Example: Steven Koonin. Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. BenBella, 2021. IPCC Assessments report the conclusions of thousands of scientists in peer reviewed publications; these conclusions are then reviewed by governments and corporations, which can alter the Assessment reports in “Summaries.” Koonin admits that “the IPCC’s ‘Summaries for Policymakers’ are heavily influenced, if not written, by governments that have interests in promoting particular policies” (200); still, he argues, since the science is not always entirely settled in the Assessments, additional reviews of IPCC reports should be made.
But the Koonins are being overcome by the dependability of the IPCC Assessments themselves and by the world’s vision demanding a habitable and just world. We know that climate change is happening, we know why, and we know how to reduce or stop it.
How to reduce or stop warming. The following essays critical of fossil fuels appeared in one number of The Progressive (July-August 2014).
Bill McKibben. “Why Universities Will Divest.”
Graham Provost. “Our Surprise Victory at Stanford.” Divesting from coal.
Nick Surgey. “How ALEC Fronts for Fossil Fuels.” Exposes the secret organization that promotes C02 in state legislatures.
David Helvarg, “A City [Richmond] Beats Back Chevron.”
Also in this no. of The Progressive thrivemany critiques of the Koch brothers: Lisa Graves. “The Koch Cartel”; Jim Hightower, “Populists Crash the Koch Lobby”; and five other articles denounce them briefly.
A humanist vision of a world to be achieved strong enough to stop rising temperatures and build a new society is being embraced by more and more people. Here is one of many books reporting that hope.
Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams. Creating an Ecological Society: Toward Revolutionary Transformation. Their conclusion: “The struggle is really about the need to change the balance of forces, to educate others and ourselves about what is needed and what is possible. The ultimate goal is to replace the system of capital [based on class, inequality, racism, sexism, war, competition, and greed] with an economic-political-social system designed for the purpose of enabling all people to reach their full human potential in ways that respect and preserve a healthy stable biosphere.” Part One, the present dominant economics has created a planetary emergency. Part Two, an ecological society is possible. Part Three, learning from Nature, Part Four, a new—ecological– society, examples.