Compiled by Dick Bennett https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/05/omni-climate-memo-mondays-178-may-13.html
Tom Dispatch and Stan Cox: Stop Wars and Warming or most of us will die or live in HELL.
Stan Cox. “Degrowth Is the Only Sane Survival Plan.”
Move to Amend, H.J.R. 54: Money Is Not Speech.
You can hardly miss the news about climate change anymore, or perhaps what I mean is that you (yes, you!) can hardly miss feeling its effects. It’s been startling, to say the least. It doesn’t matter whether it was the month (the last 10 set global heat records, one after another) or the year (2023 was by far the hottest on record); whether it was the northern hemisphere (hottest summer ever), Canada (extreme fires), Europe (“extreme heat stress”), the Middle East (record rainfall), South Asia (massive rainfall and a potentially unprecedented monsoon season), or the United States (warming faster than the global average). Globally, there have been increasingly massive weather events like the recent unprecedented deluges in Dubai and Pakistan, record rainfall and massive floods in China, or — at the other extreme — record drought and “acute hunger” in southern Africa, it’s everywhere and getting worse in an all too tangible fashion.
In fact, last year, for the first time in recorded history, the planet broke the ominous global ceiling for a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius set at the Paris agreement. Oh, and so far I’ve only focused on land, but the world’s oceans have been setting their own startling heat records. As the New York Times reported recently, “The ocean has now broken temperature records every day for more than a year. And so far, 2024 has continued 2023’s trend of beating previous records by wide margins.” Yes, global waters are only getting ever hotter. And, of course, all of this is just to begin down a longer list of horrors that are clearly going to multiply in the years, not to speak of decades, to come.
With that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Stan Cox, author of The Green New Deal and Beyond, consider a world (ours!) in which no country — certainly not the United States, which has been a “drill, drill, drill” nation not just under Donald Trump but, all too sadly, under Joe Biden, too — seems to be moving in the right direction faintly fast enough (and not just when it comes to climate change either) to stop a hell of a future from descending on us all. Tom
“Eco-Collapse Hasn’t Happened Yet, But You Can See It Coming:Degrowth Is the Only Sane Survival Plan” By Stan Cox.
Something must be up. Otherwise, why would scientists keep sending us those scary warnings? There has been a steady stream of them in the past few years, including “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” (signed by 15,000 of them), “Scientists’ Warning Against the Society of Waste,” “Scientists’ Warning of an Imperiled Ocean,” “Scientists’ Warning on Technology,” “Scientists’ Warning on Affluence,” “Climate Change and the Threat to Civilization,” and even “The Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future.”
Clearly, there’s big trouble ahead and we won’t be able to say that no one saw it coming. In fact, a warning of ecological calamity that made headlines more than 50 years ago is looking all too frighteningly prescient right now.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
MOVE TO AMEND 5-7-24
Because our nation is so controlled by the billions of dollars owned by only a few individuals and investors in corporations, and these people support the US War State and fail to oppose climate change, this proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution H.J.R. 54 –to ensure that corporations and other artificial entities do not have constitutional rights, and that money is not considered speech– is a momentous effort to promote democracy and oppose war and warming.
Congressional Update: H.J.R. 54 Grows to 83 Cosponsors We have exciting news! H.J.R. 54, the We the People Amendment, now has 83 Congressional cosponsors, with four new representatives joining us in April.
We can’t emphasize enough how crucial your calls and emails to Congress are in building support for this important amendment. Please continue to use our One Click Politics software to contact your representative and urge them to become a cosponsor of H.J.R. 54.
Pledge to Amend: Show Your Commitment One of the most impactful ways to support our cause is by taking the Pledge to Amend. By signing the pledge, you declare your commitment to amending the U.S. Constitution to ensure that corporations and other artificial entities do not have constitutional rights, and that money is not considered speech. You can also share the pledge with friends, family, and community groups to help spread the word.
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