Climate Action Heating Up.

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, November 16th, 2018 - 15 comments
Categories: capitalism, Economy, Environment, global warming, International, jobs, us politics - Tags: , , ,

The Sunrise Movement began a year or so ago in the US and is seeking to get political action on global warming by getting ‘big oil’ out of US politics and securing  a “Green New Deal”. As proclaimed on their website –

We’re building an army of young people to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.

As part of that effort they only offered support to mid-term election candidates who spurned fossil money. And although they might not have seen as many desirable candidates elected as they’d have liked, and although they might stand accused of overlooking deeper systemic aspects of the problem facing the world, they seem to have gained a measure of penetration and traction within the US political set up. You can read a report of the latest action they took in Congress via The Intercept

I guess it’s not every day a pressure group might lay claim to having a Congress Person on side and willing to “occupy” the office of their own boss to push a point.

Good stuff.

15 comments on “Climate Action Heating Up. ”

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  1. patricia bremner 1
    16 November 2018 at 11:01 am

    Youth know their future has been stolen, so they are energized to seek change.
    If we fail to listen, and they don’t use the systems.. what then?? Collapse??

    • Tuppence Shrewsbury 1.1
      16 November 2018 at 12:54 pm

      the future was stolen by boomers like you pat. Everyone in that generation is responsible, regardless of politics or circumstance.

      give it up to the next generation

      • Ed1 1.1.1
        16 November 2018 at 2:18 pm

        Do try to be kind. There are plenty of older people, “boomers” included, who have been concerned about these issues for a long time, and who are more supportive than many younger people. Older people tend to look towards the future that their children and for some grandchildren will inherit; there is no point in alienating support through ageism, mysogeny, racism or other prejudices – lets concentrate on tolerance and kindness and just do it! There may even be some Young – and old – Nats who are becoming concerned about the effects of climate change – even Sanfords was reporting that profits have been adversely affected by rising sea temperatures . . .

      • Dennis Frank 1.1.2
        16 November 2018 at 4:49 pm

        The doctrine of collective responsibility has never been a factor in human culture or politics. I suspect the closest we ever got to it was the Nuremberg trial. So asserting it will never impress anybody.

        As of this year I’ve been part of the Green movement half a century, and opposed the political right 48 years, and opposed the political left 47 years, all because mainstream and establishment belief and behaviour are toxic. I’m not the only person in the boomer category with a lifelong opposition to the majority of my generation. I will agree with you to the extent that those born after me became increasingly part of the problem.

        I’m referring to the crowd born in the fifties & sixties who voted for neoliberal govts of the left & right en masse. Those of us born in the forties had a rebel culture driving the spearhead of social change in the sixties. Reversion to conservative conformity on the left & right was due to the younger boomers, not the sixties rebels. Cluelessness around this stuff was caused by academics changing the definition of baby-boomer: originally the term referred to the children of soldiers returned home from WWII. Cretins later extended it through to 1964. Probably due to demography, but it made a nonsense out of generational differences – because over-generalising rendered analysis devoid of meaning.

      • Bill 1.1.3
        16 November 2018 at 6:01 pm

        That’s bloody risible.

        Poor people today, like poor people of yesteryear, make much less contribution to global warming simply because they can’t afford to make anything like the same contribution as the rich.

        10% of us (the richest) contribute about half of our total. Throw in the next richest 10% and the contribution gets up around the 70% mark.

        The studies on that have been done and the results have been published.

        • Pat 1.1.3.1
          16 November 2018 at 6:35 pm

          “The studies on that have been done and the results have been published.”

          We know that those who so desire override the needs of the whole…as it has ever been. The real tragedy is that it will not change….we are a footnote.

      • KJT 1.1.4
        16 November 2018 at 7:16 pm

        It is older and younger people than the boomers, who voted for right wing Governments.
        Look at the young Nat’s if you want to see the future.

    • patricia bremner 1.2
      16 November 2018 at 11:15 pm

      Boomer?? I’m 77. Pat yourself

  2. The Fairy Godmother 2
    16 November 2018 at 4:12 pm

    It’s actually the builder generation. (Parents of the boomers) that did it. It was the builders who were in power when neo liberalism came in. Boomers were in their 20s and 30s. Douglas and Co were not boomers.

    • Pat 2.1
      16 November 2018 at 5:18 pm

      it is too simplistic to apportion in any such manner…..folk are folk across the generations and across culture;ethnicities.
      Given the same circumstances any community would likely reacted in much the same manner. The real question is, given what we now know and face is …what next?

      Sadly, I expect humans will react in the same failed ways of the past….we appear incapable of anything else.

  3. WeTheBleeple 3
    17 November 2018 at 6:52 am

    The governments crushed by Romans
    Britannia to Charax
    Were made by rule of war to sign
    Did cede themselves in pacts
    But still protestors rose and fell
    Neath sword and boot and blood
    Each freedom bought with many souls
    Each inch a human flood

    Yet now the youths stir restless
    Awoke from feather beds
    Bemoaning all who’ve come before
    As tired, good as dead
    The man, they say, all man’s corrupt
    So fight now, for your lives
    They’re taking wine from our cups
    We, with open eyes

    How woke are you, one says to one
    As woke as woke can be?
    I’ve forsworn beast and fish and fowl
    To save the lands and seas
    How woke are you, one says to me
    Are you as woke as one?
    I’ve brought a hybrid vehicle
    I’ve subscribed to the sun

    A bitter twitter feud ensued
    As woke-ness fought for rank
    “I only wear recyclables”
    “I grow my clothes from flax”
    Then in the papers articles
    Opined on twitter feeds
    ‘Tis plastic that’s to blame for this
    Not people, no, not me!’

    The woke knew otherwise of course
    ‘Twas meat eaters and guns
    While other woke then fiercely spoke
    Of oil burning scum
    And so one side with catapults
    And cows did fling their rage
    The others not to shun a fight
    With might did strike their cage

    The epitaphs lay layered now
    Through history our race
    Who rail against our parents
    And oppression, and our fates
    To push on three steps forward
    Two steps backward, evermore
    A billion dissatisfactions
    Gaining traction, slow but sure

    So what of all this spit and rage
    A lifetime may not see
    The moving of the wheels that turn
    Borne on you and me
    Was not by resolutions signed
    But people and their might
    Adjusting to the changing times
    Who set their minds, now fight.

  4. eco maori 4
    17 November 2018 at 8:04 am

    The reason that big oil barons have been able to cast their veil of deception over the World is that the whole World’s Governments have corrupt elements in them.
    These lobbyist are no very intelligent as they are putting there short term gains ahead of their descendants future . We have seen many civilizations and environments collapse into the mother earth whence they came from quite easy to find that data. The climate change deniers are putting people’s lives at risk and we can see the destruction & lives being lost all around the world right NOW.
    You see some people believe these lies they don’t take precautions to mitigate climate change dangers in their local environment .Like stop building by the SEA or keeping vegetation away from there dwelling there are many small thing a person can do to help mitigate climate change on a local level. So people see the neighbour not doing anything so they copy them and what do you know you have a recipe for a massive disaster that could have been minimized all because of DUMB GREEDY POLLIES.
    We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN
    It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” said Debra Roberts, a co-chair of the working group on impacts. “This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilises people and dents the mood of complacency.”

    Policymakers commissioned the report at the Paris climate talks in 2016, but since then the gap between science and politics has widened. Donald Trump has promised to withdraw the US – the world’s biggest source of historical emissions – from the accord. The first round of Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday put Jair Bolsonaro into a strong position to carry out his threat to do the same and also open the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness.

    The world is currently 1C warmer than preindustrial levels. Following devastating hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town and forest fires in the Arctic, the IPCC makes clear that climate change is already happening, upgraded its risk warning from previous reports, and warned that every fraction of additional warming would
    worsen the impact. link below ka kite ano

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

  5. eco maori 5
    17 November 2018 at 8:50 am

    The Wealthy %00.1 who use there money to keep us in there SQUARE BOX of lies and deceit to keep there control of the Mother Earth’s people .
    These people are raciest bigots how does one explain the mess in Africa the Middle East all around the World except in most western country’s well they are afraid of other cultures becoming powerful hence they are deliberately suppressing all cultures that are not identical to theirs hence that is the main reason they don’t want or will let the commodity that controls the World slip into our history books.
    OIL & COAL is the one thing that controls the world at the minute that need to change now . It’s quite easy to see that Mother nature has taken the carbon out of her environment over billions of years and stored it in her for our climate to be more habitable . Man has reversed this process and is poisoning our environment we have poured billions of years of stored carbon into the Atmosphere in 100 years that’s is going to turn our HEAVEN into Hell all for GREED of power control and money.
    Ka kite ano link below

  6. Dave B 6
    9 December 2018 at 4:47 pm

    Few people seem to realise that the 1.5 deg C target is with respect to the 1880 level – that distant paradise of supposedly perfect temperatures. A more sensible starting point would be the 1950’s because a) this is within existing memory of many people still alive, who can tell their children and grandchildren what it was like b) the 2ppm per year rise in CO2 levels started then c) there was an established global network of temperature stations. Since the 1950’s global temperatures have risen, in rises, flats and sometimes falls, by approx 0.6 deg C, while atmospheric CO2 levels have risen by 40%. The global biomass has risen by 30% due to increasing CO2. In other words, the rise in CO2 is ‘greening’ the planet. The satellite record of lower troposphere temperature, the best record we have, is now 40 years old, and clearly demonstrates a temperature rise of 0.1 deg C per decade. Best estimates of Transient Climate Response, ie the temperature rise due to a doubling of CO2, is in the range 1.5 deg C. If we attribute all the temperature rise to man’s injection of additional CO2, and assume CO2 levels continue to rise at the present rate, it will take something like another 80 years to rise 1.5 deg above the 1950’s level, or 0.9 deg above today’s temperatures. Of particular interest to the Pacific peoples is sea level rise. This is running at a steady 2.5-3mm per year ( less at shorelines) with no acceleration, and Pacific Islands, being atolls, are generally responding by rising and growing in area. the 22,000 delegates who jetted in to Katowice are engaged in an exercise in futility.

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