Climate Crisis: Our Last Chance
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https://qz.com/1709757/climate-change-threatens-the-niles-critical-water-supply/
Climate change and the Nile river
The kings of Egypt ( I do not call them Pharaoh ) knew the importance of the Nile River
Massive melting of glaciers as a result of global heating has shifted the Earth’s axis of rotation.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL092114
No politician, no matter how demagogic or potent or capable they are, is going to be able to change what the market is doing.
This is what Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, is reported to have told the virtual climate change conference that Biden summoned last week.
He was talking about it becoming profitable to invest in technologies that reduced CO2 emissions like green hydrogen, carbon capture, more efficient batteries, cheaper renewables.
He may or may not be right about what “the market” is doing, but in any event becoming profitable to invest in such technologies is the only thing that is going to get capitalism to do something about global over-warming.
But what he said is also true outside the context of climate change. Isn’t that what we say about the limitations of what governments can do, given capitalism?
AOC puts some flesh on the bones of their GND
https://inthesetimes.com/article/civilian-climate-corp-green-new-deal-infrastructure
The Civilian Climate Corps, an echo of FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, an idea adopted from Nazi Germany
The article by-passes much of the contemporary criticism of the CCC, this being just one
https://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wing/icc/1935/03/corps.htm
collapsologist – a new word for me
Despite widespread fears, no peer-reviewed research finds that the breakdown of society or the collapse of civilization is likely, let alone inevitable. Scientists used to debunking myths from climate deniers say they must also fight off claims of collapse that hinge on distorted science.
Climate disasters could disrupt politics in some regions enough that “the glue that holds society together doesn’t work very well anymore,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at the University of Princeton. “But that’s where we’re getting into the realm of things that are unpredictable.”
“We know that we won’t be fine, but there’s a lot of space between fine and doomed,” said Jacquelyn Gill, an associate professor of Paleoecology at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.
Pakistan’s neglected solar power potential
https://www.dw.com/en/why-doesnt-pakistan-tap-its-solar-power-potential/a-57392297
Hassan Abbas, an environmentalist, told DW that Pakistan could conceivably generate more than 2,900 gigawatts of solar power capacity. For reference, 1 gigawatt could power 110 million LED lights, according to the US Department of Energy.
“There are influential bureaucrats, policymakers and hydropower lobbies that are against solar energy,” said Abbas.
Ghazala Reza, a Pakistani energy expert, told DW, “Lack of political will and reluctance of government investment dash the hopes of generating electricity through this sustainable method,”
Despite the re-entry of the USA and improved targets by some nations, the Paris target will still be exceeded.
The new targets have reduced projected warming by the end of century by 0.2C.
The forecast now stands at 2.4C – a small improvement, but higher than the 1.5C threshold nations are aiming for under the Paris climate agreement.
But it’s also half full. Even if the Paris target would not be met if all the planned reductions were successfully implemented, the worst case scenarios of 3 to 4 percent wouldn’t be either.
Capitalist states do seem to be doing something about the threat of global overwarmimg, as was predictable since they were never really going to let Rome burn. That would not be in the overall capitalist interest.
“Rather than acknowledge the seriousness of our situation, we instead continue to participate in the fantasy of net zero. What will we do when reality bites? The time has come to voice our fears and be honest with wider society. Current net zero policies will not keep warming to within 1.5°C because they were never intended to. They were and still are driven by a need to protect business as usual, not the climate. If we want to keep people safe then large and sustained cuts to carbon emissions need to happen now. That is the very simple acid test that must be applied to all climate policies. The time for wishful thinking is over.”
https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368
Some within the Party have suggested that nuclear power will be a useful tool in mitigating climate change. Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin magazine and author of ‘The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality’ concurs
The People’s Global Resource Bank Ecological Economic Money System is the solution to the climate crisis
There is some intersting stuff in this article on pre-colonial agriculture in tropical rainforst areas..
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jun/22/the-real-urban-jungle-how-ancient-societies-reimagined-what-cities-could-be
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