Een veel besproken artikel van Naomi Klein uit The Nation 28 nov 2011

But now there is a significant cohort of Republicans who care passionately, even obsessively, about climate change—though what they care about is exposing it as a “hoax” being perpetrated by liberals to force them to change their light bulbs, live in Soviet-style tenements and surrender their SUVs. For these right-wingers, opposition to climate change has become as central to their worldview as low

taxes, gun ownership and opposition to abortion. Many climate scientists report receiving death threats, as do authors of articles on subjects as seemingly innocuous as energy conservation. (As one letter writer put it to Stan Cox, author of a book critical of air-conditioning, “You can pry my thermostat out of my cold dead hands.”)

This culture-war intensity is the worst news of all, because when you challenge a person’s position on an issue core to his or her identity, facts and arguments are seen as little more than further attacks, easily deflected.

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Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Aric McBay call for new strategy to stave off environmental catastrophe. August 6, 2011  |   Environmental groups are trying to build a critical mass around issues like global warming to inspire public action and encourage legislators to get their heads out of the sand. The Sierra Club is working to block new coal burning power plants, a new coalition is organizing actions against a tar sands pipeline, and folks in West Virginia are sitting in trees in an attempt to halt destructive strip mining. It's great work, but what if it's not enough? What if it's too little, too late? What if we never get enough mass for it to ever reach that critical point?

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Insiders Warn “Shale Plays are Just Giant Ponzi Schemes” in Bombshell-Laden NY Times Piece on Natural Gas, Fracking

By Joe Romm on Jun 26, 2011 at 11:21 am

The lead story in the New York Times today is a detailed bubble bursting of the much vaunted boom in unconventional natural gas.

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

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Given the overwhelming harm being done to the world’s environment and to its people, it is essential today to consider how we might organize a truly ecological civilization—one that exists in harmony with natural systems—instead of trying to overwhelm and dominate nature. This is not just an ethical issue; it is essential for our survival as a species and the survival of many other species that we reverse the degradation of the earth’s life support systems that once provided dependable climate, clean air, clean water (fresh and ocean), bountiful oceans, and healthy and productive soils.
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The truth is that Cancun revealed a shocking failure by the world's nations  - and particularly those most responsible for causing climate change - to find a collective and effective response to a crisis that will affect the most vulnerable. A report by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, in December 2010 noted that already 350,000 people die from natural disasters related to climate change and that this figure is likely to rise to one million people every year if we don't radically change course. Bolivia was not an obstacle to progress, it was rather the only nation daring enough to tell the truth. Rather than less Bolivias, we need more willing to stand up and say that the agreement was 'naked' and unacceptable. Perhaps if more nations – especially major emerging economies like India and Brazil - had said they would not accept an illusory deal, it could have shocked the world into moving beyond cautious approaches and acting radically for humanity and the planet.

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Concealing their sources - who funds Europe's climate change deniers? They are a tiny minority, a network of just a few dozen individuals around the world. Their numbers contrast starkly with the overwhelming majority of scientists who agree on the reality of man-made climate change, and on the urgent need for action. But the voices of climate deniers, are amplified in Europe by a handful of extremist free marketeers and right-wing think tanks.
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Artikel/interview: "Het groene Plan B" Tekst: Griet Plets (De Standaard, 27/11/2010)

Wetenschappers maken volop plannen om te sleutelen aan het klimaat. Wat vroeger als sciencefiction werd afgedaan, wordt steeds vaker au serieux genomen. Want als de politici niet willen, is de wereld aan de dromers. En die is geen idee te gek.

U dacht dat Plan B alleen in de Belgische politiek bestond? Niet dus, in kringen van klimaatexperts waart de term al langer rond, veel langer. En veroorzaakt hij minstens evenveel ophef als bij onze politici. Want Plan B, dat is de ultieme ontsnappingsroute uit het klimaatprobleem. De enige overgebleven piste als alle andere hebben gefaald. En dat mag u best zo drastisch interpreteren als het klinkt: een zonnescherm, kunstmatige bomen, een schip dat wolken produceert - geen idee zo gek of het werd al geopperd.

Derrick Jensen November 17, 2010

We end today’s show with a figure who’s been called the poet-philosopher of the ecology movement. Author and activist Derrick Jensen has written some 15 books critiquing contemporary society and the destruction of the environment. In 2008, he was named one of Utne Reader magazine’s 50 visionaries who are changing the world. Among his books, A Language Older than Words, Endgame, What We Left Behind, and Resistance Against Empire.

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