or “Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You”

The following excerpts come from an article called “Who gains from the green economy?” by Preeti Mangala Shekar and Tram Nguyen. It was recently published in COLORLINES - The national newsmagazine on race and politics.

The authors depict a New World, a just world of brotherhood and equal opportunities. A world that will emerge thanks to global warming.

Climate change is the 21st century’s wake-up call to not just rethink but to radically redo our economies. Ninety percent of scientists agree that we are headed toward a climate crisis, and that, indeed, it has already started. With the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, the clean energy economy is poised to grow enormously.

Naturally, things will have to change.

“An authentic green economics system is one that would mark the end of capitalism,” notes B. Jess Clarke, editor of Race, Poverty and the Environment. And one that would ensure labor rights and organizing, collective ownership and equality are all at the heart of it, he adds. “The real green movement has not started yet.”

Getting scared yet? Just wait. There’s more.

We have to recognize that we are at a particular stage of history, where the choices are not capitalism versus socialism, but green/eco-capitalism versus gray/suicide capitalism. The first industrial revolution hurt both people and the planet, very badly. Today, we do have a chance to create a second ‘green’ industrial revolution, one that will produce much better ecological outcomes. Our task is to ensure that this green revolution succeeds-and to ensure that the new model also generates much better social outcomes. I don’t know what will replace eco-capitalism. But I do know that no one will be here to find out, if we don’t first replace gray capitalism.

So, in case you have wondered what all the climate fuss is about - here’s the answer. Is this the kind of world you want to live in?

Read the entire article in COLORLINES and weep.

In today’s Standard Freeholder, a local Canadian publication, the editor blames the Modern Man for the cataclysm of Global Warming. His rhetoric brings to mind the famous quote of Albert Einstein about only two things being endless – the universe and human stupidity.

A small excerpt:

Global warming, if explained in laymen’s terms, is not all that difficult to understand. Geologists and their kin tell us that climate change in the distant past was brought about by natural events, volcanic eruptions on an unimaginable cataclysmic scale and/or similar explosions in outer space. Then came the Industrial Revolution. Not to be outdone by nature, modern man has been busy inventing a way to produce the same results, with less drama.

He has built billions upon billions of mini volcanoes around the world in the form of smoke stacks, chimneys and various other kinds of exhaust pipes, belching out much of the same pollutants as volcanoes into the earth’s atmosphere. He has even gone one step further by adding poisons and toxins previously unknown to nature and our environment. How difficult is that to understand? Some estimates tell us we have already wiped out close to half of all life forms on this planet in the process. That’s the legacy we are busy leaving our grandchildren.

I especially like the comparison between cars and volcanoes. Mr Editor seems to obtain his knowledge not from science, but rather science fiction. Calling carbon dioxide a pollutant does not exhibit much insight. And stating that we (the humans) have already wiped out close to half of all life forms on this planet is simply absurd.