I am greatly saddened to report
that Jerry Berrigan, brother of Dan and Phil, died at 5 PM on July 26,
2015. Know that he led an exemplary life.
Kagiso,
Max
Kelly writes: "This is a historic time, and
perhaps the historic time, a perfect storm of challenges to the survival of our
species which it does not now seem we can conceivably weather without all hands
on deck."
Los Angeles skyline visible through smog. (photo: Getty)
Pushing for the Dismantling of Anti-Climate, Pro-War
Economies
By
Kathy Kelly, teleSUR
22 July 15
James Hansen wants profits to be tied to
lower carbon emissions.
Last weekend, about 100 U.S. Veterans for Peace
gathered in Red Wing, Minnesota, for a statewide annual meeting. In my
experience, Veterans for Peace chapters hold
“no-nonsense” events. Whether coming together for local, statewide,
regional or national work, the Veterans project a strong sense of
purpose. They want to dismantle war economies and work to end all
wars. The Minnesotans, many of them old friends, convened in the spacious
loft of a rural barn. After organizers extended friendly welcomes, participants
settled in to tackle this year’s theme: “The War on Our Climate.”
They invited Dr. James Hansen, an
Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, to speak via Skype
about minimizing the impacts of climate change. Sometimes called the
“father of global warming”, Dr. Hansen has sounded alarms for several
decades with accurate predictions about the effects of fossil fuel
emissions. He now campaigns for an economically efficient phase out of fossil
fuel emissions by imposing carbon fees on emission sources with dividends
equitably returned to the public.
Dr. Hansen envisions, at long last, the creation of
serious market incentives for entrepreneurs to develop energy and products that
are low-carbon and no-carbon, “Those who achieve the greatest
reductions in carbon use would reap the greatest profit.
Projections show that such an approach could reduce U.S. carbon emissions by
more than half within 20 years — and create 3 million new jobs in the process.”
Steadily calling on adults to care about young people
and future generations, Dr. Hansen chides proponents of what he terms “the
fruitless cap-and-trade-with-offsets approach.” This method fails to
make fossil fuels pay their costs to society, “thus allowing fossil fuel addiction to
continue and encouraging ‘drill, baby, drill’ policies to
extract every fossil fuel that can be found.”
Making fossil fuels “pay their full costs” would mean
imposing fees to cover costs that polluters impose on communities through
burning of coal, oil and gas. . When local populations are sickened and
killed by air pollution, and starved by droughts or battered or drowned by
climate-change-driven storms, costs accrue for governments that businesses
should repay.
What are the true costs to society of fossil
fuels? According to a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) study,
fossil fuel companies are benefiting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a
year, US $10 million per minute, every minute, each and every day.
The Guardian reports that the
US$5.3 trillion subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total
health spending of all the world’s governments.
Dr. Hansen began his presentation by noting that,
historically, energy figured importantly in avoiding slave labor. He
believes some energy from nuclear power is now necessary for countries such as
China and India to lift masses of their populations out of poverty.
Many critics strenuously object to
Dr. Hansen’s call for reliance on nuclear power, citing dangers of radiation,
accidents, and problems with storage of nuclear waste, particularly when the
radioactive waste is stored in communities where people have little control or influence
over elites that decide where to ship the nuclear waste.
Other critics argue that “nuclear power is simply too
risky, and more practically speaking, too costly to be
considered a significant part of the post-carbon energy portfolio.”
Journalist and activist George Monbiot, author of a
book-length climate change proposal, Heat, notes that nuclear power tends
to endanger “haves” and “have-nots” equally. Coal power’s deadliest
immediate effects, with historic casualties clearly outpacing those of nuclear,
are linked to mining and industrial areas populated by people more likely to be
economically disadvantaged or impoverished.
Climate-driven societal collapse may be all the more
deadly and final with grid-dependent nuclear plants ready to melt down in
lockstep with our economies. But it's crucial to remember that our direst
weapons – many of them also nuclear – are stockpiled precisely to help elites
manage the sort of political unrest into which poverty and desperation drive
societies. Climate change, if we cannot slow it, does not merely promise
poverty and despair on an unprecedented scale, but also war - on a scale, and
with weapons, that may be far worse than dangers resulting from our energy
choices. Earth's military crisis, its climate crisis, and the paralyzing
economic inequalities that burden impoverished people are linked.
Dr. Hansen thinks that the Chinese government and
Chinese scientists might marshal the resources to develop alternatives to
fossil fuels, including nuclear powered energy. He notes that China faces the
dire possibility of losing coastal cities to global warming and accelerated
disintegration of ice sheets.
The greatest barriers to solution of
fossil fuel addiction in most nations are the influence of the
fossil fuel industry on politicians and the media and the short-term view of
politicians. Thus it is possible that leadership moving the world to
sustainable energy policies may arise in China , where the leaders are rich in
technical and scientific training and rule a nation that has a history of
taking the long view. Although China’s CO emissions have skyrocketed above
those of other nations, China has reasons to move off the fossil fuel track as
rapidly as practical. China has several hundred million people living within a
25-meter elevation of sea level, and the country stands to suffer grievously
from intensification of droughts, floods, and storms that will accompany
continued global warming. China also recognizes the merits of avoiding a fossil
fuel addiction comparable to that of the United States. Thus China has already
become the global leader in development of energy efficiency, renewable
energies, and nuclear power.
What’s missing from this picture? The Veterans for
Peace earnestly believe in ending all wars. Deepening nonviolent resistance to
war could radically amend the impact of world militaries, especially the
colossal U.S. military, on global climate. In order to protect access to and
global control of fossil fuels, the U.S. military burns rivers of oil, wasting
the hopes of future generations in the name of more securely killing and
maiming the people of regions the U.S. has chosen or may one day prefer to
plunge into brutal, destabilizing wars of choice, ending in chaos.
Corruption of the global environment and compulsively
frantic destruction of irreplaceable resources is an equally sure, if more
delayed, manner of imposing chaos and death on a mass scale. The misdirection
of economic resources, of preciously needed human productive energy, is yet
another. Researchers at Oil Change International find that “3
trillion of the dollars spent on war against Iraq would cover all global
investments in renewable power generation needed between now and 2030 to
reverse global warming.”
John Lawrence writes that “the United States contributes more
than 30% of global warming gases to the atmosphere, generated by 5%
of the world’s population. At the same time funding for education, energy,
environment, social services, housing and new job creation, taken together, is
less than the military budget.” I believe that “low carbon” and “no carbon”
energy and energy efficiency should be paid for by abolishing war. Lawrence is
right to insist that the U.S. should view problems and conflicts created by
climate change as “opportunities to work together with other nations to
mitigate and adapt to its effects.” But the madness of conquest must end before
any such coordinated work will be possible.
Sadly, tragically, many U.S. veterans fully understand
the cost of war. I asked a U.S. Veteran for Peace living in Mankato, MN, about
the well being of local Iraq War Veterans. He told me that in April, U.S.
veteran student leaders at Minnesota State's Mankato Campus, spent 22 days
gathering daily, rain or shine, to perform 22 push-ups in
recognition of the 22 combat veterans a day – nearly one an hour – currently
committing suicide in the U.S. They invited the Mankato-area community to come
to campus and do pushups along with them.
This is a historic time, and perhaps the historic
time, a perfect storm of challenges to the survival of our species which it
does not now seem we can conceivably weather without all hands on deck. Whoever
arrives to work beside us, and however quickly they arrive, we have heavy burdens
to share with many others already lifting as much as they can, some taking
theirs up by choice, some burdened beyond endurance by greedy masters. The
Veterans for Peace work to save the ship rather than wait for it to sink.
Many of us have not endured the horrors that drive 22
veterans a day, and countless poor in world regions that the U.S.
empire has touched, to the final act of despair. I would like to think we can
bring hope and comfort to those around us, bearing burdens together, sharing
resources, and learning to join courageous others in the work at hand.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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