Climate change is very, very dangerous. But it's only one of *many* serious crises brought to us by capitalist greed and exploitation that threaten the collapse of everything...
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Scientists say human activity has pushed the world into the danger zone in seven out of eight indicators of planetary safety. Under a Business As Usual scenario, biodiversity loss will accelerate, with more species surviving only in zoos.

All over the world, people are noticing nature and species disappearing in the space of a few generations.

Since 1970, some studies estimate wildlife populations have declined on average by 73%, with huge numbers lost in the decades and centuries before. Passenger pigeons, the Carolina parakeets, and Floreana giant tortoises are among the many species humans have obliterated.

“It’s shameful that our single species is driving the extinction of thousands of others,” says Tom Oliver, professor of applied ecology at the University of Reading.

Environmental breakdown is driving inequality, conflict and injustice. Dr Andrew Terry, director of conservation and policy at the Zoological Society of London, says: “Already, we have witnessed environmentally driven famine in Madagascar and mass migration. We will see increased conflict for access to dwindling resources, particularly water and food. We will see increases in major health issues, particularly due to urban heat as temperatures increase to intolerable levels and pollution rises.”

Experts warn that ecosystems are starting to approach tipping points – where they shift into a new, degraded state that further reduces their resilience. “This will see once rich, wet tropical areas become dry savannahs, or warming ocean currents completely change. This is where we will see massive functional shifts that will impact humanity,” says Terry.

“We are already locked in for significant damage, and we’re heading in a direction that will see more,” says Tom Oliver. “I really worry that negative changes could be very rapid.”
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FULL STORY -- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/21/humanity-earth-natural-limits-biodiversity-warning-cop16-conference-scientists-academics

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #BioDiversity #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Although we’ve heard this same thing many times before, that doesn’t make the news any easier to accept. It’s disappointing, frustrating, maddening… and you know what else it is?

This is simply Business As Usual. It’s capitalist industry blatantly deceiving us to make money.

That’s what they do, always.
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Seventy per cent of soft plastic collected in supermarket recycling schemes and tracked after collection ended up being burned, an investigation by UK campaigners has found.

When Sainsbury’s launched its in-store soft plastic collection in 2021, it said: “The innovative recycling system allows customers to recycle polypropylene film found in several household products.”

Tesco said its customers would be able to bring back any soft plastic packaging for recycling. Soft plastic is hard to recycle and very few facilities in the UK have the ability to process it.

Alison Colclough, of Everyday Plastic, a community interest group that conducted this investigation, said: “Our trackers reveal the hard truth about soft plastic recycling schemes at supermarkets – soft plastic packaging is not going to get recycled. The takeback schemes are being presented as a solution, which is diverting attention from the main issue that can’t be overlooked: far too much unnecessary plastic packaging is being produced.”
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FULL STORY -- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/01/soft-plastic-collected-for-recycling-burned-tesco-sainsburys-campaigners

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Pollution

'Green growth' is not the answer. A gradual transition to 'clean energy' will not save us from disaster.

Either we end capitalism or capitalism will end us...
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It is good that there is increasing talk about the looming catastrophe that threatens our societies because of climate change and deepening ecological crises. But there is a major problem with the way the issue is being examined in the mainstream.

People who focus solely on a transition toward clean renewable energy take for granted the current capitalist pattern of perpetual economic growth. This logic doesn’t question the parameters of the dominant system, but only seeks ways of ‘greening’ them so that Business As Usual can continue.

It is the idea that our societies can continue down the same path of perpetual growth that must be tackled. There is simply no ecological way of satisfying the ever-increasing energy needs of an increasingly wasteful way of life.

The continuous increase of our energy use will demand the constant expansion of renewables, whose production is not without its own environmental and social cost. Wind turbines, solar panels, etc. are all made using rare minerals and materials that have to be extracted from the earth, with considerable ecological imprint. For a society based on extreme consumerist lifestyles there will never be enough energy, there will always be a need for more.

A more holistic way to approach the issue is to advocate simultaneously for renewables replacing dirty fossil fuels, while also resisting the dominant capitalist paradigm and advancing an alternative project that seeks to degrow the economy and reduce unnecessary consumption. It is only in this way that we can avert the looming ecological catastrophe.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/10/10/clean-energy-cant-save-us/

#Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Degrowth

this! This!! THIS!!! Needs to be shouted from the rooftops of every roof in the world.

From the article:

** The problem is that we don’t have control over our own productive capacities, because we don’t have an economic democracy, right? Some of us live in political democracies, where, from time to time, we get to elect government officials, but when it comes to the economic system, not even the pretense of democracy is allowed to exist, and that is ultimately the contradiction we face, I think, right? This is a crisis that, at its root, is about capitalism, and can only be resolved by overcoming that fact. And the antidote to capitalism is economic democracy, that we should have collective democratic control over what we are producing, what the goals of our production are, who benefits from our production, and so on. And when we do, we can solve these problems quickly, right? We know exactly what to do.

The problem is we don’t have the power.**

#Climate #ClimateCrisis #Colonialism #Capitalism #Overthrow

https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/12/why-a-liberated-palestine-threatens-global-capitalism/

THIS is what passes for brilliance in the US Capitalist Empire...
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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says it's time to fully invest in AI infrastructure because climate goals are too lofty to reach.

Schmidt's comments came at an AI summit in Washington DC on Tuesday, where he addressed the crowd and gave his thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence.

"All of that will be swamped by the enormous needs of this new technology," Schmidt said. "Because it's a universal technology, and because it's the arrival of an alien intelligence… we may make mistakes with respect to how it's used, but I can assure you that we're not going to get there through conservation."

Schmidt said he thinks "we're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it."

"Yes, the needs in this area will be a problem, but I'd rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it and having the problem," Schmidt said.
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If this view holds sway, we are truly doomed.

FULL STORY -- https://archive.ph/jzlfB

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

See, this is how capitalism works.

If you're choosing between "investor confidence" and everyone dying in a climate apocalypse, the correct answer is obvious.
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BP has abandoned a target to cut oil and gas output by 2030 as CEO Murray Auchincloss scales back the firm's energy transition strategy to regain investor confidence, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

When unveiled in 2020, BP's strategy was the sector's most ambitious with a pledge to cut output by 40% while rapidly growing renewables by 2030. BP scaled back the target in February last year to a 25% reduction, which would leave it producing two million barrels per day at the end of the decade, as investors focused on near-term returns rather than the energy transition.

The company is now targeting several new investments in the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico to boost its oil and gas output, the sources said.
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FULL STORY -- https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bp-drops-oil-output-target-strategy-reset-sources-say-2024-10-07/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism

Question asked in the headline below: With the planet warming at a record pace, why are so many companies retreating from their climate targets? 🤔

Answer: Because making huge profits is far more important to them than anything else!
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In what is becoming a trend, a number of companies are abandoning their carbon emissions targets — in a year scientists have determined is likely to end up being the hottest on record.

Earlier this month, Volvo announced it was dropping its goal of having a fully electric lineup of vehicles by 2030.

In the summer, Air New Zealand said it was abandoning a pledge to reduce its emissions by about 29% by 2030.

And in March, Shell announced it was easing its target of reducing the total "net carbon intensity" of all the energy products it sells by 20%.

The message from a lot of these companies is that meeting their climate targets has become too costly, a theme emphasized by some American banks last month at NYC Climate Week, an annual gathering for organizations to discuss global warming.

In some cases, climate action has become more challenging with the emergence of new revenue streams. Take Microsoft and Google, which admit their investments in AI infrastructure — and the energy that requires — make it impossible to meet their net zero targets.
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It's Business As Usual, baby.

FULL STORY -- https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/net-zero-corporate-climate-targets-1.7338799

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

My thoughts after reading this article ➡️ https://phys.org/news/2024-09-scientists-evidence-global-action-microplastics.html
(see screenshot below)

1. Obviously capitalist industry and commerce are producing FAR too much plastic and forcing its use onto consumers.

1a. Because that's VERY profitable. 💵 💵 💵

2. Obviously a strong global treaty to sharply reduce production and use of plastics is a necessity.

3. The UN has been working on such a treaty for years... but if it ever gets approved, it's likely to be weak and watered down by fossil fuel lobbyists and by powerful capitalist nations like the US and the UK.
(see ➡️ https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/112377162225459307)

4. Even if a strong treaty is passed, which seems next to impossible, it is already too late to prevent much of the damage to global ecosystems, to biodiversity, and to human health. Our oceans, our rivers, and our bodies are loaded with deadly microplastics.

5. So, I'm glad these scientists are speaking out, but I'm dubious that what they are doing will make any significant difference.

#Science #Environment #Pollution #Climate #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual