As this report of recent research makes clear Americans just don’t get it. As a people we don’t understand or accept what we are doing to destroy Earth’s matrix of life; nor do we comprehend what this destruction is doing to us. I have been thinking about this all day. Why don’t Americans understand what is happening to the Earth and to us. The answer I think is in two parts. The first is the failure of corporate media to do its job because so many of the corporations that advertise on media, or the billionaires who own the major newspapers don’t want coverage of those topics. It is the same reason you don’t see much coverage about how bad our healthcare system is. The second reason is the corruption of our political system at both the state and federal level.
Power lines are cast in silhouette as the Creek Fire creeps up on on the Shaver Springs community off of Tollhouse Road on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020, in Auberry, California.
Most people are “very” or “extremely” concerned about the state of the natural world, a new global public opinion survey shows.
Roughly 70 percent of 22,000 people polled online earlier this year agreed that human activities were pushing the Earth past “tipping points,” thresholds beyond which nature cannot recover, like loss of the Amazon rainforest or collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s currents. The same number of respondents said the world needs to reduce carbon emissions within the next decade.
Just under 40 percent of respondents said technological advances can solve environmental challenges.
The Global Commons survey, conducted for two collectives of “economic thinkers” and scientists known as Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance, polled people across 22 countries, including low-, middle- and high-income nations. The survey’s stated aim was to assess public opinion about “societal transformations” and “planetary stewardship.”
Paradise Afshar and Cindy Von Quednow,, Reporters - CNN
Stephan:
This is what carbon energy is doing to us. These climate crises are happening somewhere every day, and the effects go way beyond the fire. It is burning alive parts of our matrix of life. It is changing the very nature of the environment. At an almost trivial level compared to these changes it is. making it impossible for humans to get home insurance in these areas. Yet, do you hear anyone making this a truly serious part of the political debates as the election comes in days? You do not.
The Line Fire burns next to highway 330 near Running Springs, California, on September 7, 2024. Credit: David Swanson / AFP / Getty
Raging wildfires in California and Nevada have led to mandatory evacuations of thousands of homes, as forecasters warn of record heat in the West for the next few days. There are 14 active wildfires currently burning across California – with one so intense, it’s created its own weather pattern. Here’s the latest:
• California’s Line Fire explodes in size: The wildfire has consumed 17,459 acres as of Sunday after igniting at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains on Thursday. The blaze has more than quadrupled in size since Saturday morning. Authorities urged residents in several areas to flee as the massive blaze shot bright red flames and thick, billowing plumes of smoke into the sky. More than 600 fire personnel are battling the wildfire, which was 0% contained as of Sunday morning, according to Cal Fire. The blaze has injured three people, though authorities have not released any details about the extent of injuries.
Dharna Noor, Fossil Fuels and Climate Reporter - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan:
The corporations that are destroying Earth’s ecosystems are trying to corrupt university science departments the same way they have corrupted U.S. politics. I find it weird actually. Many of these corporate scum seem to think they are not going to be affected by the damage they are doing to our world. Making their short-term profit seems to be the only thing they care about.
BP funneled more than $2m to Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative between 2012 and 2017, new research has found. Composite: Bloomberg / Getty / the Guardian
Fossil fuel companies’ funding of universities’ climate-focused efforts is delaying the green transition, according to the most extensive peer-reviewed study to date of the industry’s influence on academia.
For the study, published in the journal WIREs Climate Changeon Thursday, six researchers pored over thousands of academic articles on industries’ funding of research from the past two decades. Just a handful of them focused on oil and gas companies, showing a “worrying lack of attention” to the issue, the analysis says.
But even that small body of research shows a pattern of industry influence: “The academic integrity of higher education is at risk,” they write.
During the past two decades, non-profits, campus organizers and a small group of scholars have sounded the alarm about oil companies’ influence in academia, drawing parallels to tobacco, pharmaceuticals and food producers who have also funded scholarship.
In the new study, researchers found that out of roughly 14,000 peer-reviewed articles about conflicts of interest, bias and […]
Harris, a Democrat who is currently serving as vice president under Joe Biden, is part of a government that has passed the most ambitious climate legislation in US history.
US fossil-fuel production has surged during the Biden administration. However, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has set the nation on a course to slash its domestic emissions by offering billions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits for clean energy and electric vehicles.
Trump, the Republican candidate, is a climate sceptic who rolled back many environmental regulations during his 2017-2021 presidential term. He has dismissed climate policies as a “scam”, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement and called for yet more oil production by repeating the mantra […]
Here is some good news about transitioning out of the carbon era. It is from Democrats, of course, the MAGAt Republicans don’t even mention climate change in their Project 2025 book. Traitor Trump never mentions doing anything to promote the transition. so it you want to prepare for climate change the only choice is voting for Democrats.
Webb Farm Solar Systems Inc. in Humboldt, Tennessee received assistance from the USDA to purchase and install a solar array, seen on April 4, 2024. Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture
On a visit to Wisconsin Thursday, President Joe Biden announced $7.3 billion in financing for 16 rural clean energy projects to be directed by rural electric cooperatives through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program.
The combination of New ERA and other Inflation Reduction Act-funded rural green energy projects comprise the biggest rural electrification investment since the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the New Deal, a press release from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
“The Inflation Reduction Act makes the largest investment in rural electrification since FDR and the New Deal in the 1930s,” said John Podesta, President Joe Biden’s senior advisor for international climate policy, in the press release. “Today’s awards will bring clean, affordable, reliable power to rural Americans all across our nation.”
