A DIFFERENT KIND OF APOCALYPSE: Europe's Energy Crisis
Revealing Denouements
Generally, the “Apocalypse” is thought of as the final cosmic showdown between good and evil. In the Book of Revelation, written 2,000 years ago, the forces of good are prophesied to finally overcome the forces of evil. Over the centuries, libraries of books predicting the soon-coming Apocalypse, put out by thousands of Biblical interpreters, have come and gone.
But, as yet there has been no showdown, final or otherwise.
Read moreStand Against Thacker Pass Lithium Mine
On January 15th, activists Max Wilbert and Will Falk launched a protest on pristine land in northwest Nevada (Northern Paiute / Western Shoshone territory), slated for destruction on behalf of “green” industry.
In the final days of the Trump administration, the BLM fast-tracked the approval of a lithium mine in northwest Nevada, at Thacker Pass.
Lithium Americas Corporation, a Canadian-based company, plans to blow up this pass, extract millions of tons of stone, and build an array of infrastructure to process this into lithium, with harsh chemicals like sulfuric acid trucked in from oil refineries. Along the way, they will build vast mountains of toxic tailings, leaching heavy metals and uranium into what groundwater remains after they pump nearly 1.5 billion gallons per year into their industrial machinery.
And they have the gall to call this GREEN!!!
This wild and beautiful place has some of the best remaining old-growth sagebrush habitat and is home to many wild creatures, including the most iconic of Western species, the critically endangered greater sage grouse. This area is part of a wildlife management unit that is home to 5-8% of the total remaining sage grouse on the planet. Crosby’s Buckwheat, a rare desert wildflower, lives in this project area. Several creeks here host threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, and nearby springs are the only home of King’s River pyrg (a critically endangered snail).
From BRIGHT GREEN LIES co-author Max Wilbert:
We want to resist this project because it is emblematic of the lies that are being sold to us about so-called “green” technology. This company and many others are trying to convince us that if we just switch to electric cars, the destruction of the planet and global warming will be fixed. This could not be further from the truth. So we're here to push back against this specific mining project, as well as the entire narrative of "green" technology, and to try to build and strengthen a movement that has its allegiance to the land, to Mother Earth, and to the other beings with whom we share this planet.
As the author of a new book BRIGHT GREEN LIES that examines the failures of so-called green technology, I know these issues well — and lithium is a distraction that allows us to maintain the illusion that a modern, wasteful, high-energy lifestyle can (or should) be maintained, not a solution. We will not solve the problems caused by destroying and consuming the living planet by further destroying and consuming the living planet.
Donate to fund the grassroots resistance and defend this land.
Support the resistance in other ways -- join the protest or help provide needed supplies.
Learn more about Thacker Pass and the proposed mine's impacts here and here.
Learn more about the new book BRIGHT GREEN LIES.
We are Strip-Mining Life While We Drink “Bright Green Lies”
Industrial civilization is strip-mining Life. Human economies are suffocating our remaining natural living systems. As a result, wildlife and insect populations are plummeting, while humans, pets, and livestock numbers are soaring.[1] But some of the newest threats to the natural world are from unexpected sources: wind turbines, solar panels, energy storage, and other “green technologies.”
Read moreThe Tinkerbell-Effect & Breaking the Climate
UPDATED: This is Part 1 in the ATL's free e-book Climate and Ecological Delusions and Contradictions That Will Rapidly End Humanity, Unless….
The story about our collective Delusions and Contradictions picks up speed with a stunning revelation!
It goes like this: With the UN 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, all of the world’s leadership and nations have promised to hold-the-line on warming the planet and to stabilize our climate system at no more than 2° Celsius (3.6◦ Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.[1] Yet, the way they have chosen to do this is to blast past that 2°C heat limit with hundreds of billions of tons of excess pollution, and then later to magically suck the polluting CO2 that causes a cooked and broken climate—out of the air. If you do not know this (perhaps because the world leaders are hiding behind what might be called the “Tinkerbell-Effect”) then you have not yet heard how the world’s leadership plans to actually implement this magical technology.
Read moreWe Are All in the Clutches of the Delusion Dragon
Originally published at The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
It’s time to accept that we are not going to dislodge the entrenched interests holding back effective action on looming climate chaos by any means tried so far. Believing that 97% of credible scientists is consensus enough is 103% short for effective response. (Even 200% may not be enough.) Undeniability and incontrovertibility are the only criteria that will work to break through the Hydra-Headed Delusion Dragon clutching all of us.
Read moreThe Gift of the Trumpocalypse
For growing numbers of Americans, tracking the exploding Trump-Russia scandal has become a necessity, like slowing for a major multi-vehicle pileup. Rachel Maddow delivers bombshell reports almost every weeknight, each plotline adding more gasoline to the conflagration that is consuming our political system. As Senator John McCain has offered: “There’s a lot more shoes to drop from this centipede.”
Read moreCan This Unprecedented Administration Be "Un-Presidented" Too?
"Donald Trump and his band of Banana Republicans are turning our country into a banana republic."
– Swami Beyondananda
Is the honeymoon over yet?
Perhaps a better question is, what kind of honeymoon follows a shotgun wedding? For the past two months, I have explored how the failure of neoliberalism helped fuel the perfect storm that put Donald Trump in the White House, and how given the choice between status quo and disruptive change, the body politic chose the latter.
OK, so here we are. Now what?
Read moreStopping Trump's "Climate Campaign"
For those who know we are in a real climate emergency, Donald J. Trump’s presidential victory comes as a devastating shock and blow, as he intends to eviscerate climate protection and ramp up fossil fuel extraction. The world needs to be cutting carbon drastically now, yet the United States is accelerating towards the brick wall of climate chaos. Is there any plausible climate emergency response worth considering in this deepening crisis?
Read moreMacArthur: Request for Summit
This petition will go to the MacArthur Foundation and to other philanthropies.
Dear President Stasch and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
Since your philanthropy has decided this year to have a consequent impact on the biggest problems facing all of us, you have opened the opportunity to respond to the most critical and complex challenge we must face: the climate crisis. Climate stabilization is absolutely necessary for sustaining a viable future for our civilization.
I am writing to explain the opportunity the MacArthur Foundation now has to produce an effective response for climate stabilization.
Mounting evidence indicates that we actually face a climate emergency, not represented in the IPCC Reports, IPCC Budgets, or the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Climate change is already dangerous at just 1°C of warming — major impacts are emerging now (such as polar ice melt and extreme weather) that are far worse than anticipated. Although the Paris Agreement appears to adequately address the crisis, its measures fall alarmingly short: voluntary pledges only slow the increase in warming, bringing us 3.5°C warming this century. It allows carbon pollution to continue for decades, vastly inconsistent with its 1.5-2°C goal. Moreover, it relies on unproven, farfetched technologies to suck carbon from the atmosphere after far exceeding emissions’ limits.
Contrast this with a recent study, “The Sky’s Limit” from Oil Change International, which finds that the potential carbon emissions from the world’s current fossil fuel operations would take us beyond 2°C of warming. Put simply: to destroy civilization, we just need to keep doing what we are doing; to salvage a livable future, we must act boldly and soon.
Yet our political leaders and the American public do not understand what measures we must take to respond effectively. We don’t know how fast we must decarbonize our energy systems, nor by what means and mechanisms. The misinformation, distortion, and superficial explanations from our nation’s political system and journalists have obscured reality. Even while the US must lead the world, we are stalling and caught in political gridlock.
But we do have an opportunity to shift the impasse: the 2016 Democratic Platform calls for a Climate Summit, wherein the dramatic scope, scale, and urgency of the crisis can be explained and validated. It cannot be overemphasized: public and political understanding is essential for effective climate stabilization. At this time, nothing short of a Summit will suffice.
However, it is unlikely our new president could effectively fund, stage, or broadcast the Climate Summit. Nor is it likely she could lead the nation to climate stability following the Summit. That is because: (1) she does not have the political capital, (2) she would be perceived as politically biased where your Foundation would be considered objective and credible, (3) sufficient public funding would be difficult to obtain, (4) with the new administration as sponsor and lead, results would not be accepted by the public.
There is nowhere else to turn, but to philanthropy. The MacArthur Foundation could be the funding agent for the Climate Summit. Its allocation of $100 million for 100&Change, not limited to non-profit agencies, makes that plausible. The neutral MacArthur Foundation’s staging and results could be confidently promulgated publicly.
To send your own letter to the MacArthur Foundation, write to:
Ms. Julia Stasch, President
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
140 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60603-5285
So I am asking for your help, to fund an effective Climate Summit that leads the way to effective responses that actually stabilize our climate. And it is necessary that the Summit occur early in the next administration; in time to guarantee a viable future for our children. Because how we act now and in these next few years will determine that future for all of us. If the climate is not stabilized, then all the other good work of Philanthropy would go for naught on a rapidly warming planet. Everything we care about is at stake; please help lead us to a viable, clean, and healthy future.
Please share these letters we are sending with your staff and Board of Directors.
MacArthur’s $100M Award: Can Philanthropy Be David To The Fossil Fuel Goliath?
Today we already live in the middle of a genuine climate emergency. Yet is this perceived, understood, or discussed anywhere? Despite the overwhelming case, little is being done to eliminate the fossil fuel Goliath and stabilize our climate.
With government gridlocked and business even adding more sand to the gears, policy responses are ridiculously inadequate. Can Philanthropy be the David to the fossil fuel’s Goliath? Where else can we find the influence and resources that could fulfill a David role and support a coordinated, broad-based people’s campaign? Who else could create the “slingshot heard round-the-world” to down the behemoth?
Read more