WW lll- A weapon of mass distraction for a deepening climate change crisis ???

As any prairie farmer will tell us: Sort the chaff from the wheat. Until we do, our "crop" is worthless.

Polar bear stranded on ice floe,, as our polar ice caps melt away.

Memorandum to the multitudes

The ruling powers know weapons of mass distraction are among the most powerful in their arsenal. After rockets and bombs, propaganda and endless bafflegab, they put us in a state of data overload. Its like getting a notice on your computer your have to update your data storage. We are so overloaded with information we go into auto-shut down and passive denial. This is just what they want. They are left to practice their pure evil. They are counting on our passivity as it empowers their criminality.

It means they can be off fighting endless wars at our expense and indulge in all the juvenile psychotic behaviors that go with it… and damn the consequences!

One very big reason I oppose WW lll is I can think of a dozen other global issues more worthy of our attention.

I have just read a very dismal and alarming article on climate change( Read Below).

It seems to me the collective West, in all its demented intransigence, should be waging peace and renewal, instead of digging its own grave. In these times war is Pyrrhic as never before

As any prairie farmer will tell us:-sort the chaff from the wheat.

Until we do our “crop” is worthless.

Chaff left, Wheat Right.

******

No. 31 | It’s getting hot in here

Dear Robert,

China is being pounded by the heaviest rainfall in over a century. Tropical cyclone Doksuri, whose torrential rain has killed at least 20 people in Beijing and forced over a million people to flee the capital, is not an isolated, freak event.

Last month was the hottest July on record, blowing past the previous record set in 2019, and saw extreme weather events on all seven continents. The Washington Post called July “a month packed with weather anomalies that exceeded any definition of normal.” These events included: China’s record temperature of 52.2 Celsius; Antarctic sea ice is at record low levels; the Cerberus heat wave in Europe; record wildfires in Canada; floods and record-breaking downpours in South Asia; and extreme heat in the US and Mexico dubbed the “new abnormal” by the LA Times. Scientists predict that next year will be even hotter than this year as El Niño takes fuller effect.  

Linear rising temperatures could be called “climate change”. As we’ve seen throughout this year, that would cause more extreme weather events and disruption. But the real threat is non-linear changes to our environment that can kick in at higher temperatures: climate breakdown. 

These non-linear changes are known as tipping points. They are rapid, profound and likely irreversible changes to our climate. A paper published in the respected journal Science last year predicted that major tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Boreal Forests of Siberia, start to become “likely” at 1.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels. We are getting very close. 

What do the world’s rulers do in the face of such a threat? Prolong their rule and turbocharge the process of breakdown. Behind all the greenwash rhetoric stands a simple fact: fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions are rising. Last year Shell posted record profits while announcing a scaling down of its “green” energy investments. In March, US President Joe Biden approved the massive Willow oil project in Alaska. Just this week, British prime minister Rishi Sunak announced his government would grant 100 new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea. In both the US and UK cases, this expansion of fossil fuel production is heavily lubricated with public money to “de-risk” the projects.

This model of pouring public money into the pockets of big oil while it trashes the planet - according to the World Bank direct annual subsidies to fossil fuels stand at $1 trillion and a further $6 trillion in indirect public subsidies - is being continued for “green” energy. The US is leading the way in efforts to control the supply chains of key minerals needed for computing, clean energy and batteries. That means using US public money and military might to secure minerals from the Global South for the benefit of US big business. 

These conditions of climate breakdown, driven by capitalism and imperialism, place the peoples of the Global South in the cockpit of history. 

They are the most exploited by these conditions. They will face the worst impacts of climate breakdown, have benefited the least from fossil-industrial society and stand to lose again as their lands are mined for minerals to power high-tech systems. They have the least to benefit from the system continuing and the old promise of inclusion in progress and rising material comfort is now broken for so many. 

But this potential power will remain frustrated until it is unlocked, unified and directed into a great world-making project. That is the scale of ambition that is required on our planet scarred by colonialism and capitalism and on track for climate breakdown caused by those same forces. 

If the mutinies in the South can join forces and be joined by the mutinies in the North, such a paradigm-shattering, dignity-creating, freedom-enhancing world can be made. There really is no alternative.

In solidarity,

The Progressive International Secretariat

******

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