People Before Profit blog

Climate Train riders make their voices heard

Sun, 21 Sep 2014 08:02:00 +0000

CHICAGO - With everyone aboard the People's Climate Train, bound for the Sept. 21 People's Climate March in New York City, it was time for activists to begin voicing opinions and exchanging ideas. From marching tactics to environment workshops, people prepared for the upcoming mass event, both mentally and strategically.

Hilary Colby, one of the Chicagoans who boarded the train, underscored what seemed to be the basic driving motivator for everyone who would be marching: "I have to do something," she said. "What else can I do? I want to find a way to be heard. It's hard, in your daily life, to divest yourself; to get away from the anti-environmental media and to be able to participate" in these kinds of actions. She said she felt fortunate to be able to take part, adding, "People my age are trying to hold a job. Not everyone is blessed with the time to do this." On the other hand, she admitted, "If you go back and look at the Keystone XL protests, almost everybody was over the age of 50, so it's great that the Climate March is going to be more diverse in terms of age groups."

Hopes were also high that this march gets people to wake up, and recognize the dangers of a changing climate as being a reality - one that is intricately connected to everything else. For one, said Colby, fighting for the climate can provide ample job opportunities. She remarked, "A friend of mine does solar installation, and that there is a great example. The amount of opportunity there is for job growth in the area of renewable energy is incredible." Noting that there will, in fact, be an entire section of the event focused on labor, she added, "The march organizers really were strategic in creating specific groupings to focus on different issues. And if we get the numbers we're expecting at this, and if news channels pick this up, it'll be an eye opener, for sure. I'm excited, and I want even more people to get engaged in this fight."

Joan Schwimmer, also from Chicago, said that she hoped the feeling of optimism this event is sure to capture will stay with her after it's finished. "Normally, I'm hopeful when I'm at these actions, but when I'm elsewhere, I just wonder why people don't get it. Even the extreme weather events you hear about are happening because of climate change, and people just don't make the connection. But it affects everyone, and I want the public to become more aware of what's going on."

Also aboard the train was Christopher Cook from San Francisco, author of Diet for a Dead Planet, a book detailing how big aggro-business negatively affects food and the climate. "Even our food is connected to climate change," he said. "The way our food is processed has it producing over a fifth of all climate changing emissions. Concentrated industrial agriculture areas are producing phenomenal levels of methane and other toxic greenhouse gases. Furthermore, deforestation is often required to create many mass crop plantations. This removal of trees further depletes the Earth's way of naturally restoring itself." It's another aspect of the overall problem that he hoped the march would address. "This is an industrial model designed around the interests of large corporations, at our expense. It's not a sustainable system for humanity."

If nothing else, everyone agreed that this march would be empowering and motivational, and that it would send a clear message to mega corporations, people ignorant to the threat of global warming, and right-wing climate change deniers alike. "This march," said Colby, "is about actively making a choice to put yourself on the front lines - to let citizens, corporations, and government know what you think, what you want, and how you feel."

"Before we can effectively change anything else, we have to change the damage we're doing to this planet right now," said Schwimmer. "Because if we don't get this right, it won't matter if we get anything else right."

Photo: Roberta Wood/PW

Review, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate"

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 14:14:00 +0000

Naomi Klein, Canadian author of the bestseller "The Shock Doctrine," has done the environmental movement a great service by writing this new book. It is a masterful examination of the ways in which climate change is impacting our political and economic systems, and of the way forward to solving this worldwide existential crisis.

She states that, "...our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity's use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion." She notes that, "Climate change isn't an 'issue' to add to the list.... It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message-spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions-telling us we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing the planet."

Consistently using language accessible to the non-scientist, Ms. Klein gives us a view into the various strategies that have been and are being tried by many environmental movements and organizations. She dissects the false claims of the climate deniers, but also trains her fire on those who want to tackle climate change solutions but limit their efforts and critiques to staying within the capitalist system.

She delves into and exposes various capitalist schemes to profit from the transition to clean energy, ruthlessly criticizing those who deal with climate change by admitting that climate change is a real problem while acting in such a way as to force us to wait to actually tackle it. She also takes on those who willfully spread confusion and delay while fossil fuel companies continue to profit from their ability to pollute our common, shared atmosphere.

Klein is not an academic observer, standing outside the fray and commenting from afar. She is an activist, a member of the board of 350.org, a journalist who has traveled the world interviewing grassroots activists, CEOs of major corporations and of major environmental organizations, and attending and reporting on conferences of right-wing opponents of climate change action as well as advocates of geo-engineering "solutions" to the greenhouse effect.

The first chapter in the book, "The Right is Right: the Revolutionary Power of Climate Change," is based on an article she wrote for The Nation magazine several years ago, about a conference of climate change deniers. She notes that conservatives "have come to understand that as soon as they admit that climate change is real, they will lose the central ideological battle of our time-whether we need to plan and manage our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market." She claims that the right understands better than the left how fundamental the challenge of climate change is, to capitalism and to market fundamentalism.

She writes that, "Conservatives have managed to stall and roll back climate action amidst economic crisis by making climate about economics-about the need to protect growth and jobs during difficult times (and they are always difficult). Progressives can easily do the same: by showing that the real solutions to the climate crisis are also our best hope of building a much more stable and equitable economic system."

Klein quotes Yotam Marom, an organizer with Occupy Wall Street, who wrote, "The fight for the climate isn't a separate movement, it's both a challenge and an opportunity for all of our movements. We don't need to become climate activists, we are climate activists."

Klein exhibits a deep understanding of the international range of both the problems caused by climate change and of the many kinds of struggles to try to fix the problem, and describes some of the many struggles going on to address the impacts on workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, and on urban and rural populations. In particular, she details many local struggles against various development efforts which would make the crisis worse, using examples from Nigeria, Brazil, the Pacific Northwest, Australia, France, Quebec, Montana, and elsewhere.

She notes the historic impact of slavery, imperialism and colonialism, and the ways they still affect international economics: "As a direct result of these centuries of serial thefts-of land, labor, and atmospheric space-developing countries today are squeezed between the impacts of global warming, made worse by persistent poverty, and by their need to alleviate that poverty...." She goes on: "They cannot break this deadlock without help, and that help can only come from those countries and corporations that grew wealthy, in large part, as a result of this illegitimate appropriation." But she also points out that, "...having been denied the opportunity to choke the atmosphere in the past does not grant anyone the right to choke it today." She calls for a new development path, in the interests of the people of both the former colonial powers and those in the developing world.

Addressing climate change, according to Klein, "requires heavy-duty interventions: sweeping bans on polluting activities, deep subsidies for green alternatives, pricey penalties for violations, new taxes, new public works programs, reversals of privatizations...." Such a program "has a lot less to do with the mechanics of solar power than (with) the specifics of human power-specifically whether there can be a shift away from corporations and toward communities...." This leads her to the conclusion "...that there is still time to avoid catastrophic warming, but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed. Which is surely the best argument there has ever been for changing those rules." She states "Climate change pits what the planet needs to maintain stability against what our economic model needs to sustain itself."

While in most cases directing her sharpest critiques directly at the system, Klein occasionally lapses into language that blames all of us, or at least the residents of the developed capitalist economies, as "beneficiaries" of fossil fuel extraction. She says, "...the solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves." Elsewhere, she makes clear that the fossil fuel corporations and those who profit from the system as presently constituted are the obstacle to the change needed to protect the environment for sustained human life.

In my opinion, she gets a bit too "meta" when she says that that the root of the problem is not just capitalism, but "extractivism," which places humans above nature, as its conquerors. This critique, while true in a general sense, can be used to let corporations off the hook, since the "real problem" is thus identified as faulty philosophy. She says that, "...rather than a society of grave robbers, we need to become a society of life amplifiers...." This takes us away, just a little, from her arguments elsewhere that a broad-based coalition is being built, a "...robust coalition of unions, immigrants, students, environmentalists, and everyone else whose dreams were getting crushed by the crashing economic model...."

In many places Klein highlights the role of indigenous communities in fighting for environmental justice and in offering a different paradigm of how to live with the earth. These communities have played an important role, particularly in offering stiff resistance to many efforts to expand mining and drilling into their traditional lands. She quotes Ecuadorian biologist Esperanza Martínez, who asks, "Why should we sacrifice new areas if fossil fuels should not be extracted in the first place?" Klein discusses such new forms of popular movements as the Cowboy and Indian Alliance and Idle No More, and spends many pages explaining victories small and large in struggles on climate change and energy transformation that we don't often hear about.

She promotes civil disobedience as one key way resistance is expressed, repeatedly calling it "Blockadia." She doesn't fall into the trap that Chris Hedges leaps into in his recent essay claiming that those who organize civil disobedience are the only hope for the planet, confusing a sometimes effective tactic with the longer-range strategy the movement needs. But Klein does offer examples of civil disobedience as an expression of the deepest opposition to the system, stopping short of romanticizing such tactics, however, noting the brutality often imposed by a hyper-military response from governments beholden to fossil fuel interests.

Her strongest examples reflect the unity developing among indigenous tribes, environmentalists, ranchers, and others, who use civil disobedience alongside mass mobilizations, legal challenges, petitions, public campaigns, boycotts, and many other tactics.

The author's main failing, in this reviewer's opinion, is that while she sees the importance of bringing labor and unions into environmental coalitions, and explains well the connections between exploiting the earth, its resources, and human labor, she doesn't seem to understand that, ultimately, the only force in society with the potential power to impose the kind of fundamental change needed is the working class.

Klein has spoken to a Canadian union convention, elucidating the stake labor has in the struggles over climate change, and the self-interest of workers in joining this movement, so she does see a role for labor, but misses that only the power of workers can force the economic system to change in basic ways.

Klein opines that, "...if governments are unwilling to live up to the international (and domestic) responsibilities, then movements of people have to step into that leadership vacuum and find ways to change the power equation." But a mass movement without the power of organized workers will not be able to compel the kinds of changes necessary.

"A destabilized climate is the cost of deregulated, global capitalism, its unintended, yet unavoidable consequence," Klein points out. "This connection between pollution and labor exploitation has been true since the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution." Organized workers are not just another element of the broad coalition, they are the key force, whose participation or lack thereof will determine the outcome of the whole struggle.

Klein understands the need for positive programs to win workers and oppressed communities away from the cycle of dead-end choices now on offer. She writes that "...today's climate movement does not have the luxury of simply saying no without simultaneously fighting for a series of transformative yeses-the building blocks of our next economy that can provide good clean jobs, as well as a social safety net that cushions the hardships for those inevitably suffering losses." While encouraging the divestment movement which is challenging the fossil fuel industries, she also argues we need to reinvest in more human- and climate-centered programs.

"This Changes Everything" addresses many more issues, such as agro-ecology, fishery depletion and the effect of more acidic ocean water on developing shellfish, and the cooptation of some environmental organizations by corporations during the 1980s and '90s, and brings in some of her personal challenges to show what is happening to people, both psychologically and physically.

Every single book on the environment can't cover every issue deeply, and this book, while comprehensive in many ways, is no exception. Klein does not fully explore the connections between climate change and the whole range of environmental challenges facing humanity. Those challenges include declining agricultural yields, increased water stresses, the worldwide spread of persistent organic pollutants ("pops") which affect the human reproductive system, to mention just a few. All these problems are linked, and all are made worse by climate change, another reason battles over greenhouse gas emissions are key elements bringing together many other environmental fights. And while Klein offers a stunning critique of capitalism, and points to various experiments and small-scale economic changes that are happening, she offers no economic blueprint for what to replace capitalism with.

In a book filled with explanations of the multiple environmental challenges and crises humanity faces, Klein's outlook is a hopeful one. The concluding section is titled, "The Leap Year-Just Enough Time for the Impossible." Her vision is of a broad movement engaged in changing economics, politics and culture in ways that lead to resiliency, and even more, to the regeneration of human life and the life of the natural world on which we depend for our very existence. She says that "...only mass social movements can save us now." She goes on: "The only remaining variable [in whether we will face climate catastrophe] is whether some countervailing power will emerge to block the road, and simultaneously clear some alternate pathways to destinations that are safer. If that happens, well, it changes everything."

Klein's latest book, issued right before the giant People's Climate March in New York City on September 21, is a significant contribution to the debate over climate change, a debate guaranteed to heat up as there are increasing impacts on the human-constructed world and the natural world on which it rests and depends. She clarifies for activists new and old that it is ultimately not just a matter of tinkering with our technology and regulatory practices: Climate change is a challenge to the capitalist system itself.

"This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate"

By Naomi Klein,

Simon and Schuster,

576 pages, list price $30.

Photo: Trash collectors are overwhelmed by the amount of rain and sewage soaked waste people have removed from their basements in the wake of last week's floods in Metro Detroit. Elizabeth Conley/Detroit News/AP

RNs to join actions in NYC, Oakland, LA in call for action to stem climate crisis

Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:42:00 +0000

From California to Maine, nurses around the nation will be on hand in New York Sunday, September 21 to join with environmental, labor, health, and community activists in what is expected to be the largest global mobilization for action to stem the worsening climate crisis.

RNs will also be joining support actions Saturday in Los Angeles and Sunday in Oakland, Ca. and holding a pre-march rally Sunday in New York.

The great People's Climate March begins at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, September 21 on the West Side of Central Park in New York City, between 65^th and 86^th Streets, marching to 11^th Avenue between 34^th and 38^th Streets. The National Nurses United (NNU) delegation will include RNs from California, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Texas.

Prior to the main march in New York, RNs will join with activists calling for a Robin Hood tax on Wall Street speculation that would set a small tax on trades of stocks, bonds, dividends and other financial transactions. They will gather at 10 a.m. at the corner of West 58^th and Broadway.

The Los Angeles action is Saturday, September 20. RNs are convening at 1 p.m. at the corner of Wilshire and So. Benton Way.

In Oakland, Ca., RNs and other climate activists will rally Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater in Oakland, near 12^th Street, near the Lake Merritt BART station.

NNU members also joined a rally in Chicago's Daley Plaza September 6 with climate activists who launched a cross-country march last spring from Los Angeles.

"We are facing a world health emergency," said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. "Nurses now regularly see patients suffering a variety of ailments, from asthma and other respiratory illnesses to cardiovascular disease that are directly linked to environmental pollution, which is daily exacerbated by the climate crisis."

"Further delay, and inadequate and unenforceable treaties to mitigate global environmental pollution is no longer an option if life and our planet's health are to be protected and preserved," she said.

The march will take place on the eve of the United Nations Climate Summit with heads of state. Activists will call on national leaders to commit their governments to serious action to halt the further degradation of the global environment, as well as to support those nations already suffering the brunt of climate disruption.

Such commitments must be demonstrated at the UN COP20 climate treaty negotiations, set for December in Lima Peru, where similar social movement mobilizations are being organized.

The Robin Hood tax is embodied in HR 1579, introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison with more than two-dozen co-sponsors.

It could raise hundreds of billions of dollars every year with funding to be provided for attacking the climate crisis and cuts in public health programs as well as helping fund other human needs. RNs note that the climate crisis and austerity budget cuts are both contributing factors to the rise of global epidemics, such as the current Ebola outbreak.

RNs also support a carbon tax to finance the investment required to mitigate climate destruction and a just transition from fossil fuels to sustainable forms of energy and energy distribution.

Photo: RNs at climate crisis press conference following Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, NNU.

Solar victory in Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:22:00 +0000

HARPERS FERRY, W. Va.: It's been an amazing couple of weeks for solar in Jefferson County, West Virginia.

On Tuesday, September 9, a coalition of alternative energy supporters in the community cut the ribbon on the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church (SPC) solar project - the largest community solar project in West Virginia - for an installation cost of $1!

According to Dan Conant, founder of Solar Holler, the church's solar panels are funded by almost 100 Shepherdstown families who agreed to install demand response controllers from Maryland-based Mosaic Power on their water heaters.

Mosaic Power installs the controllers for free, and the network of water heaters becomes a sort of "virtual power plant." Mosaic then sells the electricity service energy savings created by the water heaters network to the grid, and pays the people who installed the controllers $100 out of the money it makes through selling the service.

Instead of keeping the $100, all the people who installed the controllers in Shepherdstown agreed to put it towards the church's solar panels, which will provide about half the energy the church needs each year.

Mr. Conant says, "The response from around the state - and country - has been incredible. The SPC and Shepherdstown communities are inspiring towns, churches, and non-profit organizations around America."

The SPC project is just the beginning for West Virginia. Next up? The Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library. On Wednesday, September 17, at a 6:30 p.m. open public meeting, folks can learn more about the project, about how the Solar Holler and Mosaic Power models work, and how they can help make the project happen - both to cut electricity bills and provide a teaching tool for the Middle School next door.

Than Hitt, a member of Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church who worked with Solar Holler to get the project started, said the idea to put solar panels on the church started with a brainstorming session among church members a few years ago. He said members of the church had long wanted to install solar panels on the church, but didn't know how they would be able to manage it until they found out about Solar Holler. Church members were interested in solar's economic benefits, but they also wanted to reap the environmental benefits the panels would bring.

Before he started Solar Holler last summer, Conant said most nonprofit solar projects in the state were paid for by grants. Coal and gas interests in West Virginia, however, have scuttled most state support for alternative energy.

Churches and other nonprofits in West Virginia - and anyone else who's on a commercial electricity rate - are paid less for their solar contribution to the grid on average than homeowners are. The policy discourages nonprofits from installing solar - something Conant said he wishes utilities would remedy.

Still, innovation and commitment overcame even the stout resistance of the coal industry and its allies.

Photo: Solar at Shepherdstown Presbyterian, Facebook.

Climate change to spell doom for U.S. bird species

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 15:59:00 +0000

As perhaps a million or more people make their plans to participate in the People's Climate March at the UN in New York on Sept. 21, stepping up what has become a planet-wide fight against global warming, experts have issued a new warning that many species of American birds are facing extinction.

According to a report released Sept. 8 by the National Audubon Society, global warming has drawn birds across the U.S. into a fight of their own against global warming - a fight for their very survival. The disconcerting new report notes that climate change will affect the bird population so severely, half of all North American bird species will be decimated over the next 65 years. The hummingbird? Three-toed woodpecker? Trumpeter swan? They're just some of 314 different birds that will soon be put on the brink of extinction.

In the study that preceded the report, the Society used 30 years' worth of scientific observation to determine the "climatic suitability" for each of 588 major North American bird species. The varying suitabilities were then juxtaposed with internationally recognized greenhouse gas emission projections, and from this, they were able to extrapolate an educated idea of where each bird's climatic range would be in the future, amidst the changes caused by global warming. The findings showed that at least 314 species are in deep trouble, and will lose more than 50 percent of their range by 2080.

Activists might be able to take measures to save some species, the report suggested. This will involve continuing the fight against climate change, and that means moving away from fossil fuels, curbing carbon emissions, and helping in the battle for animal conservation. Even then, some bird species may indeed be doomed.

"Common sense will tell you that with these kinds of findings, it's hard to believe we won't lose some species to extinction," said National Audubon Society president David Yarnold. "How many? We honestly don't know. We don't know which ones are going to prove heroically resilient." Could some birds migrate to other areas? Yes, he admitted, and to a certain degree, that's already happening. And yet, even there, an issue arises. He noted, "Some can and some will. But what happens to a yellow-billed magpie in California that depends upon scrub oak habitat? What happens as that bird keeps moving higher and higher and farther north, and runs out of oak trees? Trees don't fly. Birds do."

Shifting bird populations have already occurred in many areas, however, including in the Windy City, according to Rebeccah Sanders, executive director of the Chicago Region Audubon. Mallards, the ducks famously known for their green necks and commonly found in parks and near lakes, are projected to vanish from the Chicago area by 2080, and are already dwindling in numbers. "It was shocking to everybody that I've talked to, even in Audubon," said Sanders. "It's a bird that we all know, a bird that people really identify with. It would just be really shocking to lose a species like that."

The city might also soon lose the red-billed gull (those local seagulls that so often forage in McDonald's parking lots), a songbird called the bobolink, the aforementioned trumpeter swan, and the tree swallow. Chicago has at least taken steps to save the bobolink, with Bobolink Meadow in Jackson Park having been recently restored; this could allow the songbird to actually make a comeback to the area.

There's a certain trickle-down effect that could result from this coming decimation, and that will affect humans. The absence of birds that consume pests and disease-spreading insects could allow those would-be prey to run rampant and overpopulate, according to Terry Root, a Stanford University biologist. She remarked, "If we are losing as many species as this is saying, what's going to happen to all the insects they eat? There are going to be winners if you move a species out of a region, and those winners might be mosquitoes and spiders."

Like the Bobolink Meadow effort, the fight for conservation must continue, experts agree, if there is any hope to be had for any of these species. Dr. Resit Akçakaya, a professor in Stony Brook University's Department of Ecology and Evolution, stated, "The bad news is that climate change will cause many extinctions unless species-specific conservation actions are taken."

Audubon Society president Yarnold concluded by predicting that climate change will truly test the limits and adaptability of bird species that North Americans currently regard as iconic or commonplace. "We just don't know," he said, "whether they'll be able to find the food sources and the habitat and cope with a new range of predators. Maybe they'll all be incredibly hardy and find ways to survive. But that doesn't seem likely."

Photo: The Mallard duck, once common in parks in Chicago and other cities, is growing sparse, and may not be seen in the city a few decades from now. Mike Groll/AP

Poem: "Ferguson ev'rywhere now"

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:44:00 +0000

For Frank Zappa

Yeah we journeyed far in outer space

Crash-landed on a wasted hard familiar poker face

'tis our purple mountains' majestic

Fall from grace

Into earl scheib's grandio-o-o-se-e-e canyon

Where mista fat wallet's got no-o-o companion

So it's way way way too unfriendly hot

From all that nuthin'

That nobody's got

No thanks to penthoused cynics

N outhoused fools

Who bogart the Frigidaire

N melt the community's cool:

'cause it's ferguson ev'rywhere now

We gotta get it all together

In the garden

To work that gospel plow

'cause it's ferguson ferguson ferguson

Ev'rywhere ev'rywhere ev'rywhere now

Long ago faraway in a place called watts l.a.

A motherly music man named frank once sang

"no way to delay that trouble comin' ev'ry day"

Fast forward to ferguson's whirlin' whizz-bang

Go ahead n change the channel

Go take yer kin

N jump down a manhole

Go brush it off like dander

Goose yerself with cliches

That are good for the gander

'cause it's just another riot

Ya gotta put food stamps

On a Burundian diet

N hope there's enuff retro-cling-ons

N true-blue ted nugent fans

Who'd love to wrap their cold dead hands

Around their rugers

If only to deny it:

That it's ferguson ev'rywhere now

We gotta get it all together

In the garden

To work that gospel plow

'cause it's ferguson ferguson ferguson

Ev'rywhere ev'rywhere ev'rywhere now

[2014]

Photo: Protesters march up W. Florissant Ave., in Ferguson, Mo. (Wikimedia)

Harvey "No Nukes" Wasserman warns about nuclear nightmares

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 14:13:00 +0000

Longtime antinuclear and electoral activist/author Harvey Wasserman recently spoke about the fallout from the Fukushima catastrophe and other atomic era calamities-as well as on the worst six days of his life, the private lives of America's founding fathers and mothers, plus more. Wasserman addressed a packed audience at the posh Westside L.A. apartment of KPFK radio host Lila Garrett. The talk was the 70^th installment of "The Great Minds Series" presented by publicist Ilene Proctor. Political science Prof. Peter Mathews, author of "Dollar Democracy," introduced Wasserman as the implacable foe of what he called "King CONG"-an acronym for coal, oil, nukes and gas.

The veteran alternative energy campaigner, who is credited with coining the catchy, to the point "No Nukes" slogan in 1973, looked like a latter day version of Woodstock musician John Sebastian. The good-natured Wasserman leavened his 90-minute presentation and Q&A with lots of levity-which served to soften the blows of the hard hitting, sometimes frightening allegations he reported.

According to Wasserman, the disastrous March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant has caused radioactive "stuff from [Japan] to come to California by water by now.... Ten days after Chernobyl a radioactive cloud came down on the Point Reyes bird sanctuary [in California]. A researcher, Dr. David DeSante, discovered that 60% of the baby birds there were killed by the [irradiated] clouds of fallout. At Fukushima 300 tons of radiation per day pour into the Pacific Ocean."

The "Solartopia" author took issue with the nuclear industry's oft-cited mantra that "no commercial reactor can explode," contending that four General Electric reactors have blown up. "The Unit 3 explosion" at the TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) Fukushima plant "looks like nuclear fission, a mushroom cloud.... They never thought there could be a multiple meltdown." But, Wasserman noted, "a 9.0 earthquake took place 120 kilometers" from Fukushima, which TEPCO dubiously built right beside the ocean in a country known to experience tidal waves. (As Wasserman acidly observed, "Tsunami is a Japanese word.") Pulling no punches, Wasserman claimed the extensive "Fukushima cleanup has become a profit center for TEPCO. The Japanese mafia is deeply involved in doing the cleanup.... Get Fukushima away from TEPCO! That site must be taken over by a global body with all the scientific, engineering and financial resources our species can muster."

The Ohio-based Wasserman went on to say, "Not much official effort has been made to measure what got into the air in California," although at Fukushima, we know that levels of the radioactive isotope "cesium were 30 times greater than at Hiroshima," which was, of course, A-bombed by the U.S. during WWII. "The thyroid cancer death rate for children in the Fukushima area is 40 times higher than normal.... Radiation in the Pacific affects sea life.... Tuna caught near California have signs of cesium traceable to Fukushima." Wasserman, a senior editor of the online and print publication Columbus Free Press (www.freepress.org), groused, "The Japanese government has used the Official State Secrets Act regarding Fukushima" to control the flow of information regarding the near apocalyptic events there.

The renewable energy advocate is no stranger to nuclear power tragedies. "A year after Three Mile Island I spent the worst six days of my life" investigating the March 28, 1979, accident at the N-power plant and partial meltdown in one of its reactors, and how this affected Pennsylvanians. Wasserman alleged that after the TMI cataclysm there was a spike in cancer and leukemia among those located downwind of the plant. In stark contrast to official and mainstream media reports, Wasserman insisted, "many, many were killed at TMI."

Wasserman also expressed concern over the 1986 Chernobyl N-plant explosion and fire that released massive amounts of radioactive particles in Ukraine, saying only "20 percent of the children in many areas downwind of Chernobyl in Ukraine and Belarus were healthy. Meaning 80 percent are ill. More than 1 million people were killed by radiation."

Although he painted a grim picture, the experienced organizer also pointed out that the cause has not been without significant victories. In a reference to the 40^th anniversary of Tricky Dick's resignation as president, Wasserman remembered that "Nixon said there would be 1,000 nuclear power plants by the year 2000." Like so many other things Nixon stated, this has not been borne out: The actual number of plants is far below this glowing prediction, due to widespread concerns surrounding nuclearism, which makes it hard for energy firms to find capitalization for building these safety hazards. Taxpayer money has to be used to back them, but it's a very expensive-and possibly dangerous-undertaking. Wasserman also scoffed at the notion that "nuclear power fights global warming."

"We're at a tipping point," said Wasserman, noting that renewable energy is becoming more and more cost effective and accessible. "The Koch brothers are terrified of the decentralized power than can come with renewable energy. The Kewaunee, Wisconsin, nuclear power plant shut down [in 2013] because it couldn't compete with renewable.... A fight for renewable energy is a fight for democracy. A popular referendum shut down a nuclear plant in Sacramento in 1989.... I urge people to find a local reactor and shut it down. It feels better than sex," laughed Wasserman, who was arrested in 1984 while protesting against the Diablo Canyon facility, and participated in the successful movement to close the San Onofre N-plant. (Both installations are located in the Golden State. Citing earthquake concerns, on Aug. 26 Friends of the Earth filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking closure of the appropriately named Diablo Canyon plant.)

Some may find Wasserman to be an alarmist, while others regard him as a prophet. In any case, he is also a jokester and on the, uh, lighter side this '60s "leftover" advocated "legalization of hemp and marijuana." However, the kibitzer asserted, "I don't smoke marijuana-it gives me headaches, makes me paranoid, and reminds me of George W. Bush." Wasserman (who is also a historian: His lefty "History of the U.S." is introduced by the people's historian, Howard Zinn) has taken a stab at fiction as well, writing the historical novel "Passions of the Pot Smoking Patriots," which purports to be a "lost manuscript" by the revolutionary Thomas Paine. At the close of his illuminating, sometimes scary and humorous "Great Mind" talk, the anti-nuclear merry prankster left his listeners with this fun fact: "Hemp was the number two cash crop behind tobacco in the 13 colonies." (See: http://solartopia.org/store/).

L.A.-based journalist and reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored "The Hawaii Movie and Television Book" (see: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/).

Photo: Harvey Wasserman stands with the late Pete Seeger and children's nature book author Lynne Cherry, Dec. 3, 2012. (Solartopia.org/Connie Hogarth).

California to dispose of plastic bags

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 16:50:00 +0000

California may soon follow in the footsteps of its largest city: On Aug. 29, the state Senate voted 22-15 in support of a statewide ban on plastic bags. The bill, SB 270, will phase them out in grocery stores and pharmacies beginning in July 2015, and in convenience stores one year later, with the goal of making California a plastic bag-free state by the end of 2016. The legislation, which passed both houses of the state legislature, must now be signed by the governor. If that happens, the state will achieve a historical victory for the environment.

The good news? The governor plans to sign it. "I probably will sign it, yes," said Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat. "In fact, I'll tell you why I'm going to sign it; there are about 50 cities with their own plastic bag ban, and that's causing a lot of confusion," he remarked, referencing the similar plans in place in areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco. "This is a compromise. I'm taking into account the needs of the environment, the needs of the economy, and the needs of the grocers."

In agreement was Senator Kevin de León, a Democrat from Los Angeles, who stated, "SB 270 is a win-win for the environment and for California workers. In crafting this compromise, it was imperative to me that we achieve the goals of doing away with single-use plastic bags, help change consumer behavior, and importantly, support and expand California jobs."

That last note clashes with the words of Republicans, who have opposed the ban, claiming it will cause job losses for bag manufacturers. But such an assertion suggests a misunderstanding of the legislation, which will not do away with non-plastic bags; compost bags and paper bags will continue to be available, albeit for a ten-cent fee per bag. There is a strategy to that, as well: The goal is to encourage the use of recyclable and biodegradable materials and to give California manufacturing a boost by encouraging the continuous production of such bags. Hardly a jobs killer.

Leslie Tamminen, director of Seventh Generation Advisors, a sustainability and clean energy advocacy group based on Native American philosophy, said, "Data from the over 121 local plastic bag bans [in California] has proven that bans are effective at reducing litter and changing consumer attitudes, and have refuted industry's claims of apocalyptic impacts on jobs and poor communities. A state plastic bag ban saves taxpayers huge amounts of money spent on litter cleanup, and protects the environment."

It's worth noting that other nations have already moved forward on this issue, with the U.S. current lagging behind; Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Australia all have heavy taxation or outright bans of plastic bags, according to National Geographic. It is likely the countries have recognized the severe ecological threat presented by plastic bags, which non-profit environmental group Heal the Bay referred to as "urban tumbleweeds."

Charles Tyler, a professor at the University of Exeter School of Biosciences in the UK, added, "Scientists have shown that some of these chemical compounds from plastics," which affect human health, "are getting into the environment and are in some environments at concentrations where they can actually produce biological effects in a range of wildlife species."

David Barnes, a marine scientist with environmental research group the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, said scientists have linked the uptick in plastic bag consumption with a dramatic increase in the deaths of sea life over the years. He remarked, "One of the most ubiquitous and long-lasting recent changes to the surface of our planet is the accumulation and fragmentation of plastics. Plastic bags have gone from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere." Today, "even in [some of] the remotest of environments, there is plastic floating on the sea surface. ... And I bet [plastic bags] will be washing up in Antarctica within the decade."

Photo: CAWrecycles.org

The people, Wall Street, and the planetary emergency

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:41:00 +0000

The growing planetary emergency brought on by climate change is placing the future of humanity and nature at stake. Awareness of the climate crisis has been growing rapidly and is reflected in the broad, grassroots movement in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and the coalition emerging around the People's Climate March, which is expected to be the largest demonstration on the climate crisis ever.

This movement has the potential to embrace the overwhelming majority of humanity, crossing class, race, gender lines and national boundaries.

Solutions to the climate crisis inevitably collide with the capitalist system and its inherent need for endless expansion based on a ruthless drive for maximum profit. The system's existence is incompatible with a planet of finite resources and ecological balance.

It is significant then that a section of the U.S. ruling class has rung the alarm bells and is calling for urgent action to radically lower greenhouse gas emissions. It puts this section of capital at odds with oil, coal and other carbon producing industries chiefly responsible for blocking federal policy in the U.S. and global agreements to reduce emissions.

This section of Wall Street is no doubt motivated by the existential threat to humanity. But they are also motivated by their own class interests and prospects of deepening economic instability, rising social costs and the threat to capital investments due to the climate crisis. Their concern extends to the stability of the entire realm of U.S. imperialism. As Al Gore recently noted, "A Pentagon advisory committee described the climate crisis as a 'catalyst for conflict' that may well cause failures of governance and societal collapse."

In addition to Gore, the call to action comes from Wall Street luminaries like George W. Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer and others involved in the Risky Business Project, along with capitalist economists and former government officials and EPA administrators under Republican administrations.

Presumably, they speak for a much broader section of capital. Insurance and agricultural industries are also raising similar concerns.

"We see it and we know that it can be catastrophic. We must act and yet we're not acting, except in a limited way," said Rubin in a recent interview on CNN. "What is the cost of inaction?" asked Rubin. "In my view - and in the view of a growing group of business people, economists, and other financial and market experts - the cost of inaction over the long term is far greater than the cost of action."

As they see it, the more delay in addressing the climate crisis, the harder it will be for the capitalist economy in the long run.

The report issued by the Risky Business Project outlines dire threats to coastal cities, properties and development from extreme weather events and rising sea levels; disruption of agriculture and energy demands from prolonged droughts; threats to public health and to agricultural, construction and other workers who will have to work under dangerous heat conditions.

The report warns that enormous amounts of social resources will need to be diverted to address the threats posed by climate change. The study cites a cost of $20 billion to protect New York City from catastrophic flooding such as was seen with Hurricane Sandy. And that's just one city on the East Coast.

This mirrors the recent report by the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) on the rising cost associated with delaying action.

The emergence of these Wall Street voices marks a fissure in ruling class circles that needs to be taken into account when developing strategy and tactics to ameliorate the climate crisis. Building the broadest possible alliances is essential for stopping and reversing greenhouse gas accumulation. Including alliances, no matter how temporary, between the multi-racial working class, scientists, environmentalists, city, state and federal governments, small business with sections of big capital who share similar goals.

Immediate reforms are possible

Of course, Gore, Rubin, Bloomberg see a future of capitalism, but one based on a low carbon energy system. Gore calls it "sustainable capitalism." They also see these changes largely driven by capitalist market forces and technological fixes. In the words of Gore, "While governments and civil society will need to be part of the solution to these challenges, ultimately it will be companies and investors that will mobilize the capital needed to overcome them."

Many see growing investment opportunities in the transition to solar, wind and geothermal. The costs to produce sustainable sources are plummeting and now rival coal and will rival natural gas. This could lead to what are called "stranded assets," the devaluation of fossil fuel assets resulting from rising relative costs of production including the costs of growing regulation due to environmental degradation that comes from methods of fossil fuel extraction, e.g. mining, fracking, coal slurry pits, etc.

In addition, there are big changes coming to the electric power grid. Power generation from a single source will increasingly compete with renewable generation like homes and buildings with solar panels plugged into the grid. According to Gore, a growing number on Wall Street are becoming uneasy over these prospects.

No doubt market forces will have a profound effect on the transition to new forms of energy production, only natural in a capitalist dominated economy. But market forces cannot be relied on alone for this transition, nor are technological fixes the only solution.

Role of working class and allies

The working class and its allies are also motivated by their own class interests and will not be idle in this process. Their activity and initiative will be key in this process, helping rally the broadest forces and championing an anti-corporate agenda that will insist on far reaching government regulation, investment in renewable energy production, infrastructure and other social and economic reforms while defending the economic interests of working people and their communities.

Eventually, progressively curbing the power and property rights of capital will also emerge as an important demand, including expanding the public domain to include the vast natural resources of the country and radically regulating the energy industrial complex, eventually making it public as well.

This sets up a dynamic interaction within the far broader coalition of unity and struggle between the working class and its key allies and sections of capital. The aim is for the working class and its allies to put its decisive stamp on the outcome without rupturing the temporary alliances.

Confronting capitalism

Ultimately, the changes driven by the people's movement will increasingly confront capitalism's drive for profits and lead in the direction of peaceful, democratic and sustainable socialism as the means to heal the planet.

But action on climate change can't wait on a socialist reorganization of production. It is a dire threat today and any delay in taking concrete steps to radically reduce emissions increases the danger to the planet, perhaps irreversibly so. That means winning victories where the capitalist economy and market forces predominate.

Any measures that curtail emissions, even if it doesn't go as far as needed, should be seen as positive. Each victory broadens and deepens the movement and lays the basis for more far reaching advances.

In addition, massive public resources must now be redirected to protect our communities from the effects of climate change and address disaster relief occurring on a mounting scale. Who will pay for this expense? It must come from the wealth of the 1 percent and wasteful military spending. Again, the multi-racial working class, communities of color, women, youth, environmentalist and other allies will be decisive in determining this outcome.

Isolating Big Oil, the ultra right's bulwark

Broad coalitions and alliances, not without their own sharp internal antagonisms and contradictions, are necessary to defeat the power of the fossil fuel industry, which form the bulwark of the political ultra right. This right danger includes the Koch Brothers, oil barons who are flooding the airwaves with millions of dollars in ads to buy the 2014 elections, and Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest oil company, which is pouring millions of dollars into casting doubts on climate science.

Currently the Republican dominated U.S. House of Representatives has obstructed all reforms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, forcing the Obama administration to takes steps through executive order. The Republican caucus is full of insane climate deniers backed by the fossil fuel industry.

Would those sections of capital who see the need for action on the climate crisis, many of them Republicans, back congressional and presidential candidates who favor action, including within the Republican Party? Recent polls show 41 percent of Republican voters think climate change is caused by human activity, and 77 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning independents support using renewable energy more.

Steyer, a Democrat, has been active funding campaigns to defeat climate deniers, mainly tea party nuts. Bloomberg said he hopes this work "will mobilize the business community and forge a consensus for leadership across the aisle."

A defeat of tea party climate deniers in Congress in 2014 would help remove the major obstruction of President Obama's EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, lowering fuel emission standards, and create possibilities to go further.

Secondly, it could accelerate the shutdown of burning fossil fuels and coal powered electric generating plants. Paulson, Rubin, Gore and others see doing this though a carbon tax and eliminating subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Passage of this kind of legislation will mean a fight with the fossil fuel industry.

Senators Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders have introduced legislation to tax carbon and methane emissions directed at the largest polluters. Revenues would be returned to taxpayers and invested in weatherization, sustainable energy sources and worker retraining.

Program for mining and other working-class communities

Those voices on Wall Street who support moves toward a low carbon economy have little concern for the economic impact on working-class communities. The CPUSA supports conversion to a peaceful, sustainable economy but recognizes that while millions of jobs will be created, there will also be tremendous dislocation and job loss in the old polluting industries. Therefore we advocate a guaranteed social wage for all unemployed workers, especially those displaced by the conversion, until they are retrained in new skills and trades and attain employment.

The transition to a sustainable, peaceful, democratic economy and society will not occur overnight. It will be a prolonged fight, marked by various stages of struggle, shifting alliances and contradictions within the movement arising from class and social interests. It requires flexible tactics and strategies to assemble the broadest movement possible to preserve a future for humanity and nature.

Photo: Protester at White House shows handmade sign saying, "Business as usual kills," to seek a decision against the Keystone XL pipeline, during the February 17, 2013, Forward on Climate March and Rally. (CC)