CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #115, FEBRUARY 20, 2023
Looking Back to Look Ahead
Dick. Thanks to Mother Jones 2008.
Tom Engelhardt. “Terracide.” 2013.
Zack Roberts. Delaying a Baseball Game. 2022.
Dick Bennett. BUSINESS AS USUAL NOVEMBER 2008: Are We
Making Progress?
Looking back
helps us measure our gain or loss in the present. Here’s a note I wrote in 2008
I
feel heartened by the many initiatives imagined and performed for reducing CO2
and methane reported in our daily newspapers.
Locally: “UA Hosts Sustainability
Contest for Campus” (The Arkansas
Traveler, 11-14-08). Arkansas: “LR Event Stresses Energy Efficiency”
(Weatherization Day)(ADG
10-31-08). “LM Glasfiber Touts Plant”
(wind turbine blade company in LR has 630 employees, 10-29-08). USA: “Winery Sees Clear Benefits in Lighter
Bottles” (trimming packaging cuts costs and environmental impact) (ADG 11-1-08). But actually they are distractions from reality.
Unfortunately,
the enthusiasm masks massive insufficiency, for many reasons; for example, also
in 2008 gigantic enterprises were making $billions from fossil fuels (“Exxon’s
$14.83 Billion in Quarter Sets Record,” ADG
10-31-08), and such egregious profits have continued. It’s way past time to be merely indignant, or
mournful, but we must say with Mother Jones: organize and make trouble. --Dick
“TERRACIDE AND THE TERRARISTS:
DESTROYING THE PLANET FOR RECORD PROFITS.”
By Tom Engelhardt. TomDispatch, May 23, 2013.
Tom Engelhardt is co-founder
of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear.
His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet:
The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.
We have a word for the
conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide. And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the
environment: ecocide. But we don’t
have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the
world as humanity had known it until, historically speaking, late last night. A
possibility might be “terracide” from
the Latin word for earth. It has the right ring, given its similarity to the
commonplace danger word of our era: terrorist. . . .
In the case of the
terrarists — and here I’m referring in particular to the men who run what may
be the most profitable corporations on the planet, giant energy companies like
ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell — you’re the one who’s going
to pay, especially your children and grandchildren. You can take one thing for
granted: not a single terrarist will ever go to jail, and yet they certainly
knew what they were doing. MORE https://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/05/23/terracide-destroying-the-planet-for-profit/
Delaying
Business as Usual for a Moment: What Would Mother Jones Think?
Zach Roberts.
“Climate Protesters Delay Congressional Baseball Game”. DeSmog. Popular Resistance.org (8-7-22). The Congressional Baseball Game is an annual
tradition that dates back to 1909. It’s supposed to be a time for both
sides of the political system to come together and join in a peaceful nine
innings of the national pastime. But this year’s game, held on Thursday, July
28 at the Washington Nationals’ ballpark in Washington, D.C., was less sleepy
than the average baseball game. Now or Never, a group of justice, faith,
and climate organizations, held a protest in an attempt to disrupt the event
and draw attention to the urgent need for large-scale climate
action. -more-
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