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Will Planet Earth Survive Capitalism?

by Oui Sun Jan 1st, 2023 at 02:09:32 PM EST


Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050 | Forbes - Feb. 9, 2016 |

Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it's devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

How do we expect to feed that many people while we exhaust the resources that remain?

Human activities are behind the extinction crisis. Commercial agriculture, timber extraction, and infrastructure development are causing habitat loss and our reliance on fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change.

Public corporations are responding to consumer demand and pressure from Wall Street. Professors Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg published Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations last fall, arguing that businesses are locked in a cycle of exploiting the world's resources in ever more creative ways.

I've seriously tried to believe capitalism and the planet can coexist, but I've lost faith | Feb. 21, 2020 |

As the Productivity Commission confirmed this week, Australia's economy has enjoyed uninterrupted growth for 28 years straight. Specifically, our output of goods and services last financial year grew by 2%.

Economists obviously see the growth of a national economy as good news - but what is it doing to the Earth?

Capitalism demands limitless economic growth, yet research shows that trajectory is incompatible with a finite planet.

If capitalism is still the dominant economic system in 2050, current trends suggest our planetary ecosystems will be, at best, on the brink of collapse.

Is Saving the Planet Under Capitalism Really Possible? | April 20, 2021 |

The theme of the 51st Anniversary of Earth Day is "Restore Our Earth." To be sure, while there has been a growing level of environmental consciousness since the first Earth Day and environmental policies have changed dramatically over the last fifty years, we are really in a race to save the planet.

As things stand, the world now faces two existential crises that threaten organized human life as we know it, and life in general on planet Earth. The first one stems from the continued presence of nuclear weapons. The second one comes from global warming. However, while a nuclear war is actually preventable, we are not sure about global warming.

The Senseless war in Ukraine is once again about fossil fuel supremacy, not about green energy, nor sustainability. Saving the planet requires all nations working together, not the hegemonic policy of divide and conquer. For escaping mass deaths of living beings as we know them today, the doomsday clock is ticking minutes past 12 o'clock (midnight).

Mark Rutte and his "Tory" party of Freedom and Liberalization have been a disaster for any social, progressive development in the Netherlands. Right wing populism cozying up to Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. A sorry state of independent, investigative reporting in the Netherlands where the Public broadcasters are lap dogs of Rutte.

Rutte Conservatie VVD party wasted years to appeal court decisions and ultimately lost ...

Landmark Decision by Dutch Supreme Court

On 20 December 2019,  the Dutch Supreme Court, the highest court in the Netherlands, upheld the previous decisions in the Urgenda Climate Case, finding that the Dutch government has obligations to urgently and significantly reduce emissions in line with its human rights obligations. A truly historic outcome!
An English translation of the judgement is available here.

The Urgenda Climate Case against the Dutch Government was the first in the world in which citizens established that their government has a legal duty to prevent dangerous climate change. On 24 June 2015, the District Court of The Hague ruled the government must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). The ruling required the government to immediately take more effective action on climate change.

The District Court's decision was appealed by the State and upheld by the Court of Appeal on 9 October 2018. Following this judgment, the State appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of Urgenda on 20 December 2019. Read Urgenda's press release here, the press release of the Supreme Court here and an explanation of the case by the press Justice to the Supreme Court here.

In a reflection of the international significance of the case, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also published a news release about the decision in which she notes that "the decision confirms that the Government of the Netherlands and, by implication, other governments have binding legal obligations, based on international human rights law, to undertake strong reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases."

 

A slow pace to preserve biodiversity - RED alert

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yes,

barring one or more cosmic collisions of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS. Ironically, none of us alive today will know it to confirm or deny it.

by Cat on Sun Jan 1st, 2023 at 06:28:15 PM EST


Hasbara is a dead language
by Oui (Oui) on Sun Jan 1st, 2023 at 06:39:02 PM EST
I've probably written this before, but he it is again: The main purpose of US ag policy since WW II, apart from enriching agribusiness corporations, has been to sever as many people as possible from the land to make them more controllable.  As my grandfather, who ran our farm through the Depression and so had some idea, put it, "There's a bad time coming.  It'll be worse than the Depression.  At least then most folks could feed themselves.  Now they can't."
by rifek on Mon Jan 2nd, 2023 at 08:41:41 PM EST

< reposted from July >

Hasbara is a dead language

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:08:07 AM EST

Candidato Lula da Silva es el presidente electo de Brasil

Hasbara is a dead language

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:09:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
See today's scene in Brazil ... the Trump Factor.



Hasbara is a dead language
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:11:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Pro-Bolsonaro Supporters Invade Congress and Supreme Court

Latin American Leaders Reject Anti-democratic Coup in Brazil. They strongly reject the invasion of the headquarters of the three branches of government in the nation's capital, Brasilia.

Leaders and political organizations of Latin America and the Caribbean repudiated the attacks on democracy perpetrated this Sunday by supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who invaded the headquarters of the three branches of government in the nation's capital, Brasilia.



Hasbara is a dead language
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:13:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

From South American media ...

Brazil elections: Evangelicals for Lula? | El País - Oct. 28, 2022 |

Evangelicals voted en masse for Bolsonaro, lifting him to power with his slogan, "Brazil above everyone, God above all."

"Bolsonaro's against abortion. He defends family values, so we see in him someone who is embracing our cause," pastor Diego Valentin da Silva said.

Hasbara is a dead language

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:17:08 AM EST
Either we get interviews with "neutral" Russia watcher Anne Applebaum, or retired top brass from Dutch Army, even the NATO vice-chairman to put the war in Ukraine in context. Earlier this evening ...

Threw a chair at the tv screen tonight ... national news broadcast NPO1 covered the riots in Brasilia ... interview with ugly Bolsonaro supporters living in The Netherlands or just spending a holiday in the old country ... same old Trump conspiracy rhetoric of Lula is a criminal, the election was stolen, power to the people to correct the election results ...

Brazilian member of parliament with Dutch roots Marcel Van Hattem - 3 seats in parliament partido Novo ... voted in line with the party of Bolsonaro 86% of the time.

Marcel Van Hattem, um jornalista e político brasileiro filiado ao Partido Novo

Graduate of the Political, Social and Business Leadership Program at Georgetown University (Washington, DC , U.S.) and the International Seminar on Management and Prevention of International Conflicts at the Internationale Akademie für Führungskräfte Theodor-Heuss, linked to the Friedrich Naumann Institute for Freedom (Gummersbach and Hamburg, Germany).

...
During his term in the chamber, Marcel chronologically voted in favor of MP 867 (which according to environmentalists would change the Forestry Code by granting amnesty for deforesters); against criminalizing those responsible for breaking dams; in favor of the Social Security Reform PEC and against excluding teachers from its rules; in favor of the MP for Economic Freedom; against Alteration in the Electoral Fund; against increasing the Party Fund; in favor of baggage charges by airlines; in favor of PL 3723 which regulates the practice of shooters and hunters; in favor of Sergio Moro's "Anti-Crime Package"; in favor of the New Sanitation Legal Framework ; against reduction of the Electoral Fund ; against financial aid to states during the COVID-19 pandemic (first text); against the Green and Yellow Contract; in favor of MP 910 (known as MP da Grilagem ); in favor of making labor rules more flexible during the pandemic; in favor of freezing civil servants' salaries ; against amnesty of church debt; against the convening of an Inter-American Convention against Racism; twice in favor of allocating funds from the new Fundeb to schools linked to churches; in favor ofCentral Bank; against maintaining the imprisonment of Bolsonarist deputy Daniel Silveira (PSL/RJ); against the validation of the Parliamentary Immunity PEC; in favor of the Emergency PEC (which deals with the return ofemergency aidfor another three months and with a lower value); in favor of allowing companies to buy COVID-19 vaccines without donating to SUS; in favor of classifying education as an "essential service" (making it possible to return to face-to-face classes during the pandemic); in favor of ending Environmental Licensing for various activities; against the suspension of evictions during the pandemic and against the privatization of Eletrobras (because it differs specifically from the text). Marcel was absent from the vote on the suspension of the mandate of Deputy Wilson Santiago (PTB/PB), accused of corruption.

Alt-Stipendiat der FNF -- Guido Westerwelle

Related reading ...

O que avançou na segurança pública após ingresso recorde de policiais e militares no Congresso.| Nas eleições de 2018 |

Hasbara is a dead language

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:52:32 PM EST
Van Hattem calling out the new president Lula da Silva as a fraud and a criminal ..

Decreto de Lula revoga normas que facilitavam acessos a armas e munição; veja o que diz o texto

Brazil: Criminal proceedings against former President Lula da Silva violated due process guarantees, UN Human Rights Committee finds | OHCHR - April 2022 |

Hasbara is a dead language

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:55:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Hasbara is a dead language
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:56:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Hasbara is a dead language
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 at 08:56:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

More at new diary ...

Mary Robinson and Fallacy of War and Peace

Hasbara is a dead language

by Oui (Oui) on Wed Jan 11th, 2023 at 03:13:50 PM EST


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