Category: RT Newswire

PLANKTOS: The Solution to Climate Change?

By Maya Face
A for-profit company named Planktos Inc. claims to “erase carbon footprints” by offsetting carbon emissions. Their promotional materials say, “Global Warming: Solved!” –offering a quick fix to the largest challenge of our times. While they are primarily concerned with “restoring” plankton in the oceans, they have a subsidiary that plants trees in the European Union. The carbon dioxide taken up by the plankton is sold as carbon credits to consumers, businesses and governments. Ocean fertilization is a quickly emerging threat to the oceans and better ways of dealing with climate change; the estimated future value of the market for ocean fertilization is $100 billion. Planktos is likely to make huge profits from the Kyoto Protocol, the market for carbon offsets, the huge carbon footprints of Western consumers, and industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the world’s oceans and climate are paying the price, with widespread scientific uncertainty as to how they will be affected by iron fertilization. Continue reading

Focus on Trade, the publication of Walden Bello’s group Focus on the Global South, is entirely focused on climate politics for this issue…Some excellent writings in here, and illustration that the anti-globalization / Global Justice movement in getting increasingly tapped into the climate movement, and bringing it some much needed multi-issue, anti-technofix perspectives. Continue reading

URGENT ACTION ALERT!! DEADLINE APPROACHING! YUCCA MOUNTAIN, SACRED TO THE SHOSHONE & MAJOR FAULT ZONE, IN IMMINENT DANGER! DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY MOVES PLANS FORWARD TO TURN YUCCA MOUNTAIN INTO NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD DEADLINE JANUARY 10, 2008.Public hearings have not been well attended, statements mostly in favor of the plan to put all of the nuclear waste in the country in this one sacred place. Activists were told that if we do not go on record with a statement, we will have no legal recourse later on. Local papers & media spin have recently stated that opposition to the nuke dump had dropped of since the passing of Corbin Harney. The nuclear reps are confident to the point of acting like it’s a done deal. WE KNOW THAT’S NOT TRUE! LETS PROVE THEM WRONG! TAKE ACTION & MAKE YOUR COMMENT NOW!! Continue reading

I’ve been meaning to write a post about New Orleans for weeks now. This month – in the midst of the bad news from Bali and congress – a new climate-provoked crisis, one in the works since just after Hurricane Katrina has hit New Orleans hard. It’s been called “Hurricane H.U.D.” [HUD is the government office of Housing and Urban Development].

What’s at stake is the bulldozing of 5000 homes, or what politicians and reporters euphemistically call “units”, of public housing. These units, some moderately damaged, some unimpacted by Katrina, have been neglected for decades, but nonetheless were homes for some of New Orleans neediest and most disenfranchised people before the storm. Since the storm, rent prices are up by 50% and the homeless population is far larger than pre-storm levels. After nearly 2 and half years of all types of neglect and abuse toward survivors of a global warming related disaster, this has become a hugely symbolic battle against the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans.

And it has been the last straw for many of New Orleans’s most oppressed people.

While I’ve been following the housing struggle as its gone from grave to worse for two years, I reached a breaking point of despair these last 2 days when it got personal. At least 2 people I know in New Orleans, including one close friend, were TASERed by police while loudly, but peacefully, demanding entry into their city council meeting where the approval of the demolitions of these homes. Despite (police initiated) physical strife both inside and outside the chambers, the council approved the demolitions. Dozens more people, public housing residents and supporters alike, were pepper sprayed and beaten by police. 4 people, including my friend, were hospitalized. Continue reading