climate change

By Abdullah Farooq - Jacobin, August 23, 2022

As climate change disrupts migration patterns, animals and the viruses they carry will come into unusual contact with each other — and inevitably with humans, unleashing new pandemics. The only thing that can stop this unfolding nightmare is a mass movement.

When animals migrate, be they butterfly kaleidoscopes or elk herds or bat cauldrons, they do so in response to ecological cues, which guide the manner and extent of the migration process. As climate change disrupts those cues, so too will it disrupt the migration of animals.

Climate change will thus deal a horrible blow to butterflies, bats, elk, and all manner of migratory animals. That’s tragic enough, but it gets worse: according to a recent study in Nature, this disruption will result in unusual interspecies contact, which will in turn cause new transmissions and mutations of viruses.

Through extensive modeling work, the study’s authors show that climate change will lead to altered migration patterns for thousands of animals, resulting in close to fifteen thousand new interspecies viral transmission events by the year 2070. In addition to having a massive ecological impact on the global fauna, this trend is of critical public health importance to us as humans, given that the majority of emerging infectious disease threats are zoonotic (transmitted by animal-to-human contact) in origin. The authors are cautious about predicting the probability of zoonoses into humans, but predict that geographies that are densely populated with humans will be future hot spots for interspecies viral transmission.

The study’s findings suggest that we are on the precipice of this mass-scale viral transmission event. The authors predict that the majority of these transmission events will happen between 2011 and 2040, indicating that many of them may already be taking place. While keeping temperature increases to within or below 2 degrees Celsius is a necessary goal, the authors predict that the accomplishment of this goal itself will not result in reduced viral sharing. In short, we’re probably stuck with massive changes in animal migration and vast quantities of viral transmission even if we slow climate change. However, there are other interventions we can make to stop the worst from happening.

In their model, the authors rely on a variety of land use scenarios — including alterations in deforestation, agricultural land usage, and human settlements — due to the uncertainty of how land is going to be used over the next fifty years. But none of that is inevitable. We can ensure that our land usage mitigates the impacts of climate change and prevents the emergence of the next pandemic. This can only happen if we’re able to take back control over how land is used, and democratically determine the best way to use it instead of leaving the decision up to capitalist markets.

Currently, our governments are beholden to corporate interests, which means that real estate and agribusiness have outsized influence over where and how land is developed. This has led to the unmitigated proliferation of sprawling housing developments, which often push deep into important ecological niches. This trend has already directly led to the destruction of 67 percent of coastal wetlands, which play a critical role in supporting local ecosystems, flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, and erosion control. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government has facilitated the rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest to facilitate increased agricultural land usage. The Amazon is a massive carbon sink, and its destruction could make it impossible for the rest of the world to keep global warming from rising faster than 1.5-2 degrees Celsius.

By C.J. Polychroniou - Truthout, August 23, 2022

California has a well-established reputation as a national and global climate leader, but despite its remarkable successes in cutting emissions between 2006 and 2016, it has recently begun showing signs of having lost its way.

California is increasingly falling behind on its emissions reduction targets, and its existing policies have now been deemed insufficient to hit its 2030 target of reducing carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, according to new modeling from the climate policy think tank Energy Innovation.

“Compared to historical trends, California will need to more than triple the pace of emissions reductions to hit its 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030,” the Energy Innovation report states.

The report is disappointing news, representing a weakening of the climate action that began with California’s passage of AB 32 in 2006. Otherwise known as the Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32 was a landmark program in the struggle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Up until 2006, the United States was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions in the world, and California was the second highest state in terms of total greenhouse gas emissions.

By staff - Just Transition Partnership, August 18, 2022

The Just Transition Partnership sends solidarity to RMT, TSSA and ASLEF members taking industrial action to protect their pay, jobs and working conditions, and in the wider fight for a sustainable public transport system run for people and the planet, not private greed. Billions are being cut from our transport system at a time when increasing investment is vital to ensure a fully public, affordable, integrated and sustainable transport system.

Our railways are already being impacted by the effects of climate change, putting additional demands on a stretched workforce providing an essential public service. We need a well-paid transport workforce with secure conditions and it is indefensible to expect transport and other workers to take an effective pay cut as inflation and the costs of energy rise, especially while the profits of oil companies soar.

The UK government is failing on the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis. It has no integrated transport plans, favouring private companies which make vast profits rather than making transport affordable and our air breathable; in Scotland as well as the rest of the UK train and bus services are being cut. These actions are symptomatic of disregard for the concerns of climate, environment and workers.

The solutions to these crises have the same foundations – public investment into decarbonised and high-quality services using both taxation and legal duties on private companies; all delivered by a well-paid, skilled and secure workforce. These things won’t happen without workers in their trade unions organising to defend their wages, their jobs, their future and their rights through the power of collective bargaining. The workers movement and the climate justice movement need to build our collective power if we are to defend our future, that is why we send our solidarity to the workers on strike.

By Mindy Isser - In These Times, August 17, 2022

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters kicked off its campaign, on August 1, for its next big contract with United Parcel Service in 2023 — but the Teamsters have some other UPS fights along the way.

Teamsters tell In These Times that workers are being pushed to the brink as temperatures around the country hit 100 degrees and higher, and myriad heatstroke stories abound. According to some UPS workers, management has so far turned a blind eye to the danger and even goaded workers for not being tough enough to handle the heat.

But as profits soar at UPS, workers are falling ill and even dying. On June 25, 24-year-old Esteban Chavez Jr., a UPS driver outside of Los Angeles, passed out in his truck while temperatures were the upper 90s; he could not be revived.

Workers say their trucks need air conditioning to do their jobs safely, but UPS is focused instead on installing truck surveillance cameras. The driver-facing cameras can record audio and video, making some workers feel they’re under constant watch for supposed safety reasons — while their true safety needs are going ignored.

According to Teamsters who spoke with In These Times, unless something changes, more workers are going to face negative health consequences from heat waves.

By staff - Solutionary Rail, September 12, 2022

US Railroad Strike: What's at Stake, How We Got Here & Why NOW is the time for Solidarity (w/RWU) from Backbone Campaign on Vimeo.

By Yessenia Funes - Atmos, August 10, 2022

Depending on whom you ask, the United States is on the verge of passing one of its most beneficial climate bills—or one of its most harmful. The Inflation Reduction Act is historic, hands down, but it’s also imperfect in the way it continues to prop up the fossil fuel industry at a time when we need to urgently invest in new energy sources. 

The Senate voted to pass the bill Sunday (which all Republicans opposed), and it’s now in the hands of the House of Representatives, which is slated to vote on it later this week. For the first time in my lifetime at least, the U.S. government is on course to pass a climate policy that can actually reduce emissions on a national scale—but at what cost?

Welcome to The Frontline, where we’re still awaiting climate justice. I’m Yessenia Funes, climate director of Atmos. President Joe Biden promised us sweeping climate action, and he finally delivered. However, the Inflation Reduction Act is not built on the foundations of climate and environmental justice. It continues the traumatic legacy of sacrificing Black and Brown communities—of handing over their lives to the fossil fuel sector. Leaders on the frontlines are preparing to fight back.

By staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, August 8, 2022

The fossil fuel industry, the Republican Party, conservative fossil-fuel Democrats, and right-wing ideologues combined to block the climate, labor, and social justice programs of the Green New Deal and Build Back Better resulting in compromise legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Passage of the IRA, despite its drawbacks and limitations, is the most significant climate legislation ever passed into law. It could represent a huge opportunity for the labor-climate movement to shape the significant federal subsidies provided for non-fossil energy development, manufacturing, and for consumers. It will create an estimated 1 to 1.5 million jobs. It includes very modest funding to address pollution in frontline communities.

But the power of the fossil fuel industry and its allies was still enough to gut important parts of a program for climate, jobs and justice – and to add provisions that promote injustice and climate change. The legislation includes only one-quarter of the investment necessary to meet the Paris climate goals and prevent the worst consequences of global warming. It allows much of its funding to be squandered on unproven technologies that claim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but whose primary effect may simply be to permit the continued burning of fossil fuels – and enrich their promoters. 

It allows increased drilling for fossil fuels, especially on federal lands. It allows drilling and pipeline construction that will continue to see areas like the Gulf Coast and Appalachia turned into de facto “sacrifice zones” where expanded fossil fuel infrastructure will devastate the environment – and the people. It does not guarantee that the jobs it creates will be good union jobs. It makes no “just transition” provisions for workers and communities whose livelihoods may be threatened by the transition to a climate-safe economy. 

The Inflation Reduction Act can provide the basis for an unprecedented people’s mobilization for climate, labor, and justice. That is what it will take to provide a sustainable future for our environment and a fairer economy.

By staff - Green Workers Alliance, August 8, 2022

Green Workers Alliance Praises Clean Energy Provisions of Reconciliation Bill, Opposes Fossil Fuel Concessions

“This bill is just a first step - and we will continue by taking the fight directly to utility companies to force them to use more renewable energy and help create millions of good, green jobs.”

Washington D.C. - In response to the Senate passing the climate and tax package now known as the Inflation Reduction Act, the Green Workers Alliance, an organization made of renewable energy workers, released the following statement:

The reconciliation bill which includes $260 billion in funding for renewable energy projects is a significant victory for people and the planet as we transition to an economy based on renewable energy. The bill is also a welcome boost for more than 400,000 renewable energy workers, many of whom have been laid off due to supply chain issues. The tax credits and other financial incentives will help kick-start renewables projects across the nation and put people back to work, and the labor provisions incentivizing prevailing wages and apprenticeships will help ensure these projects create good, middle-class jobs.

But while much of the bill is a noteworthy achievement given the current political landscape, we strongly oppose the provisions greenlighting more fossil fuel projects in protected natural lands and offshore and speeding up approval of pipeline projects. Continued investment in fossil fuel projects not only contributes to climate change, but also causes serious harm to local communities, especially people of color. We will continue to stand with front-line communities and fight for a renewable energy future, one that is free from the corruption and pollution of the fossil fuel industry.

The concessions in this bill are just another example of the long-running campaign by the fossil fuel industry and investor-owned utilities to continue pumping out fossil fuels, raking in huge profits while emitting harmful and deadly pollution at the expense of the people, the planet, and workers. Utilities emit 25 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. This bill is just a first step - and we will continue by taking the fight directly to utility companies to force them to use more renewable energy and help create millions of good, green jobs.

Together, renewable energy workers, front-line communities, and citizens everywhere can take on corporate power and win a just, green economy.

Green Workers Alliance is an organization made of renewable energy workers demanding more and better jobs in the field and a just transition off fossil fuels.

By Mick Lynch - Doble Down News, August 4, 2022