We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Unlimited emissions would result in ice-free Antarctica

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from Climate News Network. (Please read the comments following the posting of this article.)
German and US scientists have worked out how to melt almost all the ice in Antarctica, raise sea levels by up to 60 metres, and flood cities that are now home to more than a billion people.

The answer is simple: just burn all the planet’s remaining fossil fuel resources, which would pump another 10,000 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the form of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
That is precisely what is happening and will continue to happen under capitalist rule.