Climate Change

Pope Francis: Solving the Climate Crisis Requires New Economic and Political Models

Green Education and Legal Fund by Mark Dunlea The Pope’s urgent plea for global action to address the climate crisis recognizes that effective solutions will require a fundamental re-ordering of economic and political priorities, starting with addressing poverty, inequality and democracy. His Encyclical – On Care for Our Common Home – reflects the call by climate justice advocates to make common cause with other movements for social, racial and economic justice. The United State, as the major climate change contributor and denier, has led the effort for decades to block effective international remedies. Many hope that the Pope’s moral leadership…


Why Composting is critical to our future

Prosperity For Rhode Island by Greg Gerritt Prepared remarks for a Conference sponsored by the Rhode Island Socicety of Environmental Professionals held at the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation’s facility in Johnston, Rhode Island. Climate change is the existential crisis of our time. The removal of organics from our landfill stream is one of our key strategies for reducing the production of greenhouse gases, especially methane, and provides a new resource for one of the few industries in RI that is expanding, agriculture. Like solar energy, compost is an idea whose time is finally coming. We could have adopted both…


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Hillary Won’t Save Us, Neither Will Bernie or Liz

by Scott McLarty Originally published by OpEd News. 21st-century time bombs like global warming require a drastic change in the U.S. political landscape March 31 news item: President Obama’s Interior Department has approved leases for high-risk oil drilling in the fragile Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea north of the Bering Strait. Interior’s rush approval, overriding an earlier ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, should remind us of the inconsistencies in the President’s 2015 State of the Union speech. On one hand, a declared commitment to fight global warming. On the other hand, a call to develop more…


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A Green State of State Message on MLK Day

by Howie Hawkins New York Governor Cuomo’s State of the State address comes as we are celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday. Unfortunately, half a century after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the dream of equality and prosperity for all remains unrealized. Income inequality in New York is the highest in the nation, with one-sixth of New Yorkers living below the poverty line. In upstate cities, more than half of all children live in poverty. New York has the most segregated housing and schools in the country, worse than Mississippi or Alabama. More than a million New Yorkers…


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The Future Will Be Green Or It Won’t Be At All

Stop Capitulating, Start Converging: The Global Climate Convergence and the Independent Political Imperative     firedoglake by Scott McLarty Monday April 21, 2014 In early April, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim issued a dire warning about the consequences of global climate change and increasing economic inequality. The combination of the two, he said, are likely to result in violent clashes around the world: “Fights over water and food are going to be the most significant direct impacts of climate change in the next five to 10 years. There’s just no question about it.” Mr. Kim urged scientists and environmental…