"As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial,"a graphic novel, Seven Stories Press, 224 pages. 2007.
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steph@minimumsecurity.net
Stephanie McMillan
P.O. Box 460673
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33346
Obviously I’m not criticizing scientists from the same point of view as climate change deniers. Some scientists do great work sounding the alarm about global warming. Others, and this is what this cartoon is about, minimize the danger.
From BBC News:
…Professor Semiletov’s fellow researcher aboard the Russian icebreaker that carries the ISSS team each year is Professor Orjan Gustafsson from Stockholm University in Sweden.
He said that methane measured in the atmosphere around the region is 100 times higher than normal background levels, and in some cases 1,000 times higher.
Despite the high readings, Professor Gustafsson said that so far there was no cause for alarm, and stressed that further studies were still necessary to determine the exact cause of the methane seepage.
* * *
I disagree. I think we should be highly alarmed, and we should do whatever it takes to save the planet. Even if there’s disagreement about what the increased methane means, we should not be playing with that. Life on Earth is at stake. We don’t get another chance to do it over if we miss our chance to save it.
Here’s the whole article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8437703.stm
Over the weekend I finished drawing all the pages of Derrick Jensen’s children’s story “Mischief in the Forest” (whew!)! I still have plenty of corrections and changes, but this is a milestone.
So I updated the youtube video of the book, minus the last 5 pages (backers can see them now in Kickstarter updates, or you can buy the book later). But this is most of it, anyway. Derrick narrates.
The book is almost…almost… half funded, and I only have 20 more days on Kickstarter, so if you’ve been planning to support this book, now would be a great time!
Thank you!
Today’s NYT contains an outrageous op-ed piece by corporate cheerleader Jared Diamond, who states, “I’ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world’s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.” The examples he provides? Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Chevron.
His title asks, “Will Big Business Save the Earth?” That’s not a difficult question to answer: No. No, big business will not save the Earth. Instead of being honest, though, Diamond, answers the question in the affirmative and subjects us to a poorly-argued, mind-warping, illogical and denial-drenched apology for some of the most destructive corporations that curse our planet with their existence.
His overall argument doesn’t hold up to even the most casual scrutiny. He spends the whole column arguing that we shouldn’t hate big corporations because market forces are causing them to make changes to help the planet. “Lower consumption of environmental resources saves money in the short run. Maintaining sustainable resource levels and not polluting saves money in the long run.” He attempts to show that Wal-Mart, Coca Cola and Chevron are transforming their production practices to reflect their concern for the natural world (and that this also improves their bottom line, so it’s a big win-win).
His actual agenda is revealed in the last paragraph, which is partly a plea for the government to give corporations incentives like tax breaks and money for research to facilitate these changes. But if they’re already modifying production practices to help the environment because that is good for profits, then why do they require incentives? I don’t get it.
Mainstream liberal environmentalist groups lack credibility among real environmentalists for many reasons, one of which is the presence of corporate executives on their boards, and another of which is the huge amounts of money that they accept from corporations. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, landed a $3 million contract with Chevron in the early 1990s to implement an “Integrated Conservation and Development Project” in Papua New Guinea, where Chevron’s oil drilling was vehemently resisted by the affected indigenous people. (See “Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond Greenwasher” at: http://www.counterpunch.org/proyect05092005.html).
Diamond happens to serve on the WWF board. I’m sure it’s purely by coincidence that he praises Chevron’s efforts to improve the environment in his book “Collapse,” and again in this NYT op-ed piece. I can imaging him hanging out with his fellow board members, business execs who complain of being misunderstood while sending him meaningful glances brimming with unspoken promises of millions of dollars in donations. I can imagine him deciding, “Hey, these guys aren’t so bad! I’m going to convince the American people to give them some love, damn it!”
In his op-ed piece he states, “I … have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I’ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies.” In contrast, he seems to have carefully avoided speaking with even one of the countless victims of these companies. There’s not a single quote by an indigenous person in the Amazon whose forest home was leveled for oil exploration and contaminated by oil spills. Not a single statement by a farmer in India whose crops died because Coca-Cola depleted and contaminated the village ground water. Not a peep from a single exploited factory laborer in China suffering with illnesses caused by the pollution generated by producing cheap plastic crap for Wal-Mart to import and sell to us.
The motivations for these companies to reign in their destruction of the world are, without exception, self-serving and purely concerned with the bottom line. It costs too much to clean up oil spills, retrofit factories, and crush angry natives. Diamond’s sympathies are 100% in line with this, and his only desire is to assist these corporations in their accumulation of profit. “We should reward companies that work to keep the planet healthy,” he urges. He doesn’t express the slightest concern for the well-being of the natural world itself or for the living beings who comprise it.
He talks about the challenges that Coca-Cola faces in finding acceptable sources of water, and tries to convince us that “Hence Coca-Cola’s survival compels it to be deeply concerned with problems of water scarcity, energy, climate change and agriculture.” But the obvious point remains unsaid: Coke is not a necessity. It is in fact harmful to those who drink it. We don’t NEED to solve the problem of how Coca-Cola obtains water, or provide incentives for them to do it less destructively, because they could just fucking stop making it. Now there’s a simple solution.
Diamond tries to confuse us by conflating slightly restrained rates of massive destruction with a net positive effect. Even if companies make changes that cause them to destroy nature at a slower speed than they have been accustomed to, this is hardly the same thing as not destroying it at all (which is what sustainability means), and the exact opposite of helping the planet heal.
As a collaborator with and propagandist for ecocidal corporations, Diamond should not be granted space to spread his lies. Both he and the NYT deserve scathing contempt for this op-ed piece.
Schemes to make businesses “green” are a sick mockery of any real attempt to save the planet.
Excerpt from an article in the New York Times:
Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
…
Offsets have played a growing role in the greening of travel because carbon dioxide emissions from airplanes are growing so quickly and there is currently no technological fix that would drastically lower them.
In the United States, dozens of hotels and airlines have embraced such programs in the last year or two. United Airlines became the latest American airline to offer one this summer. Globally, offset programs have grown into a multimillion-dollar industry.
But it has proved difficult to monitor or quantify the emissions-reducing potential of the thousands of green projects financed by customers’ payments, and there are no industrywide standards.
Responsible Travel is not the only organization that has changed its mind about the usefulness of offsets: Yahoo and the United States House of Representatives both ended trial offset-purchase programs this year, concluding that the money was better spent on improving their buildings’ energy efficiency.
Some of the world’s leading experts on the emissions issue have reviewed and rejected purchasing offsets for air travel.
…
The whole article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/science/earth/18offset.html?scp=1&sq=guilt%20carbon&st=cse
In a global industrial capitalist economy, the world’s political leaders’ first duty is to protect the interests of the capitalists, especially their system of profit accumulation, which requires constant expansion. If they didn’t perform this duty, they wouldn’t be permitted to lead. They are not going to make the changes necessary to save the planet from global industrial capitalism. It’s not possible. They can’t and they won’t.
Excerpt from an article issued by Reuters:
World Leaders Back Delay to Final Climate Deal
by Caren Bohan
…
“There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days,” senior U.S. negotiator Michael Froman told reporters after the meeting, which was attended by leaders of the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Mexico, Australia and Indonesia.
“We believe it is better to have something good than to have nothing at all,” Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez said.
Copenhagen was seen as the last chance for countries to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol and put in place painful measures needed to fight a rise in temperatures that would bring more rising sea levels, floods and droughts.
The aim of the summit is to set ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gases, but also to raise funds to help poor countries tackle global warming.
However, negotiations have been bogged down, with developing nations accusing the rich world of failing to set themselves deep enough 2020 goals for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
…
Of course negotiations have bogged down. Of course. No meaningful change will come from these people. The only way to save the planet is to overthrow and dismantle industrial capitalism.
The whole article is here: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/15-0
Many people I’ve talked to have noticed unusually and increasingly warm weather, weird rain patterns and higher sea levels. Who should we believe, Fox news or our own lying eyes?
Excerpt from IPS News:
U.S.: Public More Complacent About Climate Change
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (IPS) – Less than two months before a key international conference on curbing climate change, a major U.S. poll has found a sharp drop in public concern about global warming.
According to the survey by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, 65 percent of the public believes that warming constitutes either a “very serious” (35 percent) or “somewhat serious” (30 percent) problem, down from 79 percent in July 2006 and from 73 percent just 18 months ago.
The survey also recorded a sharp drop in the percentage of the public that believes that “there is solid evidence the Earth is warming” – down from 71 percent in April, 2008, to 57 percent – and in the percentage that believes global warming is caused primarily by human activity – from 47 percent to 36 percent over the same period.
…
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48965
See more about this incredible film in production, “End:Civ” at endciv.com. It’s partly based on Derrick Jensen’s masterpiece “Endgame.”
The good intentions of participants of 350 aside, requesting world leaders to reduce carbon emissions is unfortunately not going to work. Bill McKibben asserts that world leaders will listen “if we’re loud enough,” but that’s simply untrue. If we stick with symbolic action, the destruction will become progressively worse, and we will continuously lose ground and be reduced to begging for mercy that will never be granted.
Those in power (and their political representatives) will only stop destroying the planet if they are forced to do so. The immediate threat of social disorder and economic disruption will make them listen. An immediate and serious threat to their wealth and well-being will make them listen.
Excerpt from the New York Times:
Huge coal ash spills contaminating U.S. water
By Shaila Dewan
The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States – most of them unregulated and unmonitored – that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal.
Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any U.S. regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, which sent almost 4 billion liters over 120 hectares, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.
In fact, coal ash is used throughout the United States for construction fill, mine reclamation and other “beneficial uses.” In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s ability to hold water, despite an agency warning in 1999 about high levels of arsenic. The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year – 131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990.
The amount of coal ash has ballooned in part because of increased demand for electricity, but more because air pollution controls have improved. Contaminants and waste products that once spewed through the coal plants’ smokestacks are increasingly captured in the form of solid waste, held in huge piles in 46 states, near cities like Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa, Florida, and on the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.
Studies have shown that the ash can leach toxic substances that cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems in humans, and can decimate fish, bird and frog populations in and around ash dumps, causing developmental problems like tadpoles born without teeth, or fish with spinal deformities.
…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/americas/07iht-sludge.4.19164565.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
One more bullshit green marketing scheme… the stupidest ever, maybe.
From Fast Company:
Airline Asks Passengers to Pee Before Flying to Save Energy
BY Ariel Schwartz
Tue Oct 6, 2009 at 8:23 PM
Osaka Airport Flight AttSure, one person’s deposits into an airplane toilet don’t weigh much, but what about the pee from 200 people? Japanese airline ANA thinks full bladders lead to airplanes being weighed down by excrement, so it is implementing a wacky new policy: pee before you fly.
The airline is putting up signs at airport gates asking passengers to go to the bathroom. So-called “loo attendants” stand guard as well, asking potential pee-ers if they need to take a trip to the restroom. Bathrooms will still be on the plane, of course, in case of emergency. But ANA hopes that its shaming tactics will cut down on passengers’ overall weight, in turn reducing the weight of the plane and lowering fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
If the bathroom policy’s four week trial is effective, ANA will continue it indefinitely. But if the airline really wants to discourage passengers from peeing, it may want to take a hint from RyanAir’s CEO, who recently proposed charging for bathroom use in the air.
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/airline-asks-passengers-pee-flying-save-energy?partner=rss
Big business will never admit that anything is wrong with their wealth-accumulation, ever, even with the waters rising and fires closing in.
Excerpt from the Wonk Room of the Center for American Progress:
Chamber Of Commerce Claims Global Warming Regulations Would ‘Strangle The Economy’
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today announced its economic agenda, continuing its hard stance against regulation of global warming pollution. In “The State of American Business 2009,” the chamber “agenda for recovery, jobs, and growth” says the nation should “address climate change.” However, they fear that President-elect Barack Obama may take immediate action to actually address the pollution:
“Congress should reassert its legislative authority over climate change policy and not leave it to EPA regulators to impose a top-down approach.”
In the press conference releasing this report, chamber president Thomas Donohue claimed carbon dioxide regulation by federal regulators would “strangle the economy.” In contrast, R. Bruce Josten, the chamber’s top lobbyist, praised the draft legislation of Reps. John Dingell (D-MI) and Rick Boucher (D-WV) as “being a very workable approach.”
Strangely enough, when Bush ran the White House, the chamber’s position was very different. The Chamber of Commerce tarred Congress’s attempt to address climate change — the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill — as “HillaryCare redux,” using shoddy economic analysis to spread fears of a world without electricity or automobiles.
In all likelihood, the Chamber of Commerce’s policy of obstruction and inaction will continue as long as its directors include the likes of rabid global warming denier Don Blankenship, the right-wing coal magnate. Stripped of platitudes, the chamber’s position on global warming and energy policy remains the same — a continued call for massive subsidies for the oil, coal, and nuclear power industries and the prevention of any regulation of their pollution.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/01/07/chamber-strangle-economy/
For news on indigenous struggles:
From Intercontinental Cry:
Intercontinental Cry is dedicated to keeping you informed about the most pressing and under-reported struggles in the world today.
Intercontinental Cry is a free online magazine that provides news, videos, and urgent action alerts centered on Indigenous People and their struggles around the world to reclaim their lands, defend their traditions, enact their rights, and to quite literally survive.
…
I’ll talk some political & art bla bla bla on the radio, 2:30 EST/11:30 PT Monday 10/5. Tune in on kows.fm.
Thank you to all who stopped by the table!
I got a nice mention in the Washington Post’s Comic Riffs blog: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2009/09/_2009_ignatz_award_winners.html
From the New York Times:
Proposals Lag Behind Promises on Climate
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: September 22, 2009
…
“It was really great to have the vision, but with just 70 days left to Copenhagen, it is time to put some substance on the table,” said Steve Howard, the founder of the Climate Group, an international organization pushing for a climate change agreement. “The two most important countries on this issue are being guarded in their positions.”
Those two countries — the United States and China — account for more than 40 percent of the carbon emissions, roughly divided between both.
…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/science/earth/23climate.html?ref=world
If you attend the Small Press Expo this weekend in Bethesda, MD, please stop by the NBM Publications table and say hi! I’ll be at the table part-time selling books, comic books and a few t-shirts. Plus I’ll have some “Minimum Security” and “As the World Burns” originals available. The rest of the time I plan to wander around in awe of all the amazing work there.
From the New York Times:
Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering
By CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: September 12, 2009
Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.
In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.
Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.
Original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?_r=2&hp (registration required).
I’m conducting an experiment in self-serve, pay-what-you-choose reprints. Info on “reprints” page.
If anyone has any feedback on whether or not this is a good idea, please let me know. Thanks!
Excerpt from Earth Liberation Front press release:
ELF News Release On Tower Vandalism
Earth Liberation Front Topples Radio Station Towers In Snohomish County
Posted: 2:44 pm PDT September 4, 2009Updated: 3:01 pm PDT September 4, 2009
EVERETT, Wash. — Two radio station towers were torn down early Friday by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) in the Lord’s Hills valley in Snohomish County, WA. The towers, owned by station KRKO, have been a source of controversy for years. A sign left at the scene claimed responsibility by the ELF.
” Due to the health and environmental risks associated with radio waves emitted from the towers, we applaud this act by the ELF,” stated Jason Crawford, a spokesperson for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office. “When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet.”
For the past eight years, opponents have waged a legal battle against the towers, arguing that AM radio waves cause adverse health affects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.
Last year, the first four towers were erected by KRKO after numerous hearings and appeals. KRKO plans to build two more towers to boost the station’s broadcasting power.
…
Read the rest at http://www.kirotv.com/news/20731865/detail.html
***
And here’s a news report:
From the New York Times:
Mercury Found in Every Fish Tested, Scientists Say
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: August 19, 2009
When government scientists went looking for mercury contamination in fish in 291 streams around the nation, they found it in every fish they tested, the Interior Department said, even in isolated rural waterways. In a statement, the department said that some of the streams tested were affected by mining operations, which can be a source of mercury pollution, so the findings, by scientists at the United States Geological Survey, do not necessarily reflect contamination levels nationwide. But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the findings underlined the need to act against mercury pollution. Emissions from coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury contamination in the United States. A quarter of the fish studied had mercury levels above safety levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency for people who eat the fish regularly, the Interior Department said.
That was the whole article. It’s here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/science/earth/20brfs-MERCURYFOUND_BRF.html?scp=1&sq=fish%20rivers%20mercury&st=cse
Inspired by a stupid editorial in the New York Times:
The Earth Is Warming? Adjust the Thermostat
By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: August 10, 2009
…
Plan B. Do something about the weather. Originally called geoengineering, this approach used to be dismissed as science fiction fantasies: cooling the planet with sun-blocking particles or shades; tinkering with clouds to make them more reflective; removing vast quantities of carbon from the atmosphere.
Today this approach goes by the slightly less grandiose name of climate engineering, and it is looking more practical. Several recent reviews of these ideas conclude that cooling the planet would be technically feasible and economically affordable.
…
In case you want to waste your time: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/science/11tier.html?scp=3&sq=climate%20change%20particles%20august&st=cse
Excerpt from the New York Times:
Oil Industry Backs Protests of Emissions Bill
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and JAD MOUAWAD
Published: August 18, 2009
…
The event on Tuesday was organized by a group called Energy Citizens, which is backed by the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s main trade group. Many of the people attending the demonstration were employees of oil companies who work in Houston and were bused from their workplaces.
This was the first of a series of about 20 rallies planned for Southern and oil-producing states to organize resistance to proposed legislation that would set a limit on emissions of heat-trapping gases, requiring many companies to buy emission permits. Participants described the system as an energy tax that would undermine the economy of Houston, the nation’s energy capital. …
Read the whole article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/business/energy-environment/19climate.html?scp=1&sq=texas%20oil%20rally&st=cse
My latest Code Green cartoon made it into the Daily Beast’s “The Week in Cartoons” again! Here it is: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-21/the-week-in-cartoons-4. Click on #6 in the gallery.
Excerpt from the New York Times:
Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: August 8, 2009
WASHINGTON — The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.…
Read the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?scp=1&sq=military%20response%20global%20warming&st=cse
My first “Code Green” comic, about the kids who don’t go outside (or know where that is), will be printed in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, 8/16. I’d love to have a copy of it — if anyone could mail me one (I’d like the whole page it appears on, no need for the whole paper and not just the cartoon clipped out), I would certainly appreciate it!
[EDIT: Thank you to several readers who have volunteered!]
Thank you to great cartoonist Joel Pett, who puts together the weekly cartoon roundup for the LA Times!
On Saturday my first “Code Green” comic appeared in the Daily Beast’s feature “This Week in Cartoons.”
Here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-07/the-week-in-cartoons-2/
Excerpt of press release from the Department of the Interior:
Salazar Underscores Importance of Healthy Outdoor Activity for Young People in Visit to Great Falls Park near Nation’s Capital
McLEAN, Va. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today underscored the importance of outdoor recreation for young people, taking a hike with members of the Youth Conservation Corps at Great Falls Park outside Washington, one of thousands of federal, state, and local parks and wildlife refuges near urban areas across the country.
“An average young person today spends six hours a day in front of a computer or TV and less than four minutes playing outdoors,” Salazar said. “If our young people today are going to grow up to be healthy adults, we must encourage them to get outdoors. In particular, we need to introduce them to the beauty of our national parks and wildlife refuges, many of which are within easy traveling distance of urban areas.” …
For the rest of this article, see http://www.doi.gov/news/09_News_Releases/072309a.html
