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

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Planet or Profit?

Click here to access article from TruthOut.
It is not clear whether we have already passed a tipping point such that human survival beyond the next few decades cannot be assured, but what is overwhelmingly clear is that capitalism - and the drive for profits no matter what the threat to the ecosystem all humanity depends upon - is a force for global destruction.
The staff at Truthout have assembled a collection of articles all relating to climate destabilization and its various effects. Of particular interest to me, because I live in the Northwest, was the article by Dahr Jamail entitled "Soaring Temps in Pacific Northwest Shattered Records". 

Jamail begins his article by reporting on his hiking adventures up mountains in Washington state and discovering dramatic evidence of the effects of the increasing temperatures we are experiencing here in the Northwest of the US.

He then proceeds to examine evidence across the globe which reveal a number of symptoms of climate destabilization: record-breaking heat waves, droughts, torrential downpours of rain, disappearing glaciers, studies of species extinction, etc. Meanwhile corporations and their government are pretending that it's not happening.