David Graeber and David Wengrow https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/ The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of ‘agricultural revolution’ remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors. Quite independently, archaeological evidence …
ALEC and gas companies have passed prohibitions against gas bans across 20 states: 31% of US building gas use
Only Washington has passed statewide all-electric construction requirements. New York policymakers are considering statewide mandates for both new and existing buildings. Meanwhile, local air monitoring systems (Purple Air, monitoring particulate matter and VOCs) in highly fracked areas of Ohio and found that the U.S. EPA’s regional air quality monitors often miss variations in pollution at the local level. (Energy News …
Reducing oil and gas use in transportation
This article originally appeared in WRI Insights. Read it here. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/5-ways-cut-oil-and-gas-use-through-clean-transportation There’s never been a better time to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Oil and gas prices are skyrocketing as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with gas prices exceeding $4 a gallon in the United States in March and more than $10 a gallon in other countries. Meanwhile, the …
San Diego Decarbonizes New Building Development Starting 2023 for Residential and Commercial Development. Zurich starts in 2025.
San Diego released their draft CAP this past month. Related to building electrification it has: Strategy 1: Decarbonization of the Built Environment Measure 1.1: Decarbonize Existing Buildings 2030 Target: Phase out 45% of natural gas from existing buildings 2035 Target: Phase out 90% of natural gas from existing buildings Measure 1.2: Decarbonize New Building Development 2030 Target: All-electric reach code starting 2023 at new residential …
Ending settler colonialism and capitalism and returning Indigenous lands are all possible—and necessary
Much environmental framing misses the point about capitalism and Indigenous sovereignty. In this era of catastrophic climate change, why is it easier for some to imagine the end of fossil fuels than settler colonialism? To imagine green economies, carbon-free wind and solar energy, and electric, bullet-train utopias but not the return of Indigenous lands? Why is it easier to imagine the …
New York’s Public Power Bill Could Be a Model for the Rest of the Country. NY State Build Public Renewables Act sets path for faster, cheaper, better decarbonization.
The New York State Build Public Renewables Act. “We could see, for instance, federal money going to states so that they could set one up themselves so that they can build out public renewable energy in their states, bring down the cost, make it accountable to the people, and bring down energy poverty at the same time.” Dharna Noor 5/13/21, Gizmodo …
Resisting the Everyday Violence of Colonial Extractivsm
By Michael Wilson Becerril, ROAR Magazine.May 25, 2021 | STRATEGIZE! In The Face Of Environmental Collapse, Deepening Inequalities And Capitalism In Crisis, Resisting Violence Requires Challenging Its Colonial Constructions. In many cases, the state legitimizes violence,” said the lawyer, professor and researcher on socio-environmental conflicts, Patricia Urteaga Crovetto, as we sat in her university office in Lima, Peru. “People make claims, they knock …
From Fossil Capitalism to Green Democracy: Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet—And How We Fight, by Kate Aronoff
“It’s understandable that people don’t think a transition will be just, because they’ve never seen one play out. Any just transition that looks to transition workers into training for jobs building wind turbines that might exist a hundred or two hundred miles away is a lost cause. I don’t think we deal with the climate crisis at the scale it …
Fossil fuel risk bond programs underway in Oregon and Washington, now part of national legislation
Center for Sustainable Economy’s (CSE) work on fossil fuel risk bond programs (FFRB) – a signature ‘polluter pays’ project on fossil fuel infrastructure that was launched about 2 years ago — would provide a major deterrent for building new fossil fuel infrastructure as well as incentives to retire existing infrastructure early in any jurisdiction that adopts it. 2019 and 2020 brought …
US suffers largest rise in poverty rate in more than 50 years. More states want to tax the rich + proposal to end child poverty
US Suffers Sharpest Rise In Poverty Rate In More Than 50 Years By Alex Tanzi and Catarina Saraiva, Chicago Tribune. The end of 2020 brought the sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since the 1960s, according to a new study. Economists Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame found that …