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 …
Grid map requirements to ease solar integration
California regulators modify grid map requirements to ease solar integration By David Wagman on Feb 1 2021 The California Public Utilities Commission ordered several key improvements to the Integration Capacity Analysis, a grid transparency tool. The motion requesting the changes that the CPUC responded to was filed last October by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, the California Solar & Storage …
Colonialism is the interplay of dispossession, dependency and oppression
Art Manuel: The Reconciliation Manifesto, 2007 Truth must come before reconciliation Loss of our land that has been the precise cause of our impoverishment Systemic impoverishment is used as a weapon by Canada to keep us too poor and weak to fight back. It is used to bribe and co-opt Indigenous leadership into becoming neo-colonial partners to treat the symptoms …
Reality is a Commons
Our greater understanding of the Earth as alive and interconnected At the beginning of 2020, David Bollier published a blog post on “The rise of a New Animism” (read it here). Recognising the historical problems of animism as a Western-centric concept, Bollier suggests that ‘New Animism’ which “sees the experience of life as a dynamic conversation among the creatures and natural systems of …
Rethinking how we build so people can drive less: LOS to play more limited role in planning, to reduce VMT
SB 743 Implementation SB 743 Overview fact sheet (PDF) SB 743 Technical fact sheet (PDF) SB 743 Video: Rethinking How We Build So Californians Can Drive Less (10 minutes) Caltrans Guidance Document Question & Answer (PDF) General SB 743 Implementation Question & Answer (PDF) Current mitigation resources are highlighted in SB 743: Mitigation and VMT Reduction (PDF). Caltrans October 6, 2020 TAF/TAC …