News — climate change

Electric Utility Corruption  they are paying $200 million fines for bribery etc. 

The 8-3-20 NYT editorial, “When Utility Money Talks”, illustrates the corrupt side of electric utilities.

“citizens are getting a clearer picture of what they are up against. They are not just fighting dirty energy — they are also fighting the dirty money in politics that keeps it alive.”


" in Illinois, Commonwealth Edison, admitted in federal court to bribing political figures in that state and agreed to pay a $200 million fine”

“in Ohio “operating a $60 million political slush fund to elect their candidates, with the money coming from one of the state’s largest electricity companies”

“In New Orleans, the utility Entergy was caught hiring actors to show up at City Hall and pretend to be citizens in favor of a controversial gas-fired power plant; the company was fined $5 million. A big Arizona utility, Arizona Public Service, has become embroiled in repeated political scandals, including pumping millions in dark money into a campaign to stack the state regulatory board with its lackeys.”

“the big message from all these scandals is that you cannot assume your state government is working in the public interest as it oversees the energy transition.”

Article  "the slow work of listening to and learning from one another; of building relationships and a shared vision of a new world. The number of people truly benefiting from the existing system is quite small, so it can undoubtedly be improved.

The choices Holthaus blames for the state of the world are the choices that leaders make to build economies based on unlimited growth in a limited world. Choices that leaders make to perpetuate a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. Choices that leaders make to exacerbate inequities and avoid course corrections.

Because these are choices, they are remade every day. And every choice, he says, is an opportunity to either repeat these mistakes and maintain the status quo, or to make changes.

“The status quo is comfortable for a reason,” he writes. “It makes daily life easier to manage, especially when the alternative doesn’t yet exist—or, more accurately, when those in power are actively opposed to making a better world a reality.”

Holthaus argues that people need to be brave in imagining something better. For starters, he says, success needs a different metric. Rather than endless growth, how about thriving? And in place of innovation and efficiency, Holthaus argues for a focus on repair and maintenance."

"mostly by women of color. And so in his reporting, he aims to center the stories and voices of those communities doing this work, in the Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, and other places where climate change is not some future fear, but the present."

"the best “technology” for decarbonization is social movements. Care work and conversations are the tools to enable a society to change course. And that’s going to have to happen at the individual community level"

Bill McKibben on climate change and environmental justice.  Lower income people get asthma and lung disease from  the pollution from oil and gas; they also suffer the most from storms, floods, droughts. Young people leading.  Britain's largest pension fund is divesting from fossil fuels.  We need planning, preparation , and competent leadership to deal with climate change.

Big Oil's paid lobbyists are countering the campaigns to fight climate change. This is because they gain so much power and money thru their existing business model-sort of a bigger is better trend towards oligopoly and monopoly. This started with the oil companies merging into ever bigger corporations. Also this was done by big banks, pharmaceutical companies, media companies, weapons companies, hospital chains, software companies, ....... At some point they spend more money on lobbying and on campaign contributions than on their products, research and development, sales, employees, and customers. They buy out their competitors and restrict competition, then they raise prices. They get bailouts, government contracts, PPP loans, favorable court rulings, etc.....  article

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/27/multiple-crises-signal-need-change-course

Here is one interview.

The Water Knife is a detective thriller set amidst drought refugees and physical battles between cities over water.  It has romance, murder, gangs, chases, and journalists.

The Windup Girl is about a future of GMOs, rising sea levels, hunger, loss of species of food crops,  racial blaming, and hunger after terminator genes wipe out many food varieties.  Oil is gone.  It is a very violent.

Another interview.

Drowned Cities and Ship Breaker are about societies where the oil based energy system is gone, and people struggle in gangs over the spoils or else move on to wind-powered ships.

Zombie Baseball Beatdown is about middle schoolers battling GMO mad cows from a slaughter house.  It also touches on bullying, discrimination against  immigrants, corporate power over local government, and friendship.  

The Doubt Factory  is about radicals protesting against toxic products .  It focuses on a high school girl’s relationship to her father, who is doing the fake pr for tobacco, pesticide, drug,  and  oil companies.  She is attracted to rebellious radicals who want to expose the corporate PR.

Posted on September 22, 2015