The Australia fires portend a future of climate apartheid

It will be a long hot summer in Australia. Fires of almost biblical proportions have swept across the country, devastating land, property and wildlife. More than 30 people have been killed, a billion animals have died, and more than 3,000 homes have been burned down. The cost of the bushfires has been estimated at $2bn and could climb even further.

Rural Fire Service (RFS) volunteers and NSW Fire and Rescue
 officers fight a bushfire encroaching on properties near Termeil,
 Australia on December, 3, 2019

Although heavy rain and lower temperatures this month have helped put out some fires, the threat of the blaze coming back is still imminent. 

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's response to this environmental catastrophe has been to refuse to expand measures to combat climate change. In December, as the death toll was climbing and Australian fire brigades struggled to control the fires, the prime minister left the country for a holiday in Hawaii.

His attitude and actions illustrate quite well just how the wealthy and their political allies plan to rule our burning planet.

Read the story from Al Jazeera by David A. Love - “The Australia fires portend a future of climate apartheid.”

Electric switch poses existential challenge to carmakers

When Tesla started production of the Model S saloon in 2012, the start-up had fewer than 3,000 employees. Chief executive Elon Musk had the luxury of beginning with a blank page, to hire just the specialists he needed and to even risk complete failure in his quest to launch the first successful electric-only car brand.

One former Tesla executive compares Mr Musk’s approach to risk with Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador. “When he came to Mexico and quite of few of his men said they should go back home, he destroyed his ships. There was no way back,” the former executive says. “There’s only one way, and it’s forward. Success or die . . . That’s the strength, but it’s also a risky strategy.”

Incumbent carmakers are hardly drawn to this “bet the company” approach. The risks are simply too high. In Germany alone some 800,000 people work in the automotive industry and the Ifo Institute last year estimated that up to 600,000 of these jobs would be at risk if the internal combustion engine died.

Read the story from the Financial Times by Patrick McGee - “Electric switch poses existential challenge to carmakers.”

California wildfires: inmates are risking their lives working alongside firefighters for $2 a day

Nicole Goodkind.

As California firefighters work to contain the largest wildfire in state history, they find themselves working their 24-hour shifts alongside a group of unlikely partners: 3,400 inmates from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The groups work in unison, but while salaried California firefighters earn an annual mean wage of $74,000 plus benefits, inmates earn just $2 per day with an additional $1 per hour when fighting an active fire.

Inmates without histories of arson, sexual crimes, kidnapping, gang-affiliation, escape attempts or facing a life sentence are allowed to volunteer for the firefighting program and are trained for two weeks in fire safety and field conditions before taking a physical exam. Once the exam is passed, prisoners are sent to live in one of 43 low-security field camps throughout the state. Juvenile delinquents are also eligible for the program, at least 58 youth offenders are currently fighting active wildfires.

Read the Newsweek story by Nicole Goodkind - “California wildfires: inmates are risking their lives working alongside firefighters for $2 a day.”