Nationalize the Fossil Fuel Industry

We are sitting on a time bomb: more than 500 gigatons of carbon dioxide in the United States completely under the control of unaccountable fossil fuel corporations. These companies have so many incentives to turn their reserves into profitable returns on investment—are we really ready to stake our collective future on the hope that these companies go green in time to avert climate catastrophe? As the Trump administration continues to run down the carbon clock as quickly and as irresponsibly as it can, the time has come to promote solutions that can deal with this massive private control of fossil fuel reserves. A future government may have no choice but to de-privatize control of these reserves, which would detach them from single-minded profit interests and take fossil fuel companies, powerful forces of climate opposition, out of the equation as we genuinely figure out the rest of the green transition.

The Exxon Mobil refinery in Baton Rouge, La., is one of the
largest in the country. It stands at a stretch of the Mississippi River
 known as "cancer alley" for its high number of oil and gas industry
 sites. To shut down the industry for good, the government must buy
 out privately owned fossil fuel reserves. 

The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane season kicked-off with a series of record-breaking storms hitting the United States, leaving behind scenes of complete destruction in large areas of Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. It has been scary to see climate scientists’ predictions unfold before our eyes, and realize that this is our new “normal.” But the lack of debate around real solutions to mitigate further climate impacts is even scarier—as we’ve seen this week at the UN climate conference in Bonn, Germany, where the United States attempted to promote fossil fuels as the “answer” to the climate problem, an initiative that former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared to “promoting tobacco at a cancer summit.” This season made crystal clear we need a game-changing solution to ensure that fossil fuels remain unburned and in the ground.

Read the In These Times story by Carla Skandier - “Nationalize the Fossil Fuel Industry.”

Global waming threatens the very thing upon which all life depends

G

lobal warming threatens to change irreparably the state of nature upon which all life on earth depends.

The website, Wisdom Pills argues that if people are to connect more with anything this year, let it be nature.

Wisdom Pills has a mission that says: “Our mission? To bring you the best meds you can get, completely free of charge and possessing only long-term, positive side-effects. Each post we offer is just that: a pill designed to dissolve negativity, anxiety, unhappiness and ego, and to strengthen your reserves of insight, understanding and humour.”

Discussing nature it says, “It will not only allow you to connect more to yourself but others as well. It is fuel for the soul. Increased vitality exists above and beyond the energizing effects of physical activity and social interaction that are often associated with our forays into the natural world.”

Read the story - “4 Ways Nature is Irreplaceable to Your Health and Well-being” – and through understand a little more why we should all do what we can to mitigate the cause of global warming.