Owen Jones: The planet cannot survive our remorseless pursuit of profit

Oil companies knew 50 years ago the huge damage they were doing. Their motive to ignore it is the same now as it was then. Capitalism is on a collision course with human life and the future of our planet. Each year, air pollution takes more lives than smoking: the last estimate suggests 8.8m deaths across the world, compared with 7m from cigarettes.

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At Least 126 US Military Bases Report Water Contaminants Linked to Cancer, Birth Defects

As documents seen by the Guardian reveal, the oil industry has known for half a century that pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels poses severe threats to human health. By the late 1960s, Shell’s internal documents warned air pollution “may, in extreme situations, be deleterious to health”, while by 1980, Imperial College was warning of “birth defects among industry worker offspring”. And yet the same industry actively lobbied against clean air regulations proposed to protect health and save lives.

This may cause moral revulsion, but the behaviour is perfectly rational. An economic system based on accumulating profit will downgrade all other considerations, including the sanctity of human life. There is no economic incentive for a fossil fuel company to willingly support measures that minimise the detrimental impact of their relentless search for profit: indeed, quite the opposite.

Take another example of a product that has a detrimental impact on the environment and our health: meat…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/19/planet-pursuit-profit-oil-companies-damage

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Oil firms knew decades ago fossil fuels posed grave health risks, files reveal

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Michael Roberts: The top 1% own 45% of all global personal wealth; the bottom 50% own less than 1% // Global Economic Volatility and Socio Political Reactions

Aseem Shrivastava: An Age gone blind // Mallika Bhanot - Char Dham Pariyojana: A High Risk Engineering Exercise

John Sentamu - It’s time to act against the oil companies causing death and destruction

Matt Sheehan - Silent documentary on China's unspooling environmental disasters

Toby Walsh - Noam Chomsky and Stephen Hawking among a thousand intellectuals to sign Open Letter to Stop Killer Robots Before They’re Built

Joseph Stiglitz on artificial intelligence: We're going towards a more divided society

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From Siberia to Australia: the age of fire is the bleakest warning yet        

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MONEY TO BURN: Over 300 banks and investors back 6 of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn

REBECCA SMITHERS - We Are Flushing Away Our Forests: Researchers warn that toilet paper is becoming unsustainable

David Cox - The planet's prodigious poo problem

Owen Jones: Why don’t we treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as coronavirus?

Abolish War - Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955

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Capitalism and war: The money behind Sudan's most powerful militia

Keeping up with China: US Navy orders $22 billion worth of submarines // World military expenditure grows to $1.8 trillion in 2018

World military expenditure grows to $1.8 trillion in 2018

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