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

By Dilip -

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.

PFA's - the deadly 'forever chemicals' no one talks about

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

Erin Brockovich - Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: toxic chemicals threaten humanity

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

Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

Noam Chomsky: Neoliberalism Is Destroying Our Democracy

Sam Kriss: 'Neoliberalism' isn't a left-wing insult but a monstrous system of inequality

Debt: The first five thousand years. By DAVID GRAEBER

HARRY BLAIN: America’s Wars always Come Home

Jill Lepore  A History of America’s military spending

DANIEL LEWIS - Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94 // Catonsville 9 Statement written by Dan Berrigan, S.J.

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

Restoring forests could capture two-thirds of the carbon humans have added to the atmosphere

Book review: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History // Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change

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

The Amazon is burning. The climate is changing. And we're doing nothing to stop it

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

Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction

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

Start-up devours pollution with new plastic recycling method

Call to Earth and the extraordinary people working for a more sustainable future

Anna Fletcher: Indian student creates a brick made from recycled plastic

Scientists Accidentally Create A Plastic-Eating Enzyme

Could the Free World start cleaning up its act - from the bottom up?

Wiped out: America's love of luxury toilet paper is destroying Canadian forests

NORMAN MILLER: The forgotten foods that could excite our tastebuds




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