Big Oil, Rising Authoritarianism and worsening climate. By Eve Darian-Smith
Around the world, many countries are becoming less democratic. This backsliding on democracy and “creeping authoritarianism,” as the U.S. State Department puts it, is often supported by the same industries that are escalating climate change. In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy. It’s a dangerous shift, both for representative government and for the future climate.
Corporate capture of environmental politics: In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle that prioritizes citizens over corporate profits has been aggressively undermined.
Today, it’s easy to
find political leaders, on both the political right and left –working on behalf of
corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military
and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. These
multinational companies help fund their
political careers and election campaigns to keep them in office…
https://www.juancole.com/2022/04/authoritarianism-worsening-climate.html
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warming risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250 million years
JOSH DZIEZA - Save the Honeybee, Sterilize the Earth
Mass starvation is humanity’s fate if we
keep flogging the land to death. By George Monbiot
Climate
crisis: economists ‘grossly undervalue young lives’
Hundreds
of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest
ALFRED MCCOY: China Is Digging Its Own
Grave (and Ours as Well)
Book review: The Mushroom at the End of the
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The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a
new phase of planetary history? By Nicola Davison
JOHN BUELL: Living on a Newly
Unrecognizable Planet
Book review: The Politics of Heroin - CIA
Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
