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“Global efforts to address climate change are already clouded by bitterness and distrust among countries of the world. Now a widening gyre of conflict in the Middle East threatens to fracture an already divided world, raise oil and gas prices at a time of persistently high global inflation, and direct financial resources to the business of fighting wars instead of the business of slowing down climate change.”
-Somini Sengupta and Jim Tankersley, New York Times, “War Imperils Action on Climate Change,” 10/24/23
I’ve believed for 20 years that a silver lining to the worldwide climate crisis is the possibility that when the nations of the world join together to get off fossil fuels and onto a truly clean and renewable energy path, the set of political and economic dynamics making that happen will open up a potential path to a much more just and peaceful world. I continue to believe that is a possibility.
But the world’s nations are NOT joining together right now in a substantive way to get off fossil fuels, with too many of them supporting false solutions like “carbon capture and sequestration.” In addition, we are now experiencing both the rise of 21st century fascist movements and devastating wars in Ukraine and now Palestine/Israel.
In the USA, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia led the Biden Administration to ramp up production of methane gas and the expansion of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) export terminals, primarily along the Texas and Louisiana coast. That major greenhouse gas is now being…
