Climate change is on course for a ‘worst-case’ disaster A ccording to a study released on Nov. 17 by 31 sci

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55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at the level of union wages and We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and take steps to 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that matches the rises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, universal, public health-care 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by workers’ committees. 7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimination; equal 2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, and reduce pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orientation, skin color, or national 3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program to employ 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transportation corporaall jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and renewable sources of power, 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY CONGRESS schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, forests, farmland, and open space. should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threat4) Immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq & Afghanistan! Close all ened by the crisis. These committees can draw up more concrete demands than the U.S. bases abroad! No money for the military — use funds instead for public works!

Convert the war industries to making products for people’s needs and to combat global 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — based on a fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed and exploited. For a 5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age to Editor: Michael Schreiber International Editor: Gerry Foley Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly by Socialist Action Publishing Association, P.O. Box 460501, San Francisco, CA 94146-0501. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Socialist Action, P.O. BOX 460501, San Francisco, CA 94146-0501. RATES: For one year (12 issues, 1st-class mail): U.S., Canada, Mexico — $20. All other countries — $30. Money orders and checks should be in U.S. dollars.

Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of Socialist Action. These are expressed in editorials. Socialist Action is edited, designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor. It is printed by members of Local 583, Allied Printing Trades Council, San Francisco, Calif. warming. Name City Phone Dentists of the Global Climate Project (G.C.P.), the world is on course for the worst-case scenario coming to fruition, with average global temperatures rising by up to six degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Temperature increases would be much greater in the upper latitudes and at the poles. In accordance with chief climatologist James Hansen’s view, 3CTC maintains that a two-degree Celsius rise would be disastrous!

This trajectory has been set in motion because carbon dioxide emissions from capitalist industry, transport and relentless deforestation have increased dramatically since 2003. Since the economic downturn, the rate has slowed only slightly. Overall, the annual rate is threefold that of the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2008, global emissions rose an astounding 29%!

The team used satellite and national inventory data to track CO2 emissions as well as models to estimate carbon sinks. It should be noted that this is hardly a radical group of scientists. The G.C.P. was set up by the UN to present information to world policy makers.

Almost all of the increase was due to the boom in the Chinese economy. The study also found that for the first time since the 1960s, the combustion of coal has overtaken the combustion of oil as the major fossil-fuel source of CO2 emissions. Much of this coal was burned by China to manufacture cheap goods for the West.

Forty-five percent of Chinese emissions resulted from making products traded overseas for the voracious consumer societies of the Northern Hemisphere. China is thought by many to have overtaken the U.S. as the world’s biggest carbon emitter. Clearly, the gross maldevelopment of that country must halt; the only solution is for the developed nations to fundamentally change the priorities of their wasteful economies.

A WORKERS’ ACTION PROGRAM TO FIGHT THE CRISIS implement the following demands — mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused decline in value.

Address E-mail The portion of emitted CO2 that remains in the atmosphere increased from 40% in 1990 to 45% in 2008. This indicates that Earth’s carbon sinks are beginning to fail. The authors of the study say that there is now a cycle of positive feedbacks at work. Rising greenhouse gas concentrations are leading to rising temperatures and a corresponding rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and so on and so forth.

The lead author of the study, Corinne Le Quere, stated that “carbon-cycle climate feedback has already kicked in,” and this feedback has the capacity to amplify global warming between 5 and 30 percent. Earth is headed toward complete climate chaos if carbon is not drawn down drastically and immediately.

Yet, we see nothing but procrastination on the part of government leaders and big polluters, who adamantly refuse to give up their hydrocarbon-based economy. Politicians, the heads of established environmental groups, and the media have all been trying to lower benefits.

system.

origin.

ones outlined above.

workers’ government!

State Zip tions and place them under the control of elected committees of workers. • Chicago P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657 [email protected] • Connecticut (860)478-5300 • Florida socialistaction_tampa@hotmail. com • Kansas City [email protected] (816) 221-3638 Minnesota • Duluth: P.O. Box 16853 Duluth, MN 55816 [email protected] www.the-red-raven.blogspot.com • Twin Cities: (612) 802-1482 [email protected] • New York City [email protected] North Carolina • Carrboro: (919) 967-2866; [email protected] the world’s expectations as to the outcome of the final round of climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark in December. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has stated that a binding agreement is no longer a realistic goal and one will not be signed next month.

Obama’s climate czar, Carol Browner, made it clear last month that there will be no U.S. climate-protection legislation forthcoming this fall. Deputy Special Envoy on Climate Jonathan Pershing stated that Obama wants to turn Copenhagen into nothing more than “a framework for progress.” Stephen Chu, Obama’s Energy Secretary, recently commented that Copenhagen is “only one meeting. It’s not the be all and end all.”

In November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Singapore, world leaders decided to put off, once again, an agreement on binding emissions reductions. In a hastily organized unscheduled breakfast meeting, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Danish prime minister and chair of the upcoming climate conference, pitched a deferral plan to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement in Copenhagen and put off for another entire year a mandatory one to be formulated in Mexico City or Germany. Obama, Hu Jintao of China, and Kevin Rudd of Australia were among the 19 leaders who agreed to more foot dragging. This kind of delay will occur ad infinitum as the future steadily slips out of our grasp and the ruling rich race us toward climate catastrophe.

Since Kyoto, 1997, they’ve had scores of meetings in round after round of moribund negotiations with zero results. The conservative IPCC set weak targets to begin with and not one nation has met theirs other than to make fake claims to that effect. If they were true, there would be scientific evidence for greenhouse gas emissions going down rather than skyrocketing.

Although Obama will be attending the climate conference in Copenhagen, it will not be for the entire time. Apparently, he has better things to do, such as commit more troops to Afghanistan—“the Good War”—in order to gain control over the oil and natural gas reserves of Central Asia. For this reason, we must not only demand decisive action in Copenhagen but also an end to the ongoing Wars for Oil, the use of which got us into this mess in the first place. n For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610, [email protected], (510) 268-9429 Socialist Action newspaper editorial offices: [email protected] Website: www.socialistaction.org WHERE TO FIND SOCIALIST ACTION • Philadelphia [email protected] Oregon • Portland: (503) 233-1629 [email protected] • Ashland: [email protected] • San Francisco Bay Area P.O. Box 10328, • Oakland, Ca 94510 (415) 255-1080 [email protected] • WASHINGTON, DC National Office

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Marty Goodman / Socialist Action (Left) Lynne Stewart speaks to supporters and the press in New York before her incarceration.

Circuit for a delay of her incarceration so that Lynne could undergo a Dec. 6 surgery scheduled at Lenox Hill Hospital. Her request was denied. Lynne, a diabetic with hypertension and recovering from breast cancer, will now have her operation performed at a prison-administered facility. Her request that her M.D. daughter observe the operation was similarly denied.

Meanwhile, a new sentencing hearing before Judge Koeltl is scheduled for Dec. 2 at the Foley Square Federal Courthouse. Federal prosecutors are expected to ask for the maximum sentence possible. Also appearing in court will be Mohamed Yousry, Lynne’s innocent co-defendant and translator. Koeltl was also ordered to reconsider Yousry’s 20-month sentence. The prison term of a third defendant in Lynne’s case, Ahmed Sattar, who was sentenced to 20-plus years, was not challenged.

One can only speculate as to whether Judge Koeltl will stand by his original sentence. If he does, government prosecutors are expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. They, and obviously the Second Circuit, are outraged that a “convicted terrorist” has been traversing the country for the past five years, free to champi-

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