We know that we are trapped within an economic system that has it backward; it behaves as if there is no end to what is actually finite (clean water, fossil fuels, and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions) while insisting that there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually quite flexible: the financial resources that human institutions manufacture, and that, if imagined differently, could build the kind of caring society we need.
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. p. 347 (hardcover)
Author: Milan
In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford.
Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.
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Progressive voices urge NDP to embrace radical ‘Leap Manifesto’ ahead of convention
“Here’s what the manifesto calls for
* Shift swiftly away from fossil fuels so that Canada gets 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources within 20 years and is entirely weaned off fossil fuels by 2050.
* No new infrastructure projects aimed at increasing extraction of non-renewable resources, including pipelines.
* “Energy democracy,” in which energy sources are collectively controlled by communities instead of “profit-gouging” private companies.
* An end to all trade deals “that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations and stop damaging extractive projects.”
* Expand low-carbon sectors of the economy, such as caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media.
* Vigorous debate on the idea of introducing a universal guaranteed minimum income.
* Declare that “austerity — which has systematically attacked low-carbon sectors like education and health care while starving public transit and forcing reckless energy privatizations — is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth.”
* Pay for it all by ending fossil fuel subsidies, imposing financial transaction taxes, increasing resource royalties, hiking taxes on corporations and the wealthy, introducing a progressive carbon tax, and cutting military spending.”