Below is an interesting TED lecture by Stacy Mitchell that deals with one of the most important moral and political issues of our time–the corporate control of our economies and societies. In most capitalist economies, the trend over the past several decades has been towards greater consolidation, where the goods in question–whether food, retail, banking, healthcare, or the media–are being produced or delivered by fewer and fewer larger corporations. There are of course major social and environmental costs associated with this trend and increasingly many people, it seems, are realizing that the corporate capitalist system they are living in is not…
CO2 emissions drop, but natural gas won’t save us
Last month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a drop in U.S. carbon emissions to a 20 year low, basically matching the carbon emissions of 1992. The media’s coverage of this report was brief and rather one-sided. Here are a few representative samples: Kevin Begos from the Associated Press: Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. While conservation efforts, the lagging economy and greater use of renewable…
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