Saturday, June 27, 2015


As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-The Culturati’s Corner

In say 1912, 1913, hell, even the beginning of 1914, the first few months anyway, before the war clouds got a full head of steam in the summer they all profusely professed their unmitigated horror at the thought of war, thought of the old way of doing business in the world. Yes the artists of every school the Cubist/Fauvists/Futurists/Constructivists, Surrealists or those who would come to speak for those movements (hell even the hide-bound Academy filled with its rules, or be damned, spoke the pious words of peace, brotherhood and the affinity of all humankind when there was sunny weather), those who saw the disjointedness of modern industrial society in its squalor, it creation of generations of short, nasty, brutish lives just like the philosophers predicted and put the pieces to paint, sculptors who put twisted pieces of metal juxtaposed to each other saw that building a mighty machine from which you had to run created many problems; writers of serious history books proving that, according to their Whiggish theory of progress,  humankind had moved beyond war as an instrument of policy and the diplomats and high and mighty would put the brakes on in time, not realizing that they were all squabbling cousins; writers of serious and not so serious novels drenched in platitudes and hidden gazebo love affairs put paid to that notion in their sweet nothing words that man and woman had too much to do, too much sex to harness to denigrate themselves by crying the warrior’s cry and by having half-virgin, neat trick, maidens strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets; musicians whose muse spoke of delicate tempos and sweet muted violin concertos, not the stress and strife of the tattoos of war marches with their tinny conceits; and poets, ah, those constricted poets who bleed the moon of its amber swearing, swearing on a stack of seven sealed bibles, that they would go to the hells before touching the hair of another man, putting another man to ground or laying their own heads down for some imperial mission.

They all professed loudly (and those few who did not profess, could not profess because they were happily getting their blood rising, kept their own consul until the summer), that come the war drums they would resist the siren call, would stick to their Whiggish, Futurist, Constructionist, Cubist worlds and blast the war-makers to hell in quotes, words, chords, clanged metal, and pretty pastels. They would stay the course. 

And then the war drums intensified, the people, their clients, patrons and buyers, cried out their lusts and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out, poets, beautiful poets like Wilfred Owens who would sicken of war before he passed leaving a beautiful damnation on war, its psychoses, and broken bones and dreams, and the idiots who brought humankind to such a fate, like e. e. cummings who drove through sheer hell in those rickety ambulances floors sprayed with blood, man blood, angers, anguishes and more sets of broken bones, and broken dreams, like Rupert Brooke all manly and old school give and go, as they marched in formation leaving the ports and then mowed down like freshly mown grass in their thousands as the charge call came and they rested, a lot of them, in those freshly mown grasses, like Robert Graves all grave all sputtering in his words confused about what had happened, suppressing, always suppressing that instinct to cry out against the hatred night, like old school, old Thomas Hardy writing beautiful old English pastoral sentiments before the war and then full-blown into imperium’s service, no questions asked old England right or wrong, like old stuffed shirt himself T.S. Eliot speaking of hollow loves, hollow men, wastelands, and such in the high club rooms on the home front, and like old brother Yeats speaking of terrible beauties born in the colonies and maybe at the home front too as long as Eliot does not miss his high tea. Jesus what a blasted night that Great War time was.  

And as the war drums intensified, the people, their clients, patrons and buyers, cried out their lusts and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out, artists, beautiful artists like Fernand Leger who could no longer push the envelope of representative art because it had been twisted by the rubble of war, by the crashing big guns, by the hubris of commanders and commanded and he turned to new form, tubes, cubes, prisms, anything but battered humankind in its every rusts and lusts, all bright and intersecting once he got the mustard gas out of his system, once he had done his patria duty, like speaking of mustard gas old worn out John Singer Sargent of the three name WASPs forgetting Boston Brahmin society ladies in decollage, forgetting ancient world religious murals hanging atop Boston museum and spewing trench warfare and the blind leading the blind out of no man’s land, out of the devil’s claws, like Umberto Boccioni, all swirls, curves, dashes, and dangling guns as the endless charges endlessly charge, like Gustav Klimt and his endlessly detailed gold dust opulent Asiatic dreams filled with lovely matrons and high symbolism and blessed Eve women to fill the night, Adam’s night after they fled the garden, like Joan Miro and his infernal boxes, circles, spats, eyes, dibs, dabs, vaginas, and blots forever suspended in deep space for a candid world to fret through, fret through a long career, and like poor maddened rising like a phoenix in the Spartacist uprising George Grosz puncturing the nasty bourgeoisie, the big bourgeoisie the ones with the real dough and their overfed dreams stuffed with sausage, and from the bloated military and their fat-assed generals stuff with howitzers and rocket shells, like Picasso, yeah, Picasso taking the shape out of recognized human existence and reconfiguring the forms, the mesh of form to fit the new hard order, like, Braque, if only because if you put the yolk on Picasso you have to tie him to the tether too.          

And do not forget when the war drums intensified, and the people, their clients, patrons and buyers, cried out their lusts and they, they, other creative souls made of ordinary human clay as it turned out sculptors, writers, serious and not, musicians went to the trenches to die deathless deaths in their thousands for, well, for humankind, of course, their always fate ….           

*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!-Freed-Gerardo Hernández

 


http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners.html

 

A link above to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment (reposted from 2010)


In “surfing” the National Jericho Movement Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a longtime supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

*In Honor Of Our Class-War Prisoners- Free All The Class-War Prisoners!- Free The Ohio 7's Tom Manning!

 


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Laaman

 

A link above to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment


In “surfing” the “National Jericho Movement” Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a “The Rag Blog” post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matter here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

************

Thursday, January 31, 2008
*Free The Last of the Ohio Seven-They Must Not Die In Jail


Click on title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee (an organization whose goals I support) to learn more about the Manning and Laaman cases(and other political prisoners supported by the organization)

COMMENTARY

ONE OF THE OHIO SEVEN -RICHARD WILLIAMS- RECENTLY DIED IN PRISON (2006). THAT LEAVES JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING STILL IN PRISON. IT IS AN URGENT DUTY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR MOVEMENT AND OTHERS TO RAISE THE CALL FOR THEIR FREEDOM. FREE ALL CLASS WAR PRISONERS.


I have added a link to Tom Manning's site that can provide a link to Jaan Laaman's site. For convenience I have labelled this link the Ohio Seven Defense Committee site. Free the last of the Seven. Below is a commentary written in 2006 arguing for their freedom.

Below is a repost of a commentary I made in 2007 to support of freedom for the last of the Ohio Seven

The Ohio Seven, like many other subjective revolutionaries, coming out of the turbulent anti-Vietnam War and anti-imperialist movements, were committed to social change. The different is that this organization included mainly working class militants, some of whose political consciousness was formed by participation as soldiers in the Vietnam War itself. Various members were convicted for carrying out robberies, apparently to raise money for their struggles, and bombings of imperialist targets. Without going into their particular personal and political biographies I note that these were the kind of subjective revolutionaries that must be recruited to a working class vanguard party if there ever is to be a chance of bringing off a socialist revolution. In the absence of a viable revolutionary labor party in the 1970’s and 1980’s the politics of the Ohio Seven, like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, were borne of despair at the immensity of the task and also by desperation to do something concrete in aid of the Vietnamese Revolution and other Third World struggles . Their actions in trying to open up a second front militarily in the United States in aid of Third World struggles without a mass base proved to be mistaken but, as the Partisan Defense Committee which I support has noted, their actions were no crime in the eyes of the international working class.

The lack of a revolutionary vanguard to attract such working class elements away from adventurism is rendered even more tragic in the case of the Ohio Seven. Leon Trotsky, a leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of 1917, noted in a political obituary for his fallen comrade and fellow Left Oppositionist Kote Tsintadze that the West has not produced such fighters as Kote. Kote, who went through all the phases of struggle for the Russian Revolution, including imprisonment and exile under both the Czar and Stalin benefited from solidarity in a mass revolutionary vanguard party to sustain him through the hard times. What a revolutionary party could have done with the evident capacity and continuing commitment of subjective revolutionaries like the Ohio Seven poses that question point blank. This is the central problem and task of cadre development in the West in resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.

Finally, I would like to note that except for the Partisan Defense Committee and their own defense organizations – the Ohio 7 Defense Committee and the Jaan Laaman Defense Fund- the Ohio Seven have long ago been abandoned by those New Left elements and others, who as noted, at one time had very similar politics. At least part of this can be attributed to the rightward drift to liberal pacifist politics by many of them, but some must be attributed to class. Although the Ohio Seven were not our people- they are our people. All honor to them. As James P Cannon, a founding leader of the International Labor Defense, forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, pointed out long ago –Solidarity with class war prisoners is not charity- it is a duty. Their fight is our fight! LET US DO OUR DUTY HERE. RAISE THE CALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF LAAMAN AND MANNING. MAKE MOTIONS OF SOLIDARITY IN YOUR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL OR UNION.

YOU CAN GOOGLE THE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED ABOVE- THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE OHIO 7 DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE JAAN LAAMAN DEFENSE FUND.

 

*Once Again, Free Laaman And Manning- The Last Of The Ohio Seven In Jail- An Update

 

http://nightslantern.ca/prison/seven.htm

Link above to a little off-hand information about the Ohio 7.

Markin comment:

Needless to say, the organization that I support, the Partisan Defense Committee, has over the years supported the last two imprisoned members of the group, Jan Laaman and Tom Manning, in their struggles for freedom. While we spent time on this site recording and remembering various events from our youth, the 1960s, we should not forget those who are behind the walls of the class enemy. I will repeat what I have mentioned on previous occasions, and the PDC has as well in their publicity on the case; the Ohio did nothing that can be considered a crime by the international working class movement. Moreover, the roll call of crimes, great and small, from war to torture by the American imperial state in that time since Vietnam remain to be opposed, including today's Obamian war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Free Laaman and Manning- Do Not Let Them Die In Prison!

 

From the Archives of Spartacist-1965 U.S. Invasion of Dominican Republic

Workers Vanguard No. 1070
12 June 2015
 
From the Archives of Spartacist-1965 U.S. Invasion of Dominican Republic
“Hands Off the Dominican Revolution!”
 
This past April 28 marked 50 years since Democratic U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson launched a bloody invasion of the Dominican Republic. Tens of thousands of troops were dispatched to that Caribbean country to suppress a prerevolutionary situation and secure the interests of American sugar companies.
The Dominican Republic had been brutally repressed by U.S.-backed dictator General Rafael Trujillo for over 30 years until his own CIA-trained aides bumped him off in 1961, after he had become a liability to the imperialists. Juan Bosch, a liberal anti-Communist, was elected president in December 1962 and passed some mild land and labor reforms to quell popular unrest. But the reforms went too far for Washington, and Bosch was overthrown in a CIA-engineered military coup nine months later.
In the spring of 1965, a group of liberal army officers, including Colonel Francisco Caamaño, launched an insurrection to restore Bosch’s 1963 constitution. Workers and students in the capital, Santo Domingo, joined the rebellion and organized committees that were potential organs of workers power. However, the Dominican masses were betrayed by their reformist leadership that tied them to Bosch instead of fighting for socialist revolution.
The uprising took place only a few years after the Cuban Revolution of 1959-60, in which Fidel Castro’s peasant guerrilla forces ousted the regime of Fulgencio Batista and subsequently consolidated a deformed workers state with the expropriation of the capitalist class on the island. Moreover, in 1965, a civil war and social revolution were underway in Vietnam. The imperialists feared that the Dominican insurgency similarly threatened an overturn of capitalism.
The crushing of the rebellion by the U.S. invasion and 14-month occupation resulted in the deaths of 2,500 Dominicans; for years afterward, workers and leftists continued to be tortured and disappeared. In 1966, Joaquín Balaguer ascended to the presidency and ruled for most of the next 30 years, keeping the country safe for U.S. imperialist domination.
We reprint below a Spartacist special supplement issued on 6 May 1965, with one correction on the year of Trujillo’s assassination. A follow-up article, “Reformist Betrayal,” was printed in Spartacist No. 7 (September-October 1966).
*   *   *
The United States’ bloody occupation of the Dominican Republic, by order of the Johnson Administration, has been unquestionably the most brazen of recent American military efforts to safeguard the interests of capitalism and maintain its oppression domestically and abroad. “For the first time since 1927, U.S. Marines have landed in a fermenting Caribbean country—and frankly, we’re delighted,” said the ultra-rightist N.Y. Daily News (30 April 1965) in an editorial entitled “Seems Like Old Times.”
Rebellion Led to Revolution
As in all colonial countries, the pro-U.S. Dominican ruling class is maintained by imperialism and in return administers the society for imperialism. The “liberal” wing, led by deposed President Juan Bosch, supports “reforms” and “democratic” trappings to stave off basic change and maintain social oppression. The liberals attempted a coup against the junta of the right wing, which realizes that only naked dictatorship can save imperialism and Dominican capitalism. It is significant that under both regimes the economic condition of the country deteriorated.
This crisis provided an opportunity for the Dominican workers and peasants to intervene, much as they had done in 1961 when Trujillo was assassinated. The fatal mistake of Bosch and Colonel Caamaño in banking upon mass support to help return the liberals to power was described by a pro-U.S. observer: “The leaders of the elements favoring the return of former President Juan Bosch were on the verge of taking over the government 24 hours after the revolution began.... But then they let the revolution get out of their hands. I saw pro-Bosch forces handing out weapons to anyone who asked for them.” (N.Y. Journal-American, 2 May 1965.) On 30 April, “U.S. officials in Santo Domingo and other observers believe no one is now in control...of the armed rebel bands, which include many young civilians.” At this point, “American officials hinted strongly that it would be necessary for American troops to occupy Santo Domingo.” (N.Y. Post.)
In spite of U.S. ranting about a “minority take-over,” it is clear that what developed was an uprising of a large section of the masses against the imperialist power structure—even against the efforts of certain “Communist” and liberal leaders to tie them to Bosch. According to the press, a rebel stronghold has been the Ciudad Nueva section of the city, “an area of low income housing and student quarters. Planes strafed the area Wednesday and yesterday.” (Herald Tribune, 30 April.) On 2 May, “the rebels were winning.” Their forces, swollen to thousands “by armed civilians...could not be controlled by their military leaders.” (Same paper) Johnson at once sent in Marines to “save American lives”; but this “humanitarian” pretext, loudly touted by liberal apologists, was rapidly dropped. Instead, as Johnson has admitted, the aim of U.S. intervention was to crush the developing revolution.
Realpolitik Behind Intervention
William Randolph Hearst, Jr., in a Journal-American editorial (2 May), favorably quoted Johnson’s State of the Union message of 4 January: “We are prepared to live as good neighbors with all, but we cannot be indifferent to acts designed to injure our interests, or our citizens, or our establishments abroad.” Barry Goldwater “stressed the effectiveness of ‘big stick’ diplomacy” and said, “Yes, I approve the landing of the Marines in Santo Domingo for the protection of American lives and property.” (Journal-American, 30 April.)
Equally guided by Realpolitik are the liberal apologists who regret Johnson’s “imprudence” in “going it alone” in unabashed imperialist fashion instead of relying on the Organization of American States (mainly a band of U.S.-backed dictatorships) to do the job under a “democratic” facade. The token contingent which Johnson finally extorted from the OAS to his “international peace force” has been obviously designed to whitewash his butchery behind a drapery of phony “legality” and “consensus.” It is now obvious that Johnson has not sent 20,000 troops to suppress a Communist “minority,” but to fight thousands of workers and rank-and-file Dominican militants who partly bypassed their “Communist” and liberal leaders and rallied the support of the Dominican masses to a popular revolution against imperialism. Johnson’s “concern” about the “foreign training” of agitators was designed to divert attention away from the direct rape of the Dominican Republic by a foreign occupation army. The sensationalism about the “atrocity” of rebels killing cops and Marines was designed to mask the strafing and bombing of the working-class areas of the city to smash the revolution. Indeed, imperialism must clearly be desperate to commit such a brazen and naked act.
Crisis of Leadership
Castro and other “Communist” leaders have shown their bankruptcy in supporting the capitalist “legality” of Bosch and calling upon the imperialist-dominated United Nations to “intervene.” The absence of a truly revolutionary Dominican party to guide the working class and lead the revolution has resulted in confusion among the rebelling masses. The old-line leaders have done their best to abort the revolution and negotiate a “truce” with imperialism. The swearing-in of Boschite military leader Caamaño as “President” has been due in good part to the efforts of these leaders to channel the masses back into a “popular front” with the ruling class. The agreement of these elements to a “cease fire” even in the face of an imperialist build-up has helped disarm the revolution and facilitated further bloodbaths. The success of the revolution can be guaranteed only by the Dominican workers’ conquest of state power, under the leadership of a revolutionary party, and the establishment of a Dominican workers’ republic. All such advances reciprocally strengthen the socialist revolution in the United States and the world.
WE CALL UPON AMERICAN WORKERS, STUDENTS, AND ALL THOSE FIGHTING OPPRESSION IN THE UNITED STATES TO SUPPORT THIS STRUGGLE OF THEIR BROTHERS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, AND TO RECOGNIZE THE BI-PARTISAN GOVERNMENT OF U.S. IMPERIALISM AS THEIR COMMON ENEMY!

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CAPITALIST ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION:
How can we build a socialist alternative to climate change?
Wednesday, June 17th
7:00 PM
William H. Ohrenberger School
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Oil spills, fracking, super storms - more and more the product of the for profit system is pushing the environment towards a destructive tipping point that is threatening the very existence of life on Earth. 

At the same time, the very corporations causing this destruction are making record profits and the politicians are putting forward half measures that will do little to save the planet. What is really needed?
Come join Socialist Alternative to talk about how a socialist transformation of society could fundamentally overturn both the exploitation of people and the planet.
Speakers:

Seamus Whelan

Seamus is an RN and union activist in the Mass Nurses Association. He has been a member of Socialist Alternative and a West Roxbury resident for almost 3 decades. Seamus is currently a leader in SWRL, the Stop the West Roxbury Lateral pipeline, a grassroots campaign of neighborhood residents and allies taking action against the corporations and establishment to stop a dangerous high pressure gas pipeline from being constructed and run through West Roxbury.
Seamus  also ran for Boston City Council in 2013 and helped lead West Roxbury's victorious ballot question campaign that resulted in a win for a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2014 in that neighborhood.
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The Ice Is Melting


By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report


(Photo: Iceberg via Shutterstock)As human-caused climate disruption progresses, sea level rise is happening far faster than previously expected. (Photo: Iceberg via Shutterstock)
Recently, two friends and I attempted to climb Washington State's beautiful, glacier-clad Mount Baker. Roped up while climbing up a glacier, roughly 1,500 feet below the summit, our route reached an impasse.
Given that it was technically early in the climbing season, and that we were on the standard route, we were dismayed to find a snow bridge spanning a 10-foot wide crevasse about to collapse. Finding no other way around the gaping void, we agreed to turn back and return another day.
After breaking down our camp and hiking out, we stopped off for a bite to eat in the nearby small town of Glacier, Washington. Our waitress told us of a friend of hers who worked in the Forest Service there, who told her that the area had, in the past year, "received the least amount of precipitation [that] it had for over 100 years."

Sea level rise is now happening much faster than anyone had expected.

While planning our next trip to Mount Baker, one of my climbing partners spoke with a local guide who informed him that, despite the fact that it was only mid-May, "climbing conditions are already equivalent to what they usually are in mid- to late July ... crevasses are opening up, and snow bridges are already melting out like it's late season."
Climate Disruption DispatchesMountaineering in the throes of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD), like the rest of life, is becoming increasingly challenging - as well as more dangerous.
The signs are all around us, every day now. All we need to do is open our eyes to the changes occurring in our regions. We need to look closely, and think about what is happening to the planet.
Now, zoom out with me for the bigger picture in this month's Climate Disruption Dispatch, and brace yourself for some difficult news.
Changes in the Arctic Ocean have now become so profound that the region is entering what Norwegianscientists are calling "a new era." They warn of "far-reaching implications" due to the switch from a permanent cover of thick ice to a new state in which thinner ice vanishes in the summer.
Meanwhile, sea level rise is now happening much faster than anyone had expected, according to a recently published study from climate scientists in Australia. The study showed that sea level rise has been accelerating over the last two decades.
NASA recently released a study that reveals that the planet's polar regions are in the midst of a stunning transformation, and showed that the massive 10,000-year-old Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica will soon completely collapse - perhaps as soon as 2020.
And these trends are on track to speed up, as March saw the global monthly average for atmospheric carbon dioxide hit 400.83 parts per million. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it was the first time the average surpassed 400 parts per million for an entire month since such measurements began in the late 1950s.
Earth
Starting on the earth and land front, the changes are coming fast and furiously.
A study released by researchers in Sweden and China revealed how ACD can seriously alter the prospects of survival for pretty much every living thing on the planet, and in particular birds. The researchers showed how in the last ice age there was a severe decline in the vast majority of the species studied, which is precisely what we are seeing currently. Massive numbers of species of birds are currently in dramatic decline.
A recent stark example of this is happening in Ohio, where birds are being devastated from the impacts of ACD, according to the Audubon Society's top scientist, who expects things to get far worse.

Greenhouse gases are billowing out of California's forests faster than they are being sucked back in.

In California, the ongoing megadrought is already responsible for having killed 12.5 million trees in that state's national forests,according to scientists with the US Forest Service. The scientists expect the die-off to continue. "It is almost certain that millions more trees will die over the course of the upcoming summer as the drought situation continues and becomes ever more long term," said biologist Jeffrey Moore, acting regional aerial survey program manager for the US Forest Service.
Recent research out of California also shows that forests there have actually become climate polluters, rather than carbon dioxide reducers, again due to ACD impacts. The study shows that greenhouse gases are billowing out of the state's forests faster than they are being sucked back in, with ACD-amplified wildfires mostly to blame.
Across most of the drought-stricken western United States, wild animals are literallydying for water to drink, as they are now being forced to seek water and food in areas far outside their normal range, leading to large increases in deaths.
Another recent study shows that as ACD progresses, expanses of majestic forests across the planet will become short and scrubby, due to changes of fluid flow to the inner workings of vegetation.
Meanwhile, rising carbon dioxide levels and other ACD impacts are having a massive impact on Native peoples' ability to provide for their own health care, as medicinal plants are on the wane. This issue extends beyond the United States: Of the 7.3 billion people alive on earth right now, approximately 5 billion of them don't go to a pharmacy to get their prescriptions filled.
On that note, a troubling recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that a warming climate is already driving down wheat yields in the United States, and likely elsewhere around the globe. Hence, feeding the 7.3 billion humans (and counting) is only going to become increasingly challenging.
More broadly, a recent report from doctors and scientists in Australia warned that ACD will lead to more disease, death and violent conflicts as countries fight more for food and water resources.
Water
As usual, some of the most glaringly obvious impacts of ACD are making themselves known on the waterfront, both in the form of too little or too much water.
With the former, Nevada's Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has now dropped to its lowest water level in recorded history.
Up in the Pacific Northwest - not the region one tends to think about when considering droughts - a recent study found that more mountains there were snow-free earlier in the year than ever, since the region had a largely snow-free winter with many of the snowpacks at record lows. Water managers there had hoped late season snows or heavy spring rains would fill reservoirs, but they didn't come. Instead, of the 98 sites monitored in Washington, 66 were snow-free by early May, and "76 percent of Oregon's long-term snow monitoring sites were at the lowest snowpack levels on record" in April. In a typical year at that time, most sites would be near their peak snowpack.

Up in the Arctic, our canary in the coal mine for ACD impacts, circumstances are growing increasingly dire.

Things are bad enough in the region that by mid-May Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a statewide drought emergency, as mountain snowpack in that state reached only 16 percent of average and water levels in rivers and streams dried to a trickle not seen since the 1950s. Inslee warned that "residents should also be prepared for an early and active fire season that could reach higher elevations in the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges, where many spots are already completely clear of snow."
Looking further north, this past winter was also the least snowy on record for Anchorage, Alaska, according to the National Weather Service.
Moving across the Pacific to Taiwan, not a country one usually thinks about being impacted by drought, that nation is currently experiencing one of its most severe droughts in decades. Residents living on the country's heavily populated western coast must ration their water use.
Up in the Arctic, our canary in the coal mine for ACD impacts, circumstances are growing increasingly dire. There was less ice in the Arctic this winter than during any other winter in the satellite era, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
An international team of scientists recently confirmed a longstanding fear: The vast amounts of carbon currently preserved in the frozen soils and tundra of the Arctic will, thanks to melting of the permafrost, eventually all get back into the atmosphere. This is evidence of a positive feedback loop: Warming temperatures melt the permafrost, releasing stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which further warms temperatures, which melts more permafrost, and on and on.
As though performing an Arctic version of the post-apocalyptic action movie Mad Max, the thawing of the northern polar ice cap has several Western powers and Russia rushing to stake and safeguard their claims of newly opening shipping routes and offshore drilling sites. In other words, the latest iteration of the Cold War is heating up, rapidly.
Down in the Antarctic, this dispatch finds some equally disturbing developments.
The Larsen C ice shelf, which is dramatically larger than Larsen A and B and about two and a half times the size of Wales, is now looking as though it could collapse. A recently published study reported that mechanisms exist that "could pose an imminent risk" to the ice shelf.
In an example of yet another runaway feedback loop, a recent report shows that accelerating sea level rise is occurring, as the planet's ice sheets melt at ever-increasing speeds.
On that note, Caribbean political leaders, whose 14 island countries are being hammered by increasing ocean acidification, rising sea levels and increasingly intense hurricane seasons, are pinning their hopes on the upcoming Paris Climate Summit later this year for their very survival.
Fire
California's ongoing drought is turning the entire state into a tinderbox, where several years of hyper-dry conditions have led experts to warn that the drought and current conditions are "a recipe for disaster." California is already spending more money on fighting wildfires than the other 10 western states combined, and the state's tally of fires so far this year is 967, which is 38 percent higher than the average for this date since 2005. The number of acres burned is already nearly double what it was this time last year, and 81 percent above the average since 2005.
Throughout the rest of the western United States, the upcoming wildfire season is looking grim as well. As drought continues to worsen across the West and upper Midwestern United States, the Forest Service expects to spend up to $1.6 billion on fighting wildfires in 2015, during a fire season that is expected to be far worse than "normal."
A recently released study by researchers from the National Park Service, the University of California, Berkeley, and other institutions has confirmed what we already know: When drought-parched forested land goes up in flames, the fire contributes to ACD, causing yet another runaway feedback loop.
Air
A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change has revealed that 75 percent of the world's abnormally hot days and 18 percent of its extreme snow and rain events are directly attributable to ACD.
Two reports recently published by scientists at UCLA showed that by 2050, portions of Los Angeles County are forecast to experience triple or even quadruple the number of days of extreme heat (days over 95 degrees) that they currently do.
On that note, another recently published study showed that Americans' exposure to heat extremes will likely rise sixfold by 2050, due to a combination of rising temperatures and rapid population growth across the South and West.
The ongoing drought in California has also made that state's air quality far worse, according to a recent American Lung Association report.
Across the Atlantic, scientists have warned that record-breaking hot years in England have officially become at least 13 times more likely due to ACD.
Another recent report shows that, due to ACD, hurricanes, globally, are now expected to come in bunches and be far stronger than in the past.
Denial and Reality
There seems to never be a dull moment in the ACD-denial camp in the United States. The US House committee that is tasked with authorizing NASA spending has taken aim recently at a key Obama administration priority with a party line vote slashing spending on "earth science": the missions that study ACD. The opponents aim to shift funding away from environmental and earth science research that can help policy makers assess how to regulate pollution and plan for the effects of ACD.
In Alaska, hawkish anti-environmental Sen. Lisa Murkowski is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to drop her state from that agency's ACD rule that regulates power plant emissions - and it appears as though she might get her way.
Down in Florida, although rising sea levels bring a greater threat to that state's coastline with each passing day, there remains no statewide plan on how to mitigate this particular ACD impact.

President Obama, who has green-lit offshore drilling, has pushed for urgent climate action as a national security imperative.

The United States isn't the only country with a strong fossil-fuel-funded ACD denial movement. In Australia, the former head of Australia's respected Climate Commission, which was disbanded by conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2013, recently challenged the government to explain why it is funding a "research institute" that supports ACD denial.
I'm unsure whether this next item fits into the category of "denial" or "reality": Back in the US, President Obama, who has green-lit offshore drilling in both the Arctic and off the Atlantic coast, has argued that ACD poses an "immediate risk" to the US, and has pushed for urgent action as a national security imperative.
Fully on the reality front, the chief of the World Bank recently stated that ACD is a "fundamental threat" to development, acknowledging how far the dangers have progressed.
The US Department of Defense, not known for being concerned about the environment, is now taking large steps toward adapting to and preparing for ACD.
Also not known for being overly worried about ACD, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, recently announced his country's intentions to switch entirely over to solar power by 2040-2050: "We have embarked on a program to develop solar energy. Hopefully, one of these days, instead of exporting fossil fuels, we will be exporting gigawatts, electric ones. Does that sound good?"
Yes minister, it does, albeit a little late in the game.
Also on the reality front, the UN and Vatican have teamed up against ACD deniers, warning the world about the impacts of ACD while coming down firmly against the "skeptics." Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan came out and said, "We must challenge climate-change skeptics who deny the facts." And Pope Francis has instructed Catholic Church leaders to join with politicians, scientists and economists to draft a statement that declares not only that ACD is a "scientific reality," but also that there is a moral and religious responsibility to do something about it.
All of this is good, but we cannot rest easy. We do not have a moment to waste: A recently published analysis in the prestigious journal Science shows that one in six of the world's species now faces extinction due to ACD.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

DAHR JAMAIL

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.
His third book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with William Rivers Pitt, is available now on Amazon. He lives and works in Washington State.

     
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