I have a feeling that our children and grandchildren will look back on this as the era of mass denial — a strange period when almost everybody in the U.S. knew that catastrophic climate change was upon us, but for some weird reason, just went about their lives pretending it wasn’t. It’s a kind of insanity, because by our inaction, we’re creating a world of trouble for ourselves and those who will come after.
Launched in early 2015, Murphy’s International Program for Labor, Climate & Environment aspires to be a hub for education, research, policy development and alliance-building for US and international unions working on energy, climate change, and ecological and social sustainability. <<read more>>
On March 19th, Murphy Professor Sean Sweeney participated in a panel hosted by 350NYC and New York Society for Ethical Culture about COP21, the global climate treaty conference taking place in Paris in December 2015.
Sweeney was joined by Jeffrey Salim Waheed – Representative of Maldives to the UN; Tamar Lawrence-Samuel, Associate Research Director at Corporate Accountability International; Reinhard Krapp – Economic Department, UN Mission of Germany to the United Nations; and City Council member Helen Rosenthal. The panel was moderated by Claire Vondrich and introduced by Lyna Hinkel of 350NYC. Video by Joe Friendly.
Sean Sweeney recently joined the Murphy Institute to direct the International Program for Labor, Climate and the Environment. This past December, Sweeney spoke with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! about the potential effects of the since-vetoed Keystone XL pipeline on job creation. See the video here.
Had Lynas attended the alternative people’s summit at the COP 20 climate change talks in Lima last year, he would have heard a succession of speakers from Latin America’s indigenous communities rejecting development models imposed on them by transnational capital. They are in the frontline of the fight against climate change and are struggling to stop the destruction of their environment by mining and mono-crop agriculture for export. They would not see themselves in terms of left or right, but fully understand that an economic model based on infinite growth, with the commensurate depletion of the planet’s natural resources, is incompatible with saving the Earth from the catastrophic effects of global warming.
This does not mean sufficient energy cannot be provided for the needs of future generations, but that it must be responsibly sourced and publicly owned instead of being left to market forces and monolithic corporations whose priorities lie in ripping off consumers and making money out of burning fossil fuels. As an energy trade union, we support the necessary, just transition to a low-carbon economy, and are members of the global network Trade Unions for Energy Democracy. As the slogan read in Lima: “Let’s change the system – not the climate.”
During its first days in office, Syriza has taken actions that suggest it is willing to confront the EU’s neoliberal approach to energy and to embark on a new course. New Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has also stated his government will restore collective bargaining agreements and stop 300,000 planned layoffs.
The Syriza government has said it will stop the proposed sell off of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) which is 51% publicly owned but had been targeted for full-on privatization in 2016. “We will halt immediately any privatization of PPC,” Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis told Greek television a few hours before officially taking over his portfolio. “There will be a new PPC which will help considerably the restoration of the country’s productive activities,” he said.
Lafanzis also announced that that the mostly state-run gas company, DEPA, will also not be privatized. Both the PPC and DEPA were due to be privatized under the conditions imposed by the Troika. Continue reading Syriza can show ‘another energy is possible’→
A conversation about workers, communities and social justice
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