Global Community choices to save the world.

In fact, a recently published study in Science Advances states, unequivocally, that the planet has officially entered its sixth mass extinction event. The study shows that species are already being killed off at rates much faster than they were during the other five extinction events, and warns ominously that humans could very likely be among the first wave of species to go extinct.

So if some feel that McPherson's thinking is extreme, when the myriad scientific reports he cites to back his claims are looked at squarely and the dots are connected, the perceived extremism begins to dissolve into a possible, or even likely, reality.

The idea of possible human extinction, coming not just from McPherson but a growing number of scientists (as well as the aforementioned recently published report in Science), is now beginning to occasionally find its way into mainstream consciousness.

"A Child Born Today May Live to See Humanity's End, Unless ..." reads a recent blog post title from Reuters. It reads:

Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, according to Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders of the effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He blames overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change. Fenner's prediction is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn't seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway.

McPherson, who maintains the blog "Nature Bats Last," told Truthout, "We've never been here as a species and the implications are truly dire and profound for our species and the rest of the living planet."

Truthout first interviewed McPherson in early 2014, at which time he had identified 24 self-reinforcing positive feedback loops triggered by human-caused climate disruption. Today that number has grown to more than 50, and continues to increase.

A self-reinforcing positive feedback loop is akin to a "vicious circle": It accelerates the impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD). An example would be methane releases in the Arctic. Massive amounts of methane are currently locked in the permafrost, which is now melting rapidly. As the permafrost melts, methane - a greenhouse gas 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a short timescale - is released into the atmosphere, warming it further, which in turn causes more permafrost to melt, and so on.

As soon as this summer, we are likely to begin seeing periods of an ice-free Arctic. (Those periods will arrive by the summer of 2016 at the latest, according to a Naval Postgraduate School report.)

Once the summer ice begins melting away completely, even for short periods, methane releases will worsen dramatically.

Is it possible that, on top of the vast quantities of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels that continue to enter the atmosphere in record amounts yearly, an increased release of methane could signal the beginning of the sort of process that led to the Great Dying?

McPherson, like the scientists involved in the recent study that confirms the arrival of the sixth great extinction, fears that the situation is already so serious and so many self-reinforcing feedback loops are already in play that we are well along in the process of causing our own extinction.

Furthermore, McPherson remains convinced that it could happen far more quickly than generally believed possible - in the course of just the next few decades, or even sooner.

Truthout caught up with McPherson in Washington State, where he was recently on a lecture tour, sharing his dire analysis of how far along we already are regarding ACD.

Dahr Jamail: How many positive feedback loops have you identified up until now, and what does this ever-increasing number of them indicate?

Guy McPherson: I can't quite wrap my mind around the ever-increasing number of self-reinforcing feedback loops. A long time ago, when there were about 20 of them, I believed evidence would accumulate in support of existing loops, but we couldn't possibly identify any more. Ditto for when we hit 30. And 40. There are more than 50 now, and the hits keep coming. And the evidence for existing feedback loops continues to grow.

In addition to these positive feedback loops "feeding" within themselves, they also interact among each other. Methane released from the Arctic Ocean is exacerbated and contributes to reduced albedo [reflectivity of solar radiation by the ice] as the Arctic ice declines. Tack on the methane released from permafrost and it's obvious we're facing a shaky future for humanity.

You talk often about how when major industrial economic systems collapse, this will actually cause a temperature spike. Please explain, in layperson's terms, how this occurs.

Industrial activity continually adds reflective particles into earth's atmosphere. Particularly well known are sulfates produced by burning coal ("clean coal" has a lower concentration of sulfates than "dirty coal"). These particles reflect incoming sunlight, thus artificially cooling the planet.

These reflective particles constantly fall out of the atmosphere, but industrial activity continuously adds them, too. When industrial activity ceases, all the particles will fall out within a few days. As a result, earth will lose its "umbrella" and rapid warming of the planet will ensue. According to a 2011 paper by James Hansen and colleagues, the warming will add 1.2 plus or minus 0.2 degrees Celsius. Subsequent research indicates the conservative nature of this paper, suggesting termination of industrial activity will add a minimum of 1.4 degrees Celsius to the global average temperature.

What indicators are you seeing that show the possibility of major economic collapses in the near future?

We cannot sustain the unsustainable forever, and this version of civilization is the least sustainable of them all. It teeters on the brink, and many conservative voices have predicted economic collapse this year or next. According to a June 2012 report by David Korowicz for the Feasta group, a disruption of supply will trigger collapse of the world's industrial economy in as little as three weeks.

The supply disruptions to which Korowicz refers include water, food and oil. We can add financial credit to the list. In other words, credit could dry up as it nearly did in late 2008. Or the bond markets could trigger hyperinflation. California could have insufficient water to grow enough food to support much of the US, and not long from now. The list goes on.

Go into detail about what you're seeing as far as indications of abrupt climate change.

When I'm in the midst of a speaking tour, as I am now, I deliver a presentation approximately every day. Lately, I include a [different] indication of abrupt climate change [in] each presentation. In other words, I've been coming across evidence every day.

Recent examples include the June 19, 2015, paper in Science Advances: We are in the midst of the sixth great extinction. According to the abstract, the "sixth mass extinction is already under way." The lead author, in an interview, said, "life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on."

According to data from The Cryosphere Today, Arctic ice extent declined 340,000 square kilometers between June 17 and 18, 2015. Such an event is unprecedented. We could witness an ice-free Arctic by September of this year for the first time in human history.

How much temperature increase, over what period of time?

Depending upon the timing of economic collapse and release of the 50-gigaton burst of methane Natalia Shakhova warns about, earth could warm an additional 3 degrees Celsius within 18 months. The relatively slow rate of planetary warming we're seeing so far exceeds the ability of organisms to adapt by a factor of 10,000, according to a paper in the August 2013 edition of Ecology Letters.

We depend upon a living planet for our survival. We're killing non-human species at an astonishing rate. To believe we're clever enough to avoid extinction is pure hubris.

Is there an historical precedent for this phenomenon?

There is no historical precedent for ongoing planetary warming. We're dumping carbon into the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Great Dying from about 250 million years ago. That time, nearly all life on earth was driven to extinction.

What does this mean for humans? How do we cope and survive?

Astonishingly, against cosmological odds, you and I get to live. But not forever. And not much longer.

Coping with the reality of abrupt climate change and human extinction is hardly an easy undertaking. The message I've been delivering for several years is a heavy burden. I suggest fully absorbing the message that we get to live! Part of the process of living is death.

In addition to my latest book [Extinction Dialogs], co-authored by Carolyn Baker, I've developed other means for dealing with reality. Among these are a book for young adults co-authored by Pauline Schneider and a workshop co-developed and facilitated by Ms. Schneider. We signed a contract for the book in mid-June and the workshop is described at onlyloveremains.org.

What are some events of late you can point to as evidence that we are already experiencing abrupt climate change?

In addition to the information presented above, there's the ongoing collapse of the Larsen ice shelves in Antarctica, abundant evidence we're headed for a warmer year than 2014 (the hottest year in history), and numerous extreme weather events. These ongoing phenomena have been anticipated for years.

And now, they're here.

What are other factors you feel people should be aware of?

We're in serious human-population overshoot. We're driving to extinction at least 150 species each day. Nuclear power plants require grid-tied electricity, cooling water and people getting paychecks. Without all these, they melt down, thus immersing all life on earth in ionizing radiation.

There's more. Much more. But all the evidence points toward our individual deaths and the extinction of our species in the near future.

But most importantly, we get to live now.

Reporter's note: After my last Climate Disruption Dispatch article was published, I began receiving emails from people sharing their experiences with climatological aberrations they have been seeing where they live. Their experiences have ranged from witnessing vanishing glaciers, to creeks that have never dried up now vanishing, to record temperatures, to extremely early harvesting seasons for fruit. If you would like to send me information about what you're witnessing, so that I might include it in a future report, please share your experience (and photos, if you have them) with me: dahr@truthout.org

The rapid expansion of American military forces across Europe over the past year has invoked the pretext of “defending” NATO allies from alleged Russian aggression. But an altogether different contingency is that Washington is preparing for a military coup in Europe – in the wake of economic collapse stemming from the Greek debt crisis.

Just last week, American army general Ray Odierno – a member of the US Joint Chiefs of staff – outlined plans for a new battalion of troops in Germany, along with heavy armour and other equipment. Odierno told the Wall Street Journal that the new military installations were to counter “the rising Russian threat”.

Germany is already under de facto US military occupation, since the end of the Second World War, with tens of thousands of American troops and a slew of garrisons. Why the need for more American military, and not in peripheral European states close to Russia, but right in the heart of Europe – Germany?

Similar increasing deployment of American troops, artillery, armour, warplanes and helicopters has taken place in other European NATO members over the past year under the guise of conducting war games.

The result is that US military presence across Europe has never been greater at any time since the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union 25 years ago.

General Odierno said the “prepositioning” of troops and equipment in Germany and neighbouring states, including Poland and the Baltic countries, would allow for the rapid scale-up of American military in Europe “in the event of a crisis”. By “crisis” he was apparently alluding to a possible war with Russia.

In that event, the American military would be deployed to shore up fragile, discredited governments amid widespread social turmoil. These “care taker” governments may be similar in personnel to the parties already in power in European capitals. But their administrations will be increasingly autocratic and imposed without popular mandates, as is being evidenced in Greece. If a social crisis of full-blown poverty, soaring unemployment, public protests and industrial disruption were to culminate, then the American military forces in Europe will be in place to enforce the rule of these technocratic “governments”.

American political analyst Randy Martin, who writes at crookedbough.com, reckons that US rulers have anticipated the current turmoil in Europe over Greece.

“The Greek crisis has been going on for five years and more,” says Martin. “You can bet that Washington has already drawn up plans on how to administer Europe politically and financially if the situation demands that intervention. And that situation is becoming more and more apparent almost by the day.”

He added: “Don’t forget that the NATO military alliance of 28 members is really just American military power outsourced in various European disguises. NATO formations across Europe are therefore tantamount to US military occupation of Europe,” says Martin. “This is exactly what Russian government figures have perceptively been saying for a long time.”

Since the Ukraine crisis erupted due to the US-sponsored coup in that country in February 2014, the Western media has been saturated with American claims of Russian aggression toward Europe. But, as Randy Martin points out, the narrative of a Russian threat is becoming increasingly threadbare. There is no evidence of Russian infiltration in Ukraine, no evidence of Russian military aggression toward Europe, and, moreover, Moscow has consistently refuted the allegations as “fantasy”.

Which leads one to conjecture: is the American militarisation across Europe for another purpose – the containment of the European Union as it comes under increasing social pressure from within due to economic collapse?

Many other countries across the European Union also find themselves in similar condition of chronic fiscal arrears and drowning indebtedness.

Italy, Spain and Portugal come to mind as having precarious debt loads that outstrip their respective economies. France, the second biggest economy in Europe, is also submerged with a total debt exceeding its national economic output.

The austerity measures that EU governments have been imposing on their populations are felt most acutely in Greece, manifested in the scenes of mass queues outside banks for a subsistence daily allowance, or desperate crowds at food stores and pharmacies searching for dwindling supplies of basic essential commodities. With the Greek government of Alexis Tsipras showing itself as a willing instrument of Europe’s banker-oligarchy to apply more austerity, the atmosphere among many ordinary Greeks is increasingly volatile and brooding.

But this scenario of economic collapse and social mayhem seen most vividly in Greece will likely be repeated in other EU countries because of the systemic nature of the crisis. The EU institutional creditors, led by Germany, want to teach the rest of Europe a lesson by disciplining Greece over its national finances.

However, austerity pushed to extreme will result in social revolt, not just in Greece, but across Europe.

Washington is alarmed by the potential meltdown in Europe. Last week, President Barack Obama urged Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras to come up with a solution to the debt crisis. Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew echoed the concerns and
warned: “There’s a lot of unknowns if this goes to a place that completely melts down in Greece.”

The control of government by private corporate interests, with no democratic accountability, attests to the definition of fascism. As analyst Randy Martin comments: “What is taking shape in Europe and more so in the United States is the complete subjugation of government by finance capital. It is not an exaggeration or empty jargon to say that we in the West are succumbing to the rule of financial fascism.”

Banker-led technocratic administrations across Europe will engender rising popular protest and civil unrest. When American politicians talk about “meltdown” and their army generals talk about “securing Europe” what they really mean is securing Europe from its own angry people. Russia is but the bogeyman to justify American military occupation of Europe and the imperative of finance capital administered from Berlin.

The irony is that 70 years after the defeat of fascism in Europe, Europe is coming full circle under the same phenomenon. This time instead of Nazi jackboots, we have American ones.

Let’s cut to the chase: Leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) realize that global security cannot be entrusted to a country that sees war as a acceptable means for achieving its geopolitical objectives.  They also realize that they won’t be able to achieve financial stability as long as Washington dictates the rules, issues the de facto “international” currency, and controls the main levers of global financial power. This is why the BRICS have decided to chart a different course, to gradually break free from the existing Bretton Woods system, and to create parallel system that better serves their own interests. Logically, they have focused on the foundation blocks which support the current US-led system, that is, the institutions from which the United States derives its extraordinary power; the dollar, the US Treasury market, and the IMF. Replace these, the thinking goes, and the indispensable nation becomes just another country struggling to get by.  This is from the Asia Times:

“Leaders of the BRICS… launched the  New Development Bank, which has taken three years of negotiations to bring to fruition. With about $50 billion in starting capital, the bank is expected to start issuing debt to fund infrastructure projects next year. They also launched a foreign-exchange currency fund of $100 billion.

The two new endeavors are statements that the five largest emerging markets are both looking out for each other and, simultaneously, moving away from the western financing institutions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“The BRICS states intend to actively use their own resources and internal resources for development,” Putin said, according to Reuters. “The New (Development) Bank will help finance joint, large-scale projects in transport and energy infrastructure, industrial development.”…..Birthing the two initiatives in Russia had been Putin’s top priorities.”

(“Russia’s Putin scores points at Ufa BRICS summit“, Asia Times)

Can you see what’s going on? Putin has figured out the empire’s vulnerabilities and he’s going straight for the jugular.  He’s saying: ‘We’re going to issue our own debt, we’re going to run our own system, we’re going to fund our own projects, and we’re going to do it all in our own currency. Kaboom. The only thing you’re going to be doing, is managing your own accelerating economic decline. Have a good day.’ Isn’t that the gist of what he’s saying?

So can you see, dear reader, why none of this is appearing on the pages of US newspapers or on US television.   Washington would rather you didn’t know how they’ve bungled everything by alienating the fastest growing countries in the world.

The Ufa conference is a watershed moment. While the Pentagon is rapidly moving troops and military hardware to Russia’s borders, and one bigwig after another is bloviating about the “Russian threat”; the BRICS have moved out of Washington’s orbit altogether.  They are following the leadership of men who, frankly speaking, are acting exactly like US leaders acted when the US was on the upswing. These are guys who “think big”; who want to connect continents with high-speed rail, lift living standards across the board, and transform themselves into manufacturing dynamos. What do America’s leaders dream about: Drone warfare? Balancing the budget? Banning the Confederate flag?

It’s a joke. No one in Washington has a plan for the future. It’s all just political opportunism and posturing.  Check this out from The Hindu:

“China and Russia have described BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as the core of a new international order…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said… “There is no doubt — we have all necessary premises to expand the horizons of mutually beneficial cooperation, to join together our raw material resources, human capital and huge consumer markets for a powerful economic spurt.”

Russia’s Tass news agency also quoted Mr. Putin as saying that the Eurasian continent had vast transit potential. He pointed to “the construction of new efficient transport and logistics chains, in particular, the implementation of the initiative of the Silk Road economic belt and the development of transportation in the eastern part of Russia and Siberia. This may link the rapidly growing markets in Asia and Europe’s economies, mature, rich in industrial and technological achievements. At the same time, this will allow our countries to become more commercially viable in the competition for investors, for creating new jobs, for advanced enterprises,” he observed.”….

The summit also acknowledged “the potential for expanding the use of our national currencies in transactions between the BRICS countries.”   (“BRICS, SCO, EAEU can define new world order: China, Russia“, The Hindu)

The dollar is toast. The IMF is toast. The US debt market (US Treasuries) is toast.  The institutions that support US power are crumbling before our very eyes. The BRICS have had enough; enough war, enough Wall Street, enough meddling and hypocrisy and austerity and lecturing. This is farewell. Sure, it will take time, but Ufa marks a fundamental change in thinking, a fundamental change in approach, and a fundamental change in strategic orientation.

The BRICS are not coming back,  they’re gone for good, just as Washington’s “pivot to Asia” is gone for good. There’s just too much resistance. Washington has simply overplayed its hand, worn out its welcome. People are sick of us.

Can you blame them?

Roger Annis - War in Ukraine & NATO Offensive in Eastern Europe

Video

I grew up irreverent with regards to religion. My parents believe in god, and show respect to certain religious customs, but they are far from being deeply religious. We worshiped twice a year at home, but the idols that are scattered in our house mostly serve artistic (some are very poor art in my opinion, but my parents beg to differ) purposes. They are not housed together icon-style, and there is no daily ritual of feeding or clothing them, or lighting diyas or decorating with flowers or chanting hymns from a dead language we don't understand. Every year, on two special days ascertained by the almanac, we would worship the goddesses Saraswati and Laxmi at home, in ceremonies that were specially designed by my liberal educated parents, who made a point of trimming what they deemed “unjust” from the typical ceremony to device a special version for our family. The ceremonies were only half-serious. My parents would, for example, say that the main point of the ceremony was the food and hanging out with friends over it, but they were not ready to chuck out the whole religious routine. It is hard to state the ground rule for what they accepted and what they didn't, but there were some basics: no priests (because they did not believe in the caste system, and my dad was extremely uncomfortable to the idea of having a priest say his prayers for him); no special utensils, we could use pots and pans from the kitchen if they were clean (vegetarian and non-vegetarian vessels are a big deal for purists); my parents would fast, but we couldn't (they needed to burn some fat being the excuse, we could fall sick); artistic display and food was really important, but all the items necessary in a ritualistic ceremony, including flowers, a green coconut, mango leaves, vermilion, fruits, honey, ghee, five different kinds of cereal and some other things whose actual or symbolic purpose in the ritual has become hazy over time were bought and displayed.

We would get up in the morning, shower and put on fresh clothes, help baba with the decoration and ma with the cooking, worship in the evening, and have dinner with the food offered to the idols after that. The worship itself was peculiar, because we did not have a clear idea of the sequence, and would do random things like ringing the brass bell, wave the diyas, or scatter the flowers, in no particular order , while baba would insist on chanting some hymns he remembered from his childhood (I was quite embarrassed when I realized that the hymn writers were obsessed with goddesses' breasts) and ma on pressing our palms together and touching our heads on the floor at the end. There was plenty of giggling, and an ROFL interlude at one instance where baba had brought a “panchali”, a prayer book written for women observing the ritual, and ma, reading it aloud in a sing-song tone as was the custom, found that she met the description of the bad woman to every inch. The seeds of my irreverence were hence sown in trying to practice religion. I am still ashamed to admit that I was the “priest” in such ceremonies for a long time, throwing off the holy mantle only as teenager who would not put up with the outwardly practice of a religion and gods she no longer believed in. It was also quite irritating to follow ma's instructions regarding the sequence of flower-throwing and diya waving (when she ran out of ideas she would sometimes ask me to wave random things I had never seen a priest wave); she would figure out a new routine every year, and insist that that was our “tradition”. With time, even the vestiges of this sort of upbringing fell off me; I had retained, for example, the habit of including artistic idols in home decor, but gave it up when they seemed to send out the wrong message. I stopped touching my forehead every time I accidentally stepped on someone's toes, and I successfully got over the almost physical sense of cringing every time my feet touched a book.

I have always questioned and criticized organized religion, and I am often confused and pained by my liberal friends' choice to follow religious institutions, or to participate in ceremonies that specifically disempower women or minorities in the modern context. The two (possibly connected) parts of my being that are said to be related to religion, my morality and my spirituality, have been nurtured by a law-abiding, truth-speaking, neighbor-friendly family, and my connection with nature respectively. I do not know where I have come from, and I do not know where I am going. I do know I am here on a finite piece of rock for a certain amount of time, and I would like to tend, share and provide support wherever I can. My finite time and space tells me that to loot and plunder, either my fellow beings or the planet, would not give me the satisfaction of tending and curing, hence my basic spiritual awareness of my condition shapes my morality. I did not need religiosity to arrive at this position. Moving out of the city to grow my own food has recently given me more exposure to the miracles of this universe, and I think I have more time to introspect. I know I won't find the answers to my being and that of the universe, but I am happy to seek and wonder. Spirituality keeps me alert to the wonders around me, and makes me responsible in the process. It also brings a lot of child-like wonder, otherwise named happiness. Many, many people who visit religious institutions on a regular basis do not seem to be aware of the immensity that surrounds us. Our planet would not be in its current state if they did. Religion was not meant to be a tool to ask for material happiness, but when I see material craving and religiosity prosper side by side--the million holy rings on the plump fingers of the businessman who employs school-age kids--I have little doubt that religion assures the unjust that they will be safe if they honor the institution, however unethical their actions are to people or the planet.

As an inhabitant of a country deeply divided by religion, I doubt organized religion. I understand the need to seek and wonder, but I do not see why an independent thinker, aka every human being, would need to gather in a particular building, wave hands or shake heads or press palms or chant things someone else wrote or repeat words after someone to seek within themselves. I to find it hard to accept that people who bear the flags of independent creative thinking, equality, spiritual seeking, or even god, can submit themselves to the archaic motions of organized religion. All the arguments in favor of organized religion-- that it creates community, it helps the helpless and the mentally weak, it helps the poor-- are social issues that call for a change at the political as well as the spiritual level. Organized religion remains a soft campaign for ganging up, of deepening the us-versus-them divides, of retaining the irrelevant and the spiteful, and a general dulling of what could be an exciting path to seek the unknown. Even in cases where a religious institution is not actually spreading hatred (by the instances in our world, these are increasingly rare), it is obstructing the way to wider, more mixed communities that bridge gaps of caste, class or color. It might not be incorrect to say that religious institutions today remain as social and racial ghettos. Their messages might not be incorrect, but they function to segregate and divide, even within the same sect. A white gunman shooting down black worshipers in a city full of churches is an instance where organized religion is unable or unwilling to bridge racial gaps to create wider community. Religion might have been an intrinsic part of the black struggle, but the question remains whether it will ever help bridge the deep racial divide in America.

In spite of all the terror that comes out of organized religion, speaking against it is still unacceptable, even in liberal circuits. Asking people to question it is often perceived as an affront to religious freedom. In left-liberal circuits, it is far easier to berate communism as brainwashing, faculty-dulling, or power-driven than to critique religious practice. The most frequently-cited aims of religion, good behavior on this planet and recognizing what lies beyond us, the core of religion, has nothing to do with the organized practice of religion. Organized religion could in fact take focus away from the fact of our irresponsible behavior—praying does not heal the planet or distraught fellow humans, compassion and positive action do; asking for pardon does not absolve us from the crimes we commit by merely buying the things we buy, knowing more about the process of production does. In the current condition of the world, no manner of religious wisdom will make changes unless there are changes in our economic and political models. [I am in particular dilemma regarding a Pope who preaches environmentalism. I have no idea how to react, and I am not asking who's paying him. As much as I am excited by the idea of instant mass change through the influence of a religious leader, I am put off at the thought of the world changing, albeit for the better, only because a religious leader dictates his followers to make the changes. How can that be conscious change?]

When I try to come to terms with my liberal friends' celebration of religion or religious organizations, I think about my parents' approach to religious practice. Maybe shaking off religion is a process that spans generations; maybe when people recognize the problems with organized religion, and one by one components that went hand in hand with religious practice are discarded as unfair or divisive, religion might not be confined to cliques or to specific communities. Stripped of superstition, the caste system, discriminatory thought or practice against women or the gay community, generalizations to describe the Other, or jingoistic celebration of religious identity, religion might show its true core. I wonder, though, if it is worth the while of intelligent people to hold on to something and keep wanting to reform it, rather than start with fresh thought and sensibility. Maybe, like I see in my parents, it is impossible to throw it all off at once and reject internalized habits of religious practice, but trying to listen in on our planet's heartbeat on a quiet day, someone might figure out that the mysteries of the universe are never going to be solved in temples or mosques or churches.

Aparajita Sengupta is a farmer

The bad news is very bad, indeed. But first, the good news: "Responding to climate change could be the biggest global health opportunity of this century."

That message is the silver lining contained in a comprehensive newly published report by The Lancent, the UK-based medical journal, which explores the complex intersection between global human health and climate change.

The wide-ranging and peer-reviewed report—titled Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health—declares that the negative impacts of human-caused global warming have put at risk some of the world's most impressive health gains over the last half century. What's more, it says, continued use of fossil fuels is leading humanity to a future in which infectious disease patterns, air pollution, food insecurity and malnutrition, involuntary migration, displacement, and violent conflict will all be made made worse.

"Climate change," said commission co-chairman Dr. Anthony Costello, a pediatrician and director of the Global Health Institute at the University College of London, "has the potential to reverse the health gains from economic development that have been made in recent decades – not just through the direct effects on health from a changing and more unstable climate, but through indirect means such as increased migration and reduced social stability. Our analysis clearly shows that by tackling climate change we can also benefit health. Tackling climate change represents one of the greatest opportunities to benefit human health for generations to come."

Put together by the newly formed Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change—described as a major new collaboration between international climate scientists and geographers, social and environmental scientists, biodiversity experts, engineers and energy policy experts, economists, political scientists and public policy experts, and health professionals—the report is the most up-to-date and comprehensive of its kind. Though many studies have been performed on the subject, the commission argues the "catastrophic risk to human health posed by climate change" has been grossly "underestimated" by others.

"Climate Change is a medical emergency," said Dr. Hugh Montgomery, commission co-chair and director of the UCL Institute for Human Health and Performance. "It thus demands an emergency response."

With rising global temperatures fueling increasing extreme weather events, crop failures, water scarcity, and other crises, Montgomery says the report is an attempt to make it clear that drastic and immediate actions should be taken. "Under such circumstances," he said, "no doctor would consider a series of annual case discussions and aspirations adequate, yet this is exactly how the global response to climate change is proceeding."

In a companion paper published alongside the larger report, commission members Helena Wang and Richard Horton explained why human health impacts are an important part of the larger argument regarding climate change:

When climate change is framed as a health issue, rather than purely as an environmental, economic, or technological challenge, it becomes clear that we are facing a predicament that strikes at the heart of humanity. Health puts a human face on what can sometimes seem to be a distant threat. By making the case for climate change as a health issue, we hope that the civilisational crisis we face will achieve greater public resonance. Public concerns about the health effects of climate change, such as undernutrition and food insecurity, have the potential to accelerate political action in ways that attention to carbon dioxide emissions alone do not.

Responding to the findings and warnings contained in the report, Mike Childs, the head of policy for the Friends of the Earth-UK, said the message from one of the world's foremost institutions on public health has given powerful new evidence to the argument that "radical action is urgently required" to avoid further climate catastrophe.

"When health professionals shout 'emergency'," Childs said, "politicians everywhere should listen."

Going from diagnosis to prescribing a remedy, the doctors and scientists involved with the report—who equated the human health emergency of climate change with previous physician-led fights against tobacco use and HIV/AIDS—argue the crisis of anthropogenic climate change demands—as a matter of "medical necessity"—the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels (with special emphasis on coal) from the global energy mix. In addition, the authors say their data on global human health support a recommendation for an international carbon price.

"The health community has responded to many grave threats to health in the past," said another commission co-chair, Professor Peng Gong of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. "It took on entrenched interests such as the tobacco industry and led the fight against HIV/AIDS. Now is the time for us to lead the way in responding to another great threat to human and environmental health."

The Commission argues that human health would vastly improve in a less-polluted world free from fossil fuels. "Virtually everything that you want to do to tackle climate change has health benefits," said Dr. Costello. "We're going to cut heart attacks, strokes, diabetes."

The following video, produced by the Commission and released alongside the report, also explains:

As Wang and Horton conclude in their remarks, "Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. Health professionals must mobilize now to address this challenge and protect the health and wellbeing of future generations."

Only a few months ago, President Barack Obama was at loggerheads with Republican members of Congress intent on destroying his administration. With bewildering speed, Obama has since turned against his own political base to form an alliance on trade issues with those same Republican members of Congress.

Obama’s most vigorous opposition now comes from progressives, including most of the senators and representatives of his own party, who only a few months ago were his most loyal political base. The few corporatist Democratic members of Congress who still support Obama face the threat of opposition in the 2016 primaries, as Democratic voters mobilize to defend democracy, workers, and the environment.

The goal of Obama’s surprise alliance is to finalize a series of international agreements—the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)—each of which will strengthen corporate rights at the expense of human rights, democracy, economic justice, peace, and the healing of Living Earth.

Leaked text from the secret negotiations that are crafting these agreements reveals that contrary to the claims of proponents, virtually every provision would weaken democracy and undermine the ability of nations, people, and localities to shape their economic destinies. Americans from across the political spectrum have been stunned by the sudden emergence of this unholy alliance. In historical context, however, it may be less unlikely than it seems.

America’s bipartisan corporate political alliance

U.S. corporations have been actively advancing an agenda of corporate rule since at least 1971. That was when Lewis Powell, soon to be a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, submitted his infamous memo “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System” outlining a grand strategy for a corporate takeover of U.S. politics. The resulting actions rapidly played out as a global corporate colonization of the world’s people and resources. I spell out this history in detail in When Corporations Rule the World, released this month (June 2015) in a 20th anniversary edition.

As the corporate agenda unfolded, the Republican Party quite proudly branded itself as the party of big business and, more deceptively, of small government. The Democratic Party became seen as the party of big government, corporate restraint, and social programs for those the corporate state excluded.

But there has long been more cooperation between the two parties in support of big business than either is inclined to acknowledge. Democratic President Carter began the deregulation of the airline industry. Democratic President Clinton rolled back welfare programs, expanded corporate rights with the passage of the WTO and NAFTA agreements, and sponsored the Wall Street deregulation that led to the financial collapse of 2008.

Democratic President Obama carried forward the bank bailouts started by Republican President George W. Bush, shielded senior bank managers from prosecution and prison, and made no effort to restrict the continued growth and consolidation of the biggest Wall Street banks. His campaign for fast-track authority to push through a series of new international corporate rights agreements removes all ambiguity as to where his true loyalties lie.

The public, however, is catching on. Awareness of accelerating consolidation of global corporate rule and its implications for peace, equality, and the environment began to emerge in the mid-1990s about the time When Corporations Rule the World first launched. For many people, that book helped them connect what they were experiencing with what they were beginning to suspect.

The issue a bogus debate obscures

For the past several decades, corporate interests have managed to define the political choice in America as between small government Republicans and big government Democrats. It was a clever misdirection. Because most Americans are properly distrustful of big government, they easily buy into the anti-big government argument. The result is to deflect attention away from the sins of big business—and the implications for government size.

The idea that government is essential to the function of complex societies should be immediately evident to any thinking person. It is similarly clear that letting money-seeking transnational corporations rule as best suits their financial interests has disastrous societal consequences.

Entirely missing from the debate is the extent to which it is the growth of corporate size and influence that creates the need for big government to limit corporate excesses, clean up their messes, subsidize their operations, and field the military and police forces required to protect their global and domestic properties. The subsidies include welfare for underpaid employees, unemployment for those whose jobs they outsource abroad or displace with robots and migrant workers, and medical insurance for those they fail to insure.

Without the burden that monopolistic and predatory corporations place on society, government, particularly national government, could be dramatically downsized and public debt largely eliminated.

An abstract debate over the size of government is a pointless distraction—as those who promote it are likely aware. We should instead ask, “Does our federal government represent the interests of the United States and its people and is its size appropriate to that task?” Tragically, the answer for the United State is no.

Although the American people pay the bills, it is a government of, by, and for the United Corporations of Planet Earth and their needs, not a government designed to meet the needs of our people. We could do nicely with a far smaller federal government, if we limited the size of corporations and structured their ownership to assure that they are accountable to the people of the communities in which they do business.

The essential work of our time

The institutional system of corporate rule is essentially a robotic system programmed to use its economic and political power to extract limitless short-term financial gain by whatever means available. It runs on autopilot beyond human control. And it values life only for its market price. It should be evident to any thinking adult not brain damaged by taking too many economics courses that peace, economic justice, and ecological balance will remain beyond humanity’s reach for so long as the rights of people are subordinated to the rights of the corporations that populate this system.

Hope for humanity requires a successful transition to democracy grounded in strong place-based communities and local economies. This transition is not just an ideal. It is essential to human viability.

President Obama and the Republican and Democratic corporatists currently allied with him have positioned themselves on the wrong side of history.

Fortunately, there may be a positive side to their betrayal of the human interest. It reminds us that true transformational leadership depends less on the empty promises of political leaders than on social movements of we the people. The public outrage now focused on their betrayal of democracy and the human interest lays the groundwork for what could be a seismic political realignment.

Possibilities of a transpartisan political awakening

Over the past 20 years, public awareness of the nature and consequences of the expansion of corporate rule has grown significantly. This awareness finds particularly visible expression in the public demand to overturn the Citizens United decision of a corporatist Supreme Court that removes most restraints on corporate funding of elections. And, most recently, we are seeing broad-based and increasingly vocal resistance to the current betrayal of America by Obama’s trade agenda.

Progressive voters are outraged by the assault on democracy, workers, the environment, and local communities entailed in the Trans Pacific Partnership. Conservative voters are outraged by the attack on national sovereignty.

The resulting political shock is shining a public spotlight on the extent to which corporate influence has corrupted our national government. It is a short step from here to a recognition that the failures and burdens of our national government are not inherent in government. Rather they are inherent in corporate control of government.

Two highly intelligent, articulate national leaders—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—are articulating a new message with the potential to redefine the debate and win broad support for steps to end corporate rule. Even voters who may disagree with their politics are drawn to their courage and integrity—qualities otherwise far too rare in American politics.

The moment seems ripe for the foundational political realignment proposed by Ralph Nader in his recent book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State and outlined in a recent YES! Magazine interview with Ralph Nader and Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative magazine. Fran Korten, publisher of YES! Magazine (and my wife) suggests we are experiencing a new populist moment.

Call it populism versus corporatism or democracy versus corporate rule. Either way it is a far more meaningful political division than the current division between two big-government political parties debating big versus small while both compete aggressively for corporate money and pursue variations on corporatist agendas.

The distinction between democracy and corporate rule is the issue that underlies most other issues. The task before us is to recognize and act on the potential for a momentous political realignment that can make our government truly “of the people.”

This article was written for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Dr. David Korten (livingeconomiesforum.org) is the author of Agenda for a New Economy, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World. He is board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, president of the Living Economies Forum, and a member of the Club of Rome. He holds MBA and PhD degrees from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and served on the faculty of the Harvard Business School.

In April 1954, top scientists gathered in Washington, D.C., to hear something new: voice and music broadcast by a solar-powered radio transmitter. Scientists at Bell Labs in New Jersey were demonstrating their invention, the first practical solar cell, which was made of silicon. This breakthrough paved the way for the solar revolution taking place today on rooftops and in massive ground-mounted solar farms around the world.

Solar cells, also called solar photovoltaics or PV, powered U.S. satellites during the 1960s space race with the Soviet Union. But PV technology was still too expensive to be used for much else until the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Amid rising fears about energy security, governments and private firms poured billions of dollars into solar research and development, reaping big gains in efficiency and cost reductions. This led to widespread use of PV in the 1980s for powering telephone relay stations, highway call boxes, and similar applications.

Japanese and U.S. companies became early leaders in PV manufacturing for uses both large and small. For example, Japanese firms such as Sharp and Kyocera pioneered the use of solar cells in pocket calculators. A credit-card-sized solar-powered calculator from 1983 still helps us do quick calculations.

In the mid-1980s, Germany joined the United States and Japan in the race for PV production dominance, but by the early years of the new millennium, Japanese and U.S. companies accounted for roughly 70 percent of the world’s PV output.

Forward-thinking energy policies in Germany were the catalyst that spurred solar power’s astounding growth over the last decade or so. By guaranteeing renewable power producers access to the grid as well as a long-term premium price for their electricity, the German government’s policy made going solar economically attractive. A reinvigorated German PV manufacturing industry climbed back into the number two spot behind Japan. As world production increased to meet demand, the price of solar panels dropped, helping to drive demand higher.

With demand for PV cells growing quickly, China — factory to the world — got into the game. Beginning around 2006, a boom in the Chinese PV industry massively expanded global production and drove prices down even further. Today China is a solar manufacturing giant, producing close to two thirds of the world’s PV—more than the United States, Japan, and Germany combined.

The decline in PV panel prices over the decades is astonishing. In 1972, they cost over $74 per watt. The average price as of mid-2014 was less than 70¢ per watt—99 percent cheaper. (For reference, the typical U.S. rooftop system today has between 2 and 10 kilowatts of generating capacity. One kilowatt equals 1,000 watts.)

Around the world, solar installations are growing by leaps and bounds on residential and commercial rooftops and in solar farms, also called solar power plants or parks, that can cover thousands of acres. Between 2008 and 2013, as solar panel prices dropped by roughly two thirds, the PV installed worldwide skyrocketed from 16,000 to 139,000 megawatts. That is enough to power every home in Germany, a country with 83 million people. In its January 2014 solar outlook report, Deutsche Bank projected that 46,000 megawatts would be added to global PV capacity in 2014 and that new installations would jump to a record 56,000 megawatts in 2015.

The International Energy Agency in Paris, which is typically conservative in its renewable energy forecasts, has been revising its solar projections upward. As recently as 2011 it forecast 112,000 megawatts of solar generating capacity by 2015 — a figure the world left far behind in 2013. The organization now projects that by 2018 the total will be 326,000 megawatts of generating capacity, but the world will likely come close to this in 2016.

As solar power installations spread, it is worth remembering a point often made in the energy literature to convey the sheer scale of the solar resource: The sunlight striking the earth’s surface in just one hour delivers enough energy to power the world economy for one year.

[Excerpted from the book The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy, by Lester R. Brown, with Janet Larsen, J. Matthew Roney, and Emily E. Adams.]

Lester R. Brown is president of Earth Policy Institute, an organization dedicated to building a sustainable future. He has authored or co-authored over 50 books, the most recent of which is The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy, and has received 24 honorary degrees and numerous awards, including the 1987 United Nations Environment Prize, a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Nigel Taylor spreads apart the wilted and discolored leaves of a cassava plant. He wants us to see its sickness on full display. Taylor leads a team of scientists in St. Louis attempting to genetically engineer a virus-resistant version of the plant, and is working with researchers in Uganda and Kenya, where cassava is a staple crop. Once created, this plant will be delivered to small-landholder farmers for widespread use in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Cassava grow in a greenhouse at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Researchers at the center are trying to engineer a virus-resistant version of the plant. (Photo: Donald Danforth Plant Science Center)

“Cassava is an incredibly important source of calories in the tropics,” Taylor explains to a group of journalists visiting the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Missouri in early May. The ultimate goal of this not-for-profit center, founded in 1998, is to double production of the world’s most important crops while lowering agriculture’s environmental footprint. More than 200 employees are on the case, and for these scientists, answers lie in an obvious place: “We think plants are a wonderful solution to a lot of global challenges,” vice president of research Dr. Toni Kutchan tells us. 

Among the biggest challenges is a growing global population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, which will need to be fed without degrading more natural resources. Other challenges include regions around the world suffering from increased salinity in soil, water supplies tainted with fertilizer, declining crop yields due to plant disease, and intensifying droughts. The agricultural powerhouse of California, for instance — responsible for producing about half of the United States’ vegetables, fruits and nuts — has entered the fourth year of a historic drought with no relief in sight. Danforth scientists are developing crops to withstand these environmental stressors as we brace for the impacts of climate change.

“Human-induced climate change is here and now. It’s not just something we need to think about for our grandchildren,” says Kathy Jacobs at the second National Adaptation Forum in St. Louis, where she joined more than 800 representatives from the private and public sector in May. 

Senior Research Scientist Nigel Taylor leads a team tasked with developing virus-resistant cassava, which is a staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa. Taylor works at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri. (photo: Sena Christian)

Jacobs directs the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona and coauthored the 2014 National Climate Assessment, which evaluates and summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States. When the report — the third of its kind since the passage of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, which mandated the development of a comprehensive U.S. climate change research program — came out last May, the consensus among its roughly 300 authors was clear: Don’t waste any more time on denial. The science of climate change is well understood and, increasingly so, its impacts.

According to the report, U.S. average temperature has increased by between 1.3 degrees and 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since recordkeeping started in 1895, with that rise mainly occurring since about 1970.

American agriculture, energy, transportation, public health, ecosystems and biodiversity will all be influenced by rising temperatures. In terms of farming, the crop-growing season may lengthen in some regions, while in others, food production will suffer from heat, drought, disease, and heavy downpours. Where plenty of water exists, its quality may be questionable. 

And that’s just the scene in the United States. Globally, the average combined land and ocean surface temperature increased by 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit from 1880 to 2012, according to the IPCC’s fifth assessment report.

Global food security could hang in the balance. As the IPCC elaborates in its report, crop production and fishery stocks are sensitive to changes in temperature, and climate change will lead to shifts in crop yields around the world — overall yields will decrease, but some temperate places at higher latitudes will see increases. Already, some indigenous communities have adjusted their seasonal migration and hunting practices in response to temperature changes. Poorer communities in developing countries will likely be more vulnerable to loss of health and life brought about by a changing climate. 

Scientists at the Danforth Plant Science Center hope to address the impacts of climate change on food production and food security, and are working to improve the nutritional content, disease resistance, and yield of staple crops for subsistence farmers around the world. On their list: sweet potato, banana, cassava, sorghum, maize, rice, groundnuts, millet and cowpea. After seeing Taylor’s work, we observe a conveyor system that captures detailed images and provides real-time monitoring of how plants respond to different environment stressors, such as too much water, too little water, too much sun, too little sun, and more, one of many tools the scientists use in their research.

Taylor’s work on developing virus-resistant cassava is largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, and The Monsanto Fund. Genetic modification is being used on the plants and “this is the same technology used to save the papaya industry in Hawaii,” Taylor says, which was seriously threatened in the 1990s when a virus infected plants on the Big Island — where 95 percent of the state’s papaya grew. Scientists inserted resistant genes derived from the pathogen into the host papaya plant, just as Taylor’s group has done with cassava. Not everyone in Hawaii, however, was thrilled with the introduction of GMO papayas.

RELATED: Monsanto GMOs Defeated by Oregon Organic Farmers as Federal Judge Upholds Seed Ban

The Virus Resistant Cassava for Africa (VIRCA) project has been conceptually underway since the late 1990s and is now in its second phase — the advanced experimental stage. “We have shown the technology works in the fields through numerous field tests in Uganda and Kenya,” Taylor says.

A persistent challenge, though, is integrating resistance to the multiple diseases present in cassava — there are many — into the cultivar, and not affecting other plant attributes famers value. “It’s not any old bread,” Taylor says. “You want the bread you like.” The project requires more field tests and then will undergo the regulatory process in African countries where genetic modification is new, before the product is released to the farmers. There will be no pesticides needed and “nothing new” for farmers to do in cultivating the two new crop varieties that are part of VIRCA, Taylor says. The technology’s developers won’t receive profit or royalties, and aren’t passing on any costs to end-users.

Another mission at Danforth involves increasing the nutritional value — specifically beta-Carotene — of cassava, a root vegetable high in calories but low in minerals and vitamins.

In 2014, Danforth received a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation for “The Missouri Transect,” a five-year statewide collaborative of nine institutions focused on the intersection of plants, climate, and community. A portion of that money will fund plant phenomics, which measure changes in an organism’s physical and biochemical traits in response to environmental stressors. Scientists will specifically analyze drought tolerance and water efficiency in maize using what’s called an automated phenotyping facility.

Resistance to drought is high on the list of goals in Missouri, which was at the epicenter of “a drought of Biblical proportions” in 2012, says scientist Todd Mockler. That drought devastated livestock crop production throughout the Midwest and led to a rise in food prices.

“In our project we are conducting basic research to identify traits, [for example] genes, that could be used for crop improvement relating to drought responses and tolerance. But we are not developing the improved crops per se,” Mockler says later via email. “Our hope is that seed companies will commercialize our discoveries.” 

Once Danforth finalizes a particular technology, private companies may license it, while the center reserves the right to use it for humanitarian purposes. In the case of VIRCA, for instance, the intellectual property, technology, regulatory, biosafety, quality control, distribution and stewardship components needed for developing and delivering the cassava will be made readily available by Danforth scientists to interested groups in Africa.

Danforth’s use of genetic engineering in some of its research has led the nonprofit Food and Water Watch to deem it a “pro-GMO research center” and note the facility’s close relationship to Monsanto — both in terms of the funding it receives from the biotech giant and the fact that the company is headquartered across the street. Additionally, Monsanto’s president serves on Danforth’s board of directors.

RELATED: As Chipotle Goes GMO-free, Monsanto's Worst Fear Is Coming True—And Corporate Media Is Freaking Out

Opponents like Food and Water Watch don’t agree that GMOs will play a significant role in solving food security problems, and argue that one major drawback is the increased use of herbicides that often accompanies the genetically modified crops. They also argue that GMOs contribute to the growth of resistant “superweeds,” and express concern over how their seeds might travel and cross-pollinate in unknown and unexpected ways.

This fall, Danforth will be joined by another facility using plant science to solve huge global issues when the 45,000-square-foot University of Nebraska Greenhouse Innovation Center opens in Lincoln. The facility will also use an automated phenotyping system that sends plants down conveyor belts to chambers where high-resolution images will capture how the traits of plants respond to stressors.

Plant science is only one example of hundreds of climate change adaptation measures currently underway around the world. But it’s a critical one, especially in the context of a growing global population and threatened food security. Because as these scientists know, we all have to eat, and we’ll need to do so without further devastating the natural environment around us if we hope to live with the ramifications of a climate we have irrefutably changed.

The author's trip to the National Adaptation Forum was paid for by the Metcalf Institute.

Sena Christian is an independent journalist living in the American West. A 2014-15 Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, she has written for Newsweek, The Guardian, YES! Magazine, Christian Science Monitor Earth Island Journal and Civil Eats.

For years now, conservationists have warned that Earth is in the middle of the “sixth great extinction,” with dozens of species going extinct every day owing to habitat loss, pollution, climate change and other factors.

But here’s even worse news: That may be just the tip of the iceberg.

According to new research, previous estimates may seriously underestimate the number of species that we’re losing. A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that we may have already lost 130,000 species, or a staggering 7 percent of the world’s total biodiversity.

RELATED: The Acid Oceans of Our Future

How could we have lost so many species without noticing? It’s simple: The authors say most of these extinctions are not big, noticeable creatures such as rhinos and tigers. Instead they’re tiny insects and other invertebrates that don’t get much attention. These species tend to have very small ranges with specific habitat needs and aren’t often well studied. Of the estimated 1.4 million invertebrates worldwide, fewer than 16,000 have been evaluated for their extinction risk by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List. Of that number, nearly a third are listed as “data deficient,” meaning we don’t know enough about them to say if they’re at risk.

By contrast, every single known bird species appears on the Red List. Of the more than 15,000 birds and mammals listed, fewer than 6 percent are ranked as data deficient.

A program to reintroduce the endangered American burying beetle in southeastern Ohio was initiated by the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service with partners Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife; Ohio State University; The Wilds; the St. Louis Zoo; and the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. (photo: Wayne National Forest/Flickr)

So, Why You Should Care?

The authors of the new paper say that focusing on larger, more easily studied species means we’re not getting a true picture of the extent of the sixth great extinction. Thus we may be losing species that could be important to human health even before we discover them. Snails and other invertebrates form an important part of the food web for all manner of animals, so their extinctions can have a cascading effect on biodiversity.

RELATED: Earth Faces Sixth ‘Great Extinction’ with 41% of Amphibians Set to Go the Way of the Dodo

To close that knowledge gap, the researchers took a random sampling of 200 land snail species around the world and then looked at the scientific record to see what we know about them. They didn’t find much. Snails haven’t been studied in some parts of the globe for decades, and some entire genus groups have never been studied at all. The researchers write that a full 84.5 percent of their 200 random species would be considered “data deficient” if they were added to the Red List today.

Giant African snails can reach up to 8 inches in length and nearly 5 inches in diameter — about the size of an average adult fist — and can live up to nine years. In a typical year, mated adults lay about 1,200 eggs. (photo: USDA/Flickr)

Even that doesn’t tell the full picture. Of the 200 species examined, 79 had not been observed in more than five decades. One example was a Hawaiian species known as the Amastrid land snail. Amateur snail-shell collectors have wiped out many of Hawaii’s snails, probably including this one. However, because no formal scientific studies have gone looking for it, it can’t yet be officially declared extinct.

Another example came from Mexico, where a species known only as Eucalodium moussonianum hasn’t been seen since 1872. Is it extinct? The original scientific description doesn’t mention the snail’s distribution or habitat, and no one has looked for it since.

Chances are high that these two species — and many others — are gone. “Mollusks are the species group most affected by extinction,” said the study’s lead author, Claire Régnier of Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. The most common factors for their extinction include habitat loss, water pollution, and invasive species.

RELATED: Mountaintop Removal Mining Is Pushing Species to Extinction

We do know of many other mollusk species extinctions because the animals leave their shells behind when they die. That’s not the case for most other invertebrates, Régnier said. The paper extrapolates this mollusk extinction risk to all other invertebrates because, as Régnier said, “they share the same characteristics as mollusks regarding their causes of extinction: size, restricted range, rarity and specific habitat requirements.”

Régnier said the purpose of the paper is not to criticize the current ways that we look at endangered species and extinction risk but to “suggest an alternative methodology which would give us a more global idea of our current losses.”

That might not be enough to stop the sixth great extinction anytime soon, but it might help us to understand it and start to take action.

John R. Platt covers the environment, technology, philanthropy and more for Scientific American, Conservation, Lion and other publications.

Here’s something for conspiracy theorists: In order to gain access to a certain document, members of Congress must descend to the basement of the Capitol, hand over their cell phones and other electronic devices, and enter a secured, soundproof room. Then they can’t speak to the public about what they glean from their visit.

What’s so hush-hush? A draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an enormous international trade agreement that 12 nations, including the United States, Japan, and Australia, have been hashing out in secret for the last half-decade. It’s a big deal: The dozen national economies make up nearly 40 percent of global GDP.

The agreement may be shrouded in mystery, but in recent weeks President Obama and some Democratic members of Congress have been publicly sparring over it—trading barbs during press conferences, on national television, and elsewhere. Critics contend the TPP would allow multinational companies to weaken environmental and labor rules here at home; the administration maintains the partnership is good for the American people and economy.

On Thursday the Senate voted to start debate on giving the president “fast-track” authority to negotiate the deal—a move that would limit Congress to voting yes or no once the nations finalize the pact (no messy fights over amendments!). Next, the battle will move to the House.

Despite the cloak of secrecy around the TPP, some draft sections have leaked, sparking concerns among green groups about everything from increased fracking to tainted seafood. “We do not believe that the rules in the TPP will be strong enough nor enforced enough to be able to lift up environmental standards outside the United States,” says Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s responsible trade program. “At the same time, rules in the agreement could severely threaten environmental and climate policy in the States and abroad.”

On that note, here are five ways the TPP could affect the West.

Frack Attack

Many conservationists are concerned that the TPP could spur more fracking. To understand why that is, bear with me for a quick (and appalling) explanation.

The greatest tool that the TPP gives foreign corporations is a provision “buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft,” as Senator Elizabeth Warren puts it. This is the “investor state dispute settlement” (ISDS), which grants multinationals the power to sue any government that interferes with their business. Yep, if some pesky regulation in a TPP country is hurting a corporation’s bottom line, it can sue for “millions to billions of dollars,” says Jake Schmidt, director of NRDC’s international program (disclosure). This has happened in other agreements with similar language, Schmidt says. He points out that nearly 500 ISDS cases have been brought, including a Swedish company that sued Germany because it decided to phase out nuclear power after Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and a Delaware-based oil and gas company, Lone Pine Resources, which is suing the Canadian government under NAFTA for more than $250 million because Quebec placed a moratorium on fracking.

Speaking of fracking, “The TPP would expand the export of fossil fuels and pave the way to more fracking, and therefore more emissions,” says Solomon. “It’s a major deal because Japan is one of the countries in TPP and happens to be the biggest importer of natural gas.”

To export natural gas to another country, the U.S. Department of Energy must first assess whether sending the fuel overseas is consistent with the public interest. The Energy Department, however, loses its authority to regulate exports to countries with which the United States has a trade agreement. The TPP would force it to automatically give those exports the green light. You can see where this is going. Countries that sign onto the TPP, whether the original 12 or those that join later (as China is expected to), will be able to import gas from here, then have the power to sue over any future fracking moratoria or bans around the West. (Existing anti-fracking measures, like those in communities in Colorado, California, New Mexico, and Texas, wouldn’t be affected, says Schmidt.)

Similarly, the trade deal could spur more coal-mining in the West. While U.S. consumption of the dirty fuel has been on the decline, TPP countries, including Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam, are relying more and more on coal to keep the lights on.

Air and Water Woes

With increased fossil-fuel development comes more water and air pollution. Fracking, for instance, has been shown to contaminate local aquifers and drinking water. Adding insult to injury, considering the four-year drought gripping the West, the drilling method is also a water-intensive process. Fracking sullies the air, too; one of the by-products released, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, has been linked to cancer and respiratory ailments. Coal production comes with its own set of toxic consequences, including degraded waterways, habitat fragmentation, and health risks like pulmonary disease. And, of course, whatever fossil fuels we pull out of the ground will contribute to global carbon emissions (and that ginormous climate change problem whose effects we’re already feeling).

Fill ’er Up

The TPP's environmental effects would extend beyond wells and mines. Once fossil fuels are out of the ground, they’re on the move across the country and then around the world. As recent experience has shown, there’s no guarantee of safe transport either by pipeline or train.

By the time the fuels wind up in export terminals, extensive damage to the coastal environment has already been done. Constructing such terminals requires dredging sensitive estuaries to make room for massive tankers, and, of course, facilitates the burning of the fossil fuels being transported. Opposition has blocked some proposed facilities and delayed approval of others, such as an LNG terminal near Astoria, Oregon, for several years (the Energy Department gave it the OKlast year). “Oregon has a number of proposed LNG terminals,” says Solomon, and the TPP could remove roadblocks to their construction.

Fishy Business

Americans love fish. Each year we eat nearly 5 billion pounds of seafood, or about 15.8 pounds of fish and shellfish per person. Most of that—up to 90 percent—is imported, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of course, we aren’t the only ones with a penchant for tilapia and tuna. To meet demand, the global fishing industry is dramatically depleting stocks all over the world, while fish farms pollute waterways.  

The (leaked) environment chapter of the TPP attempts, but ultimately fails, to address overfishing. It has language about prohibiting shark-finning, preventing illegally caught fish from entering international trade, and having regional fisheries managers institute best practices. Sounds good, right? Wait. “The right words are going to be in the chapter,” says Solomon, “but it won’t have any teeth.” That’s because the pact doesn’t requirecountries to abide by these provisions. “The only thing legally binding is ‘must’ or ‘shall,’ ” says Schmidt, “and what we’ve seen is a lot of ‘strive’ and ‘endeavor.’ I’m not sure how you’d penalize a country for not ‘striving’ or ‘endeavoring.’ ”

So the fish we import could still be illegally caught. And what’s more, the United States wouldn’t be able to ban imports of products not up to our safety standards. Shrimp aquaculture in Vietnam and Malaysia, for instance, uses pesticides and antibiotics that are forbidden in the States. “The TPP will bring a tidal wave of dangerous fish imports that will swamp the border inspectors who cannot keep up with the tainted aquaculture imports today,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, in a press release.

Dirty Laundry

China has long been known as the world leader in cheap apparel manufacturing, but Vietnam is now billing itself as the best cheaper option. If the TPP comes to pass, tariffs on clothing between the United States and Vietnam will drop to zero, from 17.2 percent. With its use of excessive amounts of water, energy, and harmful chemicals, the textile industry makes the clothes we wear dirty—even if we never see the pollution. China, which produces more than 50 percent of the world’s fabric, is trying to clean up its act. But green groups are increasingly concerned about clothing made in Vietnam, which already dumps huge amounts of untreated sewage into its waterways. “Vietnam is in the Mekong Delta, in this pristine place,” says Schmidt. “Expanding the apparel industry could seriously draw down water resources and contaminate enormous quantities of water.”

While the TPP, which negotiators hope to finalize by the end of the year, is the most immediate concern, the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade deal between the United States and European Union, is also worrying environmentalists. Supporters of these massive agreements often dismiss concerns that they will diminish environmental standards and other regulations at home. After all, they say, under any of the existing free trade agreements, the United States has never lost a legal case against it.

But that’s no guarantee of future success, says Schmidt. “It’s true the United States has not lost,” he says. “It’s also true that the United States is not immune to loss. Great laws and great lawyers do lose sometimes.”

Alisa Opar is Earthwire's Western correspondent. She is also the articles editor at Audubon magazine, and has written for many publications about science and the environment. Follow her on Twitter @alisaopar.

There’s no denying that it’s easier for people to pedal their way from home to school or work in some places than in others. In the past year, France has paid people to bike to their jobs, and some Swedish towns have given residents free bike coaches who teach them how to safely navigate car-filled streets—all in the hope of reducing lung-choking smog. But those efforts aren’t enough to earn those places the top spot in the 2015 Copenhagenize Index, the most comprehensive inventory and ranking of bike-friendly cities in the world.

According to the index, Copenhagen is the most bike-friendly city on the planet, knocking Amsterdam out of the No. 1 spot. The Danish capital is packed with crosstown bike lanes and bicycle bridges and is “impressively consistent in its investment in cycling as transport and in making efforts to push it to the next level,” wrote the index’s authors.

Indeed, the transformation from car-reliant city to haven of biking that Copenhagen has made over the past 40 years is impressive. Forty-one percent of residents ride their bikes to school or to work, and 55 percent bike every day, according to the Copenhagenize blog.

RELATED: Five Easy Life Hacks to Help the Environment—And Your Own Health

The biannual index was created in 2011 by Copenhagenize Design Company, a European consulting firm, as a tool for internal use on projects. But the company soon realized that the information it was collecting could be used to help various municipalities track bike policy effectiveness, share ideas and learn from one another.

This year the index ranked 122 urban centers around the globe with populations of 600,000 or more according to how they stack up in 13 different categories. Some of the classifications are no-brainers, such as whether a city has the proper bicycle facilities and infrastructure. Places with bike racks in public places, space for people to put their bikes while they’re riding on public transportation, and dedicated bike lanes all garner higher scores.

However, the index also takes into consideration criteria that many people might not think of, such as the gender split of cyclists in a city. If bikers are mostly men, a place earns a lower score.

So, Why Should You Care?

The easier it is for people to get around on bicycles, the more likely they are to ditch their smog-spewing vehicles. With about 7 million people per year worldwide dying from the ill effects of air pollution, according to the World Health Organization, many cities are feeling the pressure to make it easier for residents to abandon their cars. 

Where is it a relative breeze to bike in the United States? New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, are all becoming more amenable to cyclists. But only one U.S. city managed to crack the top 20.

RELATED: Can You Guess Which Is the Most Energy Efficient City in America?

Minneapolis is the most bike-friendly city in the U.S. and is the 18th-most bike-friendly place in the world, according to the index. Key to Minneapolis’ ranking are the hundreds of miles of dedicated bike lanes the city has added in recent years. Its impressive bike-sharing system has also propelled it into the upper echelons of cycling nirvana.

Curious what other cities are seriously hospitable to cyclists? Check out the index’s top 20 below.

Liz Dwyer is a staff writer at TakePart. She has written about race, parenting and social justice for several national publications. She was previously education editor at Good.

Carbon emissions are often considered in the future tense: the G7 aims to reduce future emissions and countries attending the Paris climate summit in December will pledge to make future carbon cuts. Amid all the future talk, the World Resources Institute (WRI) has released new information about the present — an infographic and huge database of the world’s current greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on data from the WRI’s CAIT Climate Data Explorer, the graphic shows emissions data from 2012 by country. As a whole, the world emitted 42,386 megatonnes of greenhouse gases. Here’s how that number breaks down.

The top 10 list of emitters is no surprise. It includes China, the U.S., European Union 28, India, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Iran. Together, they emit twice as much as the other 175 countries in the data, accounting for 72 percent of the globe’s emissions. The top two alone, China and the U.S., account for more than one-third of the world’s emissions.

Six of the top 10 emitters are developing countries. China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and Iran account for 38 percent of the world’s emissions. While the lowest 100 countries emit less than 3 percent of the globe’s greenhouse gases.

The energy sector makes up about 76 percent of the world’s emissions. Of the countries with energy data available, three-quarters of them attribute a majority of their emissions to energy. The projected rise of wind and solar energy in the next 25 years is likely to reduce the impact of the energy sector. Agriculture and industry are the other largest sectors that add to global emissions.

The small South Asian country Brunei has the highest per capita emissions in the world with almost 49 tons per person. Though on the world scale, the country only contributed 0.04 percent of emissions. Of the top 10 emitters, the U.S. remains the highest, with nearly 20 tons per capita in 2012.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

7 Surprising Realities Behind the Transition to Renewable Energy

Mark Ruffalo to Jon Stewart: We Have a 50-State Plan to Power America on 100% Renewable Energy

Climate Change Poses Catastrophic Risks to Public Heath, Says Major New Study

Can GMOs Help Feed a Planet Stressed by Climate Change and Overpopulation?

How Climate Deniers Are Creating the Nightmare They Most Fear

Alison Kanski is a journalist and graduate student at the City Universitty of New York Graduate School of Journalism. Follow her on Twitter @alisonkanski.

In February, President Obama designated Colorado’s Browns Canyon a national monument, granting the pristine stretch of rock-walled whitewater the protected status long demanded by rafters, anglers, and environmentalists. Just a month before, Nevada’s Tule Springs Fossil Beds, a twisted moonscape strewn with Pleistocene-era relics, including mammoth tusks, gained long-sought monument status.

So, Why Should You Care?

These are just two in a long list of wilderness areas urgently in need of the resources that come with national park or monument status in the United States. Most are in the West, which makes sense given that Western and Plains states have the largest swaths of undeveloped land. But wilderness enthusiasts prioritize some places because they’re in densely populated regions of the Northeast and Midwest, where people have fewer unspoiled retreats. Here are seven spectacular natural wonders we’d like to see forever protected.

Green River Lakes and Squaretop Mountain, Wind River Range, Wyoming (credit: G. Thomas/Wikipedia)

Wind River Range, Wyoming

Top on most national park system watchers’ lists is the Wind River Range, home to many of the Northern Rocky Mountains’ tallest peaks — 40 of them top 13,000 feet. Like Glacier National Park to the north, the Wind River Range provides a refuge for grizzlies and the country’s largest remaining herd of bighorn sheep, which roams the Whiskey Mountain area.

RELATED:  The 10 Best & 10 Worst U.S. States to Visit on a Road Trip This Summer

There are dozens of glaciers here too, albeit shrinking, as are glaciers everywhere. Most of these are in the Fitzpatrick Wilderness surrounding Gannett Peak, at 13,804 feet the highest in Wyoming (yes, higher than the Grand Tetons.) The range, which runs roughly 100 miles north to south and includes the headwaters of the Green River, is mostly managed by the U.S. Forest Service, much of it as part of the Wind River Ranger District.

Boundary Waters, Minnesota

Laced by rivers, streams, and more than 1,000 lakes strung along northern Minnesota’s border with Canada, Boundary Waters is a primitive paradise for boaters, fishers, and anyone looking to get about as far away from it all as you can get. Officially designated as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, it encompasses more than a million rugged and densely forested acres in Superior National Forest.

RELATED: Koch-backed Group Calls for End of National Parks

This isn’t an easy area to navigate; it has more than 1,200 miles of canoe and kayak routes, 12 major trails, and 2,000 campsites. Guides and outfitters provide maps and equipment and trip planning, or you can plan your own with the help of the area’s supportive community.

Mesas, buttes, and canyons in the east-central area of the San Rafael Swell, Emery County, Utah. (image: Tom Chidsey/Utah Geological Survey)

San Rafael Swell, Utah

Chances are, you’re familiar with the otherworldly landscape of southern Utah’s San Rafael Swell thanks to the viral fame of Goblin Valley. The region’s surreal rock towers, known as hoodoos, were immortalized on video when vandals (former Boy Scout Leaders, no less) toppled one of the formations, filming themselves gleefully as they did so.

RELATED: Mega-Developer Wants to Build Massive Resort, Mall and Housing Complex at Grand Canyon

Rock art is another draw: Barrier Canyon is home to images that experts believe may date to as early as 7430 B.C. The 80-by-30-mile San Rafael Swell is also beloved by geologists for its exposed stripes of 60-million-year-old strata, many with names you might recognize from a trip to the Grand Canyon, such as the Moenkopi and Chinle Formations, Coconino Sandstone, Kaibab Limestone, Kayenta, and Navajo Sandstones.

The Sawtooth Range is part of the Rocky Mountains, encompassing an area of 678 square miles. (image: U.S. Forest Service)

Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho

You might be forgiven for thinking the Sawtooth Mountains were already a national park, thanks to Idaho Sen. Frank Church’s public campaign in the 1960s to permanently protect the range. Protection didn’t happen, though, and while the flamboyantly beautiful 756,000-acre tract has come up for consideration many times since, it remains a recreation area. What’s the difference? There are many, but a big one is that hunting, while allowed in many recreation areas, is prohibited in national parks. The Sawtooth Society campaigns actively for stronger preservation and particularly for the designation of Boulder White Clouds as a protected wilderness area.

Backpackers, climbers, mountain bikers, and fly fishers love the Sawtooth Mountains for their sheer emptiness. The area’s 300 lakes are a big draw, as are the many 10,000-foot-plus peaks, and rafters prize the Wild and Scenic Salmon River. In winter, the area is a favorite with backcountry skiers and skate skiers. The region is also a hotbed of wolf conservation efforts.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway State Park is completely surrounded by the North Maine Woods (image: National Park Service)

North Woods, Maine

Backpackers, climbers, mountain bikers, and fly fishers love the Sawtooth Mountains for their sheer emptiness. The area’s 300 lakes are a big draw, as are the many 10,000-foot-plus peaks, and rafters prize the Wild and Scenic Salmon River. In winter, the area is a favorite with backcountry skiers and skate skiers. The region is also a hotbed of wolf conservation efforts.

RELATED: There Are Only Three Wolves Left at Michigan's Isle Royale National Park

This is another area prominent on many park watchers’ radar, thanks largely to its location in New England, an area lacking in protected wilderness. Park advocates have not one but two websites, which note the area’s key role in habitat protection for the endangered Eastern timber wolf and Canada lynx, as well as moose, Atlantic salmon, and many songbirds.  

Long a favorite of canoeists, kayakers, and fall color road-trippers, the 3.2 million-acre proposed park encompasses hardwood forests threatened by logging and development.

Sandhills in Hooker County, seen from Nebraska Highway 97 south of the Dismal River (image: Ammodramus, Wikipedia)

Sandhills, Nebraska

The Nebraska Sandhills cover more than a quarter of the state, making such a vast region difficult to protect. But given the Sandhills’ ecological importance as one of the only areas of the Western prairie that remains almost entirely in its natural state, many feel it deserves protection. The World Wildlife Fund designated the area, which is 85 percent intact, as a unique eco-region owing to its biodiversity.

RELATED: The Unseen Extinction Wiping Out the World's Wildlife

In 1984 the Sandhills were designated a National Natural Landmark, but wilderness enthusiasts argue this status confers little in terms of visitor access. For instance, many national landmarks have no public access at all. Organizations such as the Nature Conservancy have taken steps to protect parts of the Sandhills. The Niobrara Valley Preserve is one of the Nature Conservancy’s largest protected areas and in turn shelters one of the West’s biggest herds of bison. But that’s only the beginning: Red foxes, coyotes, badgers, mule deer, and white-tailed deer make their home in the Sandhills. To date, biologists have counted 213 bird species, 25 fish species, 17 reptile species, and 70 butterfly species in the preserve.

The grass valleys of the caldera appear groomed due to heavy browsing by elk and cattle, as well as frequent grass fires of human and natural origin. Through the Valles Caldera National Preserve limited grazing program the grasslands feed hundreds of cattle in the summer and thousands more of elk during most of the year. (image: Larry Lamsa/Flickr CC)

Valles Caldera, New Mexico

Northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera has long been one of environmentalists’ prime candidates for national park status because of its unique ecosystem, which is centered on one of North America’s few super volcanoes (now extinct). In January, the National Park Service began to assume management of the Valles Caldera preserve. This is fairly fast progress considering that the land was in private hands as a working cattle ranch 15 years ago, when the government purchased the land.

The effort to open Valles Caldera as a park is not without major controversy, however. The nearby Jemez Pueblo claims the land as part of its homeland. Last week an appeals court ruled that the pueblo’s case has merit and that the district court must decide whether the 1860 land grant that took the land from the pueblo takes precedence over the tribe’s rights to it.

Located in the Jemez Mountains, Valles Caldera is beloved by hikers and by viewers of golden eagles and the enormous herd of elk that roams the grasslands.

TAKE ACTION: Tell the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to Protect the Grand Canyon from Uranium Mining

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

5 Easy Actions You Can Take to Help Animals on Endangered Species Day

Wild Buffalo Roam East of the Mississippi for First Time Since 1830s

Nation’s Strongest Fracking Ban Bill Introduced to Protect Public Lands

Melanie Haiken is a San Francisco Bay Area–based health, science, and travel writer who contributes regularly to Forbes.com and numerous national magazines.

Over the weekend, thousands of activists mobilized across Canada to engage in a number of direct actions calling for climate justice, jobs and an end to tar sands mining.

The environmental group 350.org, which supported the nationwide mobilizations, said that the coast-to-coast actions demonstrate that citizens "care about their communities, and that we are ready to stop digging, start building and move beyond the tar sands."

On Friday, students led sit-ins across the country. On Saturday, "We > Tar Sands" rallies we mounted. And on Sunday, activists participated in the March for Jobs, Justice and the Climate in Toronto.

RELATED: North American Scientists Call for End to Tar Sands Mining

The #JobsJusticeClimate actions included the formation of a giant human chain on the sea wall at Vancouver's Sunset Beach, a flotilla of boats — including a solar-powered catamaran — touring the Salish Sea in British Columbia, as well as musical performances, poetry readings and speakers discussing jobs, unions and front line resistance to support climate action.

On Sunday, actress and activist Jane Fonda, environmentalist and scientist David Suzuki and author and social activist Naomi Klein joined Labour groups, First Nations leaders and hundreds of people outside Ontario's legislative buildings for a rally and march calling for a green economy and climate action.

March for #JobsJusticeClimate calls for a clean-energy revolution http://t.co/BZD2ZrC2Wt @torontostar #ActOnClimate pic.twitter.com/oSmcZSLX7l

— Michael Hale (@Sunfolk) July 6, 2015

"This is the kind of coalition that will make the difference," Fonda told the crowd. "They are saying we don't have to choose between the environment and the economy. That's a false choice. In fact, renewable energy — doing away with the fossil fuel-based economy — will create more jobs, more democracy and more justice."

RELATED: Could Frustrated Tar Sands Industry Start Shipping Oil Through Arctic?

The actions came ahead of two major international summits this week. From July 7-9, 300 regional government and business leaders from across the hemisphere — including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, California Governor Jerry Brown and the former President of Mexico Felipe Calderón — will convene in Toronto for the Climate Summit of the Americas. The summit will "work towards commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and highlight opportunities for investing in a global low carbon economy."

And from July 8-10, Toronto will also host the Pan American Economic Summit, which will bring together executives from Shell, the Rockefeller Foundation, Canada’s Finance Minister, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez and U.S., Canadian and European Chambers of Commerce to discuss the connection between climate action and low-carbon economies.

What you’re seeing are the first steps towards a new kind of climate movement. It’s a climate movement that recognizes that time is too short to allow our divisions to keep us from building the kind of coalitions that will safeguard life on earth. Canadians are clearly getting tired of the fossil-fuel roller coaster. Tired of being told we have to sacrifice our environmental protections and our international standing when times for industry are good. Of seeing our budgets for social programs slashed and livelihoods destroyed when times for industry are bad. It turns out we sacrifice on the upside and we sacrifice on the downside."

RELATED: Naomi Klein: We Can Save Ourselves, but Only If We Learn to Work With Nature

Actions calling for jobs, justice and climate action are sweeping across Canada. (Image: 350.org)

The #JobsJusticeClimate actions also helped to drive momentum leading up to COP21, the U.N. climate talks happening in Paris in December.

In an opinion piece published in the Toronto Star on Friday, Suzuki wrote:

"[T]he government and much of the mainstream media appear to be hell-bent on promoting (and subsidizing) rapid oilsands expansion and pipeline development with little concern for the consequences of pollution and global warming, and with little attention to the tremendous opportunities for healthy communities and a healthy economy from clean technology and renewable energy and efficiency. It’s absurd and extremely short-sighted that a country like Canada, with its energy resources and vulnerability to climate change, doesn’t even have a national energy strategy. The current and relatively recent fossil-fuel-based global economic system once offered tremendous benefits for human societies, but it emerged during a time when resources were abundant and we didn’t fully understand the consequences of our actions — from exploding population growth to resource depletion to social inequity to pollution and global warming.

There could have been a deal with Iran today – to the benefit of everybody – if the nuclear issue had been approached in a fair, principled and visionary manner from Day One.

If there will be no deal later, one of the most important possible agreements in contemporary international history will have been lost, the risk of war will increase and the Iranians will suffer. And the United States and the EU (here France and Germany) will move further down in terms of relative global power and up in terms of self-isolation.

On the day of no deal, perhaps the Five Ps + Germany should spend a moment on self-reflection: What could we have done differently?

To the trained conflict- and peace-making eye, 99% of the Western commentators have failed to point out the benefits of a deal and, instead, devoted their creativity to find all kinds of possible negative aspects, details and – of course – on how the West should demand even more. They’ve suggested “red lines” at absurdum.

The fundamental a-symmetry of this whole conflict eludes them – or is conveniently left unmentioned.

At the table sit the five largest nuclear weapons powers which have, de facto and de jure, for decades completely and systematically ignored the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT, and have repeatedly broken international law and conducted wars. They would never allow the type of inspections on their own territory that they demand of Iran. The U.S. issues threats – and plan a war – Iran has never threatened the U.S. And so on and so forth.

Absent from every nuclear discussion is Israel and other nuclear-armed countries which, in contrast to Iran, are not members of the NPT and have a record of warfare and occupation.

Imagine a world in which we had seen negotiations, for real, about reducing the possession of nuclear weapons as a quid pro quo of proliferation – exactly as stated in the NPT.

Imagine that we had required Iran to abstain from getting nuclear weapons as a quid pro quo of a promise by the nuclear “haves” that they would reduce their arsenals. Indeed, imagine that the United States which is Second to None in putting up demands on everybody “or else … and all options remain on the table” had promised the world that it would do something too to further the accepted and UN-based goal of general and complete nuclear disarmament. Imagine the recent NPT Review conference had resulted in something decent in a world order perspective. Indeed, imagine some kind of mutuality, fairness, and equivalence in the whole approach.

The approach was wrong from Day One. It was built on military and structural power, not on intellectual power.

What stands between the parties is a philosophical impossibility: to have one side prove empirically and 100% what it has not done in reply to the demanding side’s accusations. Fact is that there is no way Iran can ever do something without being accused of cheating – thus the ever increasing demands of intrusive, national security-violating demands for all kinds of inspections and knocking doors (which in the case of Iraq was misused to also let foreign agents into the teams).

And what if the West had practised the simple legal norm that no one shall be punished before proven guilty – never applied in the case of Iran.

Secondly, without trust there will never be any productive and sustainable agreement. Here Iran has much more reason to distrust the West, the U.S. in particular – while what you have heard has only been a long list of reasons why Iran cannot be trusted. Here are 19 substantial reasons.

We can completely forget about fair and accurate reporting to the Western public who has been filled with exclusively negative images of everything Iran. As everyone who has been a tourist for a week or two in Iran knows, this standardized image has little, if anything, to do with the real Iran, its civilisation and its welcoming, open-minded, well-educated citizens who – strangely you may say – seem to want nothing more but better relations with the West. And they want this deal.

“Strangely” because the United States has done little but harm to Iran and its people since the coup orchestrated by CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 – followed by the Shah, puppet of the West with the most militarist policies at the time and introducing nuclear power and contemplating nuclear weapons. But he was OK because he was “our son of a bitch.”

Had the parties set up a truth and reconciliation dialogue process first and then negotiated the nuclear issues, everything would have been easier. Fundamentally, the parties don’t trust each other and each parties have deep conflicts between hardliners and realists seeking mutual benefits.

There is also yet no deal because of a nasty game among the Five Permanent Members + Germany. Look at the media pictures and comments: Most of the time, you have seen only the Iranian negotiators and those of the U.S. Why? Well, France behaves destructively against a deal as the representative of Israel. China and Russia keep a low profile because they don’t mind if the whole process leads to a failure and no deal; they have their understandable and clear interests in opening up anyhow to Iran and seeing the U.S. cash in another diplomatic defeat. Britain trails the U.S. and Germany has its difficult balancing act – e.g. exporting submarines to Israel and wanting trade on the huge Iranian market. So – all would say: Drop the sanctions! – if it wasn’t for the United States that has also lost billions of dollars on the foolish sanctions but believes it’s worth it because of its irrational hatred of everything Iran.

Only sticks have been employed on Iran: killing of its scientists, still un-documented accusations of cheating, constant threats of being bombed if… And sanctions. The main reason of the death of about one million Iraqis over 13 years were the sanctions and they are now in place in Iran. They hit the innocent Iranians and help only the Iranian black economy and hardliners, that is, they are totally counterproductive if you want a mutually beneficial relationship with a future Iran.

Imagine instead that we had used carrots: If you abstain from acquiring nuclear weapons, we’ll help you with your technical-economic reforms, deliver anti-pollution technology to clean up your heavily polluted cities, give you solar and other energy and open up our universities and for all kinds of co-operation, including cultural exchanges. What if?

But we chose to bully, threaten and make unreasonable demands specifically constructed for Iran, not for any other country in the world.

If as a consequence there is no deal, there will be even more problems in the Middle East, including most likely bombing of Iran with very special weapons. The Iranian people may face unspeakable suffering unless – and that is what we must hope – the world just simply ignore these utterly counterproductive sanctions. Everyone will be worse off in terms of economic growth, not to speak of peace. And one more important country will turn away from the West.

But if there is a deal, a new chapter opens in the Middle East because Iran can be seen as the most important country in the region and, potentially, as a positive factor in the future world – including becoming the second “I” in BRIICS. Iran and all the West would gain. And if there is a signed document, there is a basis for punishing Iran in the unlikely event that it would try to go nuclear whereas punishing Iran by bombing it without a deal will make Israel and/or the United States stand out as (more) rogue states in the world’s eyes.

On this day, finally, we should recognise what nobody want to say aloud: What a diplomatic victory for Iran to be alone against the 6 most powerful countries in the world, hundreds of times more militarised than itself – unfriendly threatening, making only accusations and demanding the impossible (100% verified safety that no activity could ever be seen as leading to nuclear weapons) – and negotiating these many years without delivering the desired surrender, without losing its sovereignty, pride and diplomatic dynamic. Indeed, time speaks for Iran, not for its six opponents at the table.

Fact is that Iran’s post-Ahmedinejad political change is remarkable and that it is blessed with having a foreign minister who is in a class of his own and whom these six probably deep down admire and envy that they don’t have. Javad Zarif with his team has – whether there is a deal in the future or not – already inscribed himself in the contemporary history of diplomacy and peace-making.

So, on the day when no deal is signed, isn’t it time for a little intellectual self-reflection: What could the Five P’s + Germany have done differently?

Today, the Iranian side has very good reasons to say with Eric Clapton : “Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.”