[MCN] Britain's Labour Party moves to declare climate emergency, thanks to Extinction Rebellion street protests

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpt: Labour <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour> will this week force a vote in parliament to declare a national environmental and climate change emergency as confidential documents show the government has spent only a fraction of a £100m fund allocated in 2015 to support clean air projects.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party will demand on Wednesday that the country wakes up to the threat and acts with urgency to avoid more than 1.5°C of warming, which will require global emissions to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching “net zero” before 2050.

The move will place Conservative MPs under pressure to back the plan, or explain why they refuse to do so, now fears over the combined problems of air pollution and climate change <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/extinction-rebellion> have risen to the top of the political agenda.

On Saturday night Corbyn said the recent wave of protests were “a massive and necessary wake-up call” that demanded “rapid and dramatic action, which only concerted government action and a green industrial revolution can deliver.” He said that if parliament backed the move and became the first national legislature to declare a climate emergency it would “trigger a wave of action from governments around the world”.


The motion was welcomed by Greta Thunberg <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/greta-thunberg>, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who has criticised the inaction of the world’s politicians. “It is a great first step because it sends a clear signal that we are in a crisis and that the ongoing climate and ecological crises must be our first priority,” she said. “We can not solve an emergency without treating it like an emergency. I hope the other UK political parties join in and together pass this motion in parliament – and that political parties in other countries will follow their example.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/27/corbyn-declares-national-climate-emergency <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/27/corbyn-declares-national-climate-emergency>



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“The gap between high- and low-income families has widened steadily since about 1980, hitting a new high every year since 1985. “

Business Week, November 21, 1994, p. 72.

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“With apologies to Clinton ’92, it’s the corruption, stupid. And that’s not “corruption” in the narrow sense so often used in the media—basically, exchanging wads of cash in a dark alley. It’s about the bigger picture: a system that is consistently manipulated by those with money and power for their own gain.”

“ ‘Corruption by government officials’ is the one concern that unites voters across the political spectrum, with polls showing it as one of Americans’ top fears. When the Kaiser Family Foundation added ‘corruption’ to the list of topics respondents could peg as their biggest concern, it immediately shot ahead of health care and the economy. A pre-midterm poll by the progressive Center for American Progress found that 54 percent of voters in 48 Republican-held (!) districts said Republicans were more corrupt than Democrats. And a 2017 survey showed that the White House is considered the most corrupt institution in government.”

Corruption Isn’t Just Another Scandal. It’s the Rot Beneath All of Them.
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2019/04/mother-jones-corruption-project/

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“In a corrupt environment, resources will be directed toward such non-productive areas as the police, armed forces and other organs of social control and repression as the elites move to protect themselves, their positions and their material wealth. Laws will be enacted to and resources otherwise available for socio-economic development will be diverted into security expenditure."

John McFarlane. Transnational Crime, Corruption and Crony Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century. Transnational Organized Crime. Vol. 4 No. 2, Summer 1998

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“ … the main dangers to the success of capitalism are the very people who would consider themselves its most ardent advocates : the bosses of companies, the owners of companies, and the politicians who tirelessly insist that they are 'pro-business'.”

"Many of the corporate scandals that America, especially, has endured in recent years reflect outright criminality. A lawful order knows what to do with criminals, and pro-business politicians are in truth militantly anti-capitalist if they flinch from cracking down on bosses' crimes."

“… widespread and quite outrageous abuse, by capitalists, of capitalism … The danger exists everywhere in the world, but it matters most in the United States.”

The Economist, Special 160th Anniversary Issue, A Survey of Capitalism and Democracy, June 26-July 4, 2003

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“Politicians strain to outdo each other with promises to 'get tough' on crime and to bring law and order back to the streets….There is no question that common street crime is an important social concern. But its image has become so bloated in the mirror of public opinion that it blocks our view of the white collar crimes which are both more costly and more dangerous to society."

James Coleman. The Criminal Elite. 1985. St. Martin's Press

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