Great show. Lots to think and act upon. The journey of spiritual purification before taking on this revolution really struck me. The dark night of the human soul, calls for it. We are in despair and grieving and it’s from this place that a spiritual doorway opens.
How do we want to live as human beings? Who do we want to be? What does it mean to be alive? Are we meant for what we are existing in?
The climate catastrophe will insist that we earnestly address these questions. We had the chance a decade or two ago to handle this turning with some grace, but what is left is that we will be dragged to it kicking and screaming. This is also often the nature of life. We learn the deepest things through suffering. That’s been true in my life. Suffering brings you to your knees, to the Creator’s level. The humility of loss and grief and despair, to your knees where the voice of the divine can be heard; there the heart is open and the mind is broken and the way made clear. Mankind is going, we are going to have to come to terms with this reality. That we are all going to die and that these systems we find ourselves in are not only unsustainable but also wildly dehumanizing and wildly out of relationship to the living beings and living systems around us, and our brothers and sisters we are here with.
I got to know Larry Kramer well. We worked on a project together. He taught me so much. Yes, he was enraged and yes he screamed “we must act up or we will die!” , but what drove all that and what wasn’t mentioned by Roger was that anger, and that strength came from his deep love of people, of his sexuality and the meaning of being alive. He was made free by his dejection, and alienation as a gay man in the 50s and 60’s. His suffering purified and brought him to the essential part of being a human being. Love.
It seems that is the God we are craving. That is the way. That is the purifying journey and that is what will carry us through the darkest and most brutal times. That’ ts what I know of Larry Kramer and what I know of Dr King. The love of creation and the fellow beings we share this planet with. Love is fierce and strong and clear headed, it is eternal and selfless and sacrificial. We only have to look at the way a mother is with her babies to know and understand where we should be turning and how we should be acting towards the impending peril that is already upon us.
This talk was very, very nourishing. Thank you to you both for having it. Thank you Roger. I look forward to reading your book.
I don’t know how anyone with a passing acquaintance with the natural world could deny climate change. Right now there’s a heat dome in much of the U.S., with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees and smoke from Canadian wildfires making it hazardous to be outside. But it’s been noticeable on a physical level for a long time. We used to have four seasons where I live. Now it’s not unusual to experience all four of those seasons within a single week. And people have been dying from air pollution for decades. Of course it’s worse elsewhere in the world and climate induced migrations have already been happening.
I disagree with the professor Roger quoted as saying that the world will begin to notice when white people start dying. Only a privileged white person would say such a thing. White people have been dying for centuries (think, for example, of the predominantly white labor movement in the U.S., which of course was mostly white because persons of color were excluded). Many were killed, and they weren’t mourned for long, even by those whose lives they benefited. Does that professor honestly think that the Trumps or the Clintons or the Blairs or the Macrons or the Musks or the rest of the economic elites really care about the wellbeing of most white people? The attention might come instead when members of the upper middle class start to die en masse.
I agree with most of what Roger said and am in awe of his commitment and his courage. However, I don’t really understand the “religiosity” aspect, though I expect he’s talking about the non institutional kind. Could he substitute the word spirituality? (I think he would have said that if that’s what he meant). Maybe he gets into that discussion more in his book.
Thank you for setting the record straight with respect to at least some of the unions. I didn’t know that about the Wobblies, for example. The UMW was also officially integrated from its inception in the late 1890’s. I read a number of books on the labor movement in the U.S., but admittedly, that was years ago. I do remember, however, that the U.S. has the most violent labor history of any industrial country in the world. (I just refreshed my memory about that. See, e.g., a 1969 study by Phillip Taft and Phillip Ross, “American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character and Outcome”). I was thinking more about violence in the movement in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, for example, the Haymarket Riot and the killing of union members in Northern Idaho and Colorado mining camps. You no doubt know about the 1914 “Ludlow Massacre” in Colorado, in which Rockefeller’s strikebreakers killed men, women and children when they fired machine guns into a miners’ tent encampment. (The victims were all white). Although the massacre led to some reforms, there was still a lot of hostility towards labor organizers in the general public, as they were viewed as immigrants, agitators and socialists. See e.g., https://teamster.org/2021/02/civil-rights-and-the-labor-movement-a-historical-overview/ and https://his.harvard.edu/today/organized-labors-complicated-history-with-civil-rights/ for discussions of the exclusion of Black workers from predominantly white unions.
The main point I was trying to make in my prior post, though, is that I don’t accept the premise that there is some kind of racial solidarity among whites in the U.S. There isn’t. I remember reading the results of a poll a few years back in which younger respondents showed much more sympathy towards racial and ethnic minorities than they did toward poor people generally. The Democratic Party, as just one example, has been successful in dividing people along racial, ethnic, gender and age lines so they don’t align along class lines.
I'm an old labor leftist trained in the late '60s by people who'd been CIO union organizers in the 1930s. To set the record straight, the CIO industrial unions as well as the old Farmer-Labor Populist Party did include BIPOC. So did the Wobblies (I.W.W.) like my logger grandfather. Neolib Dems dumped the New Deal and abandoned the majority working class in favor of corporate economics.
The PMC D loyalists, nice liberals, explain away the last election as voters are stupid. But how smart is it never to notice the Rust Belt and Appalachia have been suffering for decades? Consider the well-documented deaths of despair. IMO the "white dying" is right, but needs some explanation. It has to be so many that the upper middle class Ds can't ignore it anymore. A combo of econ failures due to AI mass unemployment and no more easy to find natural resources plus increasing ecological breakdowns.
Since the consensus of mainstream economists is climate change will be mild, it would be too disruptive to productivity and too expensive to change anything. The econ system MUST keep growing! Therefore nothing really effective will be done because elected officials listen to them. Then what will the desperate masses do? Listen to and follow the nice lib Ds who ignored and denigrated them?!
Chris, one of the reasons I became a paying subscriber was because of the price you paid for refusing to compromise your journalism. Your departure from The New York Times after the Iraq War coverage wasn't merely an act of integrity—it became a compass for many of us trying to distinguish independent voices from institutional ones.
Years later, your interview with Russell Mokhiber on Chesapeake Energy's covert influence over the Sierra Club became another such moment. It taught me that the most dangerous forms of power often work indirectly, quietly shaping even the institutions that claim to resist them. It changed how I look at activism itself.
Which is why I found myself puzzled while listening to this conversation. Roger Hallam's personal courage and sacrifice are unquestionable. Yet Extinction Rebellion's early financial backing through the Getty-funded Climate Emergency Fund has been publicly documented and has itself generated serious debate. I kept waiting for the question I thought your own journalistic standards had taught me to expect.
Perhaps there is a principled distinction that I'm missing. If so, I'd genuinely like to understand it. What differentiates investigating the financial architecture behind organizations like the Sierra Club from investigating the funding architecture behind movements that present themselves as radical alternatives?
I'm asking because your work taught many of us that credibility is not inherited by good intentions. It is earned by applying the same standard of scrutiny to allies as to opponents. If we don't do that, how do ordinary citizens learn which voices remain genuinely independent?
Such deep gratitude to both you and Roger Hallam for this compassionate and passionate vision of the true revolutionary actions needed grounded in such a deeply moral and religious understanding of what it means to become fully human.
To know what's driving this means understanding the dominant econ system. Not based on empirical evidence, merely a deep hatred of the New Deal and Keynesian economics, founded by Milton Friedman as the Chicago School of Economics. Friedman supported Pinochet because "democracy interferes with Market efficiency." Devastation of human communities and destruction of ecosystems are dismissed as externalities. They don't count. What does is corporate profit and a need for continuous growth. Furthermore, the only true human motivation is the utility function--individual personal gain. Empathy, solidarity, the common good are meaningless.
Read what these dogmatists push on climate change. They ignore energy use. They assert change over space is the same as change over time (you good at math or physics should be astounded.) They claim average temp difference between a AK city and an MD one, where people have similar incomes, means if AK heats up, no biggie. Part of confusing climate and weather. An actual climate scientist, Daniel Swain, read that and wrote back "a global climate 10 degrees warmer than present is not remotely the same as taking current climate and adding 10 degrees everywhere." Alt. economist Steve Keen points out William Nordhaus, a Nobel prize winning economist, is using current temp data and GDP stats and extending that into the future, showing only a weak correlation. An economist at the conservative Foundation for Econ Education says aggressive responses "would cause far more damage to humans in the form of reduced economic output; it would be better for governments to 'do nothing' at all." Keen rightly says "delusional nonsense."
The 1/10th of 1%ers aren't beguiled by this. Doing nothing is fine with them. They're planning to escape on private islands and megayachts. The rest of the corporate establishment and their political wings are getting us ready for breakdown by demonizing immigrants and enuring us to events like in Gaza. When ecosystems finally fail and the brown hordes from the Global South head north, we'll be told that if we want to live, they have to die.
I think both Roger and Chris are right. We need some kind of spiritual purification and to shift our focus and efforts to grassroot organizing as well as on consumerist lifestyle modifications if we are going to effectively resist climate collapse and work towards a better way of living , learning and dying on this Earth. In addition and as important we need to resist the emphases of liberal “ environmentalists “ and others that try to drag us into election spaces and cycles .
On June 23, 1988 James Hanson, climatologist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Earth and Space Studies testified before the Senate on global warming and the role of CO2 emissions in that observed warming.
It was time for a counterweight . On August 1, Rush Limbaugh went national. You couldn't miss him. A frequent topic of his was global warming. He had an enormous amount of leverage on the working class's perception of atmospheric scientists. They weren't to be trusted, they're communists, socialists, enviro wackos, that simply want to tax and rob us of our freedom.
Me..I went to the library and read everything I could find on the atmosphere, weather and climate. Book stores and the early days of Amazon when books were the primary attraction became a new hobby of mine. I discovered the late Steven Schneider who was known for his willingness to communicate atmospheric science to the general public. And he was quite skilled and qualified in his pursuits.
On one of the Sunday morning talk shows they hosted a panel with each side represented. The Cato Institute was championed by Patrick Michael however I don't recall who the scientist was. Maybe Ben Santer?
They each presented their case and when it was over the moderator said, " well I guess the debate is unresolved ", thank you gentlemen for your time.
It was propaganda vs. peer reviewed science. Not exactly a debate but rather a typical media response. The so-called balanced and objective approach.
Several years later "climate change"became a more common term as global warming somewhat faded from the narrative.
This shift in language was attacked by the denialist community which was revealing in of itself. The claim was they can't make up their mind. First it's warming then it's change. In reality it's not either/or it's an evolution over time. Warming is followed by climate change.
The advantage of reading became clear in that I now understood the issue as opposed to be left with simply "believing" one way or another. It's not a personality contest but unfortunately that's how it's sold to us. Here the liberal class rolls out the carpet for the denialist and are content to hold up signs saying "Save the Earth".
Economic growth and its twin neoliberalism, is the underside of the majority of environmental groups. That is a fatal mistake.
That mistrust of science has grown and presently the Trump Administration is all the evidence one needs to understand that earth sciences have been demonized and rendered moot in matters of policy.
Neoliberalism has won for the time being but eventually natural law will be impossible to escape.
Having been raised on a farm, I witnessed climate changes up-close and personal on a micro basis. Several years later I realized it had a name: climate change.
Urban progressives are missing possible coalition allies by not seeking out small farmers, hunters, fishermen, and other rural people. They can see it; especially seniors who've seen the changes over decades. We won't agree on everything, but so what?
Hallam is full of himself and his sneering and contemptuous critique of the left is nonsense. 'Left liberal' podcasts are claiming that climate change is complicated? Where is he finding these podcasts?? Young people need to organize in communities? No shit, Sherlock! Thanks for sharing that rare insight!
Rarely have I found one of Chris's guests so thoroughly annoying. Hallam can stick his quantum physics up his pretentious, spiritual ass.
Chris Hedges has not had a single word to say about SECTION 219 of the NDAA ...
He did the same to us during the lockdowns ... he refused to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports ... and exactly 30 days after the DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release proved the jab was NOT safe and effective and was also killing people, Hedges said "I don't think we can end the pandemic and the mutations until EVERYONE get vaccinated" (JAN 1, 2022, KK&F podcast, Ep #54, 01-08-46 mark) ... but on MAY 6, 2022, he returned to the side of virtue by shamelessly reminding us that "the constitution remains a sacred document" ...
Stop praising this man, he does not give a hoot about us ...
Not YOU again. If you and your griping about what Chris is or isn't = start your own Substack page and write books or editorial pieces and invite guests that stand with you or STFU already - you are a pain in the proverbial ass. You are entitled to not like Chris, but you are out of place here and NOT welcomed. Basta !
I've gone after him in detail. Including actually reading what he uses as sources. Many are the same poorly substantiated short post repeated at different blogs or New Age and ultra conservative 'health' sites. Even the alleged "scientific" ones don't have proper citations and the very few that look like they do, if chased down, turn out to be the work of very dubious people. I explained this; he didn't understand or didn't want to. He clearly either doesn't know how to vet sources, or uses mounds of garbage to justify his personal crusade against Chris.
He also doesn't understand logical fallacies, like ad hominem, straw man, red herring, etc--I pointed that out to him as well. One of which is why, if Chris is wrong about COVID shots, (he isn't) would that mean he's wrong about everything else? He seems to think he has a new persuasive tactic here; it's simply a false equivalency. SMH
Thanks for your reply Rafi, and for dealing with this guy respectfully, initially hearing him out. I usually don't bother with his type of belligerence - he barges into the comment section and changes the topic - then proceeds, yet again, to tell us how bad Chris is . . . I consider that to be rude behavior and out of line. I had just listened to the 48 min. exchange/interview, and reading DC's comment just rubbed me wrong, so I reacted. There are more than a few commenters here that are worth my time and that's why I am here. Be well.
I did so in detail twice. He never rebutted anything I raised. Now he's back with the same flimsy rants and is baiting us to get involved in yet again another pointless exchange. If it were in good faith, I might. But it's not. It takes enough of my time to read everything here and elsewhere and way more to write since I'm a terrible typist and a stickler for precise phrasing. So yeah, not worth our time. BTW, I might admit to being as he charged, a "pseudo-intellectual" since I was blue collar for 28 years and am mostly an autodidact. However, since I also am a stickler for confirming what I write, really not so "pseudo."
My comments are always of the highest quality because they are based on cold, hard unvarnished thruth ... Hedges has been a hypocrite since the lockdowns and I can prove it - all ya gotta do is ask and I'll post the links here again ...
You're incapable of engaging me on the topic of Hedges' lack of integrity since the lock downs ... I have all of his comments and links to substatiate my claims ... Hedges is a retired activist and he has no intention of telling you ... Hedges could not make a patch on Medea Benjamin's backside, and you know it!
Ha! ... Hey John, you and Rafi really made me chuckle ...
Do you feel better now that Rafi came to the rescue?
Maybe you two can get together for a cup of coffee to discuss esoteric concepts like Rafi"s "logical fallacies" and "false equivalency" ... you two are made for each other ... more to point, there is nothing belligerent about my commentary ... I simply quote Hedges to prove his dupilicty and then substantiate my claims with links to his exact verbatim comments. So how does that constitute belligerence? ... you're just pissed at me for calling out your sacred cow.
Hey Rafi, may I suggest you write a book titled "The Logical Fallacies of False Equivalency" ... destined to be a can't miss best seller ... so have at it! ...
Do you know a thing about SECTION 219 in the 2027 NDAA?
And the truly damning quotes by Hedges are proven by links to the following:
- Useful Idiots Interview with Katie Halper, 9/21/2021
- Jimmy Dore Interview, 8/27/2021
- Krystal, Kyle & Friends Podcast, 01/01/2022
And your improper vetting claim is laughable - "Logical fallacies"? ... Ha!
Hedges really did say these appallingly insensitive and brazenly self-centered things, as I have receipts ... and Rafi, would you like me to post those links here again?
Your argument is hollow, as I am enititled to exercise my first amendmet rights anywhere I choose ... I am doing what the pro-Palestinian supporters did when they organized protests on college campuses across the U.S. in 2024, as they demanded that universities divest in Israel ... and I am calling Hedges out on his own turf for betraying his many direct and implicit promises to fight the good fight with us when the time came ... he could have quietly abstained from commenting on the illegal, unconstitutional mandates and passports, he could have recognized the dire implications of the DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release ... but he brazenly chose to roll-over for big pharma at the direct expense of our best health interests ... and as no surprise to me, he has refused to stand with us against the terrifying implications of SECTION 219 in the 2027 NDAA ...
I have three questions for you:
1) Do you have any idea what the implications are of SECTION 219?
2) In what ways am I out of line to protest Hedges betrayal here on his Substack?
3) Would you like me to post links here to substantiate my claims against Hedges?
Great show. Lots to think and act upon. The journey of spiritual purification before taking on this revolution really struck me. The dark night of the human soul, calls for it. We are in despair and grieving and it’s from this place that a spiritual doorway opens.
How do we want to live as human beings? Who do we want to be? What does it mean to be alive? Are we meant for what we are existing in?
The climate catastrophe will insist that we earnestly address these questions. We had the chance a decade or two ago to handle this turning with some grace, but what is left is that we will be dragged to it kicking and screaming. This is also often the nature of life. We learn the deepest things through suffering. That’s been true in my life. Suffering brings you to your knees, to the Creator’s level. The humility of loss and grief and despair, to your knees where the voice of the divine can be heard; there the heart is open and the mind is broken and the way made clear. Mankind is going, we are going to have to come to terms with this reality. That we are all going to die and that these systems we find ourselves in are not only unsustainable but also wildly dehumanizing and wildly out of relationship to the living beings and living systems around us, and our brothers and sisters we are here with.
I got to know Larry Kramer well. We worked on a project together. He taught me so much. Yes, he was enraged and yes he screamed “we must act up or we will die!” , but what drove all that and what wasn’t mentioned by Roger was that anger, and that strength came from his deep love of people, of his sexuality and the meaning of being alive. He was made free by his dejection, and alienation as a gay man in the 50s and 60’s. His suffering purified and brought him to the essential part of being a human being. Love.
It seems that is the God we are craving. That is the way. That is the purifying journey and that is what will carry us through the darkest and most brutal times. That’ ts what I know of Larry Kramer and what I know of Dr King. The love of creation and the fellow beings we share this planet with. Love is fierce and strong and clear headed, it is eternal and selfless and sacrificial. We only have to look at the way a mother is with her babies to know and understand where we should be turning and how we should be acting towards the impending peril that is already upon us.
This talk was very, very nourishing. Thank you to you both for having it. Thank you Roger. I look forward to reading your book.
I don’t know how anyone with a passing acquaintance with the natural world could deny climate change. Right now there’s a heat dome in much of the U.S., with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees and smoke from Canadian wildfires making it hazardous to be outside. But it’s been noticeable on a physical level for a long time. We used to have four seasons where I live. Now it’s not unusual to experience all four of those seasons within a single week. And people have been dying from air pollution for decades. Of course it’s worse elsewhere in the world and climate induced migrations have already been happening.
I disagree with the professor Roger quoted as saying that the world will begin to notice when white people start dying. Only a privileged white person would say such a thing. White people have been dying for centuries (think, for example, of the predominantly white labor movement in the U.S., which of course was mostly white because persons of color were excluded). Many were killed, and they weren’t mourned for long, even by those whose lives they benefited. Does that professor honestly think that the Trumps or the Clintons or the Blairs or the Macrons or the Musks or the rest of the economic elites really care about the wellbeing of most white people? The attention might come instead when members of the upper middle class start to die en masse.
I agree with most of what Roger said and am in awe of his commitment and his courage. However, I don’t really understand the “religiosity” aspect, though I expect he’s talking about the non institutional kind. Could he substitute the word spirituality? (I think he would have said that if that’s what he meant). Maybe he gets into that discussion more in his book.
Thank you for setting the record straight with respect to at least some of the unions. I didn’t know that about the Wobblies, for example. The UMW was also officially integrated from its inception in the late 1890’s. I read a number of books on the labor movement in the U.S., but admittedly, that was years ago. I do remember, however, that the U.S. has the most violent labor history of any industrial country in the world. (I just refreshed my memory about that. See, e.g., a 1969 study by Phillip Taft and Phillip Ross, “American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character and Outcome”). I was thinking more about violence in the movement in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, for example, the Haymarket Riot and the killing of union members in Northern Idaho and Colorado mining camps. You no doubt know about the 1914 “Ludlow Massacre” in Colorado, in which Rockefeller’s strikebreakers killed men, women and children when they fired machine guns into a miners’ tent encampment. (The victims were all white). Although the massacre led to some reforms, there was still a lot of hostility towards labor organizers in the general public, as they were viewed as immigrants, agitators and socialists. See e.g., https://teamster.org/2021/02/civil-rights-and-the-labor-movement-a-historical-overview/ and https://his.harvard.edu/today/organized-labors-complicated-history-with-civil-rights/ for discussions of the exclusion of Black workers from predominantly white unions.
The main point I was trying to make in my prior post, though, is that I don’t accept the premise that there is some kind of racial solidarity among whites in the U.S. There isn’t. I remember reading the results of a poll a few years back in which younger respondents showed much more sympathy towards racial and ethnic minorities than they did toward poor people generally. The Democratic Party, as just one example, has been successful in dividing people along racial, ethnic, gender and age lines so they don’t align along class lines.
I'm an old labor leftist trained in the late '60s by people who'd been CIO union organizers in the 1930s. To set the record straight, the CIO industrial unions as well as the old Farmer-Labor Populist Party did include BIPOC. So did the Wobblies (I.W.W.) like my logger grandfather. Neolib Dems dumped the New Deal and abandoned the majority working class in favor of corporate economics.
The PMC D loyalists, nice liberals, explain away the last election as voters are stupid. But how smart is it never to notice the Rust Belt and Appalachia have been suffering for decades? Consider the well-documented deaths of despair. IMO the "white dying" is right, but needs some explanation. It has to be so many that the upper middle class Ds can't ignore it anymore. A combo of econ failures due to AI mass unemployment and no more easy to find natural resources plus increasing ecological breakdowns.
Since the consensus of mainstream economists is climate change will be mild, it would be too disruptive to productivity and too expensive to change anything. The econ system MUST keep growing! Therefore nothing really effective will be done because elected officials listen to them. Then what will the desperate masses do? Listen to and follow the nice lib Ds who ignored and denigrated them?!
Chris, one of the reasons I became a paying subscriber was because of the price you paid for refusing to compromise your journalism. Your departure from The New York Times after the Iraq War coverage wasn't merely an act of integrity—it became a compass for many of us trying to distinguish independent voices from institutional ones.
Years later, your interview with Russell Mokhiber on Chesapeake Energy's covert influence over the Sierra Club became another such moment. It taught me that the most dangerous forms of power often work indirectly, quietly shaping even the institutions that claim to resist them. It changed how I look at activism itself.
Which is why I found myself puzzled while listening to this conversation. Roger Hallam's personal courage and sacrifice are unquestionable. Yet Extinction Rebellion's early financial backing through the Getty-funded Climate Emergency Fund has been publicly documented and has itself generated serious debate. I kept waiting for the question I thought your own journalistic standards had taught me to expect.
Perhaps there is a principled distinction that I'm missing. If so, I'd genuinely like to understand it. What differentiates investigating the financial architecture behind organizations like the Sierra Club from investigating the funding architecture behind movements that present themselves as radical alternatives?
I'm asking because your work taught many of us that credibility is not inherited by good intentions. It is earned by applying the same standard of scrutiny to allies as to opponents. If we don't do that, how do ordinary citizens learn which voices remain genuinely independent?
Such deep gratitude to both you and Roger Hallam for this compassionate and passionate vision of the true revolutionary actions needed grounded in such a deeply moral and religious understanding of what it means to become fully human.
To know what's driving this means understanding the dominant econ system. Not based on empirical evidence, merely a deep hatred of the New Deal and Keynesian economics, founded by Milton Friedman as the Chicago School of Economics. Friedman supported Pinochet because "democracy interferes with Market efficiency." Devastation of human communities and destruction of ecosystems are dismissed as externalities. They don't count. What does is corporate profit and a need for continuous growth. Furthermore, the only true human motivation is the utility function--individual personal gain. Empathy, solidarity, the common good are meaningless.
Read what these dogmatists push on climate change. They ignore energy use. They assert change over space is the same as change over time (you good at math or physics should be astounded.) They claim average temp difference between a AK city and an MD one, where people have similar incomes, means if AK heats up, no biggie. Part of confusing climate and weather. An actual climate scientist, Daniel Swain, read that and wrote back "a global climate 10 degrees warmer than present is not remotely the same as taking current climate and adding 10 degrees everywhere." Alt. economist Steve Keen points out William Nordhaus, a Nobel prize winning economist, is using current temp data and GDP stats and extending that into the future, showing only a weak correlation. An economist at the conservative Foundation for Econ Education says aggressive responses "would cause far more damage to humans in the form of reduced economic output; it would be better for governments to 'do nothing' at all." Keen rightly says "delusional nonsense."
The 1/10th of 1%ers aren't beguiled by this. Doing nothing is fine with them. They're planning to escape on private islands and megayachts. The rest of the corporate establishment and their political wings are getting us ready for breakdown by demonizing immigrants and enuring us to events like in Gaza. When ecosystems finally fail and the brown hordes from the Global South head north, we'll be told that if we want to live, they have to die.
I think both Roger and Chris are right. We need some kind of spiritual purification and to shift our focus and efforts to grassroot organizing as well as on consumerist lifestyle modifications if we are going to effectively resist climate collapse and work towards a better way of living , learning and dying on this Earth. In addition and as important we need to resist the emphases of liberal “ environmentalists “ and others that try to drag us into election spaces and cycles .
On June 23, 1988 James Hanson, climatologist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Earth and Space Studies testified before the Senate on global warming and the role of CO2 emissions in that observed warming.
It was time for a counterweight . On August 1, Rush Limbaugh went national. You couldn't miss him. A frequent topic of his was global warming. He had an enormous amount of leverage on the working class's perception of atmospheric scientists. They weren't to be trusted, they're communists, socialists, enviro wackos, that simply want to tax and rob us of our freedom.
Me..I went to the library and read everything I could find on the atmosphere, weather and climate. Book stores and the early days of Amazon when books were the primary attraction became a new hobby of mine. I discovered the late Steven Schneider who was known for his willingness to communicate atmospheric science to the general public. And he was quite skilled and qualified in his pursuits.
On one of the Sunday morning talk shows they hosted a panel with each side represented. The Cato Institute was championed by Patrick Michael however I don't recall who the scientist was. Maybe Ben Santer?
They each presented their case and when it was over the moderator said, " well I guess the debate is unresolved ", thank you gentlemen for your time.
It was propaganda vs. peer reviewed science. Not exactly a debate but rather a typical media response. The so-called balanced and objective approach.
Several years later "climate change"became a more common term as global warming somewhat faded from the narrative.
This shift in language was attacked by the denialist community which was revealing in of itself. The claim was they can't make up their mind. First it's warming then it's change. In reality it's not either/or it's an evolution over time. Warming is followed by climate change.
The advantage of reading became clear in that I now understood the issue as opposed to be left with simply "believing" one way or another. It's not a personality contest but unfortunately that's how it's sold to us. Here the liberal class rolls out the carpet for the denialist and are content to hold up signs saying "Save the Earth".
Economic growth and its twin neoliberalism, is the underside of the majority of environmental groups. That is a fatal mistake.
That mistrust of science has grown and presently the Trump Administration is all the evidence one needs to understand that earth sciences have been demonized and rendered moot in matters of policy.
Neoliberalism has won for the time being but eventually natural law will be impossible to escape.
Having been raised on a farm, I witnessed climate changes up-close and personal on a micro basis. Several years later I realized it had a name: climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring
Chris, when you asked the closing question, I immediately thought of The Book of Daniel in the lions' den.
Urban progressives are missing possible coalition allies by not seeking out small farmers, hunters, fishermen, and other rural people. They can see it; especially seniors who've seen the changes over decades. We won't agree on everything, but so what?
In the near future, anyone who is not arrested, or persecuted (and prosecuted), maybe killed, will be on the wrong side of history.
Anyone who claims to want those things will have to act and face the rage of the empire and empires (or vassal countries)
Capitalism needs to end, humans need to learn how to cooperate.
Like the Brazilian song says, we are engaged in bio-eco-ethno-geno-matri-suicide
Great show.
ormer U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig said, "Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes".
Hallam is full of himself and his sneering and contemptuous critique of the left is nonsense. 'Left liberal' podcasts are claiming that climate change is complicated? Where is he finding these podcasts?? Young people need to organize in communities? No shit, Sherlock! Thanks for sharing that rare insight!
Rarely have I found one of Chris's guests so thoroughly annoying. Hallam can stick his quantum physics up his pretentious, spiritual ass.
Chris Hedges has not had a single word to say about SECTION 219 of the NDAA ...
He did the same to us during the lockdowns ... he refused to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports ... and exactly 30 days after the DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release proved the jab was NOT safe and effective and was also killing people, Hedges said "I don't think we can end the pandemic and the mutations until EVERYONE get vaccinated" (JAN 1, 2022, KK&F podcast, Ep #54, 01-08-46 mark) ... but on MAY 6, 2022, he returned to the side of virtue by shamelessly reminding us that "the constitution remains a sacred document" ...
Stop praising this man, he does not give a hoot about us ...
Not YOU again. If you and your griping about what Chris is or isn't = start your own Substack page and write books or editorial pieces and invite guests that stand with you or STFU already - you are a pain in the proverbial ass. You are entitled to not like Chris, but you are out of place here and NOT welcomed. Basta !
I've gone after him in detail. Including actually reading what he uses as sources. Many are the same poorly substantiated short post repeated at different blogs or New Age and ultra conservative 'health' sites. Even the alleged "scientific" ones don't have proper citations and the very few that look like they do, if chased down, turn out to be the work of very dubious people. I explained this; he didn't understand or didn't want to. He clearly either doesn't know how to vet sources, or uses mounds of garbage to justify his personal crusade against Chris.
He also doesn't understand logical fallacies, like ad hominem, straw man, red herring, etc--I pointed that out to him as well. One of which is why, if Chris is wrong about COVID shots, (he isn't) would that mean he's wrong about everything else? He seems to think he has a new persuasive tactic here; it's simply a false equivalency. SMH
Thanks for your reply Rafi, and for dealing with this guy respectfully, initially hearing him out. I usually don't bother with his type of belligerence - he barges into the comment section and changes the topic - then proceeds, yet again, to tell us how bad Chris is . . . I consider that to be rude behavior and out of line. I had just listened to the 48 min. exchange/interview, and reading DC's comment just rubbed me wrong, so I reacted. There are more than a few commenters here that are worth my time and that's why I am here. Be well.
I did so in detail twice. He never rebutted anything I raised. Now he's back with the same flimsy rants and is baiting us to get involved in yet again another pointless exchange. If it were in good faith, I might. But it's not. It takes enough of my time to read everything here and elsewhere and way more to write since I'm a terrible typist and a stickler for precise phrasing. So yeah, not worth our time. BTW, I might admit to being as he charged, a "pseudo-intellectual" since I was blue collar for 28 years and am mostly an autodidact. However, since I also am a stickler for confirming what I write, really not so "pseudo."
You are one of the posters that I look for, so, I know the depth and quality of your contributions and see your comments on a couple of other threads.
My comments are always of the highest quality because they are based on cold, hard unvarnished thruth ... Hedges has been a hypocrite since the lockdowns and I can prove it - all ya gotta do is ask and I'll post the links here again ...
I gave you a shot several months ago, Rafi ...
You're incapable of engaging me on the topic of Hedges' lack of integrity since the lock downs ... I have all of his comments and links to substatiate my claims ... Hedges is a retired activist and he has no intention of telling you ... Hedges could not make a patch on Medea Benjamin's backside, and you know it!
"Thanks for your reply Rafi ..."
Ha! ... Hey John, you and Rafi really made me chuckle ...
Do you feel better now that Rafi came to the rescue?
Maybe you two can get together for a cup of coffee to discuss esoteric concepts like Rafi"s "logical fallacies" and "false equivalency" ... you two are made for each other ... more to point, there is nothing belligerent about my commentary ... I simply quote Hedges to prove his dupilicty and then substantiate my claims with links to his exact verbatim comments. So how does that constitute belligerence? ... you're just pissed at me for calling out your sacred cow.
"I've gone after him in detail" ...
Ha!
Hey Rafi, may I suggest you write a book titled "The Logical Fallacies of False Equivalency" ... destined to be a can't miss best seller ... so have at it! ...
Sounds like the title of one of Hedges' books!
You're full of it RAFI ...
You're just another pseudo-intellectual or AI ...
Do you know a thing about SECTION 219 in the 2027 NDAA?
And the truly damning quotes by Hedges are proven by links to the following:
- Useful Idiots Interview with Katie Halper, 9/21/2021
- Jimmy Dore Interview, 8/27/2021
- Krystal, Kyle & Friends Podcast, 01/01/2022
And your improper vetting claim is laughable - "Logical fallacies"? ... Ha!
Hedges really did say these appallingly insensitive and brazenly self-centered things, as I have receipts ... and Rafi, would you like me to post those links here again?
All ya gotta do is ask ...
Eagerly awaiting your reply ...
NO ... I am not out of place here!
Your argument is hollow, as I am enititled to exercise my first amendmet rights anywhere I choose ... I am doing what the pro-Palestinian supporters did when they organized protests on college campuses across the U.S. in 2024, as they demanded that universities divest in Israel ... and I am calling Hedges out on his own turf for betraying his many direct and implicit promises to fight the good fight with us when the time came ... he could have quietly abstained from commenting on the illegal, unconstitutional mandates and passports, he could have recognized the dire implications of the DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release ... but he brazenly chose to roll-over for big pharma at the direct expense of our best health interests ... and as no surprise to me, he has refused to stand with us against the terrifying implications of SECTION 219 in the 2027 NDAA ...
I have three questions for you:
1) Do you have any idea what the implications are of SECTION 219?
2) In what ways am I out of line to protest Hedges betrayal here on his Substack?
3) Would you like me to post links here to substantiate my claims against Hedges?
Eagerly awaiting your reply ...