On April 16 of this year, I attended a Hillary Clinton rally held at Los Angeles Southwest College with two political activists in an attempt to question her ties to the fossil fuel industry. Rally-goers used violence and physical intimidation to prevent one of my fellow activists from asking the presidential hopeful her question regarding the environment. Hillary Clinton, along with all other presidential candidates, has failed to provide a practical plan on tackling climate change and other environmental issues.
A DIRE SITUATION
Mainstream political institutions and the economic and political elites who run them have served the interests of energy corporations who only care about their bottom line. With anthropogenic climate change starting to wreak havoc on the environment throughout the world, no candidate has formulated a practical plan to tackle the environmental problems that could possibly lead to the sixth great extinction. The situation is dire and it is truly frustrating to hear presidential candidates fail to acknowledge the urgency of the situation.
A 17-second YouTube video shows Hillary Clinton lashing out against a GreenPeace activist when asked about accepting money from the fossil fuel industry. In the video, Clinton proceeded to sternly tell the activist she is tired of the Sanders campaign lying about her. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Clinton campaign committee received $309,101 from coal and oil donors. It has also been found that a Super PAC called Priorities Action USA has donated an estimated $4 million to Secretary Clinton’s campaign.
THE BIGGEST ADVOCATES
Hillary has been one of the biggest advocates of hydraulic fracking — one of the most environmentally dangerous forms of energy extraction. According to TeleSUR journalist Abby Martin, Clinton personally oversaw the creation of the Bureau of Energy Resources as part of the U.S. State Department in 2011. The bureau is responsible for proliferating fracking in different parts of the world with support from the Chevron corporation. The Obama administration has welcomed a new era of “energy independence” by fracking when we should be investing time and resources developing cleaner forms of energy production. According to Chris Hedges, a Truthdig columnist, new technologies in fracking ensure “that consumption continues at unsustainable levels.” Hedges points out fracking indicates what economists call the Jevon’s Paradox — a phenomena occurring when societies exhaust their natural resources and the specialized technology created to extract the resources becomes obsolete.
RISING THREE TIMES FASTER
Sea levels are rising three times faster than predicted with Arctic ice melting at unprecedented levels. Warming ocean temperatures have caused 93 percent of the coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef in light of recent aerial surveys. Large barrier reefs like the one being destroyed on a massive scale take millions of years to form. According to a recent article by The Guardian “the underestimation of the current level of liquid droplets in clouds means that models showing future warming are misguided.” Climate change is worse than we thought.
The Democratic candidates will not do anything to challenge the economic and political structure so dependent on fossil fuels. GOP candidates refuse to even acknowledge the existence of climate change. If change ever comes to fruition, it will come from below, not above.
