Interview with historian Laurence Shoup about his 2015 book Wall Street's Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014.
Shoup explains how the CFR has influenced U.S. Government policy on behalf of it's Capitalist Class and Corporate members from it's beginning, following the First World War, until present. The CFR is dominated by oil corporations, banks and oligarchs with investments in energy and petrochemicals. Beginning in 1990 the CFR initiated a series of studies to determine their role in the ecological crisis and climate change resulting from its members business model and the production and consumption of fossil fuels. In Chapter 8, âFiddling While the Earth Slowly Burns: The Council and The Ecological Crisis, 1990-2014,â he reveals that the CFR studies show that â....solving the ecological crisis meant questioning the future use of fossil fuels and capitalism itself,....â By 2014 they concluded that their business interests depended on accelerating fossil fuel production, while promoting âadaptationâ to the extreme weather events that trapping more energy in the Earth's atmosphere would result in.
Shoup offers alternatives to the CFR's â...continuing injustice and ecocideâ and speaks of what might be done. Shoup also refers to Joel Kovel, the ecosocialist professor and thinker. Not mentioned but relevant to the interview is Kovel's 2002 book, "the enemy of nature: The End Of Capitalism Or The End Of The World/" , which provides an insightful analysis of why the capitalist elites decided to "Let the World Burn"
Laurence Shoup
This interview is almost four years old yet still relevant. The petroleum industry is intent on producing oil with little regard to cost to the communities it operates in or to the planet it operates on. Capital still flows from Banks to finance petroleum operations and contrary to the marketing hype of the Democrats they still subsidize and still permit destructive petroleum and petro chemical operations. Extinction Rebellion is growing in its daring acts to shut down the flows of capitalism that have destroyed our present and push humanity toward extinction; PROGRESS is what they call it in the life blind system they have sold their souls to.
Earth climate systems are interconnected and expressions of the physical interaction of life , the geology of the planet and life itself. The January 11, 2018, University of Chicago Benton lecture by atmospheric scientist James Anderson resulted in an article in Forbes business magazine. Anderson's message to the select audience - There is not much time left before humans loose the ability to effect conditions caused by fossil fuel forcing of the Earth's energy balance. (article) https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/15/carbon-pollution-has-shoved-the-climate-backward-at-least-12-million-years-harvard-scientist-says/#1f962169963e
In 2015 Anderson was interviewed by a student at Harvard University. Professor Anderson explained in plain language the science, social and political issues that present us with our existential threat in response to the students questions. He explains the climate as resulting from certain geophysical structures which are being destroyed by the extra heat energy being trapped in the atmosphere. Anderson identifies the people who profit from the status quo as part of the problem but thinks technology might save us if the nations wealth and energies, mobilized by Government are focused on the three key areas he identifies. He also faults universities for their epic failure to prepare students to challenge the business model that has promoted the destructive status quo. (interview) http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/83723
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