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The only way to avoid this trap is to disengage from a consumer culture that equates car ownership with independence, while also reducing the volume of everything we consume. We must make a major incision into capitalism itself to heal the world. This is why green Keynesianism is not enough. Make no mistake - Green New Deal-style governmental platforms enabling large-scale investment into remaking nations at a fundamental level are absolutely indispensable in the struggle to combat climate change. It's undeniable that we must make the transition to solar energy, electric vehicles and the like. Public transportation systems must be expanded and made free to all, bicycle lanes must be built, public housing fitted with solar panels must be created - these sorts of works projects, driven by public spending, are vital. But these things are simply not enough. It might sound counter intuitive, but the goal of any Green New Deal should not be economic growth, but rather the scaling down and slowing down of the economy. Measures to stop climate change cannot double as ways to further economic growth. These measures will only work if their only goal is stopping climate change. Indeed, the less such measures aim to grow the economy, the higher the possibility they'll work. It also would ease the issues related to lithium and cobalt extraction in Chile and Congo (though environmental problems will nonetheless still surely occur). By contrast, the only thing left to say about Green New Deal proposals aiming to promote unlimited economic growth at this point is, 'The road to extinction is paved with good intentions.'

— Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō (Page 56 - 57)

The market could sell both the poison and its antidote, but it cared little about the right ratio of the two.

— Half-Earth Socialism by Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass (4%)

Israeli history can be split into two eras: before and after 1967. Before the Six-Day War, Israeli policy was not noble but at least gave the rhetorical impression of (sometimes) opposing repression. In 1963, Foreign Minister Golda Meir told the United Nations General Assembly that Israel “naturally opposes policies of apartheid, colonialism and racial or religious discrimination wherever they exist” because Jews understood what it meant to be victims. Israel bonded with newly independent African states, enjoying their postcolonial freedoms, and African nations backed Israel at the UN. Many Israelis then and now viewed their country as a liberation struggle akin to being freed from colonial bondage. They had no time for the view that Zionism was tinged with colonialism. (…) Journalist Sash Polakow-Suransky recounts in his book on Israel’s secret relationship with apartheid South Africa, The Unspoken Alliance, that 1967 saw a watershed in Israel’s defense posture. Assisted by Soviet and Arab propaganda, “Israel’s image as a state of Holocaust survivors in need of protection gradually deteriorat[ed] into that of an imperialist stooge of the West.” Thereafter, many Third World nations turned away from Israel and the “Israeli government abandoned the last vestiges of moral foreign policy in favour of hard-nosed realpolitik.” Partnering with the world’s most brutal tyrants followed. Israel’s relationship with Iran under the Shah was an early example.

— Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein

When future historians ask, 'Why didn't people take action to stop the climate crisis when they had known about it for decades', a prominent part of the answer will be the history of denial and obfuscation by the fossil fuel industry, and the ways in which people in positions of power and privilege refused to acknowledge that climate change was a manifestation of a broken economic system.

— The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, Greta Thunberg (Page 29)

The rapidly escalating climate and ecological crisis is a global crisis: it affects all living plants and beings. But to say that all of humankind is responsible for it is very, very far from the truth. Most people today are living well within the planetary boundaries. It is only a minority of us who have caused this crisis and who keep driving it forward. This is why the popular argument that 'there are too many people' is a very misleading one. Population does matter, but it is not people who are causing emissions and depleting the Earth, it is what some people do - it is some people's habits and behaviour, in combination with our economic structures, that are causing the catastrophe. The Industrial Revolution, which was fueled by slavery and colonization, brought unimaginable wealth to the Global North, and in particular to a small minority of people living there. That extreme injustice is the foundation that our modern societies are built upon. This is the very heart of the problem. It is the sufferings of the many that have paid for the benefits of the few. Their fortune came at a price - namely oppression, genocide, ecological destruction and climatological instability. There is a bill for all this destruction that has not yet been paid. In fact, it hasn't even been added up; it is still waiting to be invoiced.

— The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, Greta Thunberg (Page 19)