February 25, 2021
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Global Ecosocialist Network Ecosocialism now rests on strong theoretical foundations as a result of the tremendous pioneering work done by John Bellamy Foster, Paul Burkett, Michael Lowy, Ian Angus, Fred Magdoff, Kohei Saito, Jonathan Neale, Sabrina Fernandes, Martin Empson, Patrick Bond, the adjacent work of Naomi Klein and many others. As a result of this work we can confidently assert that:
Contemporary environmentalism needs to be anti-capitalist
That capitalism, not humanity as such, is the cause of the apocalyptic crisis we now face
That what is required is profound system change, by which we mean transition to a sustainable socialism based on social ownership of the main means of production and democratic control and planning of the economy.
As East Hampton prepares the final agreements to allow the South Fork Wind Farm cable to come ashore in Wainscott, the future of offshore wind off Long Island’s coast has become much more crowded.
Two massive offshore wind farms with more than 90 turbines each, to be built by the firm Equinor, received approval from New York State in early January, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in his State of the State Address Jan. 13. They include the Empire Wind 2 project 20 miles offshore from Jones Beach, and Beacon Wind 1, which will be 60 miles east-southeast of Montauk. The transmission cable for the Beacon Wind 1 project would travel about 200 miles under the Long Island Sound to a grid tie-in in Astoria, Queens.
At least 16 environmental groups have signed a letter to Oregon legislators in support of a call by the Oregon State Building Trades Council and affiliates to require developers benefiting from state tax subsidies to meet labor and workforce standards.
It started when members of Climate Jobs PDX, a project of Portland Jobs with Justice, read in the Labor Press that most recent renewable energy projects in Northeastern Oregon have been built by nonunion, out-of-state firms with nonunion crews from outside Oregon despite receiving generous tax breaks from the state.
As of 2019, about a dozen utility-scale wind and solar projects in Northeastern Oregon were saving over $30 million a year total thanks to the Oregon’s Strategic Investment Program (SIP) property tax break, a 15-year property tax exemption.