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Young activists fight Cumbrian coal mine

The great strides in Labour environmental policy over the past few years were largely driven by the concerns of younger activists- both the new members who came into the party as part of the Corbyn surge and the exemplary work of the school students Climate Strike / Fridays For the Future and other movements. 

It is heartening to see that spirit continue in the opposition to new coal mining activities in Cumbria. Labour must throw its full weight behind the movement against continued fossil fuel extraction.

From The Ecologist

Young activists fight Cumbrian mine

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Wind Turbines can handle the cold just fine!

A companion to the pieces published yesterday.  Some Republicans want us to think wind turbines caused the Texas blackout. Here’s why they’re wrong.

First published at vox.com

Wind turbines thriving in the Iowa winter in 2020.

As the energy crisis in Texas deepened this week, leaving millions without power, heat, and even running water, conservative commentators and politicians persistently peddled a myth that wind turbines are to blame.

Continue reading “Wind Turbines can handle the cold just fine!”

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Cold Truth- The Texas Freeze is a Catastrophe of the Free Market

The article below by James Galbraith was originally published at the Institute For New Economic Thinking website.

Readers may also like to read a second article on the Texas freeze by Ashley Dawson.

Both articles cover similar ground, with Galbraith clearly situating the failure of energy policy in Texas in the context of the triumph of the ideology of the Market in the US. 

 

By James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government and Business Relations, University of Texas at Austin.

Lenin, who was a better economist than Rick Perry, once defined communism as “soviet power plus electrification of the whole country.” Competing with Stalin, the New Deal built dams and strung power lines in America’s backcountry.

Lyndon Johnson, then a young congressman, got Roosevelt to help build the Mansfield Dam, which brought public power to the Texas hill country, and another, the Tom Miller dam, which brought it to the city of Austin.

Continue reading “Cold Truth- The Texas Freeze is a Catastrophe of the Free Market”

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Indian farmers confront agribusiness and Hindu nationalist agenda of Modi government

We are pleased to publish a guest post for Red Green Labour by Pritam Singh, Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford 

The current Indian farmers’ protest is the largest, mostly peaceful, protest in history. It is against three farm laws India’s farmers fear will privatize India’s agriculture sector and leave over 600 million Indians at the mercy of large corporations. The agricultural market reforms push further the Hindu nationalist BJP[1] government’s agenda of centralising economic power and decision-making. The opposition to the reforms by farmers, many state governments, and regional political formations is a watershed moment in this government’s agenda of deepening the entry of agribusiness capitalism and of increased centralised control.

Continue reading “Indian farmers confront agribusiness and Hindu nationalist agenda of Modi government”

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Decarbonisation and Green Finance

Last year the Women’s Budget Group made a submission to the Treasury inquiry into decarbonisation and green finance. 

The key points are summarised below and you can find links to the detailed submission here.

Red Green Labour strongly supports this approach to a gender-equal and socially just transition.

Key points: 

  • The UK Women’s Budget Group believes that decarbonisation is necessary and must be done in a way that promotes equality and justice for all women and girls. This will require restructuring the economy so that less people work in carbon intensive sectors like construction and aviation and more people work in care. A care-led recovery from Coronavirus must be central to decarbonisation.

Continue reading “Decarbonisation and Green Finance”

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For a Feminist Green New Deal

This article first appeared on the Open Democracy website and was written by members of the Women’s Budget Group– an independent organisation which monitors the gender impact of government policy.

We share the concerns they raise here. 

 

Building back better requires building back differently. We need a ‘rainbow recovery’ write Sherilyn Macgregor and Maeve Cohen

20 May 2020
We will need to rebuild after COVID-19, but building back better requires building back differently. It’s time to talk about a feminist green new deal; a ‘rainbow recovery’.
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Solidarity with the HS2 protestors in Euston Square Gardens.

Red Green Labour endorses this statement by the Campaign Against Climate Change in solidarity with the HS2 protestors in Euston Square Gardens.

https://www.campaigncc.org/HS2_evictions

Campaign against Climate Change stands in solidarity with the HS2 protesters at Euston. On 27th January, the National Eviction Team began their eviction of protesters from Euston Square Gardens.

Continue reading “Solidarity with the HS2 protestors in Euston Square Gardens.”

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Sensible Socialism- The Salford Model

This interesting article by Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford, from Tribune magazine looks at practical environmental  policies being implemented by some Labour councils. This approach should be at the heart of Labour’s manifesto for future council elections.

Like its near-neighbour Preston, Salford’s left-leaning council has put socialist policies into practice at a local level – and been rewarded with public housing, well-paying jobs, insourcing and a greener city.

Last December, it was my privilege to announce the next stage of Salford’s Council House building scheme, through which the council intends to build 3,000 more homes over the coming years.The announcement was the culmination of over four years of work on our council-owned development company Derive since my election as Salford City Mayor in 2016. These have been four years in which Salford has pursued a radical policy agenda in local government, which I have come to term ‘Sensible Socialism’ – or the Salford Model.

Continue reading “Sensible Socialism- The Salford Model”

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UK farmers voice support for India protests

Red Green Labour stands in solidarity with India’s farmers and it is good to see British farmers also voicing their support.

From the Wicked Leeks website:

Farmers and landworkers across the UK are sharing photos of themselves standing in solidarity with ongoing mass farmer protests in India against industrialisation in the food system.

UK farmer protests

The Landworkers’ Alliance is standing in solidarity with farmer protests in India.

The strike action by Indian farmers has made headlines as the largest civil society action by the agricultural community for three decades, with hundreds of thousands of farmers and farm workers protesting on the streets of Delhi for several months. Continue reading “UK farmers voice support for India protests”