More Breaking News

In my previous post I noted a breakthrough in media coverage: The Guardian has declared its intention to make coverage of climate issues a priority, despite the elusive definition of what constitutes an 'event.' What I should also have noted is the strong, indeed revolutionary position taken by the editor, Alan Rusbridger, in defining the issue.

Rusbridge essentially endorses the argument framed by Bill McKibben and 350.org that "trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuels" must not be burned if we have any hope of maintaining habitable temperatures on our planet. That is, trillions of dollars of assets need to be written off as assets and left in the ground. Make no mistake: this is a RADICAL proposition, consistent with Naomi Klein's argument (most recently put forward in This Changes Everything) that to address the climate issue effectively poses a major challenge to capitalism as we know it.

Rusbridger, on behalf of The Guardian, endorses a paradigm-shifting, revolutionary vision of economic reorganization, and brings it into the mainstream. That's news.