title: Ed Brubaker

text: Also in 2006, Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips launched their first creator-owned series "Criminal", published under Marvel's Icon imprint. The title received generally positive reviews and its first arc, "Coward", won the 2007 Eisner Award for Best New Series. In 2008, after two volumes of "Criminal", Brubaker and Phillips took a break from the series to launch another Icon title, "Incognito", which Brubaker described as being "about a completely amoral guy with super-powers forced to pretend he's a normal law-abiding citizen, because he's in Witness Protection, and how that shapes what he becomes. It's also a brutal noir twist on the super-hero/super-villain genre that delves more into their roots in the pulps, and it's going to be pretty over-the-top and action-packed."


title: Ed Brubaker

text: In February 2010, a controversy arose around "Captain America" #602, which depicted a group of anti-tax protesters, understood by some readers to be a Tea Party, which was characterized by the Falcon as exclusively white and racist group. Brubaker and Marvel's Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada apologized for the matter, explaining that, although Brubaker did not intend the protesters to represent any particular real-life group, one of the signs depicted in the scene read, "Tea Bag The Libs Before They Tea Bag YOU!". The slogan was not in Brubaker's script and was instead added by letterer Joe Caramagna, who, under deadline pressures, used messages from signs he found online at the last minute. Quesada further assured that the error would not appear in future reprints of the issue. In an interview following the controversy Brubaker stated, "I had to shut down my public email because I started getting death threats from, y'know, peaceful protesters."


title: Ed Brubaker

text: In January 2012, Brubaker and Phillips launched "Fatale" at Image. The series was initially announced as a twelve-issue maxi-series but was upgraded to an ongoing title in November 2012. Jesse Schedeen of IGN stated that "You can't go wrong with a Brubaker/Phillips collaboration. Even so, "Fatale" is making a strong case for being the best of their projects." In October 2013, Brubaker signed a five-year contract to produce comics exclusively for Image. Under the terms of the deal, Image would publish any comic Brubaker brought to them without having to pitch it. Brubaker stated this arrangement was something he has always wanted. The first series released under this contract was "The Fade Out", a Hollywood period piece made with frequent collaborator Sean Phillips.


title: Ed Brubaker

text: Brubaker's other projects for Image include "Velvet", a spy series illustrated by his "Captain America" collaborator Steve Epting.


title: Ed Brubaker

text: In 2016, Brubaker joined the writing staff for HBO's "Westworld". He co-wrote the episode "Dissonance Theory" with Jonathan Nolan.


title: Ed Brubaker

text: In 2019, Brubaker partnered with Nicolas Winding Refn to produce "Too Old to Die Young", a 10-part neo-noir miniseries for Amazon.


title: Ed Brubaker

text: In 2022, it was announced that Brubaker would serve as head writer and executive producer on the animated series "".


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: The Mask: Animated Series is an American animated television series based on the 1994 film of the same title. The series aired on CBS and ran for a total of three seasons and fifty-four episodes from August 12, 1995, to August 30, 1997. It spawned its own short-run comic book series, "Adventures of The Mask". John Arcudi, former writer of the original comics, wrote two episodes of the series.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: "The Mask" was one of three animated series based on Jim Carrey movies that premiered the same year. These included the 1995–2000 "" series, and the 1995–1996 "Dumb and Dumber" series.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: The series retained major plot points from the film, with insecure bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss using an ancient mask to gain superpowers while taking on the mischievous and cartoonish, but heroic and good-hearted personality of The Mask. The major alteration is that Stanley can use the mask in daytime as well as at night. Following the events of the film, Stanley's friend and coworker Charlie thinks that Stanley threw the mask away, but Stanley either discovers that his dog Milo retrieved it, or pretended to get rid of it and decided to keep it.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Reporter Peggy Brandt is the main female character in the series, though Stanley is upset with her for selling him out to the mob. Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz's character in the film) is absent from the series and is never mentioned. Niko and Dorian Tyrell, the two primary antagonists of the 1994 film who died during the course of it, do not appear in the animated series and are never even mentioned (though Peggy does make a mention of the mob in the pilot). Dr. Arthur Neuman (voiced by Ben Stein) once again appears in three episodes in this series, even ending up wearing the mask in one episode. Charlie is made to be the one in charge of the bank instead of a simple employee, Mr. Dickey is never mentioned at all. Mayor Mitchel Tilton is replaced with Mayor Mortimer Tilton (who looks nothing like Ivory Ocean) and is a corrupt politician who loves promoting himself.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Despite having a "realistic" setting in the fictional town of Edge City, the series often relies more on Tex Avery-style humor and occasionally breaks any meaningful laws of reality. For example, one episode featured the Goofalotatots, parodies of the Animaniacs, treating them as if they were naturally alive. Another featured the Mask becoming a personal assistant to the President of the United States, with the job merely handed to him (former Mask comic writer John Arcudi wrote both example episodes, a stark departure from his usual writing). Police officers are portrayed as idiots unable to recognize obvious clues.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Also continued from the film were The Mask's frequent visits to the Coco Bongo: a fictional, glamorous nightclub frequented by the Edge City well-to-do, which was based on the Copacabana in New York City. The destruction of the Coco Bongo in the episode "A Comedy of Eras" horrifies and enrages The Mask, and provides him with the motivation to ultimately defeat the antagonist.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: During the late 1990s, Rob Paulsen appeared on the US TV talk show "Donny & Marie". When talking about his role as Stanley Ipkiss/The Mask, Paulsen said, "I get to be Jim Carrey for a whole lot less cake."


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Villains were often parodies from DC Comics or Marvel Comics and The Mask due to being a fan of superhero comic books transforms into several forms that are parodies of either DC or Marvel, such as him becoming Supermask and Super Salad Man (a spoof of Superman), or becoming Biclops (a spoof of Cyclops), Spiderhyny (alias Spider-Man), the Green Surfer (alias Silver Surfer) and the Toolverine (a spoof of Wolverine), and a villain that turned into a dinosaur like Sauron. Notable were Skillit (spoof of Mr. Mxyzptlk and Peter Pan, albeit much more malevolent in nature), Buzz Stingman (who was transformed by mutant bees in a similar manner to Swarm) Putty Thing (spoof of the "" version of Clayface, portrayed as a dumb teenager rather than an angry, jaded actor), and Davida Steelmine (spoof of Zatanna). In the "Sister Mask" episode, Pretorius hunts meteorites that each give the power of a member of the Fantastic Four.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: A two-part crossover between "The Mask" and "" – another animated series based on a Jim Carrey film – aired on August 30, 1997. The crossover begins with "The Mask" episode "The Aceman Cometh", and concludes with the "Ace Ventura" episode "Have Mask, Will Travel". At the time of the original airing, "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" was running in the adjoining time slot immediately following "The Mask" in CBS's Saturday morning lineup. During the crossover, Stanley/The Mask and Ace retain their respective animation styles while appearing within the other's show. The crossover also serves as the series finale of "The Mask" and the second-season finale of "Ace Ventura".


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: In "Have Mask, Will Travel", Stanley catches up to Ace in Miami just as he is recruited to solve a case on a space station, leading Stanley to become The Mask and join the investigation.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: After the series ended its run on CBS, it started airing in syndication, mostly on local affiliates and Cartoon Network from 1997 to 1998. Then it aired on the Fox Family Channel from 1999 to 2000 (with "Flight as a Feather" removed due to risqué content). Since 2000, it hasn't been seen in the United States. In Australia, it has been rerun sporadically on Boomerang. Cartoon Network aired reruns of the series worldwide, including UK.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Six VHS volumes of the series were gradually released from 1995 to 1996, all of which are now out of print.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Upon the initial DVD release of "Son of the Mask", Wal-Mart stores sold an exclusive 2-pack of the movie with the two-part pilot episode of the animated series.


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: The series is also available on iTunes, Amazon Video, YouTube, and Google Play. All episodes are separated into all three seasons and are also featured in an entire collection entitled "The Mask: The Complete Series".


title: The Mask: Animated Series

text: Taco Bell distributed toys based on the cartoon for a short period of time in 1997. In South Africa, the Spur franchise used to give out Mask toys with the kiddies burger.


title: Tomas Haake

text: Known for his polymeters and technical ability, Haake was named the fifth best "Modern Metal" drummer by MetalSucks.net in 2012. In the July 2008 edition of "Modern Drummer" magazine, Haake was named the number one drummer in the "Metal" category, as decided upon in the magazine's Readers' Poll. He was also included in "100 Greatest Drummers of All Time" list by the "Rolling Stone" magazine (occupying the 93rd position).


title: Tomas Haake

text: Haake writes the majority of Meshuggah lyrics and also contributes spoken vocals on several songs ("Choirs of Devastation" on the album "Contradictions Collapse", "Inside What's Within Behind", "Suffer in Truth", and "Sublevels" on the album "Destroy Erase Improve", "Sane", "The Exquisite Machinery of Torture" on the album "Chaosphere", "Spasm" on the album "Nothing", as well as on several tracks on the album "Catch Thirtythree" and on the song "Dancers to a Discordant System" from "obZen").


title: Tomas Haake

text: Haake also provides spoken vocals on Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal's solo album "Sol Niger Within" and vocals on the song "Futile Bread Machine (Campfire Version)" from "The True Human Design".


title: Tomas Haake

text: Haake has cited musicians from heavy metal, jazz fusion and progressive rock as influences. He cites English bands such as Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, American bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Testament and Metal Church, and Canadian band Rush. His favourite drummers include Phil Rudd (AC/DC), Bill Ward (Black Sabbath), Vinnie Appice, Lars Ulrich (Metallica), Dave Weckl, Sebastian Thomson (Trans AM), Sean Reinert (Cynic), Neil Peart (Rush), Ian Mosley (Marillion), Terry Bozzio (Missing Persons and Frank Zappa), Vinnie Colaiuta and Gary Husband.


title: Tomas Haake

text: Haake is married to actress/musician, Jessica Pimentel, beginning their romantic relationship in 2013.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: Derek Anthony West (born August 12, 1965) is an American attorney and former government official, and the current Senior Vice President and chief legal officer of Uber. Before Uber, West was Associate Attorney General of the United States and general counsel of PepsiCo. West previously served as the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division, the largest litigating division in the Department of Justice.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: During his time at the Department of Justice, West played a role in the administration's decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) after concluding that the statute was unconstitutional. West was also involved in efforts by the Department to reclaim $37 billion from large financial institutions and worked on the department's efforts to improve public safety in Indian country, including the tribal provisions in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). On August 21, 2014, West announced a $16.65 billion settlement with Bank of America to resolve federal and state claims against Bank of America and its former and current subsidiaries, including Countrywide Financial Corporation and Merrill Lynch.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret "Peggy" (née Reddick) and Franklin Delano West (1940-2013). West was raised in San Jose, California, where he lived with his two younger sisters, Pamela and Patricia. His father, the first person in his family to attend college, was born and raised in Georgia and worked for IBM while his mother, who was a teacher, was born and raised in Alabama. He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory, a Catholic, all-male, private secondary school, where he served as freshman class president, before graduating in 1983.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West received his Bachelor of Arts in government from Harvard College in 1987, where he served as publisher of the Harvard Political Review. In 1988, West began volunteering and working on political campaigns, engaging in Democratic political causes, such as working as the chief of staff to the Boston, Massachusetts treasurer of Michael Dukakis's presidential campaign. West also served as a finance director to the Democratic Governors Association, until 1989. He received his Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1992, where he served as the President of the Stanford Law Review. While attending Stanford, he worked as a summer intern for Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman in 1990. He also worked as a summer intern for Tuttle & Taylor, and Morrison & Foerster in 1991.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: After graduating, West continued his work in Democratic politics, working as chief of staff to the finance chair of the California Democratic Party, while also working in private practice as an associate at the Bingham McCutchen San Jose office, from 1992 to 1993. In 1993, he was admitted to the State Bar of California, and was admitted to the Superior Court of California and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: From 1999 to 2001, he was a Special Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the California Attorney General, under Bill Lockyer. From 2001 to 2009, he was a litigation partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco. He also served as the California co-chairman of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West began his career at the Justice Department when he joined the Clinton administration in 1993, as a Special Assistant under Philip Heymann, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice, until 1994, when he was appointed as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the Northern District of California. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, West prosecuted child sexual exploitation, fraud, narcotics distribution, interstate theft, and high tech crime.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: In 2009, West returned to the Justice Department when President Obama nominated him to serve as Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice Civil Division. West led the Obama Administration's review of the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which ultimately resulted in President Obama's and Attorney General Holder's decision to stop defending DOMA. During his tenure at the helm of the Civil Division, the Division recovered more than $8.8 billion in taxpayer money under the False Claims Act. On the consumer protection front, West oversaw cases that resulted in more than 115 criminal convictions, as well as recoveries of more than $3.5 billion, during his three-year tenure.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: Beginning on March 9, 2012, West served as the Acting Associate Attorney General until the U.S. Senate confirmed West to be Associate Attorney General in a 98-1 vote on July 25, 2013. In September 2014, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, West was speculated as being a potential successor as the next United States Attorney General.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: As Associate Attorney General, West led the department's efforts against financial institutions in connection with their roles in precipitating the Great Recession. These include two of the largest civil resolutions against a single entity in American history: Bank of America ($16.65 billion) and JPMorgan ($13 billion). In total, the department's efforts recovered nearly $37 billion.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: Additionally, West led the department's investigation and filing of a civil lawsuit against the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's Rating Services for allegedly engaging in a scheme to defraud investors in structured financial products, resulting in the loss of billions of dollars by investors, many of whom are federally-insured financial institutions. The investigation and lawsuit involved collaboration with several state attorneys general offices, a number of which also filed civil fraud lawsuits against S&P alleging similar misconduct in the rating of structured financial products.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West also oversaw constitutional policing enforcement actions by the Civil Rights Division and led the department's negotiations with Puerto Rico to reach a historic agreement that requires the Commonwealth's police department to implement and sustain a wide range of constitutional policies and procedures, including those that address use of force, equal protection and non-discrimination, and community engagement.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West also led the department's commitment to supporting the provision of indigent legal defense. In June 2014, West represented the United States at the U.N.’s International Conference on Access to Legal Aid in the Criminal Justice Systems in South Africa. In 2013, West oversaw the department’s filing of a statement of interest in Wilbur v. City of Mount Vernon (WD Wash.), a class action lawsuit alleging that accused defendants were systemically denied effective assistance of counsel. Without taking a position on the merits of the case, the filing requested that if the court found constitutional violations, it consider workload controls for public defenders and appointment of an independent monitor to ensure compliance. The plaintiffs in the case prevailed on the merits and the court required defendants to hire a part-time public defender supervisor to monitor and report the defendants’ delivery of indigent defense representation.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: During West's tenure as Associate Attorney General, the Justice Department secured passage of tribal provisions in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, allowing tribal courts to prosecute non-Indian perpetrators of domestic violence in Indian country. West oversaw a consultation with tribes to implement the Pilot Project, which allowed tribes to exercise the special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians ahead of the law's March 2015 effective date. West authorized three tribes – the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation – to become the first tribes in the country to exercise the new jurisdiction. West also oversaw the creation and work of the Attorney General's Task Force on American Indian/Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence, which included an Advisory Committee—chaired by Senator Byron Dorgan—of non-federal experts and an interagency Federal Working Group of high-level federal officials.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: On October 7, 2014, PepsiCo, Inc. announced that West had joined the company as executive vice president of government affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary, effective November 24, 2014. West succeeded Larry Thompson, who retired after a decade with the company. West was responsible for PepsiCo's worldwide legal function and government affairs organization, as well as the company's global compliance function and the PepsiCo Foundation. He reported to PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: In October 2017, West announced that he was leaving PepsiCo to take a position as General Counsel at Uber. This announcement shortly followed the completion of an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at Uber by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: In 1998, West ran for a seat on the San Jose City Council. In the primary, West's main challenger was Cindy Chavez, the staff director of Working Partnerships USA. He came in second to Chavez in the June 2 primary, with 41.2% of the vote. West was ultimately defeated, receiving 48% of the vote in the general election.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West also ran for the California State Assembly, for the 23rd district, in 2000. After incumbent Mike Honda ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, leaving a vacancy, West was one of six Democrats to run for the open seat. He was defeated in the primary by San Jose City Councilman Manny Diaz, receiving 38% of the total votes cast.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: On November 30, 2016, Senator-elect Kamala Harris announced that West, her brother-in-law, would co-chair her transition team.


title: Tony West (attorney)

text: West married Maya Harris, the sister of Vice President Kamala Harris, in July 1998. They were both in the class of 1992 at Stanford Law School. They became friends at school, but did not begin a relationship until after graduation.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Warrior Nun Areala is a manga-style American comic book character created by Ben Dunn and published by Antarctic Press, first appearing in "Ninja High School" #37 in March 1993 as Shanna Masters.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: The story later revolves around 'Sister' Shannon Masters, a member of the Order of the Cruciform Sword, a fictional military order of Warrior Nuns and Magic Priests in the service of the Catholic Church. In the comic, the order was created in 1066, when a Valkyrie named Auria renounced her pagan ways and turned to Jesus Christ for salvation. Ever since then, Auria, now Areala, has chosen an avatar in every generation to carry on the mission. In modern times, this mission has grown into a global organization in the service of the Catholic Church, with the current Areala, Sister Shannon Masters, the best and brightest of all. With her friends beside her, Sister Shannon has led the forces of good against those of evil, ever serving the Lord with faith and humility. Appearing on and off for 20 years since her first appearance, Warrior Nun Areala is creator Ben Dunn's favorite character.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Over a series of story lines, Sister Shannon Masters' cast, powers, and trappings have gradually expanded, creating an entire society within the Church. There has been some controversy regarding the character from both religious and non-religious people: from the former for appropriating Catholic imagery and from the latter for how the comic book unapologetically shows the Catholic Church as a force for good. While there have been other comic books featuring Christianity and superheroes using Christian imagery, "Warrior Nun Areala" is unique in that it is a mainstream, though independent comic that addresses the subject in significant detail.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: The creation of "Areala" was inspired by the martial arts pursuits of the nuns of Fraternité Notre-Dame, or the Fraternity of Our Lady, a traditionalist Catholic organization. In 1991, a chapter was established in New York City's East Harlem in order to found a soup kitchen. It was in New York that Sister Marie Chantel, who had been a black belt in judo, learned taekwondo under a Hell's Kitchen martial arts master. Her fellow nuns, including the mother superior, also learned self-defense, hearing that the neighborhoods were dangerous, though they insist that their martial arts training is mostly for sport and that they have had no problems with the surrounding neighborhoods. Their story was picked up and reported by "The New York Times".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Ben Dunn, who attended Catholic schools, was inspired by The New York Times article. In an interview, he said: "Other superheroes, you never know what their faith is. Batman or Spider-Man or Superman, they do all these great things, but what do they believe in?" His interest in understanding the impacts of religious affiliations on fictional superhero characters led him to write "Warrior Nun Areala" from this unique perspective. However, Ben Dunn does not consider the story a Christian comic book, as it avoids directly calling readers to repentance or propagating the faith. Rather, the series makes use of Christian imagery and Christian-based speculative fiction.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Part of this was due to the power Ben Dunn sees the Vatican as possessing. At one point, he wrote that it may not speak of itself as being a world power, but it is. That is because, despite being the smallest country on Earth, the Vatican's influence on world affairs is disproportionately large by virtue of its moral and spiritual authority as the headquarters of Earth's largest religion. With over a billion adherents, a headquarters that is a sovereign nation, a leader that is a world leader, it "is" a force in the world. Thus, it was only a small step to grant the (fictionalized) church a military force that would serve as Heaven's proxy if demons were to attack. In further explaining the concept, he added: "If Hell were an actual physical place with physical manifestations then they would be subject to some of the physical laws of nature would they not? Of course that would mean Heaven too would be physical place. While this may not be so in our world it certainly is so in WNA's world. Therefore, things would progress differently. To the Vatican in WNA's world, 'thou shalt kick Satan's ass!'". However, in creating the character, Dunn sought to distinguish Areala from scantily clad bad girl antiheroines with which she might be confused. He was also desirous of creating a true hero, not an anti-hero: "I made it a very strong point that she doesn't kill people, only demonns... She believes everybody – no matter how bad they've been – can be saved".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: The first appearance of the character Sister Shannon Masters was in "Warrior Nun Areala" Vol. 1, #1. Beginning in December 1994 and ending in April 1995, a three-issue limited series established the fictional world of Areala, several key characters, and her origin story. She was shown having just completed her training in a time when there had been no demonic activity for years and the Warrior Nuns were in danger of being disbanded. Despite her lack of experience, she was assigned to fulfil a mission in New York City where Satan's minions of Earth were planning an assault on Heaven. She successfully foiled their plans.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: This was then followed by other "Warrior Nun Areala" mini-series, some written by Ben Dunn and some not, such as "Rituals" (1995–1996), "Scorpio Rose" (1996–1997), and "Warrior Nun Areala" Vol. 2. Published every two months, they expanded the world and provided more information and depth concerning the characters. There were also one shots such as crossovers with heroines of other companies such as Glory and Avengelyne. At the time there were other mini-series set in the Warrior Nun Areala universe that were not directly related to Sister Shannon Masters but instead widened the scope of the fictional world. Focusing on other Nuns of her order from past, present, and future; they include but are not limited to "Crimson Nun" (1997), "Warrior Nun Frenzy" (1998), and "Warrior Nun Dei" (1997–1999), respectively. There was also an ongoing anthology series, "Warrior Nun Black and White" that focused on the whole of the Warrior Nun universe.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: It was not until 1999 that Sister Shannon gained her own series. The miniseries "Areala: Angel of War" which detailed the original Areala and "Warrior Nun Areala: Resurrection" led up to it. Running from 1999 to 2001, it was simply titled "Warrior Nun Areala" Vol. 3. It concerned an ongoing threat by Areala's most persistent foe, Helga, as she tried to destroy the Vatican itself in a battle that put to the test the promise that the gates of Hell would not prevail. Though the series ended with the death of Sister Shannon, she later returned and appeared in another series, "Warrior Nun Areala" Vol. 4. This was written mostly by Craig Babiar.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Sister Shannon will be appearing in an upcoming "War of the Independents" tie-in issue, centering on her and Sean Koury's "Bounty Hunter" character, as well as appearing in "War of the Independents" itself. She can be seen on the cover of issue one, as well as in the group shot at the end of the issue.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Ben Dunn sold the rights to Areala during the 2000s in order to fund his wife's operation. The media rights were picked up by Perfect Circle Productions, which then later sold them to Netflix. The comic book rights were picked up by another company and it is currently published by Avatar Press. Dunn stated that he does not regret the rights being sold, is glad that the character still appears in comics and appreciates that his name is in the credits of the latest movies and shows.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Her story begins in 1066 when the original Sister Areala was met by the angel who would become her namesake. An American, Shannon Masters was born after 1959 and was orphaned at the age of four whereon she was left at the steps of the Our Lady of the Virgin Mary convent. She stayed there until she was adopted by the Yoma family of Japan. She lived in Japan with the Yomas until she was eleven years old, but, after showing exceptional academic and athletic abilities, she was chosen for the Silver Cross Program and was raised to be a Warrior Nun in Upper New York State's Saint Thomas Academy. Thus her experience at the orphan school was more of a boarding school.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Growing up at the Saint Thomas Academy, she wrestled with feelings of self-worth over how she had been orphaned. However, she overcame those doubts and found a purpose for her life in her service to the Church as did her adopted sister, Sasuki Yoma of Japan. It was while she trained there under a young Mother Superion, then Sister Katherine, that she first met and befriended the future Sister Sarah, her best friend; Father David Crowe, her future love interest; and Shotgun Mary. It was at this time that she visited Quagmire High School, also called Ninja High School, though at the time she had yet to take her vows and was referred to simply as Shannon and not Sister Shannon. After this, she received final training from Mother Superion at Vatican City.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Though a rookie, Sister Shannon's training was completed and she reported to the New York City archdiocese. There, she patrolled two sectors from her assigned parish, Saint Thomas Church in Manhattan on the grounds that she was assigned to an area where there had not been demonic activity since the Purge of 1985. Replacing Sisters Sanguine and Hannah, she soon saw a sustained surge in New York City's demonic activity after her arrival (a stock situation in comic books wherein the supervillains can appear only after a hero shows up). She soon received her calling from the first Sister Areala after she was nearly killed in a battle with minions of arms dealer Julius Salvius. On recognizing her as the Chosen One of that generation, the original Sister Areala gave Sister Shannon her name and awakened her latent power. It was made official when "the" Areala confirmed her as her avatar after a battle against the avatar of mad valkyrie Helga.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Sister Shannon Masters, the Warrior Nun Areala, given the serial nature of her adventures, has developed a wide circle of heroes around her making them into a family she otherwise would not have. That is seen in her foster sister joining the Warrior Nuns and in Sister Shannon looking at her fellow Sisters as just that, sisters. Initially uncertain of herself, she has developed as a character, though she has never lost her idealism or her love of God and Jesus Christ. She has formed strong bonds of affection with her surrogate sisters, Sasuki, Mary, and Sarah; her surrogate son, Jason; her parent figures, Father Gomez and Mother Superion; and with them has fought a wide variety of foes such as Demon Foster, Julius Salvius, and Helga.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Areala shows a "cold war" has been fought between Heaven and Hell, with human souls at stake. At the moment, Heaven is content to leave Hell alone as long as it does not transgress its boundaries or harm the innocent. When that does happen, the Church's Catholic Corps is the means by which Heaven fights a proxy war. While preceded by earlier miracle workers and martial saints, the Corps has its roots in 1066 with the creation of the first Areala and later in 1212 when Pope Gregory VII authorized a new order to train those blessed by God with power to either use them as miracle workers or as warriors.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: While "Warrior Nun Areala" in its various incarnations has had its loyal followers, there has been controversy over its use of religious imagery. Some, including comic book fans and Areala fans, have charged Antarctic Press with "nunsploitation" in the character of Areala. There were times when Ben Dunn himself considered changing the name to something more "palatable".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: In his review for Daisuke Moriyama's similarly themed anime/manga "Chrono Crusade", manga critic Mike Toole likens such ideas to "the old standby of nuns with guns" and makes explicit comparisons between it and Dunn's comic book. Toole states that Dunn's idea of a "woman who slays monsters in a habit and... a bikini" is novel but that it "just doesn't make any goddamned sense". Quite differently, he writes that Moriyama is more restrained, and while his fully clothed heroine nun Rosette Christopher may be somewhat comical that she and her fellow characters "otherwise seem vaguely authentic".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Dunn made it a point to focus on escapist storytelling and after Antarctic Press' failed attempts at a "serious version" backfired this was reinforced. The man they chose for this was Barry Lyga, who wrote the second series. He wrote of that experience: "The original three series were very tongue-in-cheek... Unfortunately, the audience for the book liked the more tongue-in-cheek approach, and by mutual agreement, I left the series after six issues". Indeed, Lyga's willful decision to reject monster attacks out of hand and focus on "realism" led to less-than-successful issues that were never even completed.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Despite this, some people wrote comments and requested stories dealing with current issues in the Catholic Church such as the abuse cases. As a result, Lyga's second series featured Sister Shannon asking herself if she should protect the Church from a man seeking revenge for alleged church involvement with the ratlines. One person noted that the characters' "complaints about the magic priests having more money—even though the warrior nuns, not the magic priests, are on the front lines against demons—ring true after seeing the stories last year [source quoted in 1997] about people "adopting" elderly nuns to help a convent stay afloat or articles about burial costs for nuns being subsidized by the state". Also, when one of Sister Shannon's fellow nuns asked why they could not receive the Magic Priests' training in the supernatural, she replied that it was for the same reason the Church forbids the ordination of women, something that causes controversy within the fictional Church of "Warrior Nun Areala" as it does in the real Church.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Website Comicsutra states "that's what makes "Warrior Nun Areala" so special. At its core, it portrays people who have unshakable faith in God and their religion. ...Its affection for nuns is also evident—and sometimes returned. One real nun asked about Warrior Nun Areala noted that she and her colleagues give poor children college prep-level educations—that they are superheroes. Amen, sister".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Such sentiments also extend to members of the real Roman Catholic Church. Real priests and nuns sent their letters, alternately praising and condemning the series. In July–August 1997, the US Catholic League stated that "it does object to the comic strip characters that appear in the "Warrior Nuns" comic strip, a product of Antarctic Press". In another example Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a speaker for Washington, D.C.'s United States Conference of Catholic Bishops stated that Areala's costume is "offensive. The habit is something sacred". That is seen in early issues with how the upper half of the muscled, buxom Sister Shannon's ultra-low cut battle habit would show cleavage and/or show perpetually erect nipples through the cloth while the lower half consists of a loincloth, if that much in other Warrior Nuns. It was a seeming contradiction in terms with how a nun's habit is meant to hide the body in order to discourage lust. In fact, Ben Dunn wrote that the reason he did that was that "nipples sell". Regardless, Dunn stated the loincloth is "for mobility" and that is the official in-continuity explanation that the modest Sister Shannon herself unapologetically espoused when confronted on her seeming lack of modesty. This was resolved by having Sister Shannon's superior assign the Warrior Nuns new more modest battle habits that covered their breasts in the second series to replace the previous ones that she felt were "a bit too revealing!" Dunn himself ultimately did say that perhaps, "I think I did go a little overboard" in the earlier issues.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: This was later addressed in an issue that bordered on breaking the fourth wall, where Sister Shannon took her ward Jason to the Big Apple Con comics convention where he bought a copy of "Battle Nun Areola". She criticized him and he sheepishly said that it was just a comic book. Ultimately acknowledging that there were bigger problems to face and that she should not take such fantasy too seriously, she decided to let Jason keep his comic. She thought "Why I've never even read the book..." Indeed, despite such a strange portrayal of religion and Catholicism, the Church and its clergy are portrayed as a force for good and are shown in a positive heroic light, almost without exception. When "Areala" was accused of being a "bad girl" comic, Lyga countered that the second issue of his "Areala" series "had not a single punch thrown. When was the last time anyone saw a so-called 'bad girl' comic without a fight scene?" In fact, the same Sister Mary Ann Walsh, despite disliking Sister Shannon's battle habit, adds that the creation of Areala comes from someone with "a positive feeling toward sisters".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Two CD singles were made, one by Pink Filth and Bad Habit's "Monkeys on the Throne". Songs for "Monkeys" include,


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: "Warrior Nun Areala" was being adapted into a feature film to be directed by A. J. Annila. The film was to take all the main characters and mythology that author Ben Dunn provided and re-imagine it in a modern setting. The film-making team included concept designers on Hollywood blockbusters like "The Hobbit" trilogy, "Spider-Man 2" and Brian Singer's "".


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Ben Dunn's involvement included doing storyboards for the film as well as designing the opening sequence which was to blend animation and live-action. "Perfect Circle Productions" has been developing the film and the official website can be found at WarriorNun.com.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: In October 2015, there were talks of a live-action "Warrior Nun" movie from "Perfect Circle Productions", intended to be the first of a trilogy. The film was put on hiatus in 2018 when Netflix acquired the television rights.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Like other Antarctic Press characters, action figures of most of the chief characters were made. In addition to the standard look, there was also an anime look based on a failed attempt by Ben Dunn and Antarctic Press to make a "Warrior Nun Areala" American anime in 1994. The anime would have been partially fan-funded, with contributors donating $125 in exchange for their names in the credits. However, this did not materialize, as Sunrise, the hoped-for animation studio, needed about $200,000 to make the series. In 2001, Darkain Arts made another attempt, though that too failed. The anime was never completed and only the opening credits are known to exist; they were created by the animators of the "". The opening credits can be seen on YouTube.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: Netflix approved a television adaptation of the comic book series, with a series order for a first season. The series was created by Simon Barry, who is credited as an executive producer alongside Stephen Hegyes and Dean English.


title: Warrior Nun Areala

text: It stars Alba Baptista as Ava Silva, a new character invented for the series. The series also features re-imagined versions of the characters from the comic book—Shotgun Mary (Toya Turner), Lilith (Lorena Andrea), Mother Superion (Sylvia De Fanti), Areala (Guiomar Alonso) and Sister Shannon Masters (Melina Matthews). The main antagonist of the series is Jillian Salvius (Thekla Reuten), a female version of the character Julian Salvius from the comic book.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The Canadair CL-215 (Scooper) is the first model in a series of flying boat amphibious aircraft designed and built by Canadian aircraft manufacturer Canadair, and later produced by Bombardier. It is one of only a handful of large amphibious aircraft to have been produced in large numbers during the post-war era, and the first to be developed from the onset as a water bomber.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The CL-215 is a twin-engine, high-wing aircraft, that was designed during the 1960s. From an early stage, it was developed to perform aerial firefighting operations as a water bomber; to operate well in such a capacity, it can be flown at relatively low speeds and in high gust-loading environments, as are typically found over forest fires. It can also be used for other missions types, including passenger services, freight transport, and air-sea search and rescue operations. On 23 October 1967, the first prototype performed its maiden flight, and the first production aircraft was handed over during June 1969.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: While production of the CL-215 was terminated during 1990, this was due to the imminent introduction of an improved variant of the aircraft, which was designated as the CL-415, the manufacture of which commenced during 1993. Furthermore, numerous conversion and improvement programmes have been developed for existing aircraft, such as the "CL-215T", a turbine-powered model of the original aircraft which replaces the original Pratt & Whitney R-2800-83AM radial engines with a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PW123AF turbine engines. Other changes include the addition of new avionics and various structural improvements.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The origins of the CL-215 can be traced back to two earlier project studies conducted by Canadian aircraft manufacturer Canadair, the "CL-43" and "CL-204". The CL-43 was conceived as a logistics aircraft and was based on the design of the Canadian Vickers-built "369 Canso" (which was itself a variant of the Consolidated PBY Catalina). Arising from an earlier 1960s research study at the company, the original concept was for a twin-engined floatplane transport, that was altered into a "firefighter" as a result of a request by forestry officials in the Quebec Service Aérien (Quebec Government Air Service) for a more effective way of delivering water to forest fires. The 1962 preliminary design, designated as the "CL-204", was a purpose-designed water bomber that evolved into an amphibian flying boat configuration, powered by two shoulder-mounted Pratt & Whitney R-2800 piston engines. Reportedly, in excess of 1,700 hours of wind tunnel and water tank testing was used to help define the aircraft's basic configuration. This design was shaped by a desire for it to be well-suited for performing a range of roles, including air-sea search and rescue, cargo haulage and commercial passenger-carrying, beyond the water bomber mission.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The definitive design, which was designated as the CL-215, was publicly revealed at the 1965 Paris Air Show. Aviation publication Flight International observed that the CL-215 was "one of the very few entirely new large marine aircraft to be put in hand for some 20 years", and that it was the first aircraft to be designed to perform water bombing missions as a primary role. Developing a newer aircraft meant that, unlike its older competitors, the latest techniques to stave off corrosion could be applied, as well as a fail-safe structure, to give the aircraft a lengthy lifespan. Canadair's market research indicated that there were many aging seaplanes for which operators required a modern replacement.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: On 1 February 1966, the programme was authorised to proceed. On 23 October 1967, the first prototype performed its maiden flight. By November 1968, Canadair had decided to commit to an initial production batch of 30 aircraft. During June 1969, the first CL-215 was delivered to the French civil protection agency (Sécurité Civile, then known as Protection Civile). The aircraft, which was one of a batch of ten, had been purchased under a £4 million arrangement; by July 1970, the order had been completed, along with a third of a 15 aircraft order from the government of Quebec. Quebec had ordered the type as a replacement for their aging fleet of Canso water bombers; in comparison to the Canso, the CL-215 required a shorter landing distance and was capable of travelling twice as fast.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: Prior to the delivery of the first aircraft, plans had already been mooted for the production of multiple models of the type. While the "CL-215A" served as the standard water bomber configuration, another model, designated as the "CL-215C", had been envisioned to dispense with the design compromises as to better perform the water bomber mission, allowing it be furnished with larger doors on the sides of the fuselage and a revised underfloor hull structure.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: Production of the CL-215 progressed through five series. Perhaps the most significant development of the type occurred during the 1980s in the form of the "CL-215T", an initiative to replace the original Pratt & Whitney R-2800-83AM radial engines with a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PW123AF turbine engines. Speaking during the new model's development, company officials recognised that market demand for the CL-215T was marginal, and thus not enough to justify developing an all-new aircraft.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: Canadian transport conglomerate Bombardier Aerospace (who had acquired Canadair during the 1980s) decided to terminate production of the type during the late 1980s. Although manufacturing did come to an end in 1990, a further improved model, designated as the CL-415, entered production during 1993. Additionally, multiple conversion and refit programmes have been launched over the following decades to renovate and improve existing aircraft, typically focused on improving aspects such as the engines, avionics and structure.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: In 2018 Bombardier sold their design documents, and intellectual property rights, to the CL-215 and CL-415 to Viking Air. Viking Air had previously purchased the rights to the Twin Otter, and had subsequently opened a production line to manufacture new Twin Otter airframes. Viking announced plans to open a production line to build the CL-515, an improvement over the CL-415, with more recent avionics, instrumentation to allow it to continue fighting fires at night, and the ability to fill other roles, like maritime surveillance, and maritime search and rescue, when it wasn't fire season.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: Viking also produced an upgrade kit, the CL-415EAF, which would allow the owners of remaining CL-215 planes to upgrade their engines and avionics to the same level as new CL-515 planes.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: After being upgraded by Viking Air subsidiaries Longview Aviation Services (LAS) and Cascade Aerospace, the CL-415EAF was first flown from Abbotsford, British Columbia on 12 March 2020, to be delivered in April to Bridger Aerospace.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The Canadair CL-215 is a twin-engine, high-wing general-purpose amphibious aircraft. It features an atypically spacious fuselage for an amphibian, which is designed to accommodate for the operational needs of various roles that the aircraft was developed to perform. The CL-215 can be used as an airborne firefighting platform, in which capacity it is used as a water bomber; it has been claimed to be the first aircraft designed to withstand the severe aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loads imposed by such usage. Beyond the water bomber role, the CL-215 was designed for use in other capacities, such as a search and rescue platform, passenger transport, and freighter; for this purpose, the cabin can be configured in various different ways, including a flexible combi configuration. Under typical operations, these applications would harness the aircraft's ability to land and takeoff from the water, the hull having been designed to enable its use upon the open seas.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The CL-215 was designed to perform well in the aerial firefighter role. The apparatus is designed around previously-proven concepts and careful design. The aircraft's belly houses a pair of water tanks of which large downward-facing doors forms their bottoms; these open to rapidly discharge water over a target area. These doors are normally hydraulically actuated and electrically controlled, but a manual release is present for emergency use only; the tanks can be emptied simultaneously, individually, or in sequence at the pilot's selection. Both tanks are positioned directly upon the aircraft's centre of gravity so that filling or emptying the tanks has minimal impact upon the aircraft's flying characteristics. Water can be rapidly drawn into these water tanks while the aircraft is moving across a body of water's surface via purpose-built rotatable aluminium scoops; if a collision occurs, these scoops have been designed to break away from the aircraft without damaging the fuselage. To prevent the tanks from becoming overfilled, overflow ducts are present at the top of the tanks, which discharge excess water via the sides of the fuselage.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The CL-215 is said to handle well in both the skies and upon the water; significant attention was paid in its design to attaining a high level of manoeuvrability while at low speeds. The hull was laid out with considerable forethought, using the full length of the fuselage as a hull to give the aircraft good handling across many sea states. This hull incorporates a high deadrise angle to reduce impact loads exerted during landings, along with a high step to improve breakaway. Sufficient buoyancy is acquired via multiple watertight bulkheads and a sealed floor attaching directly to the hull frames, two of which serve as attachment points for the wings. Spray compresses are present along the hull's chine, directing spray away from the propellers, engines, and tail unit, while a purpose-built plate diverts spray from the pilot's windshield. The CL-215 is relatively conventional in terms of its aerodynamics; all of the flying controls use traditional surfaces and are manually actuated via mechanical linkages. It is furnished with a high-mounted low-aspect ratio wing, which is equipped with single-slotted flaps. To simplify pilot workload, a constant 15-degree flaps position is used for both low speed and low altitude flight, while the need to adjust the aircraft's trim has been minimised during operations such as water uptake and dropping.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: Both the structure and systems on board the aircraft were reportedly designed to ease manufacture and maintenance. The primary structure is compliant with fail-safe design principles, as well as with attention paid to minimising built-in residual stresses and maximising protection against corrosion; as such, conventional alloys are used throughout, while numerous materials, including magnesium, are excluded to reduce reactivity. For this purpose, Canadair paid heed to requirements previously defined by the United States Navy under MIL-F-7179, having judged these criteria to be optimal for their purposes. All aluminium components that made direct contact with water were sulphurically anodised and sealed used sodium dichromate; other aluminium elements received a chromate coating before the exterior paint was applied while steel was plated with a cadmium-titanium alloy. Contact between dissimilar metals was avoided wherever reasonable to do so, or otherwise insulated from another by four coats of primer. The exterior paint layer consists of wash primer, followed by a coat of epoxy-polyamide primer, and then a final top coat; some areas may received a special synthetic rubber-based sealant coating to prevent moisture ingress.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: The CL-215 is powered by a pair of 2,200 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800-83AM radial engines, which was reliably regarded as a proven and reliable power unit. Flight International describes this choice as being unusual as these engines were no longer in production, a decision that was somewhat justified by the large numbers of reconditioned units that were available during the 1960s; it was believed that a piston engine would be more durable in a maritime environment. In a standard configuration, fuel is housed across 12 tanks within the wing, although additional tanks can be installed within the outer wing. Deicing measures protect the engine's carburettors, which involves drawing heated air from the engine cylinders over them instead of ambient air. The propellers can also be fitted with electrical heating mats; while these are provisioned for, they were not fitted as standard. Each engine drives a pump for the hydraulic system, which is used to actuate the engine cowl and wing flaps, the wheel brakes, water drop doors and pick-up probes, as well as for undercarriage retraction; each engine also drives a 28V DC generator which powers the aircraft's electrical systems.


title: Canadair CL-215

text: Over a period of 21 years beginning in 1969, 125 of these aircraft were built and sold to customers in 11 countries. In 2018, there were reportedly around 165 CL-215 and CL-415s in service across 11 countries.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit on 29 May 1953. Led by Colonel John Hunt, it was organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee. News of the expedition's success reached London in time to be released on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, on 2 June that year.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Everest became a subject of interest during the Golden age of alpinism, although its height made it questionable if it could ever be climbed. In 1885, Clinton Thomas Dent's "Above the Snow Line" suggested that an ascent might be possible. Practical considerations (and World War I) prevented significant approaches until the 1920s. George Mallory is quoted as having said he wanted to climb Everest "Because it's there", a phrase that has been called "the most famous three words in mountaineering". Mallory famously disappeared on Everest during the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition and his fate remained a mystery for 75 years.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Most early attempts on Everest were made from the north (Tibetan) side, but the Chinese Revolution of 1949, and its subsequent annexation of Tibet led to the closure of that route. Climbers began to look at an approach from the Nepalese side. The 1952 Swiss Mount Everest Expedition, climbing from Nepal, reached an elevation of about on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: John Hunt, a British Army Colonel, was serving on the staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe when to his surprise he was invited by the Joint Himalayan Committee of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society to lead the British Everest expedition of 1953. Eric Shipton had been widely expected to be the leader, because he had led the Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition from Nepal in 1951, as well as the unsuccessful Cho Oyu expedition in 1952, from which expedition most of the climbers selected had been drawn. However, the committee had decided that Hunt's experience of military leadership, together with his credentials as a climber, would provide the best chance for expedition to succeed. The British felt under particular pressure, as the French had received permission to mount a similar expedition in 1954, and the Swiss another in 1955, meaning that the British would not have another chance at Everest until 1956 or later. As Shipton wrote of his position presented to the Committee on 28 July 1952: "My well-known dislike of large expeditions and my abhorrence of a competitive element in mountaineering might well seem out of place in the present situation." This statement, according to George Band, "sealed his own fate".


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Several members of the British expedition had a strong loyalty to Shipton and were unhappy that he had been replaced. Charles Evans, for instance, stated, "It was said that Shipton lacked the killer instinct – not a bad thing to lack in my view." Edmund Hillary was among those most opposed to the change, but he was won over by Hunt's personality and by his admission that the change had been badly handled. George Band recalls Committee member Larry Kirwan, the Director/Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, saying that "they had made the right decision but in the worst possible way".


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Hunt later wrote that the Joint Himalayan Committee had found the task of raising funds for the expedition challenging:


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Initial training took place in Snowdonia in Wales during the winter. The Pen-y-Gwryd hotel was used as a base camp, and the team furthered their mountaineering skills on the slopes of Snowdon and the Glyderau. Testing of the oxygen equipment took place at the Climbers Club Hut at Helyg near Capel Curig.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The party departed for Nepal from Tilbury, Essex, England aboard the S.S. "Stratheden" bound for Bombay on 12 February, bar Tom Bourdillon, Dr Griffith Pugh, and Hunt, who was ill with an antrum infection. Evans and Alfred Gregory had flown on ahead to Kathmandu on 20 February, as the Advance Party. Hillary and Lowe approached Nepal from New Zealand, Lowe by sea and Hillary by air, as his "bees were in a busy state at that time of year". Although a sea passage was cheaper, Hunt stated that the main reason for choosing it over an air journey was "the further chance which life in a ship would provide for us to settle down as a team in ideal conditions, accompanied by no discomfort, urgency or stress".


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: In Kathmandu, the party was looked after by the British ambassador, Christopher Summerhayes, who arranged rooms with embassy staff, there being no hotels in Kathmandu at the time. In early March twenty Sherpas, who had been chosen by the Himalayan Club, arrived in Kathmandu to help carry loads to the Western Cwm and the South Col. They were led by their Sirdar, Tenzing Norgay, who was attempting Everest for the sixth time and was, according to Band, "the best-known Sherpa climber and a mountaineer of world standing". Although Tenzing was offered a bed in the embassy, the remaining Sherpas were expected to sleep on the floor of the embassy garage; they urinated in front of the embassy the following day in protest at the lack of respect they had been shown.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The first party, together with 150 porters, left Kathmandu for Mount Everest on 10 March, followed by the second party and 200 porters on 11 March. They reached Thyangboche on 26 and 27 March respectively, and between 26 March and 17 April engaged in altitude acclimation.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Hunt planned for three assaults of two climbers each including "a third and last attempt" if necessary, although after two consecutive assaults; a wait for some days would be necessary to "recover our strength" and to replenish the camps. The plan for the first two assaults had been announced by Hunt on 7 May. The first assault party using closed-circuit oxygen equipment was to start from Camp VIII and aim to reach the South Summit (and if possible the Summit), composed of Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans as only Bourdillon could cope with the experimental sets. The second assault party using open-circuit oxygen equipment was to be the strongest climbing pair, Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay; to start from Camp IX higher on the South Col. The third assault party would have been Wilf Noyce and Mike Ward.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: If the (spring) expedition failed a post-monsoon autumn attempt would be undertaken (as the Swiss had done in 1952 – permission was for the whole year; although the Swiss arrived too late).


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The "Icefall party" reached Base Camp at 17,900 ft (5455 m) on 12 April 1953. A few days were then taken up, as planned, in establishing a route through the Khumbu Icefall, and once this had been opened teams of Sherpas moved tonnes of supplies up to Base.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: A series of advanced camps were created, slowly reaching higher up the mountain. Camp II at was established by Hillary, Band and Lowe on 15 April, Camp III at the head of the Icefall at on 22 April, and Camp IV the Advance Base at by Hunt, Bourdillon and Evans on 1 May. These three made a preliminary reconnaissance of the Lhotse Face on 2 May, and Camp V at was established on 3 May. On 4 May, Bourdillon and Evans, supported by Ward and Wylie, reached Camp VI at on the Lhotse Face, and just under a fortnight later on 17 May, Wilfrid Noyce and Lowe established Camp VII at . By 21 May, Noyce and the Sherpa Annullu (the younger brother of Da Tenzing) had reached the South Col, just under .


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The first of two climbing pairs previously selected by Hunt, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, set out for the summit on 26 May. They successfully made the first ascent of the South Summit at 1 pm, coming within of the final summit. They could see that between the South Summit and the Summit was a thin crest of snow and ice on rock, with a rock step (the Hillary Step). Before starting Evans had a problem with a damaged valve in his oxygen set which took over an hour to fix; then they climbed at the unprecedented rate of almost per hour. At feet when they changed soda lime canisters, Evans' set had another problem which Bourdillon could not fix; Evans kept going but his breathing was painfully laboured. They reached the South Summit at 1 pm (at that time the highest summit climbed), but were forced to turn back at 1.20 pm after becoming exhausted, defeated by problems with the closed-circuit oxygen sets and lack of time.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: On 27 May, the expedition made its second assault on the summit with the second climbing pair, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal. Norgay had previously ascended to a record high point on Everest as a member of the Swiss expedition of 1952. They left Camp IX at 6.30 am, reached the South Summit at 9 am, and reached the summit at 11:30 am on 29 May 1953, climbing the South Col route. Before descending, they remained at the summit long enough to take photographs and to bury some sweets and a small cross in the snow. They were not using open-circuit oxygen sets; after ten minutes taking photographs on the summit without his oxygen set on, Hillary said he "was becoming rather clumsy-fingered and slow-moving" because of not using bottled oxygen. On returning from the summit, Hillary's first words to George Lowe were "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off". Stobart got the descending party to give no indication to those like Hunt and Westmacott, waiting in agony and suspense at Advance Base (Camp IV), that Hillary and Tenzing had succeeded until they were close enough for Stobart to catch the emotion of the moment on film.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: James Morris, the correspondent on the spot of "The Times" newspaper, heard the news at Base Camp on 30 May and sent a coded message by runner to Namche Bazaar, where a wireless transmitter was used to forward it as a telegram to the British Embassy in Kathmandu. Morris' encoded message to his paper read: "Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement". "Snow conditions bad" was the agreed code to signify that the summit had been reached; "advance base abandoned" referred to Hillary and "awaiting improvement" referred to Tenzing.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The message was received and understood in London in time for the news to be released, by coincidence, on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on 2 June. The conquest of Everest was probably the last major news item to be delivered to the world by runner.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Returning to Kathmandu a few days later, the expedition learned that Hillary had already been appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of British Empire and Hunt a Knight Bachelor for their efforts. On 22 June, the Government of Nepal gave a reception for the members of the expedition at which the senior queen of the country presented Tenzing with a purse of ten thousand rupees, which was then about £500. Hillary and Hunt were given kukris in jewelled sheaths, while the other members received jewelled caskets. The same day, the Indian government announced the creation of a new Gold Medal, an award for civilian gallantry modelled on the George Medal, of which Hunt, Hillary and Tenzing would be the first recipients. On 7 June it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II wished to recognise the achievement of Tenzing, and on 1 July, 10 Downing Street announced that following consultation with the governments of India and Nepal the Queen had approved the award of the George Medal to him. Some commentators have seen this lesser honour as a reflection of the "petty bigotry" that men such as Norgay experienced during this period, although many other Indians and Nepalis had previously received knighthoods and it has been suggested that the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, refused permission for Norgay to be knighted. Hunt received his knighthood in July 1953, on his return to London.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Further honours continued to descend on the members of the expedition: the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society, which had never before been awarded on a team basis, although individual medals were struck in bronze for Hunt, Hillary and Tenzing; the Cullum Geographical Medal of the American Geographical Society, the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society; the Lawrence Medal of the Royal Central Asian Society; and honorary degrees from the universities of Aberdeen, Durham, and London. In the New Year Honours list of 1954, George Lowe was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his membership of the expedition; the 37 team members also received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal with MOUNT EVEREST EXPEDITION engraved on the rim.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The expedition's cameraman, Tom Stobart, produced a film called "The Conquest of Everest", which appeared later in 1953 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Although Hillary and Tenzing represented their triumph as belonging to a team effort by the whole of the expedition, there was intense speculation as to which of the two men had actually been first to set foot on the summit of Everest. In Kathmandu, a large banner depicted Tenzing pulling a "semi-conscious" Hillary to the summit. Tenzing eventually ended the speculation by revealing in his 1955 (ghost-written) autobiography "Man of Everest" that Hillary was first. After this Hillary himself wrote that following his ascent of the 40-foot Hillary Step, lying just below the summit:


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: Shipton commented on the successful ascent: "Thank goodness. Now we can get on with some proper climbing."


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The expedition participants were selected for their mountaineering qualifications and also for their expertise in providing a number of other necessary skills and support services. While most were from the United Kingdom itself, they were also drawn from other countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations. The leader, Hunt, had been born in India.


title: 1953 British Mount Everest expedition

text: The mountaineers were accompanied by Jan Morris (known at the time under the name of James Morris), the correspondent of "The Times" newspaper of London, and by 362 porters, so that the expedition in the end amounted to over four hundred men, including twenty Sherpa guides from Tibet and Nepal, with a total weight of ten thousand pounds of baggage.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialism (also known as green socialism or socialist ecology) is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, poverty, war and environmental degradation through globalization and imperialism, under the supervision of repressive states and transnational structures.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialism asserts that the capitalist economic system is fundamentally incompatible with the ecological and social requirements of sustainability. Thus, according to this analysis, giving economic priority to the fulfillment of human needs while staying within ecological limits, as sustainable development demands, is in conflict with the structural workings of capitalism. By this logic, market-based solutions to ecological crises (such as environmental economics and green economy) are rejected as technical tweaks that do not confront capitalism's structural failures. Eco-socialists advocate for the succession of capitalism by Eco-socialism—an egalitarian economic/political/social structure designed to harmonize human society with non-human ecology and to fulfill human needs—as the only sufficient solution to the present-day ecological crisis, and hence the only path towards sustainability.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists advocate dismantling capitalism, focusing on common ownership of the means of production by freely associated producers, and restoring the commons.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists are critical of many past and existing forms of both green politics and socialism. They are often described as "Red Greens" – adherents to Green politics with clear anti-capitalist views, often inspired by Marxism (Red Greens are in contrast to eco-capitalists and Green anarchists).


title: Eco-socialism

text: The term "watermelon" is commonly applied, often pejoratively, to Greens who seem to put "social justice" goals above ecological ones, implying they are "green on the outside but red on the inside". The term is common in Australia and New Zealand, and usually attributed to either Petr Beckmann or, more frequently, Warren T. Brookes, both critics of environmentalism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: "The Watermelon", a New Zealand website, uses the term proudly, stating that it is "green on the outside and liberal on the inside", while also citing "socialist political leanings", reflecting the use of the term "liberal" to describe the political left in many English-speaking countries. Red Greens are often considered "fundies" or "fundamentalist greens", a term usually associated with deep ecology even though the German Green Party "fundi" faction included eco-socialists, and eco-socialists in other Green Parties, like Derek Wall, have been described in the press as fundies.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists also criticise bureaucratic and elite theories of self-described socialism such as Maoism, Stalinism and what other critics have termed bureaucratic collectivism or state capitalism. Instead, eco-socialists focus on imbuing socialism with ecology while keeping the emancipatory goals of "first-epoch" socialism. Eco-socialists aim for communal ownership of the means of production by "freely associated producers" with all forms of domination eclipsed, especially gender inequality and racism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: This often includes the restoration of commons land in opposition to private property, in which local control of resources valorizes the Marxist concept of use value above exchange value. Practically, eco-socialists have generated various strategies to mobilise action on an internationalist basis, developing networks of grassroots individuals and groups that can radically transform society through nonviolent "prefigurative projects" for a post-capitalist, post-statist world.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Contrary to the depiction of Karl Marx by some environmentalists, social ecologists and fellow socialists as a productivist who favoured the domination of nature, eco-socialists have revisited Marx's writings and believe that he "was a main originator of the ecological world-view". Eco-socialist authors, like John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, point to Marx's discussion of a "metabolic rift" between man and nature, his statement that "private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite absurd as private ownership of one man by another" and his observation that a society must "hand it [the planet] down to succeeding generations in an improved condition". Nonetheless, other eco-socialists feel that Marx overlooked a "recognition of nature in and for itself", ignoring its "receptivity" and treating nature as "subjected to labor from the start" in an "entirely active relationship".


title: Eco-socialism

text: William Morris, the English novelist, poet and designer, is largely credited with developing key principles of what was later called eco-socialism. During the 1880s and 1890s, Morris promoted his eco-socialist ideas within the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist League.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Following the Russian Revolution, some environmentalists and environmental scientists attempted to integrate ecological consciousness into Bolshevism, although many such people were later purged from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The "pre-revolutionary environmental movement", encouraged by the revolutionary scientist Aleksandr Bogdanov and the Proletkul't organisation, made efforts to "integrate production with natural laws and limits" in the first decade of Soviet rule, before Joseph Stalin attacked ecologists and the science of ecology and the Soviet Union fell into the pseudo-science of the state biologist Trofim Lysenko, who "set about to rearrange the Russian map" in ignorance of environmental limits.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Social ecology is closely related to the work and ideas of Murray Bookchin and influenced by anarchist Peter Kropotkin. Social ecologists assert that the present ecological crisis has its roots in human social problems, and that the domination of human-over-nature stems from the domination of human-over-human. In 1958, Murray Bookchin defined himself as an anarchist, seeing parallels between anarchism and ecology. His first book, "Our Synthetic Environment," was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962, a few months before Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". The book described a broad range of environmental ills but received little attention because of its political radicalism. His groundbreaking essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" introduced ecology as a concept in radical politics. In 1968, he founded another group that published the influential "Anarchos" magazine, which published that and other innovative essays on post-scarcity and on ecological technologies such as solar and wind energy, and on decentralization and miniaturization. Lecturing throughout the United States, he helped popularize the concept of ecology to the counterculture.


title: Eco-socialism

text: "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" is a collection of essays written by Murray Bookchin and first published in 1971 by Ramparts Press. It outlines the possible form anarchism might take under conditions of post-scarcity. It is one of Bookchin's major works, and its radical thesis provoked controversy for being utopian and messianic in its faith in the liberatory potential of technology. Bookchin argues that post-industrial societies are also post-scarcity societies, and can thus imagine "the fulfillment of the social and cultural potentialities latent in a technology of abundance". The self-administration of society is now made possible by technological advancement and, when technology is used in an ecologically sensitive manner, the revolutionary potential of society will be much changed. In 1982, his book "The Ecology of Freedom" had a profound impact on the emerging ecology movement, both in the United States and abroad. He was a principal figure in the Burlington Greens in 1986–90, an ecology group that ran candidates for city council on a program to create neighborhood democracy.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Bookchin later developed a political philosophy to complement social ecology which he called "Communalism" (spelled with a capital "C" to differentiate it from other forms of communalism). While originally conceived as a form of Social anarchism, he later developed Communalism into a separate ideology which incorporates what he saw as the most beneficial elements of Anarchism, Marxism, syndicalism, and radical ecology.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Politically, Communalists advocate a network of directly democratic citizens' assemblies in individual communities/cities organized in a confederal fashion. This method used to achieve this is called Libertarian Municipalism which involves the establishment of face-to-face democratic institutions which are to grow and expand confederally with the goal of eventually replacing the nation-state.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In the 1970s, Barry Commoner, suggesting a left-wing response to "The Limits to Growth" model that predicted catastrophic resource depletion and spurred environmentalism, postulated that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for environmental degradation, as opposed to population pressures. East German dissident writer and activist Rudolf Bahro published two books addressing the relationship between socialism and ecology – "The Alternative in Eastern Europe" and "Socialism and Survival" – which promoted a 'new party' and led to his arrest, for which he gained international notoriety.


title: Eco-socialism

text: At around the same time, Alan Roberts, an Australian Marxist, posited that people's unfulfilled needs fuelled consumerism. Fellow Australian Ted Trainer further called upon socialists to develop a system that met human needs, in contrast to the capitalist system of created wants. A key development in the 1980s was the creation of the journal "Capitalism, Nature, Socialism" (CNS) with James O'Connor as founding editor and the first issue in 1988. The debates ensued led to a host of theoretical works by O'Connor, Carolyn Merchant, Paul Burkett and others.


title: Eco-socialism

text: The Australian Democratic Socialist Party launched the "Green Left Weekly" newspaper in 1991, following a period of working within Green Alliance and Green Party groups in formation. This ceased when the Australian Greens adopted a policy of proscription of other political groups in August 1991. The DSP also published a comprehensive policy resolution, "Socialism and Human Survival" in book form in 1990, with an expanded second edition in 1999 entitled "Environment, Capitalism & Socialism".


title: Eco-socialism

text: The 1990s saw the socialist feminists Mary Mellor and Ariel Salleh address environmental issues within an eco-socialist paradigm. With the rising profile of the anti-globalization movement in the Global South, an environmentalism of the poor, combining ecological awareness and social justice, has also become prominent. David Pepper also released his important work, "Ecosocialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice", in 1994, which critiques the current approach of many within Green politics, particularly deep ecologists.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In 2001, Joel Kovel, a social scientist, psychiatrist and former candidate for the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) presidential nomination in 2000, and Michael Löwy, an anthropologist and member of the Reunified Fourth International, released "An Ecosocialist Manifesto", which has been adopted by some organisations and suggests possible routes for the growth of eco-socialist consciousness. Kovel's 2002 work, "The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?", is considered by many to be the most up-to-date exposition of eco-socialist thought.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Currently, many Green Parties around the world, such as the Dutch Green Left Party (GroenLinks) , contain strong eco-socialist elements. Radical Red-green alliances have been formed in many countries by eco-socialists, radical Greens and other radical left groups. In Denmark, the Red-Green Alliance was formed as a coalition of numerous radical parties. Within the European Parliament, a number of far-left parties from Northern Europe have organized themselves into the Nordic Green Left Alliance. Red Greens feature heavily in the Green Party of Saskatchewan (in Canada but not necessarily affiliated to the Green Party of Canada). In 2016, GPUS officially adopted eco-socialist ideology within the party.


title: Eco-socialism

text: The Green Party of England and Wales features an eco-socialist group, Green Left, that was founded in June 2005 and whose members hold a number of influential positions within the party, including both the former Principal Speakers Siân Berry and Derek Wall, himself an eco-socialist and Marxist academic, as well as prominent Green Party candidate and human rights activist Peter Tatchell. Many Marxist organisations also contain eco-socialists, as evidenced by Löwy's involvement in the reunified Fourth International and "Socialist Resistance", a British Marxist newspaper that reports on eco-socialist issues and has published two collections of essays on eco-socialist thought: "Ecosocialism or Barbarism?", edited by Jane Kelly and Sheila Malone, and "The Global Fight for Climate Justice", edited by Ian Angus with a foreword by Derek Wall.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialism has had a minor influence over developments in the environmental policies of what can be called "existing socialist" regimes, notably the People's Republic of China. Pan Yue, deputy director of the PRC's State Environmental Protection Administration, has acknowledged the influence of eco-socialist theory on his championing of environmentalism within China, which has gained him international acclaim (including being nominated for the Person of the Year Award 2006 by "The New Statesman", a British current affairs magazine). Yue stated in an interview that, while he often finds eco-socialist theory "too idealistic" and lacking "ways of solving actual problems", he believes that it provides "political reference for China’s scientific view of development", "gives socialist ideology room to expand" and offers "a theoretical basis for the establishment of fair international rules" on the environment.


title: Eco-socialism

text: He echoes much of eco-socialist thought, attacking international "environmental inequality", refusing to focus on technological fixes and arguing for the construction of "a harmonious, resource-saving and environmentally-friendly society". He also shows a knowledge of eco-socialist history, from the convergence of radical green politics and socialism and their political "red-green alliances" in the post-Soviet era. This focus on eco-socialism has informed in the essay "On Socialist Ecological Civilisation", published in September 2006, which according to Chinadialogue "sparked debate" in China.


title: Eco-socialism

text: The current Constitution of Bolivia, promulgated in 2009, is the first both ecologic and pro-socialist Constitution in the world, making the Bolivian state officially ecosocialist.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In 2007, it was announced that attempts to form an Ecosocialist International Network (EIN) would be made and an inaugural meeting of the International occurred on 7 October 2007 in Paris. The meeting attracted "more than 60 activists from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States" and elected a steering committee featuring representatives from Britain, the United States, Canada, France, Greece, Argentina, Brazil and Australia, including Joel Kovel, Michael Löwy, Derek Wall, Ian Angus (editor of Climate and Capitalism in Canada) and Ariel Salleh. The Committee states that it wants "to incorporate members from China, India, Africa, Oceania and Eastern Europe". EIN held its second international conference in January 2009, in association with the next World Social Forum in Brazil. The conference released The Belem Ecosocialist Declaration.


title: Eco-socialism

text: International networking by eco-socialists has already been seen in the Praxis Research and Education Center, a group on international researchers and activists. Based in Moscow and established in 1997, Praxis, as well as publishing books "by libertarian socialists, Marxist humanists, anarchists, [and] syndicalists", running the Victor Serge Library and opposing war in Chechnya, states that it believes "that capitalism has brought life on the planet near to the brink of catastrophe, and that a form of ecosocialism needs to emerge to replace capitalism before it is too late".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, environmentalism and ecology, eco-socialists generally believe that the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, inequality and environmental degradation through globalization and imperialism under the supervision of repressive states and transnational structures.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In the "Ecosocialist Manifesto" (2001), Joel Kovel and Michael Löwy suggest that capitalist expansion causes "crises of ecology" through the "rampant industrialization" and "societal breakdown" that springs "from the form of imperialism known as globalization". They believe that capitalism's expansion "exposes ecosystems" to pollutants, habitat destruction and resource depletion, "reducing the sensuous vitality of nature to the cold exchangeability required for the accumulation of capital", while submerging "the majority of the world's people to a mere reservoir of labor power" as it penetrates communities through "consumerism and depoliticization".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Other eco-socialists like Derek Wall highlight how in the Global South free-market capitalist structures economies to produce export-geared crops that take water from traditional subsistence farms, increasing hunger and the likelihood of famine; furthermore, forests are increasingly cleared and enclosed to produce cash crops that separate people from their local means of production and aggravate poverty. Wall shows that many of the world's poor have access to the means of production through "non-monetised communal means of production", such as subsistence farming, but, despite providing for need and a level of prosperity, these are not included in conventional economics measures, like GNP.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Wall therefore views neo-liberal globalization as "part of the long struggle of the state and commercial interests to steal from those who subsist" by removing "access to the resources that sustain ordinary people across the globe". Furthermore, Kovel sees neoliberalism as "a return to the pure logic of capital" that "has effectively swept away measures which had inhibited capital’s aggressivity, replacing them with naked exploitation of humanity and nature." For Kovel, this "tearing down of boundaries and limits to accumulation is known as globalization", which was "a deliberate response to a serious accumulation crisis (in the 1970s) that had convinced the leaders of the global economy to install what we know as neoliberalism.".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Furthermore, Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martinez Alier blame globalization for creating increased levels of waste and pollution, and then dumping the waste on the most vulnerable in society, particularly those in the Global South. Others have also noted that capitalism disproportionately affects the poorest in the Global North as well, leading to examples of resistance such as the environmental justice movement in the United States, consisting of working-class people and ethnic minorities who highlight the tendency for waste dumps, major road projects and incinerators to be constructed around socially excluded areas. However, as Wall highlights, such campaigns are often ignored or persecuted precisely because they originate among the most marginalized in society: the African-American radical green religious group MOVE, campaigning for ecological revolution and animal rights from Philadelphia, had many members imprisoned or even killed by US authorities from the 1970s onwards.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialism disagrees with the elite theories of capitalism, which tend to label a specific class or social group as conspirators who construct a system that satisfies their greed and personal desires. Instead, eco-socialists suggest that the very system itself is self-perpetuating, fuelled by "extra-human" or "impersonal" forces. Kovel uses the Bhopal industrial disaster as an example. Many anti-corporate observers would blame the avarice of those at the top of many multi-national corporations, such as the Union Carbide Corporation in Bhopal, for seemingly isolated industrial accidents. Conversely, Kovel suggests that Union Carbide were experiencing a decrease in sales that led to falling profits, which, due to stock market conditions, translated into a drop in share values. The depreciation of share value made many shareholders sell their stock, weakening the company and leading to cost-cutting measures that eroded the safety procedures and mechanisms at the Bhopal site. Though this did not, in Kovel's mind, make the Bhopal disaster inevitable, he believes that it illustrates the effect market forces can have on increasing the likelihood of ecological and social problems.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialism focuses closely on Marx's theories about the contradiction between use values and exchange values. Kovel posits that, within a market, goods are not produced to meet needs but are produced to be exchanged for money that we then use to acquire other goods; as we have to keep selling in order to keep buying, we must persuade others to buy our goods just to ensure our survival, which leads to the production of goods with no previous use that can be sold to sustain our ability to buy other goods.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Such goods, in an eco-socialist analysis, produce exchange values but have no use value. Eco-socialists like Kovel stress that this contradiction has reached a destructive extent, where certain essential activities such as caring for relatives full-time and basic subsistence are unrewarded, while unnecessary commodities earn individuals huge fortunes and fuel consumerism and resource depletion.


title: Eco-socialism

text: James O'Connor argues for a "second contradiction" of underproduction, to complement Marx's "first" contradiction of capital and labor. While the second contradiction is often considered a theory of environmental degradation, O'Connor's theory in fact goes much further. Building on the work of Karl Polanyi, along with Marx, O'Connor argues that capitalism necessarily undermines the "conditions of production" necessary to sustain the endless accumulation of capital. These conditions of production include soil, water, energy, and so forth. But they also include an adequate public education system, transportation infrastructures, and other services that are not produced directly by capital, but which capital needs in order accumulate effectively. As the conditions of production are exhausted, the costs of production for capital increase. For this reason, the second contradiction generates an underproduction crisis tendency, with the rising cost of inputs and labor, to complement the overproduction tendency of too many commodities for too few customers. Like Marx's contradiction of capital and labor, the second contradiction therefore threatens the system's existence.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In addition, O'Connor believes that, in order to remedy environmental contradictions, the capitalist system innovates new technologies that overcome existing problems but introduce new ones.


title: Eco-socialism

text: O'Connor cites nuclear power as an example, which he sees as a form of producing energy that is advertised as an alternative to carbon-intensive, non-renewable fossil fuels, but creates long-term radioactive waste and other dangers to health and security. While O'Connor believes that capitalism is capable of spreading out its economic supports so widely that it can afford to destroy one ecosystem before moving onto another, he and many other eco-socialists now fear that, with the onset of globalization, the system is running out of new ecosystems. Kovel adds that capitalist firms have to continue to extract profit through a combination of intensive or extensive exploitation and selling to new markets, meaning that capitalism must grow indefinitely to exist, which he thinks is impossible on a planet of finite resources.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Capitalist expansion is seen by eco-socialists as being "hand in glove" with "corrupt and subservient client states" that repress dissent against the system, governed by international organisations "under the overall supervision of the Western powers and the superpower United States", which subordinate peripheral nations economically and militarily. Kovel further claims that capitalism itself spurs conflict and, ultimately, war. Kovel states that the 'War on Terror', between Islamist extremists and the United States, is caused by "oil imperialism", whereby the capitalist nations require control over sources of energy, especially oil, which are necessary to continue intensive industrial growth - in the quest for control of such resources, Kovel argues that the capitalist nations, specifically the United States, have come into conflict with the predominantly Muslim nations where oil is often found.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists believe that state or self-regulation of markets does not solve the crisis "because to do so requires setting limits upon accumulation", which is "unacceptable" for a growth-orientated system; they believe that terrorism and revolutionary impulses cannot be tackled properly "because to do so would mean abandoning the logic of empire". Instead, eco-socialists feel that increasing repressive counter-terrorism increases alienation and causes further terrorism and believe that state counter-terrorist methods are, in Kovel and Löwy's words, "evolving into a new and malignant variation of fascism". They echo Rosa Luxemburg's "stark choice" between "socialism or barbarism", which was believed to be a prediction of the coming of fascism and further forms of destructive capitalism at the beginning of the twentieth century (Luxemburg was in fact murdered by proto-fascist Freikorps in the revolutionary atmosphere of Germany in 1919).