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ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION

Development vs environmental security: How to kill an ecosystem

27th July 2016

Sukanta Chaudhari writes: Today, a great threat looms over wetlands. Under a new environmental regime, each state will be free to form its own guidelines. Bengal’s new environment minister, has declared his intention of ‘developing’ the wetlands and even having their Ramsar status annulled. The truth is that Kolkata’s wetlands are ‘real estate in waiting’….

Development/Growth

What you need to know about the world’s water wars

26th July 2016

National Geographic reports: Around the world, alarms are being sounded about groundwater depletion. Underground water is being pumped so aggressively globally that land is sinking, civil wars are being waged, and agriculture is being transformed. According to scientist Jay Famiglietti, the areas where aquifiers are under the greatest threat are also the most heavily populated….

Dr Jill Stein, the U.S. Green Party's candidate for the 2017 presidential elections

ALTERNATIVES

The case for the green state

William Hawes writes: Critiques of the modern nation-state have been growing, due to the abysmal failures of the capitalist, neoliberal order. On the other side, the leftism of social-democratic reforms promote endless government spending. Neither of these models address the many crises our world faces. Green political theory offers a way out of this impasse….

Purshottam Singh Thakur/Down to Earth

Conflict/Dispossession

A forest drought no one is talking about

25th July 2016

Down to Earth reports: Severe dry spells in Indian forests have hit the livelihood of more than 100 million people. But India simply does not acknowledge this drought. There’s no official nomenclature for forest droughts, nor any official plan to deal with them. So, while a farmer gets compensation for failed crops, forest-dwellers receive nothing….

A Warli painting depicting collective life

ALTERNATIVES

Beyond development: The commons as a new/old paradigm of human flourishing

David Bollier writes: The brute facts of climate change are calling into question models of economic development, transforming the terms of debate, compelling us to mythologies of development and growth, and quickly imagine credible alternative paths. Suddenly, the social economies of indigenous peoples, traditional communities and localized systems seem highly relevant to the challenges ahead….

Representational pic

ALTERNATIVES

The Chizami model of development

24th July 2016

Ananda Banerjee reports: Chizami village, located in Phek district of eastern Nagaland, has 600 households with a population of 3,000. Chizami is considered a model village for the quiet revolution it has led in the past decade in terms of socioeconomic reforms and environment protection. The village council imposes strict fines on those violating norms….

All pics by P. Sainath/People's Archive of Rural India

Consumerism/Lifestyle

P. Sainath: The sacred waters of a tanker

From Ruralindiaonline.org: Rampant deforestation, extensive damming of the rivers, huge diversions of water for industrial projects and even elite resorts can be seen across the state. All these underlie Maharashtra’s terrible water crisis. They won’t get washed away by the monsoon, even if the media coverage of it dries up with onset of the rains….

ALTERNATIVES

In the world’s biggest city, the past offers lessons for surviving the future

23rd July 2016

At the beginning of the Edo period (1603-1868), Japan faced ecological collapse from deforestation, erosion and watershed damage. New conservation practices were introduced in response to this crisis which brought about a sustainable interaction between nature and humans. Current anxieties about the state of the world are today driving renewed interest in the Edo experience….

Bookshelf

The Great Derangement: Conversations with Amitav Ghosh – 1

22nd July 2016

Acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh‘s non-fiction take on climate change and our collective inability to acknowledge its danger – titled The Great Derangement – has been hailed as a landmark, which promises to change the conversation around this crucial issue. In this series, we’re re-publishing interviews which feature the writer at his forceful and articulate best….

Anupam Nath/Associated Press

Conflict/Dispossession

Adivasi boy shot at by guards of ‘shoot-first’ Kaziranga national park

The Ecologist magazine reports: A 7-year old boy has been injured after getting shot by park guards in Assam’s Kaziranga national park, which operates a strict ‘shoot first’ policy. In the last nine years, an estimated 62 people have been shot dead by Kaziranga guards, four of whom were ironically arrested for alleged rhino poaching recently….

ALTERNATIVES

Clean energy won’t save us – only a new economic system can do that

21st July 2016

Jason Hickel writes: When it comes to climate change, the problem is not just the type of energy we are using, it is what we’re doing with it. What would we do with 100% clean energy? Exactly what we are currently doing with fossil fuels: raze more forests, build more meat farms, expand industrial agriculture….

Archival photo of a boat rally in protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam

Narmada Bachao Andolan

Conflict/Dispossession

Spotlight: The Narmada valley’s unfolding social and ecological disaster

Its 25 years since the Narmada Bachao Andolan started mobilising resistance against the destruction of life and livelihood in the Narmada valley. Today, with more than two lakh people who’ve not been resettled threatened with submergence, that resistance is being revived. A closer look at the history and politics of big dams on the Narmada river….

Conserve/Resist

Vanishing act: Why insects are declining and why it matters

Christian Schwägerl writes: According to data for 452 species, there has been a 45 percent decline in invertebrate populations over the past 40 years. So far, only the decline of honeybee populations has received attention, mostly because of their vital role in pollinating food crops. The rest of the insect world has been widely ignored….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

Watch: A blistering critique of India’s “destructive development”

19th July 2016

In this video, which has since gone viral, Binay Kumar, a corporate employee turned farmer addresses an audience in Bangalore, offering a sharp take on India’s rampant urbanization, catastrophic development model, the ongoing agrarian crisis and the rural-urban divide that feeds it. He states the obvious, but bitter truth: “Everybody wants to eat, but nobody wants to grow.”…

CLIMATE CRISIS

It’s only July, but 7 climate records have already been broken in 2016

The Guardian reports: India recorded its hottest day ever on 19 May, with the temperature in Rajasthan’s Phalodi rising to 51C. But it’s only one among many climate records broken this year. From soaring temperatures in Alaska and India to Arctic sea ice melting and CO2 concentrations rising, 2016 is smashing records around the world….

Conflict/Dispossession

The global farm land grab in 2016: How big, how bad?

18th July 2016

In 2008, GRAIN exposed how a new wave of land grabbing was sweeping the planet in the name of addressing the global food and financial crises. Their new report shows that the global farmland grab is far from over. Rather, it’s in many ways deepening, expanding to new frontiers and intensifying conflict around the world….

Development/Growth

The dying gulmohars of Bangalore and urban India’s forbidding future

The de-greening of India’s cities is creating water-starved heat-islands. Bangalore may be India’s most drastic example, but the short-sighted assault on greenery is nationwide. Projections show that in 2030, Kolkata’s vegetation cover will be just 3.37% (from 34% in 1980), Ahmedabad’s 3% (from 37% in 1990) and Bangalore’s 14% by 2020 (from 46% in 1992)….

GREEN POLITICS

Green activist arrested, beaten in custody, NGOs demand release

17th July 2016

On 8th July 2016, environmental activist Piyush Sethia and two colleagues were arrested in Salem, Tamil Nadu during protests against the construction of an over-bridge. On 14th July 2016, the Magistrate’s court dismissed Piyush’s bail application while granting conditional bail to the other two activists. Sethia has been kept in solitary confinement since his arrest….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Global warming is changing cloud distribution, with profound consequences

16th July 2016

Chris Mooney reports: In a new study published in Nature, scientists say they have for the first time thoroughly documented one of the most profound planetary changes yet to be caused by a warming climate: The distribution of clouds all across the Earth has shifted, in such a way as to make global warming worse….