NEWS ARCHIVE
HIGHLIGHTS: *India 100th on global hunger index *India Spends Record $18 Billion to Develop Roads as Elections Loom *Blow to Monsanto on Bt cotton seed technology patent *Ganges river flow could more than double *Satellite study says Spain, Morocco, India, Iraq at risk as reservoirs shrink *Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years…
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #179
ALTERNATIVES
Forty five years ago, villagers in the Alakananda valley stopped a group of loggers from felling a patch of ash trees. Thus was born the Chipko Andolan, the peasant movement that focused popular attention on the depredations of commercial forestry in India. A tribute to India’s original ecological movement, which inspired many more to come….
Read More about Chipko@40: Revisiting India’s legendary ecological movement
ALTERNATIVES
From The Guardian: This indigenous Purépecha town was dominated by illegal loggers, who clearcut local forests with the protection of a drug cartel, and the collusion of corrupt police and politicians. Eventually, the townspeople decided they had enough. In April 2011, local residents ran off the loggers, kicked out the mayor and banished political parties. David…
Read More about Cherán, Mexico: The town that said ‘No’
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Down to Earth: According to an IIT Gandhinagar study, population exposure to heat waves is expected to increase by a massive 200-fold increase if carbon emissions continue under a business-as-usual scenario. Heat wave is already the third biggest natural killer in the country, but is not recognised as a natural calamity by the government….
Read More about India could see 200-fold increase in heat wave exposure by 2100: study
ALTERNATIVES
Kevin Anderson writes in The Conversation: Most political and economic pontificators, buttressed by naysayers and established elites, remain incapable of seeing beyond their familiar 20th century horizon. But the 21st century is already proving how the future is a different country –one that could yet be shaped by alternative interpretations of prosperity, sustainability and equity….
Read More about Hope from chaos: could political upheaval lead to a new green epoch?
NEWS ARCHIVE
HIGHLIGHTS: *Extreme Rainfall Events in India Related to Human-made Emissions *Journalist investigating illegal sand mining killed * India Produces 100 Billionth Unit of Renewable Energy in a Year *’Extreme’ fossil fuel investments have surged under Donald Trump *China Has Met Its 2020 Carbon Target Three Years Early *Saudi Arabia Planning World’s Biggest Solar Panel Installation…
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #178
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Financial Times: Antarctica is changing fast, including sections of the massive ice sheet that covers it. This holds so much water that if it ever melted completely, global sea levels would rise by nearly 60m. The race to understand Antarctica has become more urgent. Also watch, the documentary ‘The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning.’…
Read More about Inside Antarctica: the continent whose fate will affect millions
ALTERNATIVES
From Transformative Cities: The Atlas of Utopias is a global gallery of inspiring community led transformation in water, energy and housing. The atlas features 32 communities from 19 countries who responded to the Transformative Cities initiative which seeks to learn from cities working on radical solutions to our world’s systemic economic, social and ecological crises….
Read More about Announcing the ‘Atlas of Utopias’
ALTERNATIVES
The Indian Himalayan region is seeing a myriad of conflicts and challenges, and somehow increasing literacy levels or education is not providing the answers we urgently seek. Reliance on an education providing merely literacy, connecting people to a wider world, but alienating them from their environments, has done little good to people or their ecosystems….
Read More about Manshi Asher: Will the ‘educated’ save the environment?
Bookshelf
From Nature: In this in depth investigation of India’s feeble fight against consumerist waste, are robust statistics, compelling history and telling case studies. The authors, anthropologist Assa Doron and historian Robin Jeffrey, also throw the occasional philosophical curve ball, such as: “waste is in the eye of the beholder”. The result is both beguiling and disturbing….
Read More about Growth and garbage: A tour of India’s waste mountain
CLIMATE CRISIS
This latest news immediately brings some questions to mind: Does this mean that we should stop working toward mitigating climate change? Should we stop worrying and enjoy mindlessly by indulging ourselves in senseless consumerism? I really don’t know. But what I definitely know is that the window of opportunity to act is closing really fast….
Read More about Red alert: Runaway climate change begins as glacier melt passes point of no return
NEWS ARCHIVE
HIGHLIGHTS: *India seeks to change forest policy to promote industrial plantations *Modi govt to amend labour laws *India has world’s highest inhabitants without safe water *Centre clears ambitious Neutrino Lab *Global carbon emissions hit record high in 2017 *93% of Bottled Water Tainted With Microplastics *California aims for world’s most progressive farm animal welfare law…
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #177
ALTERNATIVES
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico top the list of countries where the most people die defending a patch of earth, a mountain, or a river. The region where most environmental activists die annually is taking action with a new landmark agreement. The “Escazu Accord” is only the second regional agreement on environmentalists’ rights in the world….
Read More about Latin America signs landmark agreement to protect environmental activists
Volunteers taking readings to map the shoreline
ALTERNATIVES
From ICSF: In the face of climate change and disastrous development projects like Sagarmala, stewardship of coastal land is the primary challenge for coastal communities. Sea level rise and increasing climate unpredictability require local communities to play an active role in creating knowledge-bases for appropriate action, to reduce disaster risk and recreate a healthy coastline….
Read More about A tide turns: Coastal community resilience in the age of climate change
Bookshelf
Russian geochemist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945), founder of biogeochemistry, also laid the foundations for the ‘Gaia hypothesis’ with his idea that life is a geological force that can change Earth’s landforms, climate, even the contents of its atmosphere. “What Darwin did for life through time, Vernadsky did for life through space on a geological scale”….
Read More about Tribute: Vladimir Vernadsky on the Biosphere and the Noösphere
ALTERNATIVES
From Toward Freedom: The second iteration of ConCiencias, a conference creating dialogue between the Zapatista’s and leading left wing scientists from throughout the world, took place at San Cristobal de Las Casas. The struggle to decolonize knowledge is part and parcel of the Zapatista’s broader project of resisting indigenous genocide, neoliberal capitalism, and political repression….
Read More about Cracks in capitalism’s wall: Zapatistas and the struggle to decolonise science
NEWS ARCHIVE
HIGHLIGHTS: *Water level in 91 reservoirs at 36% of total live capacity *Indian govt calls for studies on climate change goals *Arctic has warmest winter on record *UN to recognise human right to healthy environment *Coke, Nestle Near Ownership of World’s Second Largest Aquifer *Latin American countries sign legally binding pact to protect land defenders…
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #176
ALTERNATIVES
If you wanted to change a culture, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children. ‘Schooling The World,’ a film by Carol Black, takes a challenging, sometimes funny, ultimately deeply troubling look at the role played by modern education in the destruction of the world’s last sustainable land based cultures….
Read More about Film: Schooling the World – The White Man’s Last Burden
ALTERNATIVES
From GreatTransition.org: The concept of Vivir Bien (or Buen Vivir), reflecting an indigenous cosmovision that emphasizes living in harmony with nature and one another, gained international attention as an alternative to the rampage of neoliberalism. As its popularity has grown, however, its meaning has been compromised, warns Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s former ambassador to the UN….
Read More about Pablo Solon: Vivir Bien – Old cosmovisions and new paradigms
ALTERNATIVES
We’re not going to get a decarbonized energy system by 2050. We’re going to fail the climate targets, probably by a large margin, and I suspect that a warming of about 3 degrees centigrade is going to be almost inevitable. It’s perfectly possible that self-amplifying feedback mechanisms under way will amplify this change even more….
Read More about J.M. Korhonen: I’m no longer advocating for clean energy; here’s why
