CLIMATE CRISIS
Common Dreams reports: Environmental records of all kinds are being shattered as climate change takes effect in real time, a new climate research report says. 2015 was the hottest year on record since at least the mid-to-late 19th century, confirming the “toppling of several symbolic milestones” in global temperature, sea level rise, and extreme weather….
Read More about Climate change is here and now, warns dire new report
Ecologise Events
Soujanya Mantravadi writes: The workshop was attended by 32 participants. Organised by three members of the Ecologise group and five resource people, the programme was intended to send out a strong message that the energy aspects of the city is goes beyond electricity. The workshop witnessed elaborate and edifying discussions between the participants and speakers….
Read More about Ecologise Hyderabad: Energy Workshop Report
NEWS ARCHIVE
Some of the world’s largest companies have been given 45 days to respond to a complaint that their greenhouse gas emissions have violated the human rights of millions of people in the Phillippines. In a potential landmark case, the Phillippines’ Commission on Human Rights has put 47 “carbon majors” including Shell and BP, on notice….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #106ALTERNATIVES
Crystal Stevens writes: Joseph Simcox is an ethnobotanist who has an intrinsic fascination with nature’s wonders. This ‘botanical explorer’, travels the world finding rare and even new plants. He believes that plants are our future, and passionately teaches the importance of symbiotic relationships between us and plants for us to live well on this planet….
Read More about Video: This ‘botanical explorer’ believes that plants are our future
ALTERNATIVES
Gaurav Sangwani writes: Permaculture tries to utilise the existing elements in the land to take human freedom further, with a far lower ecological effect. Primitivism is the perennial belief in the need to go back to where we started, the lost Golden Age of freedom and guiltlessness which is at the heart of all the world’s religions….
Read More about Permaculture and Primitvism: Two alternatives to the technological destruction of nature
Shivaji Kagnekar (middle) with fellow Gandhian Sadashivarao Bhonsale (extreme left)
The Hindu
ALTERNATIVES
Smoke-free kitchens, productive farmlands, abundant natural resources — these are some of the features that make over a dozen villages in Karnataka’s Belagavi district stand apart. The concept of enhancing rural livelihoods through active participation of people was introduced here by Shivaji Kagnekar, 67, a social reformer, who has successfully explored possibilities of rural development….
Read More about On a sustainable path
Bookshelf
Kurt Cobb writes: Hubbert is much maligned and much praised these days. But he is perhaps not well understood. Mason Inman’s compelling biography gives us all a chance finally to understand this scientific giant and the context within which he spawned insights on the future of energy that continue to be central to our lives….
Read More about Who was M. King Hubbert and what was his prediction about the future of oil?
Representative pic
ALTERNATIVES
Almost two decades back, about two dozen of us pooled resources to buy undulating land, now known as Vanvadi, in the foothills of the Sahyadris; our primary aim – ecological regeneration and local self-reliance. A survey of the botanical wealth of Vanvadi surprised us with 52 plant species of uncultivated forest foods that provide edible….
Read More about Bharat Mansata: The rich diversity of forest foods
Bookshelf
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….
Read More about The Great Derangement: Conversations with Amitav Ghosh – 2
Consumerism/Lifestyle
C.P. Chandrasekhar writes: Even the kind of economic growth that liberalisation actually delivered is proving unsustainable. So, the belief that growth would remain high for years to come, delivering benefits even to those at the bottom of the income pyramid and those steeped in poverty and deprivation, has now revealed itself to be a myth….
Read More about 25 years of ‘economic reforms’: The myth of growthCLIMATE CRISIS
Chris Mooney reports: A recent report showed Greenland lost 1 trillion tons of ice mass between 2011 and 2014. A new NASA study shows that key areas where glaciers have been melting have actually experienced a reduction in gravitational pull, which has in turn reduced sea levels, confirming an age old prediction of climate science….
Read More about Video: A stunning prediction of climate science may now be coming true
Conflict/Dispossession
Campaign for Survival and Dignity release: The Rajya Sabha has passed the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2016. This Bill essentially gives carte blanche to forest officials to spend gigantic amounts of money (over Rs. 40,000 crores) without any accountability to the people whose forests, lands and lives will be damaged or destroyed by their activities….
Read More about A black day for the rights of millions – Rajya Sabha passes Afforestation Bill
NEWS ARCHIVE
The Washington Post reports: The temperature in Mitribah, Kuwait, surged Thursday to a blistering 129.2 degrees (54 Celsius). On Friday in Basra, Iraq, the mercury soared to 129.0 degrees (53.9 Celsius). If confirmed, these incredible measurements would represent the two hottest temperatures ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #105
CLIMATE CRISIS
Fred Pearce writes: How hard would it be to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees? At various times in the past six months, global average temperatures have sometimes gone above 1.5 degrees. The truth is that scientists are only now getting out of the blocks to address what a 1.5-degree world would really look like….
Read More about What would a global warming increase of 1.5 degrees be like?
ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION
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’….
Read More about Development vs environmental security: How to kill an ecosystem
Development/Growth
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….
Read More about What you need to know about the world’s water wars
Dr Jill Stein, the U.S. Green Party's candidate for the 2017 presidential elections
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about The case for the green state
Purshottam Singh Thakur/Down to Earth
Conflict/Dispossession
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….
Read More about A forest drought no one is talking about
A Warli painting depicting collective life
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about Beyond development: The commons as a new/old paradigm of human flourishing
Representational pic
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about The Chizami model of development
