NEWS ARCHIVE
Kumar Sambhav Srivastava reports: The Centre has scrapped a rule that prevented the government from allowing industrial plantation in naturally forested areas, a move that will allow private players to enter forest management. The change reflects in the new draft national forest policy 2016, made public last week to replace the one formulated in 1988….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #101ALTERNATIVES
‘ From Uniformity to Diversity: A paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological systems’, calls for breaking the chains that lock monocultures and industrial-scale feedlots to dominant farming systems in order to unleash truly sustainable approaches. In the accompanying video, Food MythBusters show why we really don’t need industrial agriculture to feed the world….
Read More about Video & report: Time to ditch industrial agriculture: here’s the evidence
Conflict/Dispossession
What the flashing neon words on the wall seem to be saying is: negative interest rates are on the way throughout the “developed world.” In due course, they will demolish any remaining value of the US dollar, and blow up the bond bubble. In turn, this financial collapse will trigger the next stage: commercial collapse….
Read More about Dmitry Orlov: Negative interest rates and the impending global financial collapse
CLIMATE CRISIS
Deaths due to heat waves in India have been in the thousands–in the years 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2015 in particular. Numbers, which are how the deaths are usually reported, are class- and gender-neutral. It’s one of the grave ironies of global warming that those least responsible for it are affected the most by it….
Read More about India’s heat waves spell doom for the working poor
ALTERNATIVES
Broroti Roy writes that in India, many are reluctant to use the term ‘degrowth’ because growth is seen as the only way to get rid of poverty. However, there are many grassroots initiatives emerging here, too, which follow the same principles of respecting the planet’s limits and pursuing the core values of equity and justice….
Read More about Bookshelf: Degrowth – A Vocabulary for a New EraConsumerism/Lifestyle
Science Daily reports: Mental illnesses and mood disorders are common in cities, scientists found that this is partly due to the reduced access to nature. The authors of the study published in the journal Science said that the growing tensions from the necessary role of the urban cities have disconnected humans from the natural world….
Read More about Video & Report: Disconnect with nature driving mental illness in urban areas
Morvarid Fernandez
ALTERNATIVES
Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the one-size-fits-all approach of centralised infrastructure and instead pursue a suite of solutions tailored to local needs. Could it be possible to have water systems that have no adverse impact on the environment? Such a transformation will require new technology but also new ways for people to interact with water….
Read More about How to achieve sustainable clean water for everyoneDevelopment/Growth
Irfan Syed writes: After it finished reclaiming land from water and then claiming the air (high-rises), the city of Mumbai, being a financial, marketing, and glamour capital and therefore having ceaseless immigration, has been devouring land, like a super-starved T-Rex. After eating up most of legit land, it’s been turning its attention to… the forest….
Read More about It’s raining big cats on dogged, destructive development
A view of the Vizhinjam fishing harbour
Aneesh/Wikimapia
Conflict/Dispossession
Job creation for Keralites from the controversial Adani-run Vizhinjam Port project is estimated at around 2,000. Compare that to 50,000 fisherfolk who’ll lose their livelihoods. Anjana Radhakrishnan takes a closer look at a project that already seems a social, ecological and economic disaster in the making, but has so far escaped the national media’s attention….
Read More about How ‘development’ is set to create 2000 jobs, but destroy 50,000 livelihoods in Kerala
ALTERNATIVES
Helena Norberg-Hodge writes: Today, banks and corporations run Europe. For big corporations and financial institutions, diversity is an impediment, whereas monoculture – in all aspects of life, from seeds, fast food and clothing, to architecture – is ‘efficient’. For them, a single Europe-wide market of 500 million people was an essential step to further growth:…
Read More about Why global capital fears ‘Brexit’Conflict/Dispossession
The non-profit Global Witness has documented 185 killings across 16 countries of people defending their land, forests and rivers against destructive industries in 2015. It’s by far the highest annual death toll on record. Communities that take a stand are finding themselves in the firing line of companies’ private security, state forces and contract killers….
Read More about Report: More earth defenders were killed last year than ever before
ALTERNATIVES
The way we get electricity is about to change dramatically, as demand for fossil fuels comes to an end— in less than a decade. According to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast, massive shifts are coming soon to power markets because electric cars and affordable battery storage for renewable power are arriving faster than expected….
Read More about Forecast: The world nears peak fossil fuels for electricity
ALTERNATIVES
Economic development and modernity have transformed livelihoods into deadlihoods. They are wiping out millennia-old livelihoods that were ways of life, with no sharp division between work and leisure; replacing them with dreary assembly line jobs where we wait desperately for holidays… Less visible is the pauperisation of those deprived of natural resources they depended on….
Read More about Ashish Kothari: Livelihoods vs. Deadlihoods
Conflict/Dispossession
Nitin Sethi reports: The government has made public its draft National Forest Policy, to replace the existing one crafted in 1988. Incorporating consequences of climate change but entirely ignoring one of the three forest related laws, the Forest Rights Act, the policy brings new focus to plantations, growing trees outside forest lands and wood industry….
Read More about Draft National Forest Policy sets up another battle over Forest Rights Act
Bloomberg
Digests/Specials
Is ‘crony capitalism’ behind Rajan’s impending exit? RBI has been cracking the whip on major banks, collectively saddled with Rs 5,00,000 crore of bad loans. The banks in turn started forcing big debtors–including Reliance, Essar and Adani-to sell prized assets to repay debts. The numbers in this May 8 report in The Hindu speak volumes….
Read More about Corporate debt crackdown: Is it what pushed Raghuram Rajan out?
ALTERNATIVES
Aniket Motale writes: Many new age economists have realised the limitations of GDP as a measure of development, including a few Nobel Laureates like Joseph Stiglitz. US politician Robert F. Kennedy once criticised GDP saying, “It measures everything, except that which makes life worthwhile “. Let’s take a closer look at the arguments against GDP….
Read More about ‘GDP = Development’: Debunking the mythCLIMATE CRISIS
Bob Pickard writes: It is remarkable how little has actually been done to deal with climate change – and the current lack of public affairs urgency is absolutely breathtaking… There are many reasons why climate change is such a vexing communications conundrum; but as a PR professional, here is what I‘ve pieced together so far….
Read More about The climate change PR disaster
NEWS ARCHIVE
Common Dreams reports: Record carbon dioxide levels are set to surpass the symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM) this year and will likely never fall below that line again in our lifetimes, according to a new study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change by scientists at the UK Met Office ….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #100
Representational pic
Development/Growth
Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava reports: The National Board of Wildlife, the highest advisory body to the government on wildlife issues, has cleared more industrial projects in and around wildlife habitats in past two years of NDA rule than what its predecessor UPA-II did in its entire tenure of five years, shows the data compiled by CSE….
Read More about NDA cleared more projects in wildlife habitats in 2 yrs than UPA did in 5 yrs
CLIMATE CRISIS
David Blittersdorf writes: Our industrial society can handle about a 10% voluntary energy reduction across the board, doing things like walking more and carpooling. To get to the necessary level (which, by some estimations, will be about a 60-80% decrease in energy usage), will be impossible unless we change the way we think about things….
Read More about The Peak Oil dilemma
