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ALTERNATIVES

Will doubling India’s coal tax boost the clean energy sector?

14th May 2016

India in its INDC pledged to achieve 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030. The carbon cess will help provide a clear and direct indication to the market of rising regulatory risks that hover over the fossil fuel industry and build business confidence in the non-fossil fuel industry….

NEWS ARCHIVE

NEWS UPDATE #95

13th May 2016

The Maharashtra government has sent out a resolution that declares drought in 29,000 villages, most of them in Marathwada and Vidarbha, adding that wherever any official reference is made to a “drought-like situation”, it should be treated as “drought”. The government was responding to petitions in the Bombay High Court on the state’s water crisis….

Conflict/Dispossession

Modi government has launched a silent war on the environment

12th May 2016

Nayantara Narayanan reports: The UPA government left behind a legacy of weakened safeguards for India’s environment, forests and forest-dwelling people. The Narendra Modi government has lost no time in weakening them further. The process has been so accelerated that journalists have struggled to keep pace with them. Here is a look at seven reported changes….

ALTERNATIVES

The only sustainable growth is de-growth!

Alberto Acosta writes: Mainstream thinking – embedded within capitalist globalisation – makes us accept the impossibility of imagining an economy that does not promote economic growth, as much as a world without oil, mining and agribusiness is impossible. Within this mainstream thinking, we can find people from every political and ideological stance, from neoliberals to socialists….

Digests/Specials

The political and economic fallout of the energy upheaval

11th May 2016

With the production of ‘conventional oil’ having reached a plateau and fossil fuels in general under attack for their impact on the climate and the environment, the global oil industry is undergoing an unprecedented upheaval. Oil being the very lifeblood of all industrial societies, the geopolitical and economic consequences of these changes are already being felt….

Rebecca Hendin

Consumerism/Lifestyle

Spotlight: Millennials who’re broke, hungry, but on trend

Gayatri Jayaraman writes on India’s new ‘urban poor’, “the metro-dwelling twenty somethings who’ve internalised the pressures surrounding them, and spend a majority of their salaries on keeping up the lifestyles that they believe are essential to earning those salaries.” We present the original BuzzFeed article which went viral recently, and some of the responses it provoked….

Development/Growth

Amita Baviskar: The drought is no longer a natural disaster

10th May 2016

In the past, water scarcity was a constraint that inspired communities to conserve water, devising locally appropriate technologies to share resources. Rajasthan’s baolis and Tamil Nadu’s eris are just two of the many traditional water harvesting systems that survive to this day. However, they have been sidelined by spectacular state projects such as large dams….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The climate movement and the “Jobs vs. Environment” Debate

Fossil fuel divestment activist Kate Aronoff writes: A growing, green industry born into a hostile labor climate is unlikely to produce steady and well-paying jobs without a fight — not to mention a cross-movement plan beyond shutting down individual infrastructure projects. Breaking Free from fossil fuels can also mean breaking into a more sustainable economy….

Economy

Satyajit Das: Eight triggers for a new financial crisis

9th May 2016

Investment banker turned author Satyajit Das writes: There are a number of potential triggers to a new crisis, but it will not be a single factor but an unexpected concatenation of events that result in a financial crisis. With existing political elites seen as captured by the wealthy elite, electorates are turning to political extremes….

ALTERNATIVES

What Gandhi can teach us about sustainability

Vaidehi Daptardar writes: Though not a structured model, Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship envisioned every member of society as the trustee of wealth generated out of the collective efforts of all. He expected that trusteeship will result in non-violent and non-exploitative socio-economic relations and development models based on production systems centred around the preservation of nature….

ALTERNATIVES

Video: Demain – The documentary that’s taking over France by storm

8th May 2016

The rise of the film ‘Demain‘ appears unstoppable. Viewed in France now by almost a million people, winner of the Cesar award for Best Documentary, the film has been received with standing ovations, and has inspired many to roll their sleeves up and do things. Rob Hopkins’ of the Transition Network’ interviews director Cyril Dion….

Kristian Buus

CLIMATE CRISIS

The time has come to turn up the heat on those who are wrecking planet Earth

Bill McKibben writes: The time has come to turn up the heat on the small band of companies and people still willing to get rich off fossil fuel, even though it’s now utterly clear they’re breaking the planet. The time has come to show that we understand we’re in this together across borders and boundaries….

Representational pic

Digests/Specials

Water-rich Agumbe has run dry: and it’s not the only place

7th May 2016

With the drought scorching the world and the rest of India refusing to let up, Agumbe in Shimoga district of Karnataka, known as the ‘Cherrapunji of the the South’ for the abundant rainfall it receives, is experiencing water scarcity this year. In nearby Kerala, perennial rivers like the Pamba and Kabini have gone dry, affecting thousands….

CLIMATE CRISIS

How the greatest technology ever developed backfired on us

Ugo Bardi writes: Their oversized antlers were beneficial for Irish Elk males in sexual competition. However, the weight of the antlers was also a burden and it has been argued that it was perhaps the main reason that led to the extinction of this species. With humans, we may consider language to be the same. …

INDIA

Yogendra Yadav: The season of scorching ironies

6th May 2016

From The Hindu: A petition on a cricket tournament, rather than the plight of the people and its real culprits, has triggered media attention to the drought. Finally, it is the apex court of the country, and not its Parliament, that has found time to pay attention to serious issues of drought relief and mitigation….

ALTERNATIVES

Like an epic novel: How the global energy transition unfolded this April

Jeremy Leggett writes: A Saudi Prince talks of his nation’s “dangerous addiction” to oil. A Bloomberg guru talks of renewables “crushing” fossil fuels. Arguably the most successful entrepreneur ever turns the unveiling of an electric car into the most successful product launch in history. Plus much more that would have been unimaginable a year ago….

NEWS ARCHIVE

NEWS UPDATE #94

5th May 2016

Naveen Thukral reports: Nearly a decade after a spike in global food prices sent shockwaves around the world, Asia’s top rice producers are suffering from a drought that threatens to cut output of the staple for half the world’s population. World rice production is expected to decline for the first time this year since 2010….

Nuno Andre Ferreira

CLIMATE CRISIS

Digest: The manmade forest fires of the Himalayan foothills

4th May 2016

There are almost 400 fires in the Himalayan foothills currently, which have killed five people and finished off at least 19 square kilometres of forest. The timber mafia and ordinary folks are known to illegally set fire in the Himalayan foothills, to fell trees, but its uncontrollable nature this year also points to micro-climatic changes….

Conflict/Dispossession

Anti-mining activist Deba Ranjan Sarangi on the alarming situation in Odisha

Activist, filmmaker and writer Debaranjan Sarangi, actively involved in the struggle of adivasis in Odisha’s Kashipur to protect their lands from bauxite mining, was arrested on March 18, 2016 on the basis of a 2005 case. In this interview with Countercurrents.org following his release on bail, he describes his experiences and the present situation in Odisha….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Yogendra Yadav: ‘54 crore farmers in the grip of drought’

3rd May 2016

Over 54 crore people across 13 States are in the grip of drought, and it is a multi-dimensional crisis. Highlighting this at a national consultation in Delhi, Yogendra Yadav said that owing to the drought, people were battling for drinking water and food, domestic cattle were dying a nomadic death and farms had turned fallow….