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Bookshelf

‘A reckoning for our species’: the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene

17th June 2017

From The Guardian: The chief reason that we’re waking up to our entanglement with the world we’ve been destroying, Timothy Morton says, is our encounter with the reality of hyperobjects –the term he coined to describe things such as ecosystems and black holes, which are “massively distributed in time and space” compared to individual humans….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The shocking connection between doomsday maps and billionaire land acquisitions

16th June 2017

From Forbes Magazine: With all of the knowledge of future mapping, do the world’s financial leaders know something we don’t? Consider how many of the richest families have been grabbing up massive amounts of farmland around the world. All property far away from coastal areas and in locations conducive to self-survival, farming and coal mining….

Conserve/Resist

Now five men own almost as much wealth as half the world’s population

14th June 2017

From AlterNet: Last year it was eight men, then down to six, and now almost five. The world’s richest five men now own over $400 billion in wealth. On average, each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people. The super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Spotlight: Here’s how India has warmed from 1901 till 2017

12th June 2017

Here are the key findings from Centre for Science and Environment’s study of how India has warmed over the years, also plotted in animation. The analysis looks at temperature trends in the country –both annual and seasonal– from 1901 till recent years. It finds that the country has been getting warmer continuously, consistently and rapidly….

Climate Justice Action Network

ALTERNATIVES

What is Eco-Socialism? Who is an Eco-Socialist?

11th June 2017

The determinant element in the concept of eco-socialism is the prefix eco. And that means the rejection of industrialism. A good socialist only needs to rejects capitalism. But to be an eco-socialist one must also reject industrialism as a future perspective for mankind, and agree to a program of de-industrialization (now often clumsily called de-growth)….

Joel Sternfeld

ALTERNATIVES

Paul Kingsnorth: The Axis and the Sycamore

8th June 2017

The Axial Age, which refers to the historical period between the eighth and third centuries BC, was a period of profound transformations, which created “the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today,” a period of collapse from which emerged new ways of seeing and being… We may be living through a second Axial Age now……

H. G. Wells' 1895 novel 'The Time Machine' depicted a future where humans split into two species

Poverty/Inequality

Are we about to witness the most unequal societies in history?

1st June 2017

Best-selling author and historian Yuval Noah Harari writes: As we enter the post-industrial world, the masses are becoming redundant. Biotechnology and the rise of Artificial Intelligence may split humankind into a small class of ‘superhumans’ and a huge underclass of ‘useless’ people. Once the masses lose their economic and political power, inequality could spiral alarmingly….

CLIMATE CRISIS

China, India become climate leaders as West falters

27th May 2017

Climate Central reports: Two years after the Paris climate accord, climate policies are advancing in developing countries but stalling or regressing in richer ones. Here’s a trip around the world, assessing how pro-climate and anti-climate forces are faring in key nations and regions, showing how recent developments are affecting the languishing fight against global warming….

CLIMATE CRISIS

How to talk about climate change at a party

21st May 2017

Ugo Bardi, professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence, writes: This is a real conversation that took place a few days ago, although, of course, the words that I report here can’t be exactly what we said. The protagonists are me and an acquaintance of mine. Imagine us holding glasses while at a party….

William Mitchelle/Meme Super

Economy

Why India’s Competition Commission must stop the Dow and DuPont merger

20th May 2017

From The Wire: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is currently assessing the likely adverse effects on competition of the proposed merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont. If it goes through, the merger will create the world’s biggest chemical and materials company. But there are a dozen reasons and more why it must be stopped….

Danomyte/Shutterstock

Bookshelf

Luddites have been getting a bad rap for 200 years. Turns out, they were right

19th May 2017

From Quartz.com: The Luddites were the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, especially in cotton mills, which they believed was threatening their jobs. As machine learning and robotics consume manufacturing and white-collar jobs alike, New York Times journalist Clive Thompson revisits the Luddite’s history to see what the 200-year-old workers’ rebellion can teach us….

Conflict/Dispossession

The devastating reality of Somalia on the brink of famine

16th May 2017

Vice News reports: Drought has devastated vegetation and water supplies, and hunger is soaring. More than half the country — 6.2 million people — are in need of emergency aid to avoid starvation. And around 1.4 million children will risk acute malnutrition in 2017, according to UNICEF — 50 percent more than what the charity…

CLIMATE CRISIS

India has an ammonia problem but no policy to deal with it

13th May 2017

The Wire reports: Using satellite data of the last 14 years, researchers have shown that a thick blanket of toxic ammonia lies over the world’s major agricultural areas, with India being the worst affected. It’s emitted mainly by fertilisers as well as poorly managed animal waste. However, India has no policy to regulate ammonia emissions….

Bookshelf

The great climate silence: we are on the edge of the abyss but we ignore it

Clive Hamilton writes: Our best scientists tell us insistently that a calamity is unfolding, that the life-support systems of the Earth are being damaged in ways that threaten our survival. Yet, faced with these facts, we carry on as usual. Most citizens ignore or downplay the warnings; many of our intellectuals indulge in wishful thinking….

ALTERNATIVES

Project Drawdown: Mapping the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming

10th May 2017

Amy Brady writes: Project Drawdown is a coalition of more than two hundred experts who have gathered 100 of the most viable ways to “draw down” carbon from the atmosphere. The result of their research is an immensely readable volume of solutions to climate change written for laypeople but informed by the world’s top experts….

Brayan Caicedo

ALTERNATIVES

Sunita Narain: The future is in our hands

3rd May 2017

We must rethink the question of states, market and society. We have dismembered the state; grown the market and believed that we’ve empowered society. Slowly, the circle closed— state, market and aspiring, consuming society merged. They became one. Anyone outside this circle stopped getting counted. This cannot work. This is our future’s most important agenda….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

Regardless of lifestyles we’re too numerous to be sustainable

1st May 2017

Lionel Anet writes on Countercurrents.org: The ultimate way to reduce our footprint on the planet is to reduce our population, a near impossible task in any civilisations but particularly capitalist ones. That’s the reason it’s shelved before it’s planned, except for the cruel Chinese example. Nevertheless, it must be done if we are to survive….

Bookshelf

Nicholas Stern: Why are we waiting?

30th April 2017

In his new book, Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency and Promise of Tackling Climate Change, Nicholas Stern explains why, notwithstanding the great attractions of a new path, it’s been so difficult to tackle climate change. He makes a compelling case for climate action now and sets out the forms that action should take….

Digests/Specials

Here come the robots – And they’re going to take our jobs

28th April 2017

Michael Snyder writes: What in the world are we going to do with billions of human workers around the globe that are no longer needed when technology takes virtually all of our jobs? Some have suggested that society will evolve into a socialist utopia; others see a dystopian future with greater inequality than ever before….

Monte Wolverton

Conflict/Dispossession

GROWing disaster: the Fortune 500 goes farming

24th April 2017

GRAIN.org reports: The world’s largest transnational food companies are rolling out a programme promising “market-based” solutions in agriculture. Vietnam’s highlands are the showcase for ‘GROW’, a global initiative under the World Economic Forum. A closer look reveals the programme’s real objective: to expand production of a handful of high-value commodities to profit a few corporations….