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green politics

ALTERNATIVES

This student’s epic legal battle can have a big impact on global climate action

27th November 2017

From Greenpeace International: In June this year, a courageous 26-year old Hamilton law student, Sarah Thomson, spent five days in court challenging the New Zealand government over climate change targets she called “unambitious and irrational”. Now, she’s made history, after the country’s High Court issued a game-changing verdict that has implications for climate legislation worldwide….

ALTERNATIVES

“We should be on the offensive” – ‘Father of climate awareness’ calls for wave of lawsuits

19th November 2017

From The Guardian: James Hansen, former Nasa scientist and one the most respected names in climate science, has called for a ‘litigate-to-mitigate’ strategy, a wave of lawsuits against governments and fossil fuel companies for delaying action on the mortal threat of global warming. Hansen himself is involved in a 2015 climate lawsuit against the US-government….

ALTERNATIVES

Sulak Sivaraksa on the structural violence of the global economy

13th November 2017

Sulak Sivaraksa, the 85-year-old Thai Buddhist monk, thinker and peace activist, is currently facing the prospect of a fifteen-year jail sentence, for criticising his country’s royal family and military junta. Here, he speaks on the global economy’s built-in inequities and biases. Also included is ‘Heavenly Messengers,’ an excerpt from his book, ‘The Wisdom of Sustainability.’…

Bookshelf

Don’t Trust, Don’t Fear, Don’t Beg: The sobering tale of Greenpeace’s Arctic 30

31st October 2017

On 18 September 2013, 30 Greenpeace activists who attempted attempted to scale a drilling platform to protest against Arctic oil production, were arrested by the Russian authorities, and their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, seized. Here’s an account of the ‘Arctic 30’s ordeal in a Russian jail, which raises questions about the future of the environmental movement….

ALTERNATIVES

Bookshelf: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot

14th October 2017

George Monbiot‘s powerful new book looks at how democracy and economic life can be radically organised from the bottom up. He argues against the “society-crushing system of neoliberalism”, and for a political agenda “that isn’t destined to destroy the living planet”, power given back to people so that wealth isn’t continually distributed to the rich….

Development/Growth

Digging Into Adani: The dubious dealings of India’s corporate colossus

8th October 2017

From ABC News: This eagerly awaited TV-documentary is the result of a months-long investigation into the Adani Group, made in the context of a bitter clash between citizen-groups and the Australian government over the company’s giant coal mine in Queensland. It offers a revealing look into the company’s controversial business practices and their global consequences….

ALTERNATIVES

Is there a way out? Announcing the new Radical Ecological Democracy website

3rd October 2017

Ashish Kothari & Pallav Das write: Genuine alternatives to the destructive juggernaut of corporate and finance capital are emerging as much from contemporary progressive resistance as from the wisdom of indigenous peoples’ and other traditional community world-views. “Radical Ecological Democracy” (RED) is one such emerging paradigm based on which we can fashion a meaningful future….

ALTERNATIVES

Resolutions of the National Convention of Green Socialists, Karnataka

2nd October 2017

The National Convention of Green Socialists was held at Tumakuru, Karnataka on 24 Sep 2017, as part of the ongoing ‘Tax Denial Satyagraha’ against the imposition of G.S.T. on handmade products. Among other things, the protesters demanded zero-tax on natural products, grown through natural farming, such as natural foods, etc, treating them as handmade products….

ALTERNATIVES

Totnes: The world’s most forward-thinking eco settlement?

25th September 2017

From The Guardian: Totnes has been called ‘Britain’s town of the future’. This month, the small town which kick-started a worldwide movement of sustainable urban living, completes 11 years of being a Transition Town. As fossil-fuel reserves dwindle and the economy contracts, will resident-led Transition Towns prove to be a viable model for the future?…

ALTERNATIVES

15 start-ups in Africa contributing to a greener economy

24th September 2017

From Down to Earth: These locally led green start-ups across Africa are not just promising but also innovative in their approach. From providing clean energy to ensuring safe sanitation and reducing carbon emission to improving public health, the activities of these start-ups in Africa are guided by a common objective: sustainable management of natural resources….

Conflict/Dispossession

Salil Tripathi: The real cost of big development projects

23rd September 2017

It’s been said that the Sardar Sarovar dam would provide many with access to water and power. But there’s no such thing as a free thaali, as Gujaratis, of all people, must surely know. Someone has to bear the cost, and that cost, as with all major development projects, has been borne by the poor….

ALTERNATIVES

Module 7: Environmental Justice

20th September 2017

Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges….

ALTERNATIVES

Greenpeace turns 46 today. Here are five reasons to celebrate

16th September 2017

From Greenpeace International: We’ve come a long way since 1971, when on this day, a small group of courageous people set off to stop nuclear testing in a small fishing boat. Today, we operate in more than 40 countries and are part of a global movement of millions, striving for a greener, more peaceful planet….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Why Adani’s planned Carmichael coalmine matters to Australia – and the world

10th September 2017

From Guardian/Al Jazeera: Proposals for one of the world’s largest mines in Queensland threaten not only the Great Barrier Reef, but also global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Australia’s government is changing legislation protecting land rights for Aboriginal people in order to get Adani’s Carmichael mine, one of the world’s largest, project over the line….

ALTERNATIVES

Food sovereignty in rebellion: The Zapatista Solution

7th September 2017

From Solutions Journal: The stunning manner in which the Zapatistas presented themselves to the Mexican government, as well as the world, saw them descend upon several towns, cities, prisons, and wealthy landowners. During the revolt, guerillas liberated political prisoners, stormed military barracks, occupied government offices, set fire to trumped-up files that unfairly criminalized Indigenous people….

ALTERNATIVES

Aseem Shrivastava: Who killed Swaraj?

5th September 2017

Nehru’s grand illusion was to imagine that the ‘good’ in the modern world could be somehow magically preserved while allowing the ‘evil seed’ (gluttony of power?) to flourish into a ravishing rainforest of destructive avarice, an inevitability our times are having to face, as barbarism knocks on every door. Gandhi’s fears are globally vindicated today….

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: Why dystopia is for losers

30th August 2017

From International Socialist Review: Catastrophism explores the politics of apocalypse —on the left and right, in the environmental movement, and from capital and the state —and examines why the lens of catastrophe can distort our understanding of the dynamics at the heart of these numerous disasters —and fatally impede our ability to transform the world….

Economy

This corporate merger threatens food supplies worldwide. Who’ll stop it?

29th August 2017

From The Guardian: Chemicals and agribusiness giant Bayer has approached the European Union to approve its $65bn takeover of Monsanto, eliminating direct competition between two of the biggest players in the industry. If approved, the merger would be an extremely risky consolidation of corporate power, and a serious threat to food supplies and farmers worldwide….

Paintings by Meenakshi Subramaniam

Culture/Cognition

Suprabha Seshan: The music of everything

15th August 2017

I’m no elephant whisperer, nor do I claim to have complex exchanges with them by moonlight, but the reverse is true: when they come by, I’m whispered out of my den by their calls and cries, by their trumpets, rumbles and whooshing sighs. When elephants arrive in the valley, I scoot out of my sheets….

ALTERNATIVES

Jason Hickel on BBC: Our addiction to economic growth is killing us

14th August 2017

From BBC: A recent episode of Newsnight, BBC’s programme on ideas, had a surprising guest: Anthropologist Jason Hickel, who went on to make a case against the lethal addiction to economic growth and in its place proposed “planned de-growth”. Hickel is the author of The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions….