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Conflict/Dispossession

Report: How Big Conservation funds the destruction of tribal people

27th September 2017

A new report details widespread human rights abuses in the Congo Basin, by wildlife guards funded and equipped by the World Wildlife Fund and other big conservation organisations. It lists more than 200 instances of abuse since 1989, which are likely just a tiny fraction of systematic and ongoing violence, beatings, torture and even death….

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….

CLIMATE CRISIS

In the eye of Hurricane Irma lie the fingerprints of global warming – and inequality

19th September 2017

From The Wire: The recent hurricanes have made some raise an obvious question: to what extent does global warming have a role to play? To which I would add one voiced less frequently: why should those least responsible for global warming have to constantly face its effects? And what does it bode for the future?…

ALTERNATIVES

Sunita Narain: Old answers for ‘new’ monsoon

14th September 2017

From Down to Earth: India’s vicious cycle of crippling drought and then devastating floods, which happens every year, is getting a new normal. First, floods and droughts come together. Secondly, rainfall is not only variable but also extreme. There’s only one answer: obsessive attention to building millions and millions of connected and living water structures….

Flooding in Assam, India in 2012

Oxfam International

CLIMATE CRISIS

Nagraj Adve: When the floods hit

13th September 2017

From Jacobin Magazine: Increasingly, extreme weather events including the annual floods are being recognized as the new normal. Less commonly noted is how this “new normal” tends to disproportionately hit the underclasses—the urban poor, agriculturalists, coastal communities, and poor women. In short, the greatest victims of global warming will be those least responsible for it….

A truck leaves an illegal sand mine by the Yamuna in Greater Noida

http://ismenvis.nic.in

Conflict/Dispossession

Sand mining: the global environmental crisis you’ve probably never heard of

12th September 2017

From The Guardian: Cities are expanding at a pace and scale far greater than at any time in history. The global urbanisation boom is devouring colossal amounts of sand–the key ingredient of concrete and asphalt. In the past few years, China alone has used more cement than the US used in the entire 20th century….

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….

CLIMATE CRISIS

What’s causing so many changes to India’s monsoons?

4th September 2017

From The Third Pole: For the third year in a row, India’s monsoon season has produced floods in the northwest/northeast, while south India has a rainfall deficit. The key question right now is whether we’re headed towards increased monsoon extremes, or whether global warming is causing shifts in the duration, intensity and frequency of rainfall….

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….

Conserve/Resist

Are farmer movements in India changing course?

26th August 2017

From Live Mint: The protesting farmers demanded a waiver of loans and better prices for their harvest. They want a say in trade policy which they think have a pro-consumer bias. They’re aware of the bad debts of the industries. They also ask why farmers should bear the burden of keeping food inflation in check….

ALTERNATIVES

Celebrating the Champaran Satyagraha, a hundred years on

23rd August 2017

Prof. Irfan Habib writes: This year is the centenary of one of the most remarkable episodes of modern Indian history, the Champaran satyagraha of 1917 that joined the national movement with the great struggle of the peasantry for bread and land, exposing how the twin processes of drain of wealth and de-industrialisation had ruined India….

CLIMATE CRISIS

New study: Extreme heat will hit India’s most vulnerable the hardest

20th August 2017

From Climate Central: If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, parts of eastern India and Bangladesh will exceed the 95°F threshold by century’s end, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found. The findings raise the issue of environmental justice, as these populations have done the least to cause global warming….

Representative pic

ENERGY

A window into coal workers in India: The history of Raniganj Coalfield

18th August 2017

From Sanhati: A history of the 240 year-old Raniganj Coalfield– the story of its workers –the many lives that have been spent in its shadows, displaced by coal and depending on it for survival –would be a tale every bit as expansive as the Mahabharata. This two-part article gives a short glimpse of this history….

ALTERNATIVES

Limits to growth: policies to steer the economy away from disaster

17th August 2017

From The Conversation: If the global economy grows by 3% till 2100, it will be 60 times larger than now. The existing economy is already environmentally unsustainable, so we simply cannot“decouple” growth from environmental impact. This paper looks at policies that could facilitate a planned transition beyond growth–while considering the huge obstacles along the way….

A village council meeting being held in Barkheda village to discuss community issues

Ishan Agrawal

ALTERNATIVES

How one village’s successful tryst with self-governance inspired others

13th August 2017

From The Wire: With a predominantly tribal population, Barkheda is a typical central Indian village. A few years ago, the villagers took charge of their natural resources and established a village executive committee. The committee governs all the water bodies of Barkheda, which now has rules on water usage, based on the principles of equity….

An aerial view of Welspun's giant solar park in Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh

Conflict/Dispossession

India’s dispossessed confront a new threat: solar parks

10th August 2017

Frontline reports: Across the country, large tracts of land are being earmarked for exclusive solar power parks. The rocky terrain of Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district has emerged as the largest solar power-generating hub in India, but the nomadic communities that have lived there for generations find themselves dispossessed of land and reduced to abject poverty….

Development/Growth

Anandi Sharan: There are no pros; only cons to nuclear energy

9th August 2017

From Patna Daily: A nuclear power plant can be imported lock stock and barrel and all local people need to do is watch the plant and the fence around it get erected, charge their mobile phones to watch videos all day, stay out of trouble. They have no work in the creation of the asset….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Can you feel capitalism dying?

4th August 2017

Joe Brewer writes: There is a reason only 5 men have the same aggregate wealth as half the human population. And that the Earth’s climate is ramping up for a phase transition that threatens our entire civilization. It’s because the 500 year old Global Architecture of Wealth Extraction is designed to produce exactly these outcomes….

Education/Awareness

Obituary: P.M. Bhargava: Man of science who never bowed down to authority

2nd August 2017

From The Indian Express: One of the most outstanding biological scientists in India and the founder director of CSIR-Centre for Cellular Molecular Biology (CCMB), Pushpa Mitra Bhargava was a perennial and powerful dissenter and never bowed down to authority. He was suffering from multiple health problems. He is survived by a son and a daughter….

AFP

Bookshelf

How govt policies are recklessly threatening India’s wildlife reserves

29th July 2017

From Scroll.in: While the UPA government had been steadily weakening safeguards for India’s environment, forests and wildlife, the present NDA government is carrying forward this agenda in an even more aggressive and systematic manner. A new book by Prerna Singh Bindra details how ‘ease of doing business’ has become an excuse to ignore wildlife protection….