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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

‘Nature gives us hope’: A tribute to Latha Anantha, river guardian

18th November 2017

Dr Latha Anantha, an expert on rivers and one of the first names to crop up in the struggle to protect them, is no more. The founder and moving spirit behind the River Research Centre, Kerala, she was best known for her efforts to save the Chalakudy river. She’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2014….

Development/Growth

Credit Suisse report: World’s richest 1% of own half of global wealth

17th November 2017

The world’s top 1 percent held 45.5 percent of all household wealth in 2000. Now, they hold 50.1 percent, according to research by Credit Suisse. The Mukesh Ambani family, the only Indian family in Asia’s top 10 families, is also the richest in the continent, as its net worth rose $19 billion to $44.8 billion….

A recent IISc study showed a shocking 88% decline in green spaces in Bangalore

Development/Growth

When cities were Nature’s haven: a tale from Bangalore

16th November 2017

We tend to think that nature and cities are polar opposites. Delhi’s steadily worsening ‘airpocalypse’ only reinforces this binary. But this wasn’t always so. In her book ‘Nature in the City’, Harini Nagendra takes a deep dive into Bangalore’s ecological history, going way back in the past to the 6th century CE, with surprising results….

ALTERNATIVES

A second warning to humanity, from the world’s scientists

15th November 2017

Mankind is facing the existential threat of runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population, says a new, dire “warning to humanity” written by 15,000 scientists from 184 countries.The message updates an original warning sent 25 years ago. The experts say the picture now is far, far worse than it was in 1992….

Development/Growth

Former regulatory chief: India must freeze all plans for nuclear expansion

14th November 2017

In a significant article in The Citizen, Dr A.Gopalakrishnan, the former Chairman of the India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, writes: An overall evaluation of the status of the Indian civilian nuclear power sector, and the government’s uncertain future plans, do cause a great deal of concern for the welfare of the country and the safety…

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.’…

Conserve/Resist

Illegal GMOs and the criminal plan to alter the genetic core of India’s food system

12th November 2017

Colin Todhunter writes: Despite four high level government reports that have advised against adopting Genetically Modified crops in India, there are alarming reports of GM okra, soyabean & brinjal being cultivated illegally in thousands of acres. The industry’s strategy is to flood the country with illegal GMOs so that there’s nothing you can do about it….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Corporate lobbying: The simple reason why we can’t expect much from Bonn

11th November 2017

With the Bonn climate talks currently underway, a new report reveals how big business has been actively undermining these crucial negotiations. The most shocking revelation is that since the beginning of United Nations-led climate change talks they have been funded by exactly the same companies that depend for their existence on the burning of fossil fuels….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Memo to Trump: US president Lyndon Johnson acknowledged global warming 52 years ago

5th November 2017

Dana Nuccitelli writes: On 5 November 1965, US president Lyndon Johnson’s science advisory committee sent him a report on the environment, which included a section on atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate change, written by prominent climate scientists. Reviewing it today, one can’t help but be struck by how well they understood climate change back then….

Development/Growth

The grave environmental cost of ‘ease of doing business’

India has just climbed an unprecedented 30 spots on the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” ranking, which’s being celebrated as a historic moment by the mainstream media. This Down to Earth report shows how this ‘achievement’ has come at a possibly permanent damage to the environment, thanks to a steady dilution of regulatory norms….

Development/Growth

A global police state? Digital capitalism and the rise of authoritarian leaders

2nd November 2017

William Robinson highlights some revealing statistics to expose what is really behind the rapid digitalization of global capitalism, the rise of authoritarian leaders and the creeping spread of the global police state. These, he says, are nothing but an insecure transnational capitalist elite’s attempt to insure themselves against rising inequality and a looming economic crisis….

Representative pic

ALTERNATIVES

Paani Foundation is creating a new paradigm for fighting drought

30th October 2017

Moin Qazi writes: The Indian film celebrity Aamir Khan is shepherding a very revolutionary campaign–making Maharashtra drought-free in five years. Khan’s Paani Foundation is galvanising the rural population to go back to fundamental lessons of water management taught by their ancestors. Many Maharashtra villages are seeing water in their parched lands after consecutive dry years….

Representative pic

Conflict/Dispossession

India’s big dam mania brings achche din to its corrupt dam lobby

29th October 2017

Himanshu Thakkar writes: Can we expect any improvement in state of our water resources under the new minister Shri Nitin Gadkari? It was interesting that after taking over the portfolio from Uma Bharti, Gadkari’s first stop was Maharashtra, to offer the Chief Minister Rs 55 000 crores for same corruption-ridden irrigation projects in three years….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

Exposé: How big business got Brazil hooked on junk food

28th October 2017

As their growth slows in the wealthiest countries, multinational food companies like Nestlé and PepsiCo have been aggressively expanding their presence in developing nations, unleashing a marketing juggernaut that is upending traditional diets from Brazil to Ghana to India. A detailed expose of the politics and economics of junk food, by The New York Times….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Global energy transition: Here’s why it’s India’s opportunity to leapfrog

27th October 2017

As India like the rest of the world shifts from fossil fuels to renewables, India should also launch a new initiative for this dramatic transition. One of the guiding principles for energy transition should be India’s civilizational value of “simple living and high thinking” and not to maximize gross national product as other countries do….

Culture/Cognition

An urban Adivasi’s perspective on ‘Newton’, India’s Oscar entry

25th October 2017

Nolina Minz writes: Critics have described ‘Newton’ as ‘brilliant, subversive and one of the finest political satires we have seen in recent years.’ But watching Newton left me deeply annoyed; as an urban adivasi I felt that the quintessential element of the movie was the unfailing poverty, backwardness, and marginality of adivasi communities in India….

ALTERNATIVES

Reality check: Fossil fuel expansion crushes renewables

24th October 2017

Barry Saxifrage writes: What determines our climate fate is how much climate-polluting fossil fuels we burn. Renewables are great, but only if they actually replace oil, gas, or coal. Sadly, rising renewables haven’t stopped our fossil fuel burn. Instead, we keep expanding both renewables and fossil fuels at the same time, in a new business-as-usual….

ALTERNATIVES

Manoj Bhargava’s simple inventions could be a game changer for Indian villages

21st October 2017

Billions in Change, the brainchild of Indian-American entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava, shows how simple but life-changing inventions provide clean water, electricity, and improve rural lives. The innovations include a RainMaker device that can turn dirty water clean, a low-cost, portable solar-based power generator and a ‘cost-free fertilizer’ that is made by gathering whatever is laying around….

Mural by Bhagwati Prasad at the Majdoor Library, Faridabad

Conserve/Resist

Listen, the revolution blooms in silence

19th October 2017

From Faridabad Majdoor Samachar: “On the train, a person was calling out loudly: From tomorrow, all over India, everyone’s salary will be 18,000 rupees. Equal. No one will be thief, and no one king. Long live the government.” A timely and evocative missive from a monthly workers’ newspaper distributed widely in the industrial belt around Delhi….