What if the unipolar moment turns out to be a planetary moment in which previously distinct imperial events fuse into a single disastrous system?
Imperial Gigantism and the Decline of Planet Earth
read more
Environment
Wall Street’s Climate Finance Bonanza
Government officials from an elite group of developed countries meeting in Washington, D.C. at the invitation of U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern appear to be on the brink of instigating yet another corporate handout and big bank giveaway—this time in the name of fighting climate change.
SOPAC Expedites New Seabed Mining Legislation for Lockheed Martin
Mining companies are jockeying for position to be the first to successfully vacuum up Pacific resources.
GM Seeds and the Militarization of Food (And Everything Else)
Jon Letman of Truthout interviews Dr. Vandana Shiva—a globally respected Indian physicist, philosopher, and activist—on Hawaii’s role as a testing site for both GMO crops and the military, Hawaii’s relationship with Asia, and on the largely unspoken connection between GE crops, climate change, militarism, and what Shiva calls “a war against the earth.”
Climate Change as History’s Deal-Breaker
Even in its relatively early but visibly intensifying stages, climate change threatens to be the singular event in human history, because unlike every other disaster we can imagine (except a full-scale nuclear war or, as has happened in the planet’s past, a large meteorite or asteroid impact), it alone will alter the basis for life on this planet.
What Next for the Green Climate Fund After the Doha Dud?
For those invested in the fate of the Green Climate Fund, the results of the 2012 Doha climate summit were mixed at best.
Towards a Foreign Policy for the 99 Percent
Anyone expecting Obama to be decidedly more pro-peace this time around is likely to be sorely dispirited. However, there is a diverse, growing peoples’ movement in the United States linking human and environmental needs with a demand to end our wars and liberate the vast resources they consume.
We’re Not Broke
These revenue-raisers and spending cuts would narrow the federal budget deficit by $881 billion per year, nearly eliminating it altogether.
Towards a Grand Climate Compromise
If the only thing that Doha can do is to expose the futility of the old strategies and the urgent necessity of exploring of new negotiating positions that can lead to a breakthrough before it is too late, then this diplomatic charade masquerading as a serious climate negotiation will have fulfilled its function.
Lessons of Sandy
After Hurricane Sandy deprived the Northeast of gas, power, food, and clean water, drivers in New York and New Jersey were forced to line up for rationed gas. Sandy demonstrated that a natural disaster could quickly, if temporarily, downgrade a rich country to third-world status.