Environment Archives - Page 50 of 127 - Foreign Policy In Focus

The Next Marx

by John Feffer | Jan 31, 2012

Lenin graces the cover of a recent issue of The Economist. The Financial Times is running an entire series on the “crisis in capitalism.” Francis Fukuyama, a recovering neoconservative, makes a plea in Foreign Affairs for the left to get its intellectual act together. And that noted class warrior Newt Gingrich has been assailing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for being a ruthless moneybags.

Excuse me? Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? What parallel universe did we all just stumble into?

Steer clear of this climate ‘Ponzi scheme’

by Patrick Bond, Michael Dorsy | Jan 24, 2012

LAST winter, when carbon prices fell 15% in one week, industry analysts called it “carnage”. Then, in the fortnight before last month’s Durban climate summit, carbon prices fell more than 30%, with front-year European Union (EU) Allowance permits dropping below €8,50 a ton. And they have crashed even further since.

Pollyanna of Peace?

by John Feffer | Jan 24, 2012

Virtually everything we read in novels and newspapers, not to mention the video games we play and the Hollywood movies we watch, reminds us that we’re steeped in violence and that it’s only going to get worse.

Everything, that is, except Steven Pinker.

Review: The Unconquered

by Julia Heath | Jan 6, 2012

Sydney Possuelo is on a mission to find the last uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. A passionate and radical explorer and ethnographer, Possuelo has devoted his life to the preservation of indigenous and uncontacted Amazonian tribes, in addition to creating a team of likeminded activists called the Sertanistas. Possuelo is also the main character in Scott Wallace’s new book,The Unconquered, which chronicles the antics that ensued during a three-month mission into the Amazon to locate an uncontacted tribe called the Flecheiros (Arrow People).

Durban’s Climate Debacle

by Janet Redman | Jan 5, 2012

I arrived at the UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa with the news fresh in my mind that 2010 was a record year for global warming pollution—and that if we don’t start reducing global emissions by 2017, we’re cooked.

I left Durban with a profound disappointment in the world’s leaders, and the growing conviction that it will take people putting their bodies on the line to steer society away from suicidal climate change.

Architects of Change

by John Feffer | Dec 20, 2011

More than a decade ago, I sat down with the head of the academy of architecture in Pyongyang. The school was housed in a large, drafty building in the center of North Korea’s capital. Students were building models out of cardboard and wood. A few were in front of state-of-the-art desktops using the computer-aided design software that had become indispensible to modern architects. But there was one element missing from the architecture program. North Korean builders paid virtually no attention to energy efficiency.

Challenging Climate Apartheid

by Nnimmo Bassey | Dec 12, 2011

In downtown Durban, the climate negotiators have settled into their beachfront hotels, ready for the official UN climate negotiations starting Monday. Already, voices speculate about cracks in the existing negotiating blocs. Will the developing countries hold together all the way? Will the so-called emerging economies flex individual muscles?

Fiddling on Climate

by Laura Carlsen | Dec 7, 2011

The image of Nero fiddling as Rome burned—albeit apocryphal– has stuck as the metaphor for willfully irresponsible government. Government representatives, gathered at climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, have been fiddling for the past week. Of the hundreds of closed-door sessions, official meetings and informational seminars, all that’s come out so far is cacophony. By the looks of it, they plan to fiddle right through to the end, wasting one of the last opportunities to respond in time to a threat that affects not only their societies, but the entire planet.

America Is Not Broke

by Sarah Anderson, Phyllis Bennis, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, John Feffer, Miriam Pemberton, Daphne Wysham | Nov 21, 2011

This report challenges the premise that America is broke. In fact, we argue that the current fiscal challenge poses an opportunity to harness our ample but misdirected resources in ways that will make the country stronger.

Occupy and the Climate Negotiations

by Tom Athanasiou | Nov 17, 2011

Anyone who claims that the fate of the climate talks is bound to the fate of the Occupy movement better expect a bit of skepticism in return. Now, if it were Occupy and the Climate Justice movement, that would be a different story! Both are complex social movements, and both are driving hard for economic justice. Their overlap is inevitable. But the negotiations themselves? What have they to do with economic justice? What have they to do with the great divide between “the 1%” and “the 99%”?