First of all, it’s not earth nor it’s rare, as they say
It lies under our feet, sparkling the soil we farm
Red, green, yellow, blue, purple, sky of grass
And buffalos, patches of rice, bamboos, sweet yams
Environment
The Ungreening of Obama
Barack Obama was green when he entered the Oval Office. He was a relative newcomer to politics. He was also the most successful fundraiser in presidential history, hauling in more green than the two Democratic and Republican candidates in 2004 combined. And he was, more or less, an environmentalist.
The Real Nuclear Threat From Iran May Not Be Nuclear Weapons
Unsafe construction practices may have been used to build Iran’s first nuclear energy facility, Bushehr.
A New Experiment in Open-Source Citizenship
Not long ago I received in the mail a slender envelope with international postage on the front. Inside was a small card-paper placard bearing my name, handwritten, confirming my citizenship in what is apparently the world’s newest nation – neither South Sudan nor Kosovo, of course, nor even a nascent Palestine, but rather nowhereisland. This decidedly more postmaterialist undertaking is the brainchild of British artist Alex Hartley.
The Politics of Nuclear Crisis and Renewable Energy in Japan
On August 26, 2011, Prime Minister Kan Naoto resigned from office after a tempestuous fifteen months in power. Since May 2011 a virtual lynch mob egged on by the media bayed for his resignation. Kan’s ouster became an obsession of the nation’s powerbrokers. This article examines why, in the midst of an unprecedented cascade of disasters, natural and nuclear, the Kan problem trumped all others.
Interview with Christian Parenti
Tropic of Chaos, Christian Parenti’s excellent new book examining the intersections between climate change, neoliberal economic policy, and the spread of political violence, argues that the convergence of these threats to international security has set our world along a course that will result in a broken planet characterized by catastrophe, conflict, and xenophobic distrust. That is, unless meaningful action is taken immediately to reorient international relations away from this disastrous trajectory.
Global Warming, Global Violence
Last month the journal Nature published a paper examining the link between local climate variations and civil conflict around the world. The first quantitative study of its kind, it has received a fair amount of attention for its conclusion that climate shifts do indeed correlate with greater violence. The authors found that the rate of armed conflict doubled — from 3 to 6 percent — during El Nino-associated climate swings, a statistically significant and sobering increase.
Lines on Global Warming
Hopeless as swatting lies out of the White House
or trying to put out an oil field fire with a cup of water
is this war against the grasshoppers, who,
when I walk through weeds or rattle
the leaves on a pepper plant, leap
by the thousands to remind me
that power isn’t always held by Goliaths
but by the numerous and persistent.
Feeding the World
Come October, Atlas won’t be shrugging, he’ll be groaning as global population passes the 7 billion mark. Until very recently, demographers predicted that these numbers would peak in 2050 at just over 9 billion and then start to decline. The latest research, however, suggests that despite declining fertility across much of the world, population will continue to rise through this century to over 10 billion people. With famine spreading in Somalia, another food crisis gripping North Korea, global food prices near a record high, and climate change threatening to reduce future harvests, the question continues to nag: are we outstripping our capacity to feed ourselves?
Jeju Island Activist Sung-Hee Choi Interviewed in Prison
Sung-Hee Choi’s parting words about her activism to her interviewer: “It is about love for the people who cannot speak now.”