Geography Archives: Global

Social movements and scientists are staying out of the UN summit because it represents big agribusiness interests.

A Q&A on capitalism, media, and climate.

A Review of Hannah Holleman’s ‘Dust Bowls of Empire: Imperialism, Environmental Politics, and the Injustice of “Green” Capitalism’.

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” — Karl Marx, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’

Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism provides the key to understanding the environmental catastrophe we’re witnessing, and to gaining a clearer picture of what’s needed to repair our damaged relationship with the Earth.

Despite facing the world’s worst pandemic of the last century, rich countries in the World Trade Organization (WTO) have blocked efforts to enable more affordable access to the means to fight the pandemic.

In countries where public health restrictions were in place, they were half-baked or have been lifted too soon. Where they are imposing them now, it’s too late; the Delta variant of the coronavirus is surging around the world.

A Marxist, activist and scientist, Lewontin fought a lifelong battle against racism, imperialism and capitalist oppression. He is among the most influential scientists in the field of biology and evolution.

Director Werner Herzog’s documentary ‘Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World’ (2016) begins with “Internet pioneer” Leonard Kleinrock, who welcomes us into the, yes, actual laboratory where it was “born”! To Wagnerian strains in the soundtrack, Kleinrock complacently calls the place “a holy shrine”–quite a revealing phrase for this acolyte of possibly the last of the false religions.

The answer is plain to see: the two explanations are not contradictory. A combination of the two enables us to understand what has been happening right before our eyes.

Warnings about how the capitalist mode of production is putting pressure on the earth’s ability to handle all forms of stress have continued to come at an increasing pace.

The first decades of the 21st century have been a gilded age for the world’s super-rich. While the mass of humanity has struggled through successive economic crises, accelerating climate and environmental breakdown and now a devastating global pandemic, the billionaire class’s wealth has piled up to ever more dizzying heights.

Rare among scientists, Lewontin’s science and politics were guided by a conscious philosophical outlook, which he staunchly and unapologetically defended throughout his life.

World Health Organization Director-General notes, “The global failure to share vaccines equitably is fuelling a two-track pandemic that is now taking its toll on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

Between 30 June and 2 July 2021, the United Nations and other multilateral organisations held the Generation Equality Forum in Paris (France).

Du Bois, trained in history and sociology, was the first to conduct a scientific study on race in American society. Kosambi was trained in mathematics but was the first to scientifically investigate ancient Indian history.

In Keynes’ words: “It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which it is important for the State to assume. If the State is able to determine the aggregate amount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments, and the basic rate of reward to those who own them, it will have accomplished all that is necessary.”

As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again.

Climate crisis is a disaster which impacts us all, but the culpability is not evenly distributed. The rich nations of North America, Europe, Japan and Australia have contributed 60% of global cumulative CO2 emissions, compared to 13% for the two largest developing economies, China and India, taken together.

The G-7 meeting that has just concluded has promised to donate one billion doses of anti-Covid vaccine to the rest of the world, consisting primarily of the so-called “developing” countries.