Geography Archives: Global

Part Three of Ian Angus’s examination of the disruption of the global nitrogen cycle by an economic system that values profits more than life itself.

These days, the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly opens up. So does a new international “political season”.

Even with ambitious global efforts to limit emissions, the study warns, “the increase in the frequency and extent of adverse weather extremes and related shocks on the production side would be unprecedented.”

A recent report by the International Labour Organisation shows that the total global labour force is now measured at 3.5 billion workers. This is the largest size of the global labour force in recorded history. Talk of the demise of workers is utterly premature when confronted with the weight of this data.

Since taking office in 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump has used his annual speech at the UN General Assembly to denounce socialism, promote nationalism and xenophobia, and bully and threaten the whole world.

The rate of exploitation in the production of Apple’s iPhone X, which stands at 2458%, is 25 times the rate of exploitation that is gleaned from Marx’s examples in Capital, published in 1867.

In recent years, the reactionary, authoritarian and/or fascist extreme right wing has been in the ascendant all over the world: it already governs half of the world’s countries. Among the best-known examples are: Trump (United States), Modi (India), Orbán (Hungary), Erdoğan (Turkey), Daesh (Islamic State), Salvini (Italy), Duterte (Philippines), and now Bolsonaro (Brazil).

ORGANIZERS ARE EXPECTING huge numbers to turn out for the Global Climate Strike, beginning on September 20 and continuing through September 27. It builds on the first global climate strike, which took place on March 15, and attracted an estimated 1.6 million young people, who walked out of class at schools on every continent.

Four million people participated in the global climate strike across every continent on Friday, many of them students who skipped school on that day. Demonstrations at more than 5,800 locations in 161 countries began in Australia and the Pacific, moved to Asia, Antarctica, Africa and Europe, and then to North and South America. This is the third such climate strike this year, following similar mass global demonstrations this past March and May, and the largest to date.

Around the year 2030, we will be in a position where we probably set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.


Researchers and policymakers rely on computer simulations called integrated assessment models to determine the best strategies for tackling climate change. Here, scientists present opposing views on the suitability of these simulations.

The week from September 20 till September 27 has been designated as the week of the ‘Climate Strike’. It is an unprecedented event in its ambition to disrupt business as usual.

It is very common for leftist commentators to use the term ‘neoliberalism’ in their analysis of a political situation or social struggle. The term is frequently used in socialist political economy, cultural studies, and even mainstream liberal newspapers.

The death of Immanuel Wallerstein deprives us of an exceptional mind and an astute critic of capitalist society. This is a doubly lamentable loss at a moment as critical as the present, when the international system suffers under the combined pressures of the tensions provoked by the decline of U.S. imperialism and of the systemic crisis of capitalism.

Activists of All Ages, Labor Groups, Faith Leaders, Businesses and More Join Youth-Led Climate Strikes in Intergenerational Demand for Climate Action

We must act now.

Without self-determination, socialism becomes an economistic demand that fails to account for imperial rule.

Call it “socialism” or something else — but that is the future we need.

Using green sensibilities to rally people around a nationalist ideology is also at the core of the AfD’s agenda. The party, which does not seem to see a contradiction in its embrace of “a healthy environment” and climate-change denial,  fuels fears that climate politics could threaten Germany’s national sovereignty — for example, if ending fossil-fuel production would make the country dependent on oil and coal imports. The AfD’s new environmental agenda is thus not merely a rejection of the German government’s climate policies. It is an attempt at pushing back against a growing climate justice movement and international demands for a global response to the climate crisis.

During the debate about the global poverty numbers that unfolded earlier this year, the Bloomberg opinion columnist Noah Smith wrote a piece discussing some of my claims. In the months since a number of people have asked me to respond.