Subjects Archives: Climate Change

  On 29 March, the Guardian‘s Leo Hickman had an article published covering a recent interview he’d had with noted British Earth scientist James Lovelock.  Entitled “James Lovelock:  Humans Are Too Stupid to Prevent Climate Change,” the article quotes the 90-year old Lovelock as making the following assertion: “I don’t think we’re yet evolved to […]

Leading global scientists have been exonerated of blame in the “climategate” controversy, although this won’t stop right-wing and corporate-funded pundits from attacking the science of global warming.  The British government recently released its first investigation on the activities of East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit, finding no evidence that its scientists manipulated data or distorted […]

Workers in the electrical sector are set to embark on nationwide consultation process to elaborate strategic and immediate solutions for the electricity crisis.  Alongside proposals for improving the sector and energy-saving measures, discussions will focus on introducing workers’ participation in the management of the state-owned electricity company, Corpoelec. In February this year, Venezuelan President Hugo […]

The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with India’s Gravest Internal Security Threat.  I’d been waiting for months to hear from them.  I had to be at the Ma Danteshwari mandir in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, at any of four given times on two given days.  That was to […]

Johannesburg, 11 March 2010 (IRIN) — Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020.  This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by […]

On March 2, the New York Times ran a story informing readers of recent “controversies” related to global warming.  The story chronicled the efforts of scientists affiliated with the United Nations Climate Panel and other major research institutions to answer the claims of conservatives who suggest there is a conspiracy to hide the “debate” over […]

This is not an ideological issue related to the irremediable hope that a better world is and must be possible. It is known that homo sapiens has existed for approximately 200,000 years, equivalent to a minuscule space in the time that has passed since the first forms of elemental life on our planet emerged around […]

From 21 January to 2 February 2010, Eric Toussaint and Olivier Bonfond — both involved in alterglobalization activism and members of the International Council of the World Social Forum, of the world coordination of social movements, and of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt 1 — participated in various events and […]

  Interview by Aleix Bombila, for En Lucha (Spain), of John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, and author of Marx’s Ecology and The Ecological Revolution En Lucha: In your book Marx’s Ecology you argue that Marxism has a lot to offer to the ecologist movement.  What kind of united work can be established between […]

Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela. The campaign for the September 26 National Assembly elections will be a crucial battle between the supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the US-backed right-wing opposition. But these battles, part of the class struggle between the poor majority and […]

Introduction by Geoffrey Gunn It is probably a cliché to observe that tropical rain forests host the greatest known concentrations of bio-diversity on the planet.  Together, the three great global equatorial biozones are central Africa, the Amazon basin, and the Indonesian archipelago, including southern Sumatra Island, and the even more remote tin-rich offshore island of […]

The capitalist world has experienced its deepest economic meltdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Paradoxically, whereas the earlier period saw the breakdown of liberal capitalism, the rise of fascism and Nazism, and the Soviet alternative to liberal capitalism, today neo-liberalism and capitalist globalization still remain powerful, and apparently supreme, on the stage of […]

Jeffrey Sachs has become something of a force in international development circles over the past decade.  As special advisor to the UN’s Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, former director of the UN’s Millennium Development Project, and a decorated economist at Columbia University, Sachs certainly has much to brag about.  The publication of his runaway bestseller, The […]

Be part of history!  Celebrate Earth Day and attend the Peoples’ World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  World scientists, academics, lawyers, and representatives of governments that want to work with their citizens to save our planet will be in attendance.  (Conference is scheduled for April 20-22, 2010.) Before and […]

  Statement of Haitian Organizations and Platforms To all our partners On January 12th, 2010 an earthquake of unprecedented force struck our country with dramatic consequences for the people of many areas in the west and south east, and for the country as a whole.  The tremor registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, and the […]

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and author of The Great Financial Crisis (2009, with Fred Magdoff) and The Ecological Revolution (2009) — both from Monthly Review Press.  This interview was conducted from Dhaka by Farooque Chowdhury (editor of Micro Credit: Myth Manufactured, 2007) for MRzine and Bangla Monthly Review.  It is part […]

Immigrants to the developed world have frequently been blamed for unemployment, crime, and other social ills.  Attempts to reduce or block immigration have been justified as necessary measures to protect “our way of life” from alien influences. Today, some environmentalists go farther, arguing that sharp cuts in immigration are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions […]

In my Reflection of January 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: “In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country.  Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian […]

Some bad news.  Via e-mail: I have urgent news to report back to everyone . . . unfortunately it’s not good news. Today I spoke with Kristen Coughlin Carr, the aunt of one of our dear GFMers, Shannon Hughes (who was staying at Select Hotel).  She informed me that Shannon is missing in Egypt.  It […]

The news reported from Haiti describes a great chaos that was to be expected, given the exceptional situation created in the aftermath of the catastrophe. At first, a feeling of surprise, astonishment, and commotion set in. A desire to offer immediate assistance came up in the farthest corners of the Earth. What assistance should be […]