Subjects Archives: Ecology

Capitalist and neocolonial fantasies are hampering a just transition.

The world as we know it must change. Humanity cannot survive under imperialist and capitalist structures.

Our immediate crisis is caused by a system that encourages endless growth, exploitation, waste and energy use.

Leonard Peltier: “Being my age and having spent these many years in prison plays on your heart to the nth degree. I am here because I wanted to make a difference for our people, and I want to encourage others to do the same.”

We are very pleased to republish this important article by Efe Can Gürcan, Associate Professor at Türkiye’s Istinye University, which originally appeared in Volume 3 Issue 3 of the BRIQ(Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly).

Petro’s, Lula’s, and Maduro’s positions show South Americans are united about the Amazon; it may reintegrate Venezuela.

The dust has settled at the resorts in Sharm el-Shaikh, Egypt, as delegates of countries and corporations leave the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The only advance made in the final agreement was for the creation of a ‘loss and damage fund’ for ‘vulnerable countries’.

Late Imperialism and the Expropriation of the Earth.

South Africa is set to implement an $8.5bn plan funded by western countries to transition from coal-based energy to renewables. The country’s biggest union NUMSA has warned this plan will only intensify privatization while burdening South Africans with debt and poverty.

A new study finds Greenland’s ice sheet thinning much further into the ice sheet core than previously thought, 100 miles inland. (Source: S. Khan, et al, Extensive Inland Thinning and Speed-Up of North-East Greenland Stream, Nature, November 9, 2022)

The action proposed by world leaders, their advisors, and corporate lobbyists at the climate talks (COP27) in Egypt are neoliberal, market-based, and focused on preserving a racist and capitalist global order. Introducing a collection of papers on the climate emergency in North Africa, Hamza Hamouchene, Ouafa Haddioui and Katie Sandwell denounce mainstream and top-down solutions for an environmental crisis engulfing the region, and continent.

As rich countries move away from dispute-settlement mechanisms that give corporations power to block environmental protections, Manuel Pérez-Rocha says they keep imposing them on developing countries through trade pacts.

Grand declarations at Cop27 on tackling the climate emergency are sabotaged by a treaty from the 1990s that sees European nations held to ransom by the energy companies.

Developing countries and mass organizations continue to demand compensation for damage and loss.

The latest annual climate conference has begun in the face of a worsening climate crisis and further retreats by rich nations following the energy crisis induced by NATO sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

According to a new study by Oxfam, 125 billionaires and their investments are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than countries such as France, Egypt or Argentina. One of these billionaires emits 393 million tonnes of CO2 a year, a million times more than any member of the lower 90 percent of society.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg was interviewed by ABC’s 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson on November 3. Below is a transcript of the interview.

Nnimmo Bassey (NB): Simple solutions are avoided in today’s world because they don’t support capital.

Fossil fuel giants are moving to ramp up extraction as new data shows that the industry has been emitting three times more planet-heating pollution than it claims.

In 1973-74 the Planning Commission in India had defined poverty as the inability to access 2400 calories per person per day in rural India (in practice however it applied a lower 2200 calories norm), and 2100 calories per person per day in urban India.