Subjects Archives: Ecology

The danger doesn’t only come from the symptoms of a virus: it comes from our distorted relationship with the natural world.

The Japanese-owned (Mitsui-operated) MV Wakashio was en route to Brazil from China to fetch iron ore from a port owned by the notorious mining company Vale. Here the ship is seen having run aground near Blue Bay, one of the area’s most pristine sites for coral, already threatened by bleaching due to the climate crisis. Now the marine life and fisherfolk must survive this spill.

An Apology Letter to Future Generations. Sorry.

Worldwide, there are now over a thousand coastal areas where fish can’t breathe. The nitrogen that makes crops grow is also destroying offshore ecosystems.

In saying that the terrible explosion in Beirut is an ecosocialist issue I am not counterposing this claim to the fact that this is also an issue of corruption, of government incompetence, of health and safety and many other things.

What can a virus tell us about climate breakdown, in its causation and in humanity’s response?

Marx’s Ecology: John Bellamy Foster details the ecological foundation of Marx’s critique of capitalism and argues that it has great relevance to understanding the environmental crisis we face today.

No one should have been surprised by COVID-19. Epidemiologists have been warning for decades about the increasing danger of novel virus pandemics that could cause major human suffering, disrupt the economy and exacerbate the growing inequalities that characterizes the modern world.

Climate progressive countries United Kingdom and Sweden have to ramp up their commitments to reach the Paris Agreement goal, according to a new study led by Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester and Upsalla University.

It is therefore from 1971-72, after the emergence of the first ecological movements and following his reading of the pioneering works of Elmar Altvater, Harry Rothman and Barry Commoner, that he began to integrate the ecological dimension into his thinking.

Recent activity around solar geoengineering is sparking debate over its role in climate policy. Backed by billionaires, and with connections to the U.S. military, solar geoengineering offers nothing but an Earth engineered to fit the needs of capital. It is antithetical to a radical climate movement.

The Global Ecosocialist Network (GEN) is asking its members and affiliated organisations to popularise the idea of a global climate strike coinciding with the COP 26 Conference in Glasgow in November 2021.

For much of human history, most people—men and women—wore loose fitting robes of various types to cover their bodies. It is thought that trousers were invented relatively recently in human history, around 1000 BCE, so that people could be more comfortable riding horses.

In a period of ecological and climate crises, figuring out ‘how to save nature’ is perhaps the principal challenge facing our planet. Yet, a largely unchallenged view is the misconception that overpopulation is among the primary drivers of these crises.

The world is at an existential crossroads involving a pandemic, a deep economic recession, devastating climate change, extreme inequality, and an uprising against racist policies. Running through all of these challenges is the longstanding neglect of extreme poverty by many governments, economists, and human rights advocates.

The Cosmonaut team inaugurates the ecology series by discussing John Bellamy Foster’s seminal book Marx’s Ecology on its twentieth anniversary.

Canadian Dimension in conversation with essayist, researcher and historian Max Ajl

‘The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of [Iroquois Confederacy] settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible.… the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed.’ —Commands from George Washington to General Sullivan on May 31, 1779

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to writer, teacher and activist Victor Wallis about the prospect and need for ecosocialism. Wallis’ book is entitled ‘Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism’.

Cities across the world are facing a double-barreled existential problem: how to adapt to climate change and how to pay for it.