Subjects Archives: Ecology

  • Brazil: GDP Growth Slows amid Surging Imports and Flat Manufacturing

    Brazil’s GDP grew at a 2.5 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, down from 5.4 percent in the first quarter, and somewhat lower than its year-over-year growth of 3.2 percent.  GDP is now 7.8 percent above its pre-recession peak. By Sector Brazil continued its trend toward services and away from industry.  While services contributed […]

  • There Must Be Coherence between What We Do and What We Say

      President and Brother Evo Morales, Since 2006, Bolivia has shown leadership to the world on how to tackle the most profound challenges of our time.  We have achieved the approval of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation in the United Nations and promoted a vision for society based on Vivir Bien (Living Well) […]

  • Bolivia: Against “Green Imperialism”

    Statements, articles, letters, and petitions have been circulating on the Internet for the past month calling for an end to the “destruction of the Amazon.”  The target of these initiatives has not been transnational corporations or the powerful governments that back them, but the government of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales. At the centre […]

  • The New Scramble for Africa

      Is current U.S. foreign policy in Africa following a blueprint drawn up almost eight years ago by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative think tanks in the world?  Although it seems odd that a Democratic administration would have anything in common with the extremists at Heritage, the convergence in policy and […]

  • Help Boulder Create Public Power for Greener Future

      On November 1st, the citizens of Boulder, Colorado will vote on whether to create a city-owned electric utility to pilot leadership in renewables and the elimination of greenhouse gases in Colorado and the U.S. as a whole.  Preliminary polling indicates Boulder voters have done their homework and generally favor this 2-part ballot initiative by […]

  • Lessons from the Indian Experience

    India’s economic experience since the beginning of economic liberalisation constitutes a resounding refutation of “mainstream” (bourgeois) development theory.  On the basis of official data during this period there has been a remarkable acceleration of the growth rate of GDP, together with a striking increase in the incidence of absolutepoverty, a combination which no strand of […]

  • Two Decades of Neo-Liberal Reforms in India: The Worsening Employment Situation

    Two decades after neo-liberal economic reforms started in India as part of the agenda of imperialist globalisation, the condition of the masses of the labouring poor is worse in every part of the country except where some positive intervention has taken place to stabilise livelihoods.  The richest minority at the top of the income pyramid […]

  • Fred Magdoff on What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism

    What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism is a short, accessible introduction to the ecological crisis that is intended for a wide audience — why did you decide to write a book like this, and why now? In the fall of 2008 I attended a conference where discussion of the environment was prominent, although […]

  • Alaeddin Boroujerdi and Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh on What Iran Wants from Russia

      Russia Should Pressure U.S. to Lift Anti-Iran Sanctions: MP Russia should pressure the United States to lift the sanctions imposed on Iran, Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Friday. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far taken important steps in order to create transparency concerning its peaceful […]

  • Separating Fact from Fantasy in Bolivia: A Review of Jeffery R. Webber’s From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia

    The election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, on the back of a mass rebellion that overthrew successive governments, has stirred great interest in this small Andean nation.  Given that the Evo Morales government recently celebrated its 2000th day in power — a feat in its own right for a country that has had around 180 […]

  • Looking Back for Insights into a New Paradigm

    It is becoming widely acknowledged that the leading ideas of some of the most prestigious late-20th-century economists (such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers in the American government) are outmoded and that a new paradigm of economics is needed.  Part I of this essay will focus on two issues which we think it has to […]

  • Cautionary Tales for Would-Be Weather Engineers

      James Rodger Fleming.  Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control.  Columbia Studies in International and Global History Series.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.  Illustrations. xiv + 325 pp.  $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14412-4. In Fixing the Sky, James Rodger Fleming traces human efforts to control weather and climate from ancient […]

  • Energy Information Administration Report Undercounts Subsidies to Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, and Nuclear Energy: Renewables and Energy Efficiency Shortchanged by Flawed EIA Methodology

    The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report on federal energy subsidies, released on August 1, underreported direct and indirect federal subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, creating an inflated view of the subsidies that benefit renewable energy and efficiency programs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).  Although the agency concedes that […]

  • India: Saying No to Iranian Oil to Please America

      “[A]n assessment of whether India is fully and actively participating in United States and international efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons capability (including the capability to enrich uranium or reprocess nuclear fuel), and the means to […]

  • Facing Up to the Real Cost of Carbon

    Your house might not burn down next year.  So you could probably save money by cancelling your fire insurance. That’s a “bargain” that few homeowners would accept. But it’s the same deal that politicians have accepted for us, when it comes to insurance against climate change.  They have rejected sensible investments in efficiency and clean […]

  • India: The Latest Employment Trends from the NSSO

    No sooner were the results of the 66th Round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (relating to data collected in 2009-10) released, than they became the subject of great controversy.  Surprisingly, the controversy was created not by critics of the government and its statistical system, but from within government circles! Some highly placed officials found […]

  • Price Formation in Financialized Commodity Markets: The Role of Information

      Excerpt: The mid-2000s marked the start of a trend of steeply rising commodity prices, accompanied by increasing volatility.  The prices of a wide range of commodities reached historic highs in nominal terms in 2008 before falling sharply in the wake of the financial and economic crisis.  Since mid-2009, and especially since the summer of […]

  • What Happened at Fukushima and Why It Can Happen Here

      “The primary cause is an extended loss of power at the power plant, as ironic as that might be.  When the earthquake occurred, the normal grid was lost, and the plant’s own in-plant power from the generators was also lost because of the result of the earthquake. . . .  The tsunami came in […]

  • Global Oil Prices

    There was a time when global oil prices reflected changes in the real demand and supply of crude petroleum.  Of course, as with many other primary commodities, the changes in the market could be volatile, and so prices also fluctuated, sometimes sharply.  More than anything else, the global oil market was seen to reflect not […]

  • Shashe Declaration: 1st Encounter of Agroecology Trainers in Africa Region 1

      We are 47 people from 22 organizations in 18 countries (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Central African Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Portugal, USA, France, and Germany).  We are farmers and staff representing member organizations of La Via Campesina, along with allies from other farmer […]