Subjects Archives: Ecology

  A sobering new assessment by the “Climate Action Tracker” of the emission commitments and pledges put forward by industrialized and developing countries for the Copenhagen climate negotiations shows that the world is headed for a global warming of well over 3°C by 2100.  Carbon dioxide concentrations are projected to be over 650 ppm, with […]

  One of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing industries in the world today is based on nanotechnology.  The U.S. government spends $1.5 billion a year on nanoresearch funded by 25 federal agencies under the National Nanotechnology Initiative of 2003.  There are many new journals with “nano” in their titles and dozens more journals […]

Allow me to make a few points about the current international negotiations which are likely to make a huge impact on the future of the planet.  At the heart of the issue is the trade off that has to be made between those who want to continue on a path of exploitation and the protesters […]

Introduction: As developing Asia is the most “globalised” region of the world in terms of both trade flows and financial flows, it was expected that the global crisis would adversely affect the region.  However, while the impact has indeed been strong, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has, as of yet, not been negative; rather, the […]

  Human societies have created the bases of our survival, sustenance and advancement through the use of our natural resources in production with rudimentary tools and rising levels of science and technology.  Yet in no time in history has environmental destruction been systematically brought about in most parts of the world. The people of the […]

  Abstract: What is the effect of the spread of nuclear weapons on international politics?  The scholarly debate pits proliferation optimists, who claim that “more may be better,” against proliferation pessimists, who argue that “more will be worse.”  These scholars focus on the aggregate effects of nuclear proliferation, but never explicitly consider the differential effects […]

  John Bellamy Foster is the editor of the socialist magazine Monthly Review and teaches sociology at the University of Oregon.  He has written on numerous subjects, from political economy to Marxist theory.  This year Foster published The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace With the Planet. Max van Lingen is a student of political philosophy and […]

  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s controversial visit to Brazil further underscored the independence of this country’s diplomacy, and gave Tehran a chance to defend its points of view on the construction of a lasting peace in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad’s one-day trip to Brasilia Monday was the third visit to Brazil by a Middle Eastern […]

  Lula from Brazil and Ahmadinejad from Iran.  What is this — the new axis of evil?  No — Luladinejad is a new axis of business. In the latest round of the increasingly warm embrace between Latin America and the Middle East, Lula and Ahmadinejad, meeting in Brazil, signed agreements on energy, trade and agricultural […]

It recalled ancient Greek tragedies.  The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), founded in the 19th Century, is the country’s oldest party, and now its saddest one.  On September 27th it suffered its worst election defeat since 1897, losing six million former voters and ending up with only 23 percent of the vote.  It had […]

  Paper presented at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation conference “The Global Crisis and Africa: Struggles for Alternatives,” Randburg, 19 November 2009 There is an ecological crisis in the world and this crisis can be traced to capitalism.  There is deforestation due to the trade in timber.  There is climate change due to unsafe production methods. […]

  North versus South Cf. SOURCE: Financial Times, 18 October 2009 Laz (Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez) is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Juventud Rebelde. | | Print  

The Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009 In 1982, I published a book, jointly with Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, and Andre Gunder Frank, entitled Dynamics of Global Crisis.  This was not its original title.  We had proposed the title, Crisis, What Crisis?  The U.S. publisher did not like that title, but we […]

  Amandla: Early in 2009 you published your book The Great Financial Crisis (coauthored with Fred Magdoff).  Could you reflect now almost a year later on what made the current recession more severe than previous recessions?  Why has it been compared to the Great Depression and what type of recovery are we likely to see? […]

Despite a number of positive economic indicators, Egypt has a hunger problem: Nearly a third of all children are malnourished, according to a new report compiled by the Ministry of Health and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The Egyptian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) 2008, published in March 2009, recorded a 6 percent increase in undernourishment […]

  The Iranian nuclear crisis has been on the international agenda for nearly eight years now.  At the heart of the matter is Iran’s insistence on its right under the IAEA protocols to uranium enrichment, and international concern lest the Islamic regime acquire the capability to develop nuclear weapons should it decide to embark on […]

“We have no other word but crisis to describe it, really.  It’s very different than the economic crisis that we are now in, in the sense that even a very, very severe economic crisis, such as the one that has been present since late 2007 . . . still is, in many ways, a cyclical […]

Paper delivered at the plenary session of the 2009 National Conference of the Philippine Sociological Society held at the PSSC Building on 16 October 2009 Why does the ideology of neoliberalism still exercise such influence in the Philippines despite the challenges it has faced from both the Asian and now global financial crisis? This paper […]

The Maoist movement in India is a direct consequence of the tragedy of India ruled by her big bourgeoisie and governed by parties co-opted by that class-fraction.  The movement now threatens the accumulation of capital in its areas of influence, prompting the Indian state to intensify its barbaric counter-insurgency strategy to throttle it.  In trying […]

  Notes of Anatoly S. Chernyaev Shevardnadze: In the country and in the provinces they created authoritative organizations for reconciliation.  They are working actively.  There is a special committee for refugees.  Many [rebel] bands — although they are not big — stopped armed struggle.  Najib leaves a very good impression.  However, not everybody supports him, […]