Subjects Archives: Environment

There has been an extensive debate within Marxism concerning the question of nature and its concomitant questions about the interaction of nature and culture or nature and society.

The unfolding crisis is now a common—and effective—talking point for corporate interest groups seeking regulatory relief.

The IPCC scientist in Working Group III in charge of proposing a concrete mitigation plan, that is, to reduce emissions and seek viable solutions (technological, economic, and social) to the biggest crisis ever faced by humankind. The science has never been clearer: we must drastically reduce emissions to have a chance of maintaining the climate stability that allows us to live on this planet.

In a video message, António Guterres said the report “is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world.” According to the new publication, the planet is on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree limit agreed in Paris.

The report starts by taking stock of the state of mitigation. In fact, it is more a question of a failure to mitigate. Global emissions of all greenhouse gases combined have increased by 11% compared to 2010. Their volume (59 GTCO2eq in 2018) is larger than ever in human history. Between 2010 and 2018, the rate of increase slowed down somewhat: 1.3% per year, compared to 2.3% during the previous decade.

The book traces Cuba’s preparedness from the threat of a U.S. invasion following its revolution through its resistance to hurricanes and diseases, which all laid the foundation for current adaptions to climate change.

Mega corporations like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Danone are making around 494 times what they spend by bottling water in Mexico and selling it back to locals who have no choice but to buy it.

We propose a novel method for quantifying national responsibility for ecological breakdown by assessing nations’ cumulative material use in excess of equitable and sustainable boundaries.

Current pledges to cut emissions won’t be enough to slow climate change, according to a new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Twenty-one Indian cities are going to be waterless very soon,” Rajendra Singh tells me in an interview for NewsClick conducted last week in Delhi. Singh is alluding to a prediction in a Niti Aayog report on water. He says, “It means that the underground and surface water availability will become zero.” Another report says 72% of water reservoirs are in overdraft.

Cuba has been revitalising its energy sector for the past 25 years. As a result, there has been a demonstrable rise in overall efficiency and a significant reduction in emissions.

East Antarctica, often times referred to as “the final frontier of global warming,” is making headlines once again.

Australian socialist Jeff Sparrow is a writer, broadcaster and Guardian Australia columnist. He spoke to climate activist Martin Empson about his book, ‘Crimes Against Nature—Capitalism and Global Heating.’

The product of several decades of research, this is a book accessibly written but rigorously researched with footnotes meticulously collected for those looking for a jumping off point through various archives.

While the world is concerned about climate change and almost irreversible global warming, the polar region is specifically important owing to their sensitive climatic conditions.

Salmon have shaped the lives and cultures of people in the Pacific Northwest since ancient times. These migratory fish who return each year from the deep sea to the rivers, where they were born to mate, give birth and die–then nourish the forests’ soil after death–are legendary.

Agrarian reform and agroecology were topics discussed during Lula’s visit yesterday to the Eli Vive settlement, belonging to the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), in Londrina (PR), the largest agrarian reform area in a metropolitan region of Brazil.

These days it’s no longer viable for the rich and powerful and their political servants simply to deny the reality of climate change and other environmental challenges. The new fad is to talk up whatever (inevitably small-scale) green initiatives are happening, and spruik the array of magical technological fixes that, like Forrest’s beloved “green hydrogen”, are always somehow just on the verge of taking off.

Hundreds of IPCC scientists provide the United Nations periodically with reports on adverse impacts of climate change. The most recent report, issued in February, details rising seas, terrible droughts, atypical weather events, thawing permafrost, dying forests, and massive displacement of populations.

Max Ajl interviews radical geographer and activist Habib Ayeb. Habib Ayeb is a founder member of the NGO Observatory of Food Sovereignty and Environment (OSAE) and Max Ajl is a Postdoc at Wageningen University’s Rural Sociology Group, associate editor at Agrarian South and the author of A People’s Green New Deal.