Features

The other 99 percent

Mar 272012

An interview with Braulio Ferreira De Souza Dias, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service

The Earth's life support system, which generates the planet's air, water and food, is powered by 8.7 million living species, according to the latest best estimate. We know little about 99 percent of those unique species, except that far too many are rapidly going extinct.

What can be done to slow down this process, which could eventually lead to the extinction of the human species?

The roots of the global economy

Mar 272012

Features

Without forests, without topsoil, without water, we're all sunk.

by Lester R Brown of Earth Policy Institute

Our natural systems are the foundation of our economy. Consider Pakistan. During the past two summers, Pakistan was hit with catastrophic floods. The record flooding in the late summer of 2010 was the most devastating natural disaster in the country's history. Media coverage reported torrential rains as the cause, but there is much more to the story.

When Pakistan was created in 1947, some 30 percent of the landscape was covered by forests. Now it is 4 percent. Pakistan's livestock herd outnumbers that of the United States. With little forest still standing and the countryside grazed bare, there was scant vegetation to retain the rainfall. Pakistan, with 185 million people squeezed into an area only slightly larger than Texas, is an ecological basket case. If it cannot restore its forests and grazing lands, it will only suffer more "natural" disasters in the future.

Public servants decry “sly” budget cuts

Mar 272012

Features

Speakers highlight the value of public servants to Canadians across the nation.

by Samantha Bayard

OTTAWA, Straight Goods News, March 21, 2012 — Federal public servants are speaking out against harsh expected budget cuts and the "sly" way the government is going about introducing them.

Canada's largest federal public sector union held a reception on Parliament Hill to illustrate the value of its members' work by showcasing public servants from across the country providing essential services to seniors and veterans and those who inspect food and orchestrate search and rescue missions.

"The government is hiding behind secrecy and mixed messages because it knows that the austerity agenda won't stand up to public scrutiny and we worry it is going to implement its austerity agenda with cuts by stealth," said PSAC national president John Gordon. "We are calling for an end to all this secrecy and for this government to implement an accountable, transparent plan that protects our economy and the public services Canadian's rely on."

“We don’t want to bomb you”

Mar 202012

Features

Israelis, Iranians try to avert war through Facebook.

by Golnaz Esfandiari

Amid the drumbeat of war between Iran and Israel, an Israeli couple has launched an online peace campaign in an effort to reach out to Iranians and say no to a military conflict.

Three months to Rio+20

Mar 202012

Features

Governments ignoring global conference on planet stewardship.

by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service

UXBRIDGE, March 9, 2012 (IPS) — The upcoming Rio+20 conference has to be the moment in human history when the nations of the world come together to find ways to ensure the very survival of humanity, many science and environmental experts believe.

Holding the war masters at bay

Mar 192012

Features

Repeated wars leave speaker more shocked, less awed.

by David Swanson

[Editor's note: Author and activist David Swanson addressed the revived Left Forum a key annual gathering for US Democratic Socialism. This article is excerpted from the beginning of his speech.]

When I lived in New York twenty years ago, the United States was beginning a 20-year war on Iraq. We protested at the United Nations. The Miami Herald depicted Saddam Hussein as a giant fanged spider attacking the United States. Hussein was frequently compared to Adolf Hitler.

In the wake of the crisis: Bully Capitalism

Mar 192012

Features

Very profitable corporations demanding sharp decreases in wages, taxes.

by Armine Yalnizyan

Capitalism has entered an ugly new era, one that may work well for the shareholders of world, but not for the rest of us.

I couldn't help but notice that, on the very same day Caterpillar shuttered the doors of its London, Ontario locomotive plant and headed to low-wage Indiana, the Wall Street Journal reported federal corporate tax receipts as a share of profits had dropped to their lowest level in at least 40 years in the US. Sadly, that's not just an American story.

Lower taxes and lower wages: it's a one-two punch that has been hard to duck in the post-crisis period, and not because business is on the ropes. Like Caterpillar, the American business sector as a whole has been booking record-breaking profits.

The wage floor is sagging, pulling downwards the prospects for everyone but the elite.

Gaia calls for moratorium

Mar 132012

Features

Extraction industries expanding methods, exploration.

by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service

UXBRIDGE, March 1, 2012 (IPS) — A global scramble for land and mineral resources fueled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water, warned environmental groups in London recently.

No national park, delicate ecosystem or community is off limits in the voracious hunt for valuable metals, minerals and fossil fuels, said the Gaia Foundation's report, Opening Pandora's Box. The intensity of the hunt and exploitation is building to a fever pitch, despite the fact the Earth is already overheated and humanity is using more than can be sustained, the 56-page report warns.

Sinking the small fisherfolk

Mar 132012

Features

Discussion paper would permit huge processing ships for inshore Atlantic fisheries.

by Samantha Bayard

The struggling Atlantic fisheries appear to be threatened by new policies proposed in January and February discussion papers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. At issue is the long-established concept of "fleet separation", which prohibits gigantic corporate ships that process fish as well as catch them. Fleet separation helps maintain the shore industry as well as the fleet industry, in the valuable in-shore fisheries.

NDP MP Jack Harris explained why the fleet separation is essential to maintain in his St John's East (Newfoundland) riding and across the region. "It's a simple separation of the harvesting from the processing," he said. "It is what allows the communities a connection with the fish in the sea."

Fukushima, one year later

Mar 132012

Features

Cover up of radioactivity just a continuation of nuclear Big Lie.

by Karl Grossman

As the first anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster arrives, the cover-up involving nuclear power is more extensive than ever.

The Big Lie was integral to the nuclear push from its start.

Promoters of nuclear power discounted the seriousness of nuclear plant accidents, although government documents acknowledged the vast scale of catastrophe. As the Atomic Energy Commission's ;WASH-740 update, done at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the 1960s, repeatedly states about a major nuclear plant accident: "The possible size of the area of such a disaster might be equal to that of the State of Pennsylvania."

Older Entries Newer Entries