Category: Environment

Poisons Mean Extinction: For Bees and Humanity

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“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.” ― Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee[1]

In the last 50 years agrotoxins have spread and are pushing bees to extinction.

The choices before humanity are clear, a Poison Free Future to save Bees, Farmers, our Food and Humanity. Or continue to use poisons, threatening our common future by walking blindly to extinction through the arrogance that we can substitute bees with artificial intelligence and robots.

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Book: The Return of Nature

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20 May 2020 — Monthly Review Press

The return of nature

by

$23.00 – $35.00

Twenty years ago, John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature introduced a new understanding of Karl Marx’s revolutionary ecological materialism. More than simply a study of Marx, it commenced an intellectual and social history, encompassing thinkers from Epicurus to Darwin, who developed materialist and ecological ideas. Now, with The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, Foster continues this narrative. In so doing, he uncovers a long history of efforts to unite issues of social justice and environmental sustainability that will help us comprehend and counter today’s unprecedented planetary emergencies.

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Pandemic: ‘This is a time for bold programs from the left’

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16 May 2020– Climate & Capitalism

Interview with Fred Magdoff

Covid-19 exposes capitalism’s gross inability to meet human needs. We must demand immediate measures to help people survive and recover.

Fred Magdoff is Professor Emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and the author of many books, including What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism, and Creating an Ecological Society. Farooque Chowdhury, a freelance writer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, interviewed Magdoff for Countercurrents.

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Glyphosate Overuse Leads to Serious Immune System Concerns

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16 May 2020 — Sustainable Pulse

Editorial By Henry Rowlands, Sustainable Pulse Director

In a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is dominating the global psyche, it is of course important to delve deeper into the background reasons for the failure of our immune systems to be able to cope with the serious threat of infectious diseases, which are likely to be a feature of the 21st century.

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COVID-19 bulletin 12: link between high levels of air pollution and deaths from the coronavirus

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22 April 2020 — Political Concern

A Moseley resident drew attention to yesterday’s Guardian article which reported that high levels of air pollution may be “one of the most important contributors” to deaths from Covid-19, according to research conducted by a geoscientist Dr Yaron Ogen, at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany (Abstract and access to full text here).

(Ed): There are more cases of COVID-19 in London and Birmingham (pictured above), where high levels of air pollution have been recorded for many years.

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Coronavirus shows we must change how we live or face self-destruction

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7 April 2020 — GMWatch

Indigenous knowledge has a lot to teach us about global pandemics

EXCERPT: Indigenous societies… are based on worldviews where human needs are balanced with the needs of other life forms. This worldview inherently acknowledges the constraints of an ecosystem, the essence of sustainability. When the integrity of an ecosystem is guarded, the integrity and very existence of human communities are guarded as well. In a philosophical system that respects other life forms as relatives, an ethic of respect, responsibility and reciprocity automatically follows, mediated by reverence. This is the opposite of the vulgar, endless extraction of resources for short-term economic gain.
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Lockdown: Locking in the New Global Order

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2 April 2020 — Source: Off Guardian

Colin Todhunter

On 12 March, British PM Boris Johnson informed the public that families would continue to “lose loved ones before their time” as the coronavirus outbreak worsens. He added:

We’ve all got to be clear, this is the worst public health crisis for a generation.”

In a report, the Imperial College had warned of modelling that suggested over 500,000 would die from the virus in the UK. The lead author of the report, epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, has since revised the estimate downward to a maximum of 20,000 if current ‘lockdown’ measures work. Johnson seems to have based his statement on Ferguson’s original figures.

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Dicamba litigation against Bayer, BASF poised to explode, lawyers say

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6 March 2020 — GMWatch

Claims say weedkilling products developed by the former Monsanto and other chemical companies are destroying and contaminating crops, including organic

EXCERPT: In their legal claims, farmers allege that they have experienced damage both from the drift of old versions of dicamba and drifting newer versions as well. The farmers claim that the companies hoped fears of drift damage would force farmers to buy the special GMO dicamba-tolerant seeds in order to protect their cotton and soybean fields. Farmers growing other types of crops have been without any means to protect their fields.
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Global Breaking News on GMOs and Pesticides

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6 March 2020 — Sustainable Pulse

Editors’ picks

Next Generation Effects from GMO Crops Are a Serious Risk for Ecosystems – New Study

A new peer reviewed paper published in the international Environmental Sciences Europe journal has focused for the first time on the risk assessment of so-called next generation effects from GM Crops. The review addresses unintended effects that were observed in spontaneous hybrid offspring but absent in the original plants. Some of the risks included a […]

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Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Trigger Loss of Biodiversity – New Study

One of the world’s most widely used glyphosate-based herbicides, Roundup, can trigger loss of biodiversity, making ecosystems more vulnerable to pollution and climate change, say researchers from McGill University in Canada. The widespread use of Roundup on farms has sparked coancerns over potential health and environmental effects globally. Since the 1990s use of the herbicide […] The post Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Trigger Loss of Biodiversity – New Study appeared on …

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DeSmog UK Weekly: *Bumper Cabinet Reshuffle Edition*

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14 February 2020 — DesSmogUK

Who is really in charge of the UK’s government? Is it a) the elected MPs that won a landslide victory for the Conservative Party in December last year? Or b) the special advisors that always walk a respectful 5 paces behind them holding a device that looks suspiciously marionette-like?

After Boris Johnson’s first cabinet reshuffle as Prime Mininster, it looks possible it could be the latter.

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Catastrophe is upon us – the grim view from Southern Africa

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28 January 2020 — Global Ecosocialist Network

 Rehad Desai

The word catastrophe is being used more and more by institutions reporting on the effects of extreme weather in the two regions of Africa, Southern and South Eastern Africa, and of late Australia. The word means a number of things: tragic; fiasco; utter failure; sudden and violent change in a feature of the Earth. All are completely fitting for the situation we now face.

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