Book review: A powerful polemic against capitalism’s planetary destruction, and an engaging look at the degrowth movement
Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter and Aaron Vansintjan
THE FUTURE IS DEGROWTH
A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism
Verso, 2022
reviewed by Martin Empson
Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: news you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education.
New Figures Show Massive Decrease in Planting of GM Crops in European Union
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Silent Spring, one of the most important environmental books of the 20th century. We dedicate this November issue of Pesticide News to the book’s author, Rachel Carson, who wrote a ground-breaking, ecological alarm call that we are still rallying behind today.
MST Calls for Action
Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (Brazil), Projeto de Mural (‘Mural Project’), 1950.
João Pedro Stedile
Speech by João Pedro Stedile, a leader of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and the global peasants’ organization La Via Campesina, at the Vatican in late October. English translation first published by Vijay Prashad in the newsletter of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: news you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education.
Over half of all food samples tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) contain the residues of at least one pesticide, and one in ten samples have levels that violate legal limits established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Beyond Pesticides reported Monday. Source: Beyond Pesticides These findings, published by the FDA […] Read more
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Lyndsie Bourgon
TREE THIEVES
Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods
Little, Brown, 2022
Reviewed by Martin Empson
Forests are one of the world’s most important biological reserves. They suck about a third of humanity’s carbon emissions out of the atmosphere each year. According to the United Nations, forests also “contain 60,000 different tree species, 80 percent of amphibian species, 75 percent of bird species, and 68 percent of the world’s mammal species.” Despite this importance, tree cover is being lost at an alarming rate, and as Lyndsie Bourgon’s new book details, significant damage to our forests comes from the illegal trade in wood, driven by the poaching of trees.
On our burning planet, the impact of private jets, socialist solidarity, and the growth of degrowth
Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: news you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education.
The following is an abridged version of the second chapter of the author’s short (free-to-read) e-book Food, Dispossession and Dependency (2022)
GM crops are required to feed the world is a well-worn industry slogan trotted out at every available opportunity. Just like the claim of GM crops being a tremendous success, this too is based on a myth.
There is no global shortage of food. Even under any plausible future population scenario, there will be no shortage as evidenced by scientist Dr Jonathan Latham in his paper “The Myth of a Food Crisis” (2020).
Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. One of the most polluted places on earth.
(Photo: Garth Lenz, Ecojustice)
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment has identified the most polluted places on earth. In his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council, David Boyd describes these places as Sacrifice Zones, a term originally used for areas made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons tests.
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Developments in Argentina regarding genetically modified (GM) wheat show that however determined governments are to boost GMOs in agriculture, the inherent weaknesses of the technology undermine their efforts. Although the Argentine government approved it for planting and the Brazilian government gave the nod for its import, the GM wheat is giving poor yields, around two-thirds […]
Once a month, we put together a list of stories we’ve been reading: news you might’ve missed or crucial conversations going on around the web. We focus on environmental justice, radical municipalism, new politics, political theory, and resources for action and education.
Rights groups and politicians in Colombia have welcomed a decision by the country’s Constitutional Court, which ruled this week that the government failed to consult local communities over its plan to restart aerial fumigation of coca crops, Al Jazeera reported. In a decision last Wednesday, the court said the government of President Ivan Duque could not […] The post Colombia Constitutional Court Suspends Re-Start of Glyphosate Aerial Fumigation Program appeared on Sustainable Pulse.
The volume of pesticide use and exposure is occurring on a scale that is without precedent and world-historical in nature. Agrichemicals are now pervasive as they cycle through bodies and environments. The herbicide glyphosate has been a major factor in driving this increase in use.These statements appear in a 2021 paper ‘Growing Agrichemical Ubiquity: New Questions for Environments and Health’ (Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity).
The New Dark Age 