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).
By Crispin Dowler: 10 minute read: The European Union and the UK are shipping thousands of tonnes of ‘neonicotinoid’ pesticides (neonics) to poorer countries, years after banning the chemicals from their own farms to protect bees, a new Unearthed and Public Eye investigation has found.
[Source: chappette.com]Monsanto (now part of Bayer AB) had to pay $78 million in 2018 and $10 billion more in 2020 to settle 100,000 cancer lawsuits. But that won’t stop a company whose 2021 revenues will top $49.991 billion…which is why Roundup is still being profitably sprayed in 160 countries around the world.
In early 2020, we saw the beginning of the COVID-19 ‘pandemic’. The world went into lockdown and even after lockdowns in various countries had been lifted, restrictions continued. Data now shows that lockdowns seemingly had limited if any positive impacts on the trajectory of COVID-19 and in 2022 the world – especially the poor – is paying an immense price not least in terms of loss of income, loss of livelihoods, the deterioration of mental and physical health, the eradication of civil liberties, disrupted supply chains and shortages.18 November 2021
Thank you to everyone who helped raise the issue of military pollution around COP26. While the conference itself was a major COPOUT, vastly more people now know and care about military climate destruction.
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 vast majority of 6,440 submissions to the consultation on gene editing deregulation said NO to the proposals – but Defra is going ahead regardless
Environment Secretary George Eustice plans to ignore the results of his own public consultation and push on with proposals to dismantle GM safeguards, warns GM Freeze. Please ask your MP to tell him it’s time to start listening.
Concerned about pesticide residues in your food? As featured in the Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Express our list of the ‘dirtiest’ fruit and vegetables reveals the 2020 produce most likely to contain cocktails of multiple pesticides.
by T Vijayendra
This is a response to the two sets of articles written by Sajai Jose on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and on the world’s and India’s hunger crisis. It is in two parts. In the first part it lays the historical background of the response of capital in the face of periodic crises it faces and people’s response to it. It uses the Marxist framework of Project of the Capital and Project of the Proletariat in dealing with this phenomenon. In Part II it specifically deals with the current Project of the Capital, viz. the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is a restructuring of capital with newer technologies. It links up the Pandemic and the world hunger crisis and famine with this restructuring of capital. Then it briefly maps the possible response of the proletariat across the world and in different regions of India to this crisis. Finally it poses: Future: Survival or end of life on earth.
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Editors’ picks
UK government’s response to public consultation on gene editing is scientifically indefensible and a slap in the face for democracy
The UK government has released its response to the public consultation on its plans to deregulate gene editing – but only AFTER all the morning news broadcasts hyping the potential of the technology.
Street and online people’s protests against the ‘global corporate food empire’ greeted the opening of the UN Food Systems Summit (UN FSS), as the Global People’s Summit (GPS) on Food Systems launched a Global Day of Action on the third and final day of its counter-summit to the UN FSS happening virtually and in New […]
Commission reportedly aims to exempt some new GMOs from safety regulations within four years and change regulation for all new GMOs within 10 years
Many of us are worried that industrial agriculture is fueling the climate crisis. We are losing fertile soil, and pesticides are killing bees, butterflies and birds. I’ve received many questions asking what a better agriculture system could look like.
“The expropriation of the mass of the people from the soil forms the basis of the capitalist mode of production.” (Karl Marx)
Tenants harvest the landlord’s grain
Part One: Commons and classes before capitalism
Part Two: ‘Systematic theft of communal property’
by Ian Angus
| “The ground of the parish is gotten up into a few men’s hands, yea sometimes into the tenure of one or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled either to be hired servants unto the other or else to beg their bread in misery from door to door.” (William Harrison, 1577)[1] |
In 1549, tens of thousands of English peasants fought — and thousands died — to halt and reverse the spread of capitalist farming that was destroying their way of life. The largest action, known as Kett’s Rebellion, has been called “the greatest practical utopian project of Tudor England and the greatest anticapitalist rising in English history.”[2]
The New Dark Age 