No one in their right mind can accuse President George W. Bush of overly concerning himself with climate change. In this respect, his curriculum is spotless and both his unreserved support to the oil industry and his oil wars have implied significant inputs to global warming. And if any doubts were left, his persistent refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol has made him the undisputed leader of those making the largest contribution to the destruction of Planet Earth’s climate.
Bulletin articles
The problem of the loss of territories by peasants and indigenous peoples in favour of industrial projects has several aspects in Brazil and the Landless Peasant’s Movement (MST) has been struggling to counteract this process.
We have reported on the successive occupations of land covered with vast monoculture eucalyptus plantations for pulp production – one of such occupations recently involved the women of Via Campesina/MST on the occasion of International Woman’s Day.
Ethanol is a biofuel usually made from maize (corn) or sugar cane, which is being enthusiastically promoted as an alternative fuel which can be blended into ordinary petrol or burned directly in special "flex-fuel" engines.
If we want to curb climate change, carbon trading won't do.
In 1992, an infamous leaked memo from Lawrence Summers, who was at the time Chief Economist of the World Bank, stated that "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable, and we should face up to that".
The recently released Stern Review on climate change, written by a man who occupied the same position at the World Bank from 2000 to 2003, applies a similar sort of free market environmentalism to climate change.
The present energy matrix is basically compounded by oil (35%), coal (23%) and natural gas (21%). The nations of the OECD -- the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- which account for 56% of the planet’s energy consumption are desperately in need of a liquid fuel replacement for oil. Worldwide petroleum extraction rates are expected to peak this year, and global supply will likely dwindle significantly in the next fifty years.
Southern Cameroon is red and green. Green like the forest of the Congo basin that breathes and has a heartbeat and that offers its inhabitants the biotic resources necessary to subsist; and red like the dusty roads where trucks run, transporting the bodies of forest giants that will be turned into furniture, flooring, doors, etc. Along Cameroon’s open veins flows its vital element to the port of Douala, where the vampire from the North comes to quench its thirst…
The Ministry of the Environment is placing Ecuador’s indigenous territories in danger. Under a new term, that of “co-management” it intends to hand over our ancestral territories and their natural resources to logging, oil palm and mining companies.
Like State governments in many other parts of India, the government of Jharkhand State is planning large-scale industrial expansion across the entire region in the name of “development” and “poverty reduction”. To the dismay and disillusionment of mass movements in Jharkhand, newly elected government officials plan to uphold agreements struck by the previous State government with leading steel and mining companies. In return for 169198 Crore Rupees (c.
We had already shared (see WRM's bulletin Nº 111) what the ‘Operation Climate Change’ -- launched on January 1, 1999 -- did in the Niger Delta: activists shut down oil flow stations and gas flares. In response, many houses were destroyed, people were killed and women were raped. However, the struggle continued and mainly women started a joint campaign to protect life by putting a stop to the depredations of Big Oil. They won a fight: in January 2006 Nigerian courts ordered Shell to stop the flaring of natural gas in Ogoniland.
The World Social Forum met in Nairobi, Kenya from 20 to 25 January. Beyond the opinion that each one of us may have about its achievements, what we would like to highlight is not so much what was said or what was done there but its message that “another world is possible.” .
The Enawene Nawe -- a small Amazonian tribe (over 420) who live by fishing and gathering in Mato Grosso state, Brazil -- are a relatively isolated people who were first contacted in 1974. They grow manioc and corn in gardens and gather forest products, like honey but fishing is their main livelihood and fish are a vital part of their diet, as they are one of the few tribes who eat no red meat. During the fishing season, the men build large dams across rivers and spend several months camped in the forest, catching and smoking the fish which is then transported by canoe to their village.
The land near the southern boundary of the Mount Elgon national park is green and the volcanic soils are fertile. But since it was declared a national park in 1993, a sometimes violent conflict between villagers and the national park management has flared up at Mount Elgon.