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Moving Towards Sustainability – by Eating Less Meat
Moving Towards Sustainability – by Eating Less Meat The amount of meat humans eat is immense. In 1965, 10 billion livestock animals were slaughtered each year. In 2012, that number was 55 billion. More chickens are killed in the US every year than there are people in the world, and there are one billion cattle […]
Liberals and the New McCarthyism
Liberals and the New McCarthyism It’s easy enough, some sixty years after the fact, for us to cluck our tongues at the cowardice and stupidity of those who went along with McCarthyism. It’s especially easy for liberals and academics to say that had they been alive back then, they would certainly have had the courage to stand […]
The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Warmongering
The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Warmongering I have spent a few days reading Yves Engler’s book, The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy (2012) about the inhumane, cold-hearted and ruthless actions of Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This has left me feeling nauseated and ill. Today, sitting in a coffee shop in Vancouver, I looked across the […]
The Fake War on ISIS: US and Turkey Escalate in Syria
The Fake War on ISIS: US and Turkey Escalate in Syria It is late July 2015, and the media is abuzz with the news that Turkey will allow US jets to use its bases to bomb Islamic State (ISIS) targets in Syria. There is much talk about how this development is a “game-changer,” and how this is […]
Well-Known Canadian Journalist Visits Ukraine and Praises neo-Nazi
Well-Known Canadian Journalist Visits Ukraine and Praises neo-Nazi One of Canada’s most known journalists was in Ukraine last month on reporting duty. Readers of mainstream media in Canada will be surprised to read Dianne Francis’ observations of her visit. She has penned several articles in the World Post praising the extreme-right and neo-Nazi paramilitary forces that are […]
Reshuffling Eurasia’s Energy Deck — Iran, China and Pipelineistan
Reshuffling Eurasia’s Energy Deck — Iran, China and Pipelineistan Pipelineistan – the prime Eurasian energy chessboard — never sleeps. Recently, it’s Russia that has scored big on all fronts; two monster gas deals sealed with China last year; the launch of Turk Stream replacing South Stream; and the doubling of Nord Stream to Germany. Now, with […]
The Perfectly Nasty Ocean Storm
The Perfectly Nasty Ocean Storm The oceans of the world are currently experiencing a “perfect storm” that is nasty, real nasty with too much warming, too much acidification, too much CO2, too much fishing, too many chemicals, too much Ag runoff, too much radiation (Fukushima), and too little ice (Arctic Ocean) bringing on too much […]
The Politics of California’s Water System
The Politics of California’s Water System In a decision bursting with symbolism, the California State Water Resources Control Board recently announced its intention to draw down the main water supply reservoir for a half-million people who live just outside of the state capitol to only 12% of capacity by September 30. Lake Folsom on the […]
The Case of John Peter Zenger and the Fight for a Free Press
The Case of John Peter Zenger and the Fight for a Free Press This week marks the 280th anniversary of a landmark event in the history of a free press: the trial of John Peter Zenger in New York. Zenger, publisher of the New-York Weekly Journal, was found not guilty of seditious libel by a 12-member jury at […]
Neoliberal Ebola: the Agroeconomic Origins of the Ebola Outbreak
Neoliberal Ebola: the Agroeconomic Origins of the Ebola Outbreak The notion of a neoliberal Ebola is so beyond the pale as to send leading lights in ecology and health into apoplectic fits. Here’s one of bestseller David Quammen’s five tweets denouncing my hypothesis that neoliberalism drove the emergence of Ebola in West Africa. I’m an “addled guy” whose “loopy […]
The Politics of Coercion in Greece
The Politics of Coercion in Greece This is a transcript of Zoe Konstantopoulou’s important July 22nd speech in the Hellenic Parliament. I confess that the consciously, politically and personally painful moments which we are being called on to experience in parliament during this parliamentary term are multiplying. From my capacity as Speaker of the House, I have just sent […]
We May Have Already Committed Ourselves to 6-Meter Sea-Level Rise
We May Have Already Committed Ourselves to 6-Meter Sea-Level Rise Even if humanity were to stop throwing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere today, a catastrophic rise in sea levels of six meters may be inevitable. Two previous prehistoric interglacial periods, in which the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was believed to be […]
The Dismal and Hopeful Future
The Dismal and Hopeful Future One doesn’t have to be a brilliant social analyst to see that the contemporary world order is doomed, destined to start visibly crumbling within the next decade or two at the latest. The neoliberal system, in fact the corporate capitalist system, is radically unsustainable. It is too unstable, too universally […]
Ecological Crisis and the Tragedy of the Commodity
Ecological Crisis and the Tragedy of the Commodity We live in an era of ecological crisis, which is a direct result of human actions. Natural scientists have been debating whether the current historical epoch should be called the Anthropocene, in order to mark the period in which human activities became the primary driver of global […]
