HEY BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A BILLION?

Dec. 11, 2208 Before the current financial crisis ends we are going to first see the US Treasury blow somewhere between $1 trillion to $3 trillion trying to restart America's engine. The money has already been flowing but, up til now, the lion's share has gone to the pinstriped suit crowd in New York. Soon we will see another humongous chunk going to three dinosaurs from Detroit. So far the first batch of free money being handed out  comes to around $750 billion, leaving up to $2 trillion to go.. » read more

Financial Crisis A Distraction, Says Nobel Winner

Dec. 3, 2008 LONDON (AFP) — The global financial crisis is distracting attention from other pressing issues such as high food and energy prices, and environmental damage, Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus told AFP Wednesday. The Bangladeshi economist warned that not addressing those other issues would lead to a "much bigger crisis ahead" that would have political and financial implications. "What we see as a financial crisis is a part of many more crises, which are going on simultaneously in 2008," Yunus said in an interview while attending a summit of business leaders in London. "You remember the food crisis? It's still on, it didn't disappear.. » read more

The World's Fine Balance

Monday 01 December 2008   What will they be thinking about in Poznan? Officially, the delegates from 190 countries must relaunch negotiations over the battle against global warming. But will they be able to get their heads around that? The Americans will be focused on their financial crisis, the Europeans on their divisions, the Indians on their deaths, the Chinese on their unemployed ... The clock has moved forward all too quickly since the previous meeting on the same subject in Bali in 2007.. » read more

Living Planet Report Details Dangers Of Living Beyond The Environment's Means

  New WWF Analysis Warns of "Ecological Credit Crunch" and Offers Solutions For Avoiding A "Natural Resources Meltdown" As U.S. Scores Among Nations With Largest Ecological Footprint WASHINGTON - October 29 - As global financial markets learn difficult lessons on the consequences of unregulated spending, a new report issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns of the danger to future prosperity if the reckless over-consumption of the Earth's natural capital is left unchecked.  WWF's Living Planet Report 2008, produced with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN), shows more than three quarters of the world's people now living in nations that are ecological debtors, where national consumption has outstripped their country's biological capacity. Presently, human demands on the world's natural capital measure nearly a third more than earth can sustain.. » read more

UN Announces Green 'New Deal' Plan To Rescue World Economies

Oct. 25, 2008 A global green ‘New Deal’ is needed to transform the world’s economies, according to a new UN report. It would be similar to Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal which helped the US recover from the Great Depression of the 1930s. But it would be aimed at a fundamental restructuring of economies weaning away dependence on oil and towards cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy. The Green Economy Initiative from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) calls for global economies which invest in better care and management of the Earth’s natural resources such as rainforests and oceans.. » read more

DEVELOPMENT: Cell Phone Service, But No Toilets

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 20 (IPS) - It is a fact of the 21st century that some of the poorest regions of the world have good mobile phone coverage but no toilets or safe drinking water. Simply installing toilets where needed and ensuring safe water supplies would do more to end crippling poverty and improve world health than any other possible measure, according to an analysis released Monday by the United Nations University (UNU). "Water problems, caused largely by an appalling absence of adequate toilets in many places, contribute tremendously to some of the world's most punishing problems, foremost among them the inter-related afflictions of poor health and chronic poverty," said Zafar Adeel, director of the U.N. University's Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health.. » read more

Ecuador's Constitution Gives Rights to Nature

September 26, 2008 at 23:42:11 Jaguars, spectacled bears, brown-headed spider monkeys, and plate-billed mountain toucans may all just breathe a little easier next week if Ecuadorians approve a new constitution in a referendum on Sunday that would grant these threatened animals' habitats with inalienable rights. The new constitution gives nature the "right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution" and mandates that the government take "precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles." "I think a lot of eyes will be on Ecuador this weekend" said Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Margil and other members of the Defense Fund were invited as a result of their environmental litigation and legislative work with municipalities in the United States. They made several trips to Montecristi over the last year where they worked with members of Ecuador's constitutional assembly on drafting legally enforceable Rights of Nature, which Margil believes marks a watershed in the trajectory of environmental law.. » read more

After The Bailout

All Things Considered, October 9, 2008 · I was sharpening my chain saw when they called me from Washington, D.C., to ask me how to fix the economy. This request focused my thoughts, or the lack of 'em, to such a fine point, I gave my 14-inch Echo an edge it never had. Good enough for cutting half a cord at least, to keep the wood stove going through October.. » read more

ENVIRONMENT: Twisted As Unnaturally as the Banks

BARCELONA, Oct 6 (IPS/Terraviva) - The financial meltdown in most of the industrialised world presents an opportunity for a new economic model that would end short-sighted search for high returns, according to leading economists attending the IUCN World Conservation Congress here. "Right now, the most conservative leaders in the industrialised world, such as George W. Bush of the U.S. and Angela Merkel of Germany are allocating public money to save the banks from bankruptcy," Alejandro Nadal, a Mexican economist attending the congress told IPS.. » read more

'An Economic System that Destroys the Environment Destroys Itself'

Posted oct. 8, 2008 René Passet, a development economist, has devoted himself to relationships between economics and the living world, drawing decisive lessons for his discipline from studying the environment. Committed from the point of view of ideas and in the field, René Passet in his latest book attacks the "predatory" globalisation that reduces the world to a market at the expense of the balance of nature and human needs. Eloge du mondialisme par un "anti" présumé (In praise of globalisation by an alleged "anti") is an offensive, lucid, documented essay of an intellectual honesty that is the mark of the true scientific mind. The citizen researcher holds up the model of sustainable development that respects human beings and the nature that supports them against the dominant neo-liberal model.. » read more

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