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Showing posts with label Ecology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecology. Show all posts

April 4, 2014

Ecology, Ethics, Anarchism seen through the eyes of Noam Chomsky - by Javier Sethness

There can be little doubt about the centrality and severity of the environmental crisis in the present day. Driven by the mindless "grow-or-die" imperative of capitalism, humanity's destruction of the biosphere has reached and even surpassed various critical thresholds, whether in terms of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, freshwater depletion, or chemical pollution. Extreme weather events can be seen pummeling the globe, from the Philippines - devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in November of last year - to California, which is presently suffering from the worst drought in centuries.

As Nafeez Ahmed has shown, a recently published study funded in part by NASA warns of impending civilizational collapse without radical changes to address social inequality and overconsumption. Truthout's own Dahr Jamail has written a number of critical pieces lately that have documented the profundity of the current trajectory toward anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) and global ecocide: In a telling metaphor, he likens the increasingly mad weather patterns brought about by ACD to an electrocardiogram of a "heart in defibrillation."

Rather than conclude that such distressing trends follow intrinsically from an "aggressive" and "sociopathic" human nature, reasonable observers should likely associate the outgrowth of these tendencies with the dominance of the capitalist system, for, as Oxfam noted in a January 2014 report, the richest 85 individuals in the world possess as much wealth as a whole half of humanity - the 3.5 billion poorest people - while just 90 corporations have been responsible for a full two-thirds of the carbon emissions generated since the onset of industrialism.

As these staggering statistics show, then, the ecological and climatic crises correspond to the extreme concentration of power and wealth produced by capitalism and upheld by the world's governments. As a counter-move to these realities, the political philosophy of anarchism - which opposes the rule of both state and capital - may hold a great deal of promise for ameliorating and perhaps even overturning these trends toward destruction. Apropos, I had the great good fortune recently to interview Professor Noam Chomsky, renowned anarcho-syndicalist, to discuss the question of ecological crisis and anarchism as a remedy. Click on the link below for a transcript of our conversation.

Read more: Noam Chomsky: Ecology, Ethics, Anarchism

September 5, 2013

Almere - the environment: Using sheep instead of grass mowers

Sheep instead of lawn mowers?
Starting today a herd of some 300 sheep will take over from the gas guzzling and noisy grass mowers in Almere Harbor ( Almere Haven) to keep all public "green" areas trimmed and proper during a three year trial period.

The local city council says they believe this is an environmentally friendly way to keep public grass areas not only trimmed, but also to protect certain plant species, which sheep don't eat, from extinction.

The Council also expressed the hope that the grazing sheep will create additional interest among the local inhabitants as to the ecology and wildlife surrounding them.

Almere-Digest