Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Henry Ford dreamed of making plastic cars out of soy. Now Dow, DuPont and other chemical giants are also dreaming of a ‘green’ future. But, as Jim Thomas argues, bioplastic is not the eco-solution it’s cracked up to be.
Article from New Internationalist Magazine September 2008 issue - available online here
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Can science save the planet or should we avoid putting our faith in high-tech fixes to deliver us from the ecological mess we‘ve made? Jim Thomas and Paul Fitzgerald push each other’s buttons.
Read the debate here in the latest issue of New Internationalist Magazine: http://www.newint.org/features/special/2008/08/01/technofixes/
Submitted by Jim Thomas on
Mapmaking and conquest has a disturbingly close history. As indigenous people learned, the innocuous mapmaker may be followed by weapons, property claims and exploitation. So too for the recent rash of science projects using mapping
Submitted by Charlie on
Written for The Ecologist - 20/06/2008
As to global annihilation, I’m stumped. Most of us wouldn’t recognise a strangelet if it casually devoured us in the street
Submitted by Charlie on
Written for The Ecologist - 20/07/2008
If radical vegan Ingrid Newkirk has her way, the nouvelle cuisine on vegetarian menus in five years time may be a big juicy steak.
Newkirk, founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has offered a $1 million prize to whoever can scale-up stem cell techniques that grow edible animal tissue – so called lab-grown meat – for a mass market.
Submitted by ETC Group on
Biofuels fuel global food crisis
Toronto Star/star.com July 08, 2008
PAT MOONEY
As G8 leaders meet this week in Japan, their ears will still be ringing from the bombshell dropped last week in a leaked World Bank report declaring that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 per cent, far higher than previously estimated.
Submitted by Charlie on
Testimony of Pat Mooney
Executive Director of ETC Group
Before the Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources-regarding Bill C-33 (the "Biofuels Bill")
Senate of Canada
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thank you. I will begin by confessing that I am not an expert on biofuels. I feel as though my life has been hijacked by biofuels over the last few months.
Submitted by Charlie on
During the United Nations High-Level Conference on World Food Security, Climate Change and Bioenergy, Rome-based U.N. agencies announced yesterday that a new partnership was struck between the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP).
Submitted by ETC Staff on
Stalled at the eleventh hour by three isolated countries that are attempting to block consensus, most of the world’s environment ministries and others are on the brink of reaching agreement on a worldwide moratorium on commercial ocean fertilization – controversial proposals to dump nutrients in the ocean to artificially alter the climate. The three blocking countries, Australia, China and Brazil have spent several days manipulating the process to avoid discussion and prevent progress, much to the exasperation of delegates and observers. The clock runs out on negotiations at 6pm today (30. May 2008).
Submitted by ETC Staff on
Today (21. May 2008) the world learned which corporations, governments, institutions and individuals earned a spot in biopiracy’s hall of shame when the Coalition Against Biopiracy (CAB) announced the winners of the 5th Captain Hook Awards at a lunch-time ceremony during the Ninth Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bonn, Germany.
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