Published on Sep 26, 2014
(Earth Focus: Episode 68) Ground Operations, a new film by Dulanie Ellis and Raymond Singer, shows how farming provides both employment and therapeutic recovery for America’s combat veterans. Then, meet organic pioneers from Minnesota and Maryland. And, California’s Pie Ranch develops an innovative way to bring healthy food to a high tech giant while saving a small family business in the process.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Published on Jun 13, 2014
“We are Marsifying Earth,” says distinguished marine Biologist Dr. Sylvia Earle. “We are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere… We are undermining the integrity of systems that yield what we need to live. What is more important than that? Our economy, our health, our security, or being alive? It starts with being alive.” Dr. Earle explains why the ocean is a life support system for the planet — but its becoming more acidic. “Most of the oxygen that we breathe comes from the ocean,” she says. “So we should take care of it as if our lives depend on it.”
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Published on Jun 27, 2014
For the indigenous people who live near Ecuador’s Kimsakocha wetlands, water here is a lifeline. It’s vital for domestic use, as well as for agriculture and livestock production. But there is gold under the water and the government of Ecuador has opened the area to foreign mining despite fierce local opposition. “Resistance will not end, we will not give up even if we are in prison,” says local community leader Carlos Perez. Kimsakocha contains over 3.3 million ounces of high grade gold valued at approximately US$30 million. Indigenous groups claim mining will affect groundwater and threaten their agricultural productivity. Correspondent Constantino de Miguel travels to Kimsakocha for this original Earth Focus report.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Published on Aug 5, 2014
Is climate change igniting turmoil around the world? Is it contributing to unrest in the Middle East and North Africa? Will it affect our capacity to respond to crises at home? Rear Admiral (Ret.) David W. Titley speaks to Earth Focus about how climate change impacts national security. Dr. Titley served as Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and as Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy. He initiated and led the U.S. Navy’s Task Force on Climate Change. He is presently Director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State University.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Published on Aug 6, 2014
It may be considered a heresy for a Republican member of Congress to say climate change is real and that we should do something about it. But that’s what Bob Ingliss (R-SC) did. He was a member of the House Science Committee and a Ranking Member of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee. Since leaving Congress in 2011, he devoted himself to convincing conservatives to support a revenue neutral carbon tax. He also founded the Energy and Enterprise Initiative. He explains what factors helped shape his views on climate change. Excerpts from his keynote address to the Citizens Climate Lobby, June 23, 2014. Washington, DC.
Find more Earth Focus content at https://www.linktv.org/earthfocus
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Published on Sep 11, 2014
(Earth Focus: Episode 67) An impoverished former mining community in Colorado hopes that a proposed uranium mill will bring jobs and prosperity until environmentalists step in to try to stop it. Who gets to decide? Filmmaker Suzan Beraza documents the debate in her new film Uranium Drive-In.
Rhinos are killed for their horn. But now in South Africa they face a new threat — coal. Plans for an open cast coal mine on the border of Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, home to the largest population in the world of the once endangered white rhino, may bring economic development. However, these plans will also worsen air and water quality and increase poaching and crime. Jeff Barbee reports from South Africa.
The indigenous people in Ecuador’s Kimsakocha wetlands rely on the land’s water for their livelihood — agriculture and livestock production. But there is gold under the water and foreign mining companies are out to get it. The local people mount a fierce opposition. “Resistance will not end, we will not give up even if we are in prison,” says local community leader Carlos Perez. Constantino de Miguel reports from Ecuador.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Nuclear
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Published on Aug 22, 2014
First poachers and now, coal? Over 1,000 rhino were killed for their horn in 2013. Poachers have killed nearly 500 rhino in South Africa in 2014 alone. Plans for an open cast coal mine on the border of South Africa’s Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park are controversial. The park is home to the largest population of the white rhino in the world. For mine developers, it’s about jobs and economic development. But mine opponents are concerned about worsening air and water quality and increased poaching and crime. Jeff Barbee reports from South Africa.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Legislators and journalists alike have been cavalier in their condemnations of the man responsible for the NSA leaks
Spencer Ackerman in Washington
The Twitter account of House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, left, placed Edward Snowden in the company of two infamous double agents. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
According to US legislators and journalists, the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden actively aided America’s enemies. They are just missing one essential element for the meme to take flight: evidence.
An op-ed by Representative Mike Pompeo (Republican, Kansas) proclaiming Snowden, who provided disclosed widespread surveillance on phone records and internet communications by the National Security Agency, “not a whistleblower” is indicative of the emerging narrative. Writing in the Wichita Eagle on 30 June Pompeo, a member of the House intelligence committee, wrote that Snowden “has provided intelligence to America’s adversaries“.
Pompeo correctly notes in his op-ed that “facts are important”. Yet when asked for the evidence justifying the claim that Snowden gave intelligence to American adversaries, his spokesman, JP Freire, cited Snowden’s leak of NSA documents. Those documents, however, were provided to the Guardian and the Washington Post, not al-Qaeda or North Korea.
It’s true that information published in the press can be read by anyone, including people who mean America harm. But to conflate that with actively handing information to foreign adversaries is to foreclose on the crucial distinction between a whistleblower and a spy, and makes journalists the handmaidens of enemies of the state.
Yet powerful legislators are eager to make that conflation about Snowden.
The Twitter account of Representative Mike Rogers (Republican, Michigan), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, on 18 June placed Snowden and accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning in the same company as Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, two infamous CIA and FBI double-agents. (The tweet appears to have been deleted.)
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/02/edward-snowden-whistleblower-not-spy
He has published US government information. And it is for this – not espionage – that he will have to answer to the law
Edward Snowden, being interviewed before he left Hong Kong. Photograph: Reuters/The Guardian
It is now 10 days since the former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, source of the Guardian’s NSA bugging revelations, flew out of Hong Kong, apparently en route to Ecuador. For 10 days he has been stalled at Moscow airport, while his passport has been annulled and repeated attempts to continue his journey to sympathetic jurisdictions have failed or been foiled. Over the weekend, Ecuador aborted the idea that he might find sanctuary in Quito. Mr Snowden submitted a request for political asylum in Russia, later withdrawn. Several other asylum bids also faltered at the start of this week. On Tuesday, Mr Snowden remained in Moscow, still dependent on the Russians while waiting on the apparently diminishing chance of being welcomed elsewhere around the world.
All this poses the complex and unavoidable question: what should now happen to Mr Snowden? The answer matters to Mr Snowden above all, as well as to the United States, whose data was published by the Guardian and the Washington Post. But it also matters to the world, because the internet is in every respect a global phenomenon, not an American one, and the data that the NSA is now routinely capturing does not belong to the agency or to the US. That is why the European Union and several member states, including France and Germany, have been so concerned about the allegations. It is also why so many people of all nations who regard themselves as admirers and allies of America are rightly concerned that the US should act appropriately towards the man who has triggered a debate which Barack Obama himself has acknowledged needs to take place.
Mr Snowden is clear that he leaked his information in order to alert the world to the unprecedented and industrial scale of NSA and GCHQ secret data trawling. He did not, he insists, leak in order to damage the US, its interests or its citizens, including those citizens in harm’s way. Nothing of this sort has been published. Nor should it be. As long as he remains in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, however, the real issue remains clouded. This damages Mr Snowden’s cause, which this newspaper supports. He should therefore leave Russia as soon as he practically can.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
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Environment Justice
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Published on Jul 2, 2012
If you think FEMA exists to help the American people in times of crisies… This documentary proves otherwise! Watch in horror as a government continuity tool proves it has but one purpose… Supressing dissent.
Published on Jul 3, 2012
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Transition Studies 