We need to put water at the center of all policy – conservationist

RT America

Published on Jun 17, 2015
With NASA reporting that the global water supply is in jeopardy, how are governments and environmentalists prepared to handle this growing crisis? Manila Chan speaks with Emma Lui, water campaigner for the Council of Canadians, on how people both at home and in the public could manage the threat of water scarcity.

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Food-Matters

NATO conducts biggest ever military drill in Baltic Sea

Al Jazeera English

Published on Jun 17, 2015

NATO is completing its biggest ever military exercises in the Baltic Sea.Hundreds of soldiers from 17 countries took part in a mock counter-attack against enemy forces.It’s intended as a demonstration of NATO’s capability and a warning to Russia.Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reports from Zagan in Poland.

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The ‘Church Lady’ Speaks out on Climate Change…

thomhartmann

Published on Jun 17, 2015
Thom Hartmann talks with Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, President & Founder-Interfaith Power & Light , Website: www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/, who was one of the first religious leaders to recognize climate change as a critical moral issue.

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The moral – and political – force of Pope Francis on climate

June 17, 2015 11.40am EDT
Jo-Renee Formicola, Professor of Political Science at Seton Hall University

Disclosure Statement:  Jo-Renee Formicola does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

The Conversation is funded by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Alfred P Sloan Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Our global publishing platform is funded by Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

By equating human rights to the protection of nature, the pope’s encyclical opens up an international debate with broad political implications.

As a geopolitical figure, the pope has urged the West to combat global poverty and preserve the environment. Tony Gentile/Reuters

When popes make pronouncements on religious matters, one billion Catholics listen. When popes talk about social issues, there is the potential to bring a larger audience into international debate. When a current pope, like Francis, however, attempts to bring together both religious and social issues into a moral discussion about public policy, there is bound to be controversy.

This is the uncomfortable place in which Pope Francis finds himself after tackling climate change. His encyclical “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be) on ecology has no religious binding force on anyone, but it has the potential to raise geopolitical awareness of the developing crisis and to put forward solutions to stem what some believe is the coming, inevitable destruction of the Earth. In this, he’s building on his predecessors’ actions on environment.

Building on the legacy of former popes and his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi. Jeffrey Bruno/Aleteia, CC BY-SA Click to enlarge

When environmental issues began to move beyond acute local problems to a growing international crisis, Pope John Paul II began to preach about the need to protect the Earth.

Already in 1979 (one year into his papacy), he began to mention such issues philosophically and broadly in his writings. But it was at the World Day of Peace in 1990 that he singled out the depletion of the ozone layer as more than a scientific finding. Indeed, he called “the ecological crisis…a moral issue.” (emphasis in the original) He saw the emerging crisis as a just reason to invoke the moral consciences of local, state and international bodies to accept their part in creating environmental damage and to reverse it.

Pope Benedict XVI, known as the “Green Pope” went even further. Benedict approached environmental concerns from a moral perspective as well, but broadened his distress to include the “degradation” of the Earth by demanding “responsible stewardship.”

…(read more).

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Pope’s climate letter is a radical attack on the logic of the market

Steffen Böhm, Professor in Management and Sustainability, and Director, Essex Sustainability, Institute at University of Essex

June 17, 2015 6.28pm BST   Pope Francis’s intervention in the climate debate puts him on collision course with global elites.

Sic transit gloria mundi … and down with neoliberalism. Alessandro Di Meo / EPA

What makes Pope Francis and his 187-page encyclical so radical isn’t just his call to urgently tackle climate change. It’s the fact he openly and unashamedly goes against the grain of dominant social, economic and environment policies.

While the Argentina-born pope is a very humble person whose vision is of a “poor church for the poor”, he seems increasingly determined to play a central role on the world stage. Untainted by the realities of government and the greed of big business, he is perhaps the only major figure who can legitimately confront the world’s economic and political elites in the way he has.

However his radical message, a draft of which was leaked to the Italian magazine L’Espresso, potentially puts him on a confrontation course with global powerbrokers and leaders of national governments, international institutions and multinational corporations.

…(read more).

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A decade of growth: Renewables between 2004-2014 – Charts & Graphs

Full Report

REN21 is the global renewable energy policy multi-stakeholder network that connects a wide range of key actors. REN21’s goal is to facilitate knowledge exchange, policy development and joint action towards a rapid global transition to renewable energy.

REN21 brings together governments, nongovernmental organisations, research and academic institutions, international organisations and industry to learn from one another and build on successes that advance renewable energy. To assist policy decision making, REN21 provides high quality information, catalyses discussion and debate and supports the development of thematic networks.

REN21 is an international non-profit association and is based at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Paris, France. REN21’s network structure is made up of the following agents:

– the General Assembly
– the Steering Committee
– the Bureau
– the Secretariat

Join the “coalition of the willing” to advance renewable energy worldwide!

– How to become part of the REN21 Network

See: http://www.ren21.net/?p=3316

http://www.ren21.net/?p=3285

http://www.ren21.net/?p=3737

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‘An Extractive Affair’

ActionAid UK

Published on Jun 17, 2015

Soundbite by Anders Dahlbeck Policy Advisor at ActionAid UK for the ActionAidsTax Justice Campaign.
Kayelekera mine in northern Malawi is operated by the Australian mining company Paladin. ActionAid research shows that through a combination of tax breaks and tax planning, Malawi has lost over US$43million to Paladin’s tax dealings over a six year period

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Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young – Noam Chomsky

The Film Archives

Published on Jun 1, 2012
1989Watch the full speech: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2…

Chomsky has been known to vigorously defend and debate his views and opinions, in philosophy, linguistics, and politics. He has had notable debates with Jean Piaget, Michel Foucault, William F. Buckley, Jr., Christopher Hitchens, George Lakoff, Richard Perle, Hilary Putnam, Willard Quine, and Alan Dershowitz, to name a few. In response to his speaking style being criticized as boring, Chomsky said that “I’m a boring speaker and I like it that way…. I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is…. People are interested in the issues, and they’re interested in the issues because they are important.” “We don’t want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on.”

In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University; in January 1970, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies”; in 1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom in Cape Town, and many others.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by The National Council of Teachers of English for “Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language” (in 1987 and 1989).

He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.

In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society. In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor’s degree in commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus. In February 2008, he received the President’s Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009 he is an honorary member of IAPTI.

In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany. In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar to receive the University of Wisconsin’s A.E. Havens Center’s Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship.

Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. He reacted, saying “I don’t pay a lot of attention to polls”. In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of “Heroes of our time”.

Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album, called Pandemoniumfromamerica, to Chomsky.

On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium at MIT. The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens of his family and friends, featured music composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by Chomsky’s colleagues, including David Pesetsky of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the linguistics department at Harvard University.

In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his “unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights”.

In 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems’ AI’s Hall of Fame for the “significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Cho…

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“Who does control the world?” – Noam Chomsky – BBC interview 2003

MrMarxismo

Published on Feb 21, 2015

Noam Chomsky BBC interview 2003 , http://www.betterworldlinks.org/
Also very important informations about capitalism you will find here: Prof. Richard Wolff https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB-5… , Ecosocialism, climate justice, degrowth – Joanna Cabello [Carbontradewatch] – Daniel Tanuro [Ecosocialist International
Network] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csuHt…

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Noam Chomsky – On Activism, Climate Change, & His Message to the Future (2014)

The Public

Published on Jul 5, 2014
Noam Chomsky reflects on climate change, activism, and shares the lessons he’s gleaned from his life: what his advice would be for present and future generations concerned about the fate of the planet.

For more interviews visit www.thepublicradio.org Or subscribe to the Podcast in iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/t…
Interview recorded May 2014 for the Toronto, Canada radio program The Public.
Interviewer: Kevin Caners

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