The main point that I want to make concerns the threat of irreparable harm, which I feel we have not communicated well enough to people who most need to know, the public and policymakers. I’m not sure how we can do that better, but I comment on it at the end of this transcript.
European Union leaders have gathered in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava for a summit that some have described as a crisis meeting.
The gathering was called by the Slovak government following the UK’s Brexit vote to leave the EU.
Central European countries have taken the opportunity to raise objections to a plan to force them to house asylum seekers and refugees against their wishes.
Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reports from Bratislava.
are rallying in the streets of Berlin against the TTIP and CETA trade agreements. Many Germans continue to harbor suspicions over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US, as well as over the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a proposed agreement between Canada and the EU. Demonstrators fear that the agreements could be dangerous for employee rights and lead to massive job losses; they also worry that only big corporations will benefit from the agreements.
Astronomer Dr. Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute discusses the scientific community’s attempts to work with Hollywood in an effort to make movies more scientifically accurate. This presentation was part of the Lunar and Planetary Institute’s 2014–2015 Cosmic Exploration Speaker Series — “Science” on the Silver Screen.
Informed by comparative planetology and a survey of the major episodes in Earth history, Dr. Grinspoon will offer a taxonomy of planetary catastrophes meant to illuminate the unusual nature of the “Anthropocene”, the current epoch of human-driven planetary-scale changes, and reframe our current environmental and technological predicaments as part of a larger narrative of planetary evolution. This saga has now reached the pivotal moment when humans have become a dominant force of planetary change, and geological and human history are becoming irreversibly conjoined. Is this a likely or even inevitable challenge facing other complex life in the universe? Possible implications for exoplanet characterization and SETI will be considered, as well as the choices our civilization faces in seeking to foster a wisely managed Earth.
Visit http://www.AmericanAutumn.Net for the full movie + Bonus material at a “pay what you will” price
About American Autumn: an Occudoc
In September of 2011, a few hundred protesters begin a conversation in Zuccotti Park that now includes several hundred million people. What is your one demand? American Autumn: an Occudoc was the first feature-length documentary on the Occupy movement to enjoy a theatrical release.
Here is what the critics had to say:
The New York Times: “(American Autumn) is calm and smart, offsetting its stridency with discussion, music, even
humor, while issuing a call to arms.”
MichaelMoore.com: “This is not amateur hour. This is a movie as well made as any Hollywood blockbuster.”
Variety: “American Autumn impresses most where many docs disappoint, expanding its scope without short-changing the wider subjects it covers.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “An impassioned celebration of the Occupy Wall Street movement.”
Daily News: ” … this necessary and informative documentary looks at the faces behind the Occupy Wall Street movement… it is an effective, and heartfelt, clarion call.”
Fire Dog Lake: “Dennis Trainor, Jr, is no outsider, but a gonzo journalist at these events.”
The image of the pirate is at once spectral and ubiquitous. It haunts the imagination of international legal scholars, diplomats and statesmen involved in the war on terror. It returns in the headlines of international newspapers as an untimely ‘security threat’. It materializes on the most provincial cinematic screen and the most acclaimed works of fiction. It casts its shadow over the liquid spatiality of the Net, where cyber-activists, file-sharers and a large part of the global youth are condemned as pirates, often embracing that definition with pride rather than resentment.
Today, the pirate remains a powerful political icon, embodying at once the persistent nightmare of an anomic wilderness at the fringe of civilization, and the fantasy of a possible anarchic freedom beyond the rigid norms of the state and of the market. And yet, what are the origins of this persistent ‘pirate myth’ in the Western political imagination? Can we trace the historical trajectory that has charged this ambiguous figure with the emotional, political and imaginary tensions that continue to characterize it? What can we learn from the history of piracy and the ways in which it intertwines with the history of imperialism and international trade?
Drawing on international law, political theory, and popular literature, The Pirate Myth offers an authoritative genealogy of this immortal political and cultural icon, showing that the history of piracy – the different ways in which pirates have been used, outlawed and suppressed by the major global powers, but also fantasized, imagined and romanticised by popular culture – can shed unexpected light on the different forms of violence that remain at the basis of our contemporary global order.
In the “City of God,” St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, “How dare you molest the seas?” To which the pirate replied, “How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor.” St. Augustine thought the pirate’s answer was “elegant and excellent.”
The quote is from Noam Chomsky’s Pirates and Emperors and is cited by Ralph Raico at the Liberty and Power Blog.
Pirates and Emperors is a brilliant exploration of the role of the United States in the Middle East that exposes how the media manipulates public opinion about what constitutes “terrorism.” Chomsky masterfully argues that appreciating the differences between state terror and nongovernmental terror is crucial to stopping terrorism and understanding why atrocities like the bombing of the World Trade Center and the killing of the Charlie Hebdo journalists happen.
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
The links are listed here to be used in whatever manner they may be helpful in public information campaigns, course preparation, teaching, letter-writing, lectures, class presentations, policy discussions, article writing, civic or Congressional hearings and citizen action campaigns, etc. For further information on this blog see: About this weblog. and How to use this weblog.
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