Food crisis benefits Goldman Sachs

The end of the Chinese miracle | FT Features

Financial Times
Published on Mar 9, 2016

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► Read: ‘China anti-corruption campaign backfires’ at http://on.ft.com/2dWmpdC China’s economic miracle is under threat from a slowing economy and a dwindling labour force. The FT investigates how the world’s most populous country has reached a critical new chapter in its history. Jamil Anderlini narrates.
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Chinese Millennials: Growing demographic becomes economic powerhouse

CGTN America
Published on Oct 26, 2017

Chinese Millennials, with a population of nearly 400 million, are reshaping the economy and China.

A global food crisis may be less than a decade away | Sara Menker

TED

Published on Oct 26, 2017

Sara Menker quit a career in commodities trading to figure out how the global value chain of agriculture works. Her discoveries have led to some startling predictions: “We could have a tipping point in global food and agriculture if surging demand surpasses the agricultural system’s structural capacity to produce food,” she says. “People could starve and governments may fall.” Menker’s models predict that this scenario could happen in a decade — that the world could be short 214 trillion calories per year by 2027. She offers a vision of this impossible world as well as some steps we can take today to avoid it.

Food-matters

New top-level environmental body for China | China Dialogue

(Image: Philip Roeland)

Xi Jinping announces new bureaus to protect natural resources at Party Congress, reports Liu Qin

Deng Xiaoping is remembered as the architect of China’s market reform era and “opening up”. Emerging from the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Congress, it looks as if Xi Jinping intends to be remembered as the architect of China’s “ecological civilisation” – the Party’s long term vision of a sustainable China.

On October 19, Xi gave a speech lasting three and a half hours to the Congress in which he said that building an ecological civilisation is necessary for the continued development of the Chinese people.

“The damage that humanity does to nature will ultimately harm humanity itself – this is an unavoidable rule,” said President Xi.

Such strength of language is rarely seen at these high-level events and demonstrates the importance of ecological civilisation in Xi’s plans to build a “beautiful China.”

It accompanied a landmark announcement that China will set up a new body to take ownership of China’s “natural resource assets” and oversee governmental bodies with responsibility for managing the country’s “natural environment.”

This has been interpreted as a move by central government to take powers from local officials over land usage, including control of mineral resources, waterways, forests, mountains, grasslands, deserts, oceans, and wetlands.

…(read more).

Interior official turns whistleblower, claiming retaliation for climate change work

PBS NewsHour
Published on Aug 2, 2017

A government scientist who studied dangerous climate change in the Arctic got an ironic reassignment at the Interior Department from the Trump administration: collecting checks from oil and gas companies. Joel Clement, the former director of the Interior Department Office of Policy Analysis, believes he was reassigned because he worked on climate change. Clement joins William Brangham to explain.

JOEL CLEMENT FULL EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ALISYN CAMEROTA – NEW DAY (7/26/2017)

Vote Yourself a Farm
Published on Jul 26, 2017

JOEL CLEMENT FULL EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ALISYN CAMEROTA – NEW DAY (7/26/2017)

In “Wet Kiss” for Wall Street, Congress Overturns Rules Allowing People to Sue Banks for Misconduct

Democracy Now!

Published on Oct 26, 2017

https://democracynow.org – After nine months of struggling to deliver on their legislative priorities, Senate Republicans found unity Tuesday when they overturned a rule that makes it easier for Americans to sue banks and credit card companies. The rule was developed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and would have allowed people to file class action lawsuits that could have cost the banks billions of dollars. We get an update from Public Citizen’s Amanda Werner, who recently dressed as Rich Uncle Pennybags, with a top hat and monocle, and sat directly behind former Equifax CEO Richard Smith when he testified about a security breach that left sensitive personal information for 143 million Americans exposed to hackers.

FCC Enables Faster Media Consolidation as Pro-Trump Sinclair Group Seizes Even More Local Stations

Democracy Now!

Published on Oct 26, 2017

https://democracynow.org – A major decision by the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday eliminated a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. This comes as the FCC announced plans Wednesday to abolish long-standing media ownership rules. Opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. We speak with Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, whose story in their new issue is titled “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”

Meet the Senior Federal Official Blowing the Whistle on Trump’s Suppression of Climate Science

Democracy Now!

Published on Aug 8, 2017

https://democracynow.org – Is the Trump administration trying to silence government scientists from working or talking about climate change? According to news reports, as many as 50 senior Interior Department officials have been reassigned since Ryan Zinke became head of the department. We speak with Joel Clement, a senior official at the Interior Department. Up until recently, he focused on the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities in the Arctic. But, without explanation, Clement was recently transferred to an unrelated job within the Interior Department—he now collects royalty checks from oil and gas companies. Clement believes he was targeted for speaking out about climate change. He went public with his concerns in the pages of The Washington Post, where he wrote a piece titled “I’m a scientist. I’m blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.”