“Huge Victory”: Black Farmers Hail $5B in New COVID Relief Law to Redress Generations of Racism

Democracy Now!

Published on Mar 15, 2021

A major provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill aims to address decades of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American farmers who have historically been excluded from government agricultural programs. The American Rescue Plan sets aside $10.4 billion for agriculture support, with about half of that amount set aside for farmers of color, and allocates extra federal funds to farmers who were “subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture has faced accusations of racism for decades, but little has been done to address the problem of discrimination in farm loans. John Boyd, a fourth-generation Black farmer and president of the National Black Farmers Association, says the new funds begin to address issues he has been fighting for 30 years. “This is a huge victory for Black farmers and farmers of color,” says Boyd

US Lawyer Steven Donziger Speaks From House Arrest in NYC After Suing Chevron For Amazon Oil Spills

Democracy Now!

Published on Mar 15, 2021

Decades of reckless oil drilling by Chevron have destroyed 1,700 square miles of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but the company has refused to pay for the damage or clean up the land despite losing a lawsuit 10 years ago, when Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered the oil giant to pay $18 billion on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people. Instead of cleaning up the damage, Chevron has spent the past decade waging an unprecedented legal battle to avoid paying for the environmental destruction, while also trying to take down the environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who helped bring the landmark case. Donziger, who has been on house arrest for nearly 600 days, says Chevron’s legal attacks on him are meant to silence critics and stop other lawsuits against the company for environmental damage. “Chevron and its allies have used the judiciary to try to attack the very idea of corporate accountability and environmental justice work that leads to significant judgments,” Donziger says. We also speak with Paul Paz y Miño, associate director at Amazon Watch, who says the new attorney general should conduct a review of the case and the dubious grounds for Donziger’s house arrest. “The real thing that’s going on here is Chevron is attempting to literally criminalize a human rights lawyer who beat them,” Paz y Miño says

Judi Dench My Passion for Trees FULL BBC One 2017

Jan 20, 2021

View full series

• Proforestation with Bill Moomaw

India’s Water Revolution #7: 50 YEARS of Permaculture @ Auroville

Andrew Millison

Jan 24, 2021

Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison journeys to India to film 50 years of permaculture in the epic eco-township of Auroville. We tour a number of sites within the vast project, including the Sadhana Forest, a series of check dams in the Auroville canyons, and the biological water treatment systems prevalent throughout the community. Guided by a number of Auroville residents, we visit the work and see the effects of a region-wide reforestation and groundwater restoration project that has dramatically improved the lives, economy, ecology and stability of this visionary settlement!

Food-matters,

China’s Mega Projects: Food

CGTN

Mar 29, 2019

China feeds 22 percent of the world’s population with only seven percent of the world’s cultivated land. What’s the secret? Find out in the latest episode of our special series “China’s Mega Projects”.

Food-matters,

Could seawater rice determine the future of food security?

CGTN

Jan 19, 2020

China is home to 100 million hectares of wasteland – that’s an area the size of Egypt – where crops cannot grow due to high soil salinity or alkalinity. For decades, the Chinese government and scientists have made great efforts to improve soil quality, and now, hope is on the horizon. A hybrid crop called “saltwater rice” is able to grow and yield in various saline-alkali soils, including tundra and dessert. Rediscovering China is a weekly CGTN show that offers a unique insight into an aspect of life in China today. With its unrivaled access to the country’s people and places, Rediscovering China brings you in-depth reports on the major issues facing China at a time of rapid change.

Gravitas Plus: The Belt & Road initiative

WION

Premiered Feb 27, 2021

#GravitasPlus​ with Palki Sharma Upadhyay | 3 continents, 6 corridors & 65% of global population. China’s most ambitious infrastructure project is actually a plan to dominate the world. But the Belt & Road Initiative is now facing too many roadblocks. Is Xi Jinping’s dream fading?

“Hell on Earth”: Yemeni Children Starve to Death as U.S.-Backed Saudi Blockade Devastates Nation

Democracy Now!

Published on Mar 12, 2021

The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.” Her latest report from inside Yemen details the devastating impact of the conflict on civilians, including widespread fuel shortages affecting all aspects of life. “We were utterly unprepared for what we found when we got there,” says Elbagir.

GREEN GROWTH: A Guide to Post-Pandemic Economic Sustainability

Please use this link to
Register for the ZOOM forum on GREEN GROWTH !

Can we achieve healthy growth, the kind that is more regenerative than wasteful, more equitable than unjust? Per Espen Stoknes and L. Hunter Lovins believe they have the answers. Both are experts in the field, having written books that offer blueprints for an inspiring regenerative economy that avoids collapse and works for people and the planet.

L. Hunter Lovins is President of Natural Capitalism Solutions helping communities and countries implement more regenerative practices profitably. Hunter has just written A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life. Time Magazine recognized her as a Millennium Hero for the Planet.

Per Espen Stoknes is a psychologist who now serves as director of the Centre for Sustainability and Energy at the Norwegian Business School in Oslo.

The purpose of this new TRANSFORMATIONS series is to consider how the pandemic has affected your life and the lives of those around you, both short and long-term. How have things changed and what will the nature of our new existence be going forward into a post-pandemic world?

…(read more).

The Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values (HSEV)

N.B. Upon the formal termination of the Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values at the end of the 2002 academic year, the research and teaching in the realms it was founded to explore continued at Harvard in the form of semester-long courses offered through the Harvard Extension School through the “Climate Talks Project.” and the Extension School courses entitled: “Environmental Ethics and Land Management” and “Introduction to Environmental Justice.”