The dark side of agriculture in Ethiopia (1/2) | DW Documentary (Farming documentary)

DW Documentary – Jan 5, 2019

Across the globe, global commercial demand for arable land is on the rise. One of the most profitable new agricultural hotspots is Ethiopia. [Online until: February 4, 2019]

Part 2: https://youtu.be/Igk5NHH-qJ0

Farmland – the new green gold. In the hopes of huge export revenues, the Ethiopian government is leasing millions of hectares of land to foreign investors. But there’s a dark side to this dream of prosperity.

The results are massive forced evictions, the destruction of smallholdings, state repression, and a vicious spiral of violence in light of environmental devastation. Global institutions like the EU, World Bank and DFID are contributing to this disaster with billions of dollars in development money every year. Whoever gets in their way is met with severe consequences. The young Ethiopian environmental activist Argaw learned that the hard way when he tried to raise awareness for his country’s plight.

Are transnational land investments bolstering the economy or selling out the country? While some hope for financial gains and development, others are losing their very livelihood. In pursuit of the story, we meet investors, bureaucrats, persecuted journalists, struggling environmentalists and farmers who have been evicted from their land. Swedish director Joakim Demmer’s shocking real-life thriller ‘Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas’ starts in apparently remote corners of Ethiopia and leads through global financial centers, right to our dining tables.

See also

The dark side of agriculture in Ethiopia (2/2) | DW Documentary (Farming documentary)

DW Documentary – Jan 5, 2019

Foreign business investors are looking to buy farmland in Africa. One of the most profitable new agricultural hotspots is Ethiopia. [Online until: February 4, 2019]

Part 1: https://youtu.be/isiYYVmvn2U

Farmland – the new green gold. In the hopes of huge export revenues, the Ethiopian government is leasing millions of hectares of land to foreign investors. But there’s a dark side to this dream of prosperity.

The results are massive forced evictions, the destruction of smallholdings, state repression, and a vicious spiral of violence in light of environmental devastation. Global institutions like the EU, World Bank and DFID are contributing to this disaster with billions of dollars in development money every year. Whoever gets in their way is met with severe consequences. The young Ethiopian environmental activist Argaw learned that the hard way when he tried to raise awareness for his country’s plight.

Are transnational land investments bolstering the economy or selling out the country? While some hope for financial gains and development, others are losing their very livelihood. In pursuit of the story, we meet investors, bureaucrats, persecuted journalists, struggling environmentalists and farmers who have been evicted from their land. Swedish director Joakim Demmer’s shocking real-life thriller starts in apparently remote corners of Ethiopia and leads through global financial centers, right to our dining tables.

Foreign business investors are looking to buy farmland in Africa. One of the most profitable new agricultural hotspots is Ethiopia. [Online until: February 4, 2019]
Part 1: https://youtu.be/isiYYVmvn2U

Farmland – the new green gold. In the hopes of huge export revenues, the Ethiopian government is leasing millions of hectares of land to foreign investors. But there’s a dark side to this dream of prosperi.

Food-matters,

Tomatoes and greed – the exodus of Ghana’s farmers | DW Documentary

DW Documentary – Jan 22, 2020

What do tomatoes have to do with mass migration? Tomatoes are a poker chip in global trade policies. Subsidized products from the EU, China and elsewhere are sold at dumping prices, destroying markets and livelihoods in Africa in the process.

Edward still harvests tomatoes. But he is no longer on his own fields in Ghana. He now works on plantations in southern Italy under precarious conditions. The tomatoes he harvests are processed, canned and shipped abroad – including to Ghana, where they compete with local products. The flood of cheap imports from China, the US and the EU has driven Ghana’s tomato industry to ruin. Desperate farmers find themselves having to seek work elsewhere, including in Europe. For many, the only route available is a dangerous journey through the desert and across the Mediterranean. Ghana is a nation at peace, a democracy with free elections and economic growth. Nonetheless, tomato farmer Benedicta is only able to make ends meet because her husband regularly sends her money from his earnings in Italy.

A former tomato factory in Pwalugu, Ghana, illustrates the predicament. This factory once helped secure the livelihood of tomato farmers across the region. Today it lies empty, guarded by Vincent, a former employee who hopes to keep it from falling into ruin. In the surrounding region, the market for tomatoes has collapsed and most farmers are no longer growing what could easily be Ghana’s ‘red gold’. An agricultural advisor is trying to help local tomato farmers, but has little by way of hope to offer. Conditions like this are what drive local farmers to cut their losses and head for Europe. Once in Italy, migrants from Ghana and other African countries are forced to live in desperate conditions near the plantations. They work as day laborers for extremely low wages, helping to grow the very tomatoes that are costing people back home their work and livelihoods. These days, canned tomatoes from China, Italy and Spain are available for purchase on the market of Accra. Some may call this free trade. But economist Kwabena Otoo says free trade should open doors; not destroy people’s lives.

Every two seconds, a person is forced to flee their home. Today, more than 70 million people have been displaced worldwide. The DW documentary series ‘Displaced’ sheds light on the causes of this crisis and traces how wealthy industrialized countries are contributing to the exodus from the Global South.

Oil and ruin — exodus from Venezuela: https://youtu.be/pNDJSp8FCjI
Drought and floods — the climate exodus: https://youtu.be/PjyX5dnhaMw

Oil and ruin — exodus from Venezuela: https://youtu.be/pNDJSp8FCjI
Drought and floods — the climate exodus: https://youtu.be/PjyX5dnhaMw

Fleeing climate change — the real environmental disaster | DW Documentary

DW Documentary – May 1, 2019

How many millions of people will be forced to leave their homes by 2050? This documentary looks at the so-called hotspots of climate change in the Sahel zone, Indonesia and the Russian Tundra. Lake Chad in the Sahel zone has already shrunk by 90 percent since the 1960s due to the increasing heat. About 40 million people will be forced to migrate to places where there is enough rainfall. Migration has always existed as a strategy to adapt to a changing environment. But the number of those forced to migrate solely because of climate change has increased dramatically since the 1990s. It is a double injustice: after becoming rich at the expense of the rest of the world, the industrialized countries are now polluting the atmosphere with their emissions and bringing a second misfortune to the inhabitants of the poorer regions. One of them is Mohammed Ibrahim: as Lake Chad got hotter and drier, he decided to go where the temperatures were less extreme and there was still a little water, trekking with his wife, children and 70 camels from Niger to Chad and then further south. The journey lasted several years and many members of his herd died of thirst. Now he and his family are living in a refugee camp: they only have seven camels left. Mohammed is one of many who have left their homelands in the Sahel – not because of conflict and crises, but because of the high temperatures. He’s a real climate refugee.

The Tipping Point | Climate Change: The Facts | BBC Earth

BBC Earth – Nov 13, 2021

A tipping point is where even a slight amount of warming can move the climate into an irreversible state.
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Climate Change: The Facts We’re just two degrees away from a climate catastrophe. If the rate of global warming continues, we’ll reach the threshold for permanent environmental damage within 40 years. But we have the power to prevent it. Using dramatic user-generated content and emotional first-hand testimony, this film delivers the facts about global warming simply and strikingly. Intimate stories get inside the lives of the people affected by climate change, and those fighting it. And world-leading experts reveal the developments that are redefining our horizons. This is the greatest challenge we’ve faced. And the human race can rise to it. Welcome to BBC EARTH! The world is an amazing place full of stories, beauty and natural wonder. Here you’ll find 50 years worth of entertaining and thought-provoking natural history content. Dramatic, rare, and exclusive, nature doesn’t get more exciting than this.

Climate Change: The Facts | Official Preview

PBS – Apr 8, 2020

Official Website: https://to.pbs.org/39GxmMo | #ClimateChangeFilmPBS Scientists explore the impact of climate change and what could happen if global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees. Discover how the latest innovations and technology are posing potential solutions and what individuals can do to prevent further damage. Tune or stream Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 8/7c.

A leaked UN report warns ‘worst is yet to come’ on climate change. Here’s how you can help

PBS NewsHour – Jun 23, 2021

A leaked draft report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints the starkest picture yet of the accelerating danger caused by human use of coal, oil, and gas. It warns of coming unlivable heat waves, widespread hunger and drought, rising sea levels and extinction. To understand the report’s warnings, William Brangham turns to atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayoe.

The Doomsday Glacier Is Collapsing…Who Is Most at Risk?

PBS Terra– Apr 18, 2022

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateTerra.
Check out Subcultured on @PBS Voices: https://youtu.be/ZRPjgSrQ8gA

Sea level rise is a problem that is garnishing increasing attention among both scientists and the media. And as climate change continues to warm the earth, the current rate of 1.4 inches per decade is projected to increase, with NOAA predicting another foot of sea-level rise along US coastlines by 2050.

The most consequential tipping point, when it comes to sea-level rise, is Thwaites Glacier, also known as the Doomsday glacier, located in West Antarctica. When this massive ice sheet melts, the earth’s seas are predicted to rise by at least two feet. But perhaps the greater concern is what will happen to the surrounding ice once Thwaites is no longer there to stabilize the region around it. Many scientists predict that, were this system to completely collapse, we would actually see around 6 feet of sea-level rise – a truly catastrophic scenario.

In this episode, we explore just how likely this dire outcome is, take a look at how America’s most at-risk city, Miami, is already experiencing the effects today, and what all of this has to do with gentrification.

Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

NOT OUR WAR: Africans fleeing Ukraine – BBC Africa Eye documentary

May 1 2022

It’s estimated thousands of Africans were among more than five million refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As they tried to escape the carnage, many Africans were treated like second class citizens. Reports of discrimination at Ukraine’s western borders were widespread with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees acknowledging racist treatment.

BBC Africa journalist, Peter Okwoche, was at the Polish border reporting on the African experience days after war broke out. In the weeks which followed he also spoke to many Africans still caught up in the conflict.

Executive Summary: Human Resilience to High Heat-Humidity is MUCH Lower than 35C Wet-bulb Threshold

May 1 2022

I wanted to reiterate some points from my last video, since they are vital for human survival in the face of extreme temperature and humidity conditions, such as those ongoing, that are brutalizing both India and Pakistan.

Satellite imagery and data collection (remote sensing) today showed that regions of India at the surface surpassed 55 C, and even reached 60 C in some parts. This type of heat is not really survivable to either man nor beast or plant.

The key point is that the wet-bulb survivability condition of 35 C with 100% humidity is a theoretical value. In practice, young healthy people exposed to warm-humid conditions can only survive outside of wet-bulb temperatures are lower than about 31 C, and when exposed to hotter-drier conditions, they can only survive wet-bulb equivalents of 25 to 28 C.

Older people, people with underlying health problems, people on medication such as antidepressants (antipsychotics), very young people (babies and toddlers), and the obese are even less tolerant of high heat and high humidity conditions, but studies need to determine exactly how less tolerant they are.

Acclimatization to warm humid climates causes some physiological changes in the human body, such as lowering core body temperature, lowering resting heart rate, and lowering skin temperatures which can make these wet-bulb temperature limits slightly higher.

Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos as I connect the dots on abrupt climate system change.

How Propaganda Manipulates Your Political Beliefs: Noam Chomsky Compilation 1994-1999

The Film Archives

Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historical essayist, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called “the father of modern linguistics”, Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the author of more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, and mass media. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism. Born to Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B. F. Skinner. An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay “The Responsibility of Intellectuals”. Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard Nixon’s Enemies List. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. Chomsky began teaching at the University of Arizona in 2017. One of the most cited scholars alive,[20] Chomsky has influenced a broad array of academic fields. He is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. In addition to his continued scholarship, he remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mainstream news media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Ch…

Kathleen Neal Cleaver (born May 13, 1945) is an American professor of law, known for her involvement with the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathlee…

The most widely discussed application of the phrase “new world order” of recent times came at the end of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush used the term to try to define the nature of the post-Cold War era and the spirit of great power cooperation that they hoped might materialize. Gorbachev’s initial formulation was wide-ranging and idealistic, but his ability to press for it was severely limited by the internal crisis of the Soviet system. In comparison, Bush’s vision was not less circumscribed: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known”. However, given the new unipolar status of the United States, Bush’s vision was realistic in saying that “there is no substitute for American leadership”. The Gulf War of 1991 was regarded as the first test of the new world order: “Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. … The Gulf War put this new world to its first test”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_wor…)

See related:

• The Wit & Wisdom of Noam Chomsky – Decades Ago & Ever Since…

as well as:

• Some notes following Noam Chomsky