Rich and Poor alike respond negatively to increasing inequity
UT professor finds economic inequality is self-reinforcing When the gap between the haves and have-nots gets larger, one would think the have-nots would want more help, most likely in the form of government programs, to fight rising inequities. Not so, says Nate Kelly, assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Kelly, […]
Population Growth: A Conversation Nobody Wants to Have
Population taboo stokes doubt over Millennium Development Goals by Agence France-Presse. PARIS—Of all the issues that will be aired from the pulpit of the U.N.‘s development summit this week, one is likely to stand out by its absence: What should be done about the world’s population explosion? To many campaigners, demographic growth is the gorilla […]
Indigenous tribes, ranchers team to battle Amazon fires
From: Rhett Butler Facing the worst outbreak of forest fires in three years, cattle ranchers and indigenous tribesmen in the southern Amazon have teamed up to extinguish nearly two dozen blazes over the past three months, offering hope that new alliances between long-time adversaries could help keep deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon on a […]
World Bank: “Investors in farmland are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments.”
Leaked World Bank Report Highlights Extent of Land Grab Problem By: Danielle Nierenberg, Worldwatch Insitute, 8/3/10 Land rights advocates have been eagerly awaiting the World Bank’s report on large scale land acquisitions since December 2009. Delayed three times already, the report is supposed to be the most comprehensive analysis of land acquisitions to date, largely […]
Conservation for the sake of conservation doesn’t work!
This story is just another example of why we cannot expect to reforest and conserve our rainforests and other natural resources without tying an self-sustaining economic generator into our projects… conservation means nothing to someone who does not have any food on their table and can’t afford to educate their children! – Jeremy Can Sustainability Grow in a […]
We need to Redefine our idea of Power
Why Power Is Not a Dirty Word Frances Moore Lappé looks at redefining power and taking it back. Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor? It’s a mind-bending question. Who, after all, gets up in the morning pledging to starve children? Yet, each day over 24,000 young children […]
Small is Beautiful!
Thinking Big by Starting Small This Op-ed was printed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer By Stephanie Hanson, Danielle Nierenberg, and Molly Theobald It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the fact that 1 billion people worldwide are going to bed hungry every night. And, in the United States, it is easy to look at sub-Saharan Africa – where […]
Ecological Design Tranforms Mexican Community
Mexican Farmers Turn Milpas into Forest Gardens by Fred Bahnson on March 9, 2010 When government extension agents first came to Juan Bautista’s Yucatan village of Chun-Yah, a tiny pueblo in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, they told him he should start growing pitaya, also known as dragonfruit. Originating in Meso-America, this cactus is […]