alanjjohnstone
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Could be posted on the climate crisis thread but here is more apt as it reveals that Meat Vs Veg is not the only problem with food we face.
When will the bad news end?
“The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.”
“Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades,” they write. “The repercussions this will have for the planet’s ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least.”
Intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanisation and climate change are also significant factors.”“If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of mankind,” said Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, at the University of Sydney, Australia.
According to French researcher Professor Denis Corpet, the response by UK and EU politicians to the evidence laid out in a World Health Organisation (WHO) study outlining these concerns has been “unsatisfactory”.
“The failure of governments globally to engage on this public health scandal is nothing less than a dereliction of duty – both in regards to the number of cancer cases that could be avoided by ridding nitrites from processed meats – and in the potential to reduce the strain on increasingly stretched and underfunded public health services,” Professor Corpet wrote. “It is surely the responsibility of your administrations to educate parents of the risks posed by ham in their children’s lunchbox – and to facilitate the growth of safer nitrite-free agenda,” he wrote.
Dodging the sanctions
Another king-maker
Ricardo Hausmann is the director for the Center of International Development at Harvard University.
A year ago, Hausmann posted on his own blog a solution that asks the National Assembly to impeach Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. His expert suggestion is that “the Assembly could constitutionally appoint a new government, which in turn could request military assistance from a coalition of the willing, including Latin American, North American, and European countries.”
Hausmann openly compares his plan to the U.S. “liberating” Panama in 1989.
In 2014, when Maduro arrested López for inciting violence in Caracas, Hausmann got Harvard University to give him an honorary degree from the prestigious institution
https://www.dw.com/en/polands-young-voters-turning-to-the-right/a-47439606
“Young people were marching through Warsaw, wrapped in red and white flags, singing the national anthem. They were lured into the streets by patriotism. They represent conservative values and vote for right-wing parties… the young generation’s shift to the right is neither a temporary trend nor an expression of protest. It represents a new self-image that has grown with the politics of recent years. Young Poles long for post-material values such as the church, tradition and security.”
Talking the talk but we know she’ll never walk the walk
Senator Elizabeth Warren formally launched her presidential bid in Massachusetts on Saturday with a tough populist call to fight economic inequality.
“This is the fight of our lives,” she said.
She attacked big business and the wealthy in a system that she said was “rigged” against ordinary Americans.
“The man in the White House is not the cause of what is broken. He is just the latest and most extreme symptom of what’s gone wrong in America,” she said.
She added: “Our fight is for big structural change.”
Weekly Worker’s angle. They will no doubt receive a complementary review copy of our new pamphlet.
https://www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1237/chartalism-and-marxism/
Another e-mail that I think should be posted here
Greetings Comrades,
Our New Zealand members raise tough points about socialist growth or lack there in, and I’m sure we’ve all had searching thoughts wondering much the same; however, I don’t think reflecting that our difficulties are completely internal, or messaging is off, completely warranted.
If we account for the massive concentration of media in the hands of the swindling class it’s little surprise workers worldwide are kept well blinkered with noses to earning money to pay debt for things advertisers indoctrinate the populace, cradle to grave, they/we ‘need.’
Things to think about locally ‘in the mean time’ that myself and others do to increase levels of worker understanding and resilience living through the mayhem of crapitalism while we are stuck with it, are:
Set up a worker skill share and teach each other ways to minimize the impact swindlers have on us – i.e., carpentry, welding, bike and auto mechanical repair, food security / wildcrafting, beer and bread making, much to do with the ‘rural economy’ such as the Ruskin/Morris/IWW crowds promulgate in the UK and North America.
https://williammorrissociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Citizenship-Workshop-final-compressed.pdf
https://us.eventbu.com/portland/pdx-gdc-diy-plumbing-workshop/5853593There are others sites if you Google ’em.
Resist participating in the circulating rate of capital as much as you can; capitalist make their dosh by realizing their swindling gains when they squeeze out profits from sale of worker-made commodities in exchange for cash money. The swindlers then reinvest part of that profit to do it all again (as we well know), to continue living out their ignoble parasite lifestyles off the backs of us, the wage-slave workers who rent out our labour power to the (hopefully) highest payer. If we interrupt this circulating rate of capital – and the buggers can’t get their locked in profits out through the cash nexus, well you’ve just done an extra injury to the rogues. NB – try to wean yourself, family members, and friends off needing loads of cash to pay debts and paying for things you can live without, like ‘5 minute wonders,’ etc.
Use public services like libraries and other useful public services and avoid going shopping too much. Thing about using public services they are most often non-profit or free, they don’t readily feed the beast of monopoly capital (you can follow the money on that one to check it out for yourselves), and when you’re doing more free stuff (hopefully fun) you are not helping the swindlers cash in.
Get outdoors and enjoy the Earth’s natural beauties (what’s left of them and while they are here). This is not only free but good for us, and I find I meet the best sort of folk on such outings – folk who very often know the general score about what a crappy (dis)civilization we actually exist in; and wouldn’t you rather spend time with folks like this than with purblind curmudgeons who barely know what capitalism is, or worse, support it!?
Keep punching Comrades; we ain’t gone get what we want being faint of heart.
Be well, till soon, and yfs,
John [A.]
An interesting perspective from Greg Palast Part 1
” knowing that the Mestizo majority would not elect their Great White Hope Guaidó, they simply took to the streets …”
Finland’s trial fails to find unemployed jobs
Finland has now embraced a different approach to the problem, imposing tougher new sanctions on unemployed people who choose not to accept jobs while receiving benefits.
Well, ALB, I did acknowledge Monbiot’s tendency to exaggerate but when I see Ratcliffe of Ineos, (a capitalist I have detested since he attacked the unions in Grangemouth many years ago when he was just the richest man in Scotland and not the whole of the UK), promoting Brexit while simultaneously protesting about the enforced limits on fracking, I can’t but help that think his positions are linked.
Is he an isolated example, a maverick? Is the Chemistry Growth Partnership just a sector lobbyist group. Is the Chemical Industry Association known as the CIA 😈 just a sector lobbyist group?
Is it all a conspiracy? Are others involved?
“The more you speak and join in, the less likely it is that the result of any consultation will be shaped by vested interests who have either the money, or the connections, or the power to imprint their agenda on the public,” said Mr Gove.
“Vested interests” normally don’t advertise their existence and collaboration. Ratcliffe just happens to have the arrogance to be open about his personal partisan policies.
But you are right, i doubt there can be an actual conspiracy – the only thing the capitalist class join together and cooperate in is screwing workers, otherwise its dog versus dog for the bone.
Part 2 of Media Lens review of how news agencies report Venezuela
A story told by a fool, signifies nothing, indeed
The quarantine of Venezuela continues.
Travel websites like Expedia and Orbitz have stopped selling airline tickets for Venezuela.
“Once governmental advice reaches a certain level of travel concern, we take action to close off destinations on our sites,” Expedia spokeswoman Sarah Gavin told The Associated Press. “This ‘stop sell’ will remain in effect until the situation in Venezuela improves and travel advice changes.”
