Agriculture

Editor’s note: As radical environmentalists, we can not understand how any culture can be so stupid to put poison on their own food. The widespread application of herbicides, pesticides and all kinds of poisonous chemicals to our holy mother earth’s surface as an attempt to control weed and insect “pests” is just another expression of this culture’s deep disconnection and hatred of all life. The following excerpt is from Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment by Stephanie Seneff, PhD (Chelsea Green Publishing, July 2021). It is reprinted with permission from the publisher and has been adapted for the web. Source: Chelsea Green Publishing via Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute ...

This article originally appeared in Mongabay. A new risk analysis has found that the tipping points of five of Earth’s subsystems — the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Amazon rainforest — could interact with each other in a destabilizing manner. It suggests that these changes could occur even before temperatures reach 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels, which is the upper limit of the Paris Agreement. The interactions between the different tipping elements could also lower critical temperature thresholds, essentially allowing tipping cascades to occur earlier than expected, according to the research. Experts not involved in the study say the findings are a significant contribution to the field, but do not adequately address the timescales over which these changes could occur. by Elizabeth Claire Alberts ...

This article originally appeared in Mongabay. Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests, which support massive carbon stores and tremendous biodiversity, including a host of species that occur nowhere else on the planet. A new study reveals that mountain forest loss in Southeast Asia is accelerating at an unprecedented rate throughout the region: approximately 189,000 square kilometers (73,000 square miles) of highland forest was converted to cropland during the first two decades of this century. Mountain forest loss has far-reaching implications for people who depend directly on forest resources and downstream communities. Since higher-elevation forests also store comparatively more carbon than lowland forests, their loss will make it much harder to meet international climate objectives. by Carolyn Cowan ...

Editor’s note: The Brexit gives the UK the chance to become independent from the very destructive EU agricultural policy. This is the time for UK activists to step up for rewilding. Featured image: Forest in Somerset, UK. Photo by Deb Barnes By Lisa Malm, Postdoctoral Fellow, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Umeå University, and Darren Evans, Professor of Ecology and Conservation, Newcastle University After a particularly long week of computer based work on my PhD, all I wanted was to hike somewhere exciting with a rich wildlife. A friend commiserated with me – I was based at Newcastle University at the time, and this particular friend wasn’t keen on the UK’s wilderness, its moorlands and bare uplands, compared to the large tracts of woodland and tropical forests that can be found more readily abroad. ...

This article originally appeared in Counterpunch. By Joshua Frank “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.” – Mark Twain It doesn’t take too long once you’ve left the greater Los Angeles area, away from all the lush lawns, water features, green parkways, and manicured foliage to see that California is in the midsts of a very real, potentially deadly water crisis. Acres and acres of abandoned farms, dry lake beds, empty reservoirs—the water is simply no longer there and likely won’t ever be back. ...

Editor’s note: It’s sad and ironic how easily contemporary youth movements like Extinction Rebellion/Animal Rebellion are being coopted by neoliberal capitalism and how easily they are made to believe that big business, big tech and big agriculture can save the world. As Kim Hill points out in this article, they obviously completely lost connection to any physical and biological reality. By Kim Hill On May 22, activist group Animal Rebellion blockaded four McDonalds distribution centres in the UK, demanding the chain transition to a fully plant-based menu by 2025. ...

Editor’s note: Large scale agriculture, especially the industrial form with its dependence on heavy machinery, highly toxic chemicals and genetically modified crops is incredibly destructive. It’s also remarkably undemocratic since it is pushed by large multinational cooperations and their exclusive institutions like the World Economic Forum and the UN. If we as humans want to have a future on this planet (it looks like we don’t), we need to shift radically to more community based, small scale, democratic food systems and locally applicable techniques for ecological restoration, since large scale agriculture will inevitably fail and leave toxic, deserted landscapes behind. ...

Indigenous peoples worldwide are the victims of the largest genocide in human history, which is ongoing. Wherever indigenous cultures have not been completely destroyed or assimilated, they stand as relentless defenders of the landbases and natural communities which are there ancestral homes. They also provide living proof that humans as a species are not inherently destructive, but a societal structure based on large scale monoculture, endless energy consumption, accumulation of wealth and power for a few elites, human supremacy and patriarchy (i.e. civilization) is. DGR stands in strong solidarity with indigenous peoples. ...

Join Us Today Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, Max Wilbert, and grassroots organizers from around the world for a special 3-hour live streaming event, Ending The Greenwashing, starting at 1pm Pacific Time and hosted by Deep Green Resistance. This event will explore in detail the topic of greenwashing. Around the planet, mining companies, energy producers, automakers, engineering firms, and investors are gearing up for a new industrial revolution: the “green economy” transition. Trillions of dollars in public subsidy are being redirected to support this. Climate change is a crisis, and fossil fuels must be stopped. But will this project actually help the planet? ...

Indigenous peoples worldwide are the victims of the largest genocide in human history, which is ongoing. Wherever indigenous cultures have not been completely destroyed or assimilated, they stand as relentless defenders of the landbases and natural communities which are there ancestral homes. They also provide living proof that humans as a species are not inherently destructive, but a societal structure based on large scale monoculture, endless energy consumption, accumulation of wealth and power for a few elites, human supremacy and patriarchy (i.e. civilization) is. DGR stands in strong solidarity with indigenous peoples. ...