Alex Jensen
Alex Jensen is a Researcher and Project Coordinator at Local Futures. He has worked in the US and India, where he co-ordinates Local Futures' Ladakh Project. He represents Local Futures on the core group of the Vikalp Sangam/Alternatives India initiative. He has worked with cultural affirmation and agro-biodiversity projects in campesino communities in a number of countries, and is active in environmental health/anti-toxics work.
Resisting US-India Agri-Imperialism
A “high-powered US trade delegation” recently visited India to “explore opportunities in the country’s huge agribusiness sector and further promote American products among India’s rising middle class.” So reads the opening line of one of a few recent articles (see others here and here) in the Indian elite press announcing this momentous visit, and in…
50,000 People Say Another World is Possible
World Social Forum Nepal 2024 – Local Futures reports from the World Social Forum, Nepal 2024: From the 15th to the 19th of February, some 50,000 people and 1,400 organizations from 98 countries converged in Kathmandu, Nepal, for the World Social Forum (WSF), reaffirming the central conviction that gave rise to the original WSF in…
A Revival of Natural Building in Ladakh
In Ladakh and elsewhere in India, the built environment is increasingly dominated by structures that required unsustainable construction methods and non-renewable materials. Meanwhile, older traditional buildings are usually marginalized and neglected. A primary feature of this shift involves the use of concrete, “the most destructive material on Earth”, rather than locally-sourced wood, straw, and earthen…
Chak Chok: a campaign against junk food
Transnational corporations have been spectacularly successful in their profit-driven quest to hook the world on junk food. The global sale of packaged foods swelled to US$2.8 trillion by 2020, and is estimated to balloon to $3.4 trillion by 2027. Soda (soft drink) sales have exploded globally, reaching $995 billion by 2002, and are predicted to…
Appropriate Technology, Traditional Cultures and Degrowth
The industrial-capitalist-technological system is characterized by perpetual growth through excessive production, relentless marketing and public relations to expand markets and demand through consumerism.[1] In the process, novel ‘needs’ are manufactured and the boundaries and norms of comfort and convenience are continually reshaped.[2] In this system relatively few technologies are socially necessary, and their manufacture and…
Not on the agenda in Glasgow: real climate action
What can we expect to come out of the Glasgow COP meetings? If the pattern established by previous COPs is repeated, not much. Dire statistics will be cited, pleas for action will be heard, earnest pronouncements will be made, non-binding goals will be established – and policymakers will congratulate themselves on having taken steps to…
The Folly of Farm-Free Food
This blog is also available in Russian and Spanish. “Beware of simple solutions to complex problems. That is a crucial lesson from history; a lesson that intelligent people in every age keep failing to learn.”[1] Having wisely counseled thus just 5 years ago in a trenchant critique of ecomodernism, environmental journalist George Monbiot’s recent op-ed…
Tosepan: Resistance and Renewal in Mexico
This blog is also available in Russian and Spanish. Since the mid-1980s, Mexico has been a poster child for globalization. Through free trade treaties and structural adjustment policies imposed by international financial institutions, the country has been “liberalized” – opened up to unfettered corporate investment and imports – to an extent matched by few other countries….
Globalization’s Deadly Footprint
This blog is also available in German, Russian and Spanish. That pollution is bad for our health will come as a surprise to no one. That pollution kills at least 9 million people every year might. This is 16 percent of all deaths worldwide – 3 times more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, and…
Globalization’s Blowback
A recent study of air pollution in the western United States made a startling finding: despite a 50 percent drop over the past 25 years in US emissions of smog-producing chemicals like nitrogen oxides (NOx), smog actually increased during that period in the rural US West – even in such ‘pristine’ environments as Yellowstone National…