In Britain, these days, all the essential endeavors that are supposed to promote general wellbeing and what is known as “civilization” are, it is widely agreed, in crisis: health and social services; housing; education; energy; transport; and of course, though successive governments haven’t taken it seriously, agriculture. Oh yes, and then there’s “the environment” – nothing less than the biosphere; nature; the living world — but commonly thought of these days as real estate or “natural capital” … [Read more...]
Where Time Went (and why we have so little left)
“Sleeker. Faster. More Intuitive” (The New York Times); “Welcome to a world where speed is everything” (Verizon FiOS); “Speed is God, and time is the devil” (chief of Hitachi’s portable-computer division). In “real” time, life speeds up until time itself seems to disappear—fast is never fast enough, everything has to be done now, instantly. To pause, delay, stop, slow down is to miss an opportunity and to give an edge to a competitor. Speed has become the measure of success—faster chips, faster … [Read more...]
Globalization’s Deadly Footprint
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 15 times more than all wars and other forms of violence. Air pollution alone is responsible for 6.5 million of these 9 million deaths. Nearly 92 percent of pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. All this is according to the … [Read more...]
Permaculture and the Myth of Scarcity
This is the second article in our series by the speakers of Voices of Hope in a Time of Crises, a one-day event, which will explore localized solutions to our global problems and launch the International Alliance for Localization. Join the discussion on November 8th at The Cooper Union in New York City.At a conference a couple weeks ago, an activist who does work in Africa recounted an encounter she had with the minister of agriculture of a certain African country. The minister spoke … [Read more...]
Indigenous Knowledge and Global Wellness
Modern medicine has enabled people to live longer lives, but what have we lost in turning our backs on traditional ways of healing? Today, heart disease is the number one cause of death around the world. An estimated 17.3 million people died from cardiovascular diseases in 2008, representing 30% of all global deaths. Although we often associate these conditions with industrialized countries, and indeed more than a third of Americans are considered obese, surprisingly over 80% of these deaths … [Read more...]
Beyond ObamaCare: From Healthy Profits to Healthy People
As the New Year approaches, the political agenda in the United States is still overrun with last-minute squabbling over the Affordable Care Act, known more familiarly as ObamaCare. Framed erroneously as a dichotomous debate—left versus right, socialism versus capitalism, government versus business—the real flaws of the law have been effectively concealed in political melodrama. The malfunctioning of the government website is just the latest in a string of distractions that steer attention away … [Read more...]
Local Food and Avian Flu
By Steven GorelickOne of the ways that large, global corporations are given an unfair advantage over smaller, more local competitors is through health, safety and environmental regulations. In many cases those regulations are in place because of Big Business abuses, but end up harming small businesses that are forced to comply with the same rules.A case in point is the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) currently being phased in by the US Department of Agriculture. The … [Read more...]