Human Wrongs Watch
Phlida Kharshala of Meghalaya’s Khasi indigenous community and her 8-year-old grandson sell mushrooms in Shillong city, India. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
Phlida Kharshala of Meghalaya’s Khasi indigenous community and her 8-year-old grandson sell mushrooms in Shillong city, India. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
At an April 30 conference entitled “Covering Climate Now”, co-sponsored by The Nation and Colombia Journalism Review, Bill Moyers made a speech which included the following remarks:
One of the focus will be the creation of an international movement of native peoples, along with a collective agenda for the fight against foreign intervention and extractivism. | Photo: MINCI (posted here from teleSUR).
© MSC shipping (photo posted here from UN News). Shipping companies are working towards sustainable maritime transport as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Over half of the world’s population now live in cities, with numbers expected to double by 2050, but while urbanization poses serious challenges, cities can also be powerhouses for sustainable development; something the UN is spotlighting on World Cities Day, marked 31 October. *
DAYLESFORD, Australia, 30 October 2019 — About 12,000 years ago, late stone age humans precipitated the neolithic (agricultural) revolution that marked the start of the steady rise to civilization.
Robert J. Burrowes
Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time as the beginning of what is now known as the Holocene Epoch, the geological epoch in which humans still live.
However, since the industrial revolution commencing in about 1750, just 270 years ago, humans have been destroying Earth’s biosphere with such tremendous ferocity that the Earth we inherited at the beginning of the Holocene Epoch is vanishing before our eyes.
And life is vanishing with it.
It is a pity that some groups and individuals are urging palm oil importers in India to refrain from buying the commodity from Malaysia.
The Solvent Extractors Association of India, India’s top vegetable oil trade body is one such outfit. Apparently, this boycott is a sort of “punishment” for Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s remarks on Kashmir at the United Nations General Assembly on 27th September 2019.
The Indian government has reportedly protested against Dr Mahathir’s criticism of Indian action in Kashmir. However so far it has not voiced support for the call to boycott Malaysian palm oil.
24 October 2019 (FAO)* — For as long as he could remember, Benito González from western Mexico had struggled to make ends meet and lived on the margin of society. As many indigenous peoples – anywhere – do.
At work in one of the indigenous community’s greenhouses. ©FAO/Luis Mérida
24 October 2019 (UN Environment)* — Without nitrogen, most of the world’s crops wouldn’t exist. Nitrogen is to corn, wheat and rice, what water is to fish.
Photo from UN Environment.
Yearly, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen are applied to crops in the form of fertilizer, helping them grow stronger and better.
But issues arise when nitrogen run-off occurs, polluting air, water and land in the process. It is estimated that nitrogen discharge accounts for a third of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.