Brexit showed that a few ruthless, well-connected people with big money behind them can change history. Now they’re at it again, and the stakes are even higher
Nigel Farage presents his first show on GB News channel in London | SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo
1 November 2021 (openDemocracy)* — If Brexit proved anything, it’s that a handful of people with powerful connections can go a long, long, way.
Conflict and the environment are deeply interlinked. Around the world, at least 40 per cent of all intrastate conflicts have had an important natural resource dimension. Rising temperatures due to climate change now threaten to further amplify environmental stresses and tensions.
And, all too often, the environment is among the casualties of war, through deliberate acts of destruction or collateral damage, or because, during conflicts, governments fail to control and manage natural resources.
A Nepalese peacekeeper with the African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) plants a tree outside UNAMID Headquarters in El Fasher, Sudan.
PHOTO:UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran
3 November 2021 (United Nations)* — Though humanity has always counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, destroyed cities and livelihoods, the environment has often remained the un-publicized victim of war. Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed to gain military advantage.
The U.S. Military is the greatest polluter and creator of chaos on the planet.
The Roman Empire, as bad as it was, left cobblestone streets and aqueducts in areas it conquered or occupied, many of which are still in use today throughout the world.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 