Today, in an era of all-destroying nuclear weapons, instantaneous global communication and worldwide economic interdependence, nationalism has become a dangerous anachronism.
History, as it is taught today, is centered on the country where it is being taught. Our own country is the most important. Our own country is always in the right, according to nationalist historians. Patriotic soldiers and generals are exalted. It is sweet and noble to die for one’s country.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31 2022 (IPS)* – For decades, urban practitioners have failed to consider the needs of women in city decision-making and planning. Imagine being a young girl in a bustling metropolis.
Credit: United Nations
Every day she hesitates to go to school, tries different routes on the public bus, walks miles in the hot sun, to avoid the sexual harassment that has become a daily occurrence in public spaces.
A multifaceted response from Europe has so far prevented its energy woes from creating widespread social and economic destabilization. But with winter approaching, the crisis is far from over and risks are getting worse.
John P. Ruehl
While European energy prices have eased slightly in recent months, stress continues to build across a continent that has long been dependent on access to cheap Russian energy.
(UN News)* — National pledges to reduce harmful emissions offer little hope of avoiding climate disaster, UN climate experts said on Thursday [], in an urgent appeal for a radical transformation of the energy sector, before it’s too late.
Unsplash/Shane Stagner | Kelp, a type of seaweed, can be fed to animals and could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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There’s “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” today, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) insisted in a new report, despite legally binding promises made at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference to prevent average temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
WMO records biggest increase in methane concentrations since start of measurements.
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Geneva/New York, 26 October (WMO)* – In yet another ominous climate change warning, atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached new record highs in 2021, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
MADRID, Oct 27 2022 (IPS)* – No. No lettuce, no matter how British it may be, could outlast such a steady depletion of the very foundation of life.
One third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwater. Most of this plastic disintegrates into particles smaller than five millimetres, known as microplastics, and these break down further into nanoparticles. Credit: UN Environment
Now, new facts about such depletion come to add to the already reported ones regarding the unstopped, man-made dangers threatening the present and future of indispensable natural resources.
These are some of the biggest reasons explaining how the web of life is unrelentlessly agonising:
(UN News)* — Heatwaves have become an unavoidable health hazard for many nations, but new data indicates that they are set toaffect virtually every child on earth by 2050, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned on Tuesday [].
Today, at least half a billion youngsters are already exposed to a high number of heatwaves, placing them on the front lines of climate change, the UN agency noted.By the middle of this century, moreover, it estimates that more than two billion children will be exposed to “more frequent, longer lasting, and more severe” heatwaves.
MADRID, Oct 24 2022 (IPS)* – European politicians continue to run in all directions to find a way out of their energy crisis. One of them – Simonetta Sommaruga, the Swiss Environment Minister, asked people to ‘shower together’. Others are competing to grant the business of transporting energy from the North of Africa to the continent.
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All this is not new.
European Union leaders struggle to find solutions for the energy crisis. Credit: Bigstock
20 October 2022 (openDemocracy)* — Prime minister Rishi Sunak – reportedly the richest MP in Parliament – would be a boon for the financial lobby, tax justice campaigners have warned.
As talk turns to the next Conservative leader, the man trounced by Liz Truss just weeks ago is now the favourite to replace her.
Ever since the Ukraine War started on 24 Feb 2022, the NATO response, mainly articulated and materially implemented by the U.S., has been to pour vast quantities of oil on the flames of conflict, increasing the scale of violence, the magnitude of human suffering, and dangerously increasing the risk of a disastrous outcome.
Not only did Washington mobilize the world to denounce Russia’s ‘aggression,’ but supplied advanced weaponry in great quantities to the Ukrainians to resist the Russian attack, and did all it could at the UN and elsewhere to build a punitive coalition hostile to Russia but coupled this with a variety of sanctions and the demonization of Putin as a notorious war criminal unfit to govern.
This perspective of state propaganda was faithfully conveyed by a self-censoring Western media filter that graphically portrayed on a daily basis the horrors of the war experienced by the Ukrainian civilian population and a newly West-oriented enthusiasm for the ICC gathering as much evidence as possible of Russian war crimes.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 