MADRID, Feb 2 2022 (IPS)* – This is about Wetlands, which are considered as a natural solution to the global threat of climate change. They absorb carbon dioxide, help slow global heating and reduce pollution, hence they are often referred to as the “Kidneys of the Earth”.
Young mangrove plants, Puttalam Lagoon, Sri Lanka. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
Specifically, peatlands alone store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined. However, when drained and destroyed, wetlands emit vast amounts of carbon, adds the UN on the occasion of the World Wetlands Day, marked 2 February.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 2 2022 (IPS)* – People living in Jardim Pantanal, a low-income neighborhood on the east side of the Brazilian megalopolis of São Paulo, suffer floods every southern hemisphere summer. Many residents remember the three months their streets and homes were under water in late 2009 and early 2010. | En español
In Raposos, a Brazilian city of 16,500 inhabitants, two-thirds of the homes were flooded by the rising waters of the Das Velhas River. The city grew on both banks of the river, between hills, which led to recurrent flooding. CREDIT: Das Velas River CBH
I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses worrying recent developments in the Antarctic and the Arctic, which warn us of catastrophic consequences if we neglect urgent climate action.
The book may be downloaded free of charge from the following link:
Diagonal cracks have been observed in Antarctica’s enormous Thwaites Glacier, and scientists fear that it might shatter into small pieces like a windscreen.
One of the less-discussed aspects of the current crisis in Eastern Europe is its huge sales potential
Russia‘s President Putin holds a meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council, via video conference from his Kremlin office, 21 January 2022 | Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin Pool/Alamy Live News
29 January 2022 (openDemocracy)* — As the Ukraine crisis evolves, the military machinery on both sides gears up for combat, with Russia moving troops and equipment towards Ukraine and NATO sending reinforcements to Eastern Europe.
Russia understandably fears the eastward expansion of NATO. Recently NATO countries, led by the United States, have supplied arms to Ukraine.
There is a threat that the tensions building up in the region will lead to war. Such a development would be catastrophic for the entire world. Against this backdrop, we examine the question of NATO’s illegality.
Kingston, Jan 31 2022 (IPS)* – A single line at the end of the United States State Department 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report made headlines in Jamaica and had many perturbed. “Some police allegedly facilitated or participated in sex trafficking,” it reads.
Governments around the world continue to impose an expanding sequence of measures to curtail rights and freedoms ostensibly to tackle a ‘virus’.
In response, public demonstrations against these government measures are also ongoing and expanding with truck convoys the latest manifestation of this form of protest.
Unfortunately, while activists mistake these popular mobilizations for effective resistance, the Global Elite’s coup d’état against humanity gathers pace.
Concealed beneath the ‘virus’/‘vaccine’ narrative, and marketed by the World Economic Forum as the ‘Great Reset’, this coup is designed to utterly transform human society and even human life.
28 January 2022 (Wall Street International)*— Between the Covid-19 pandemic, racist actions, and the beginning of the racial reckoning, we thought we had confronted our worst societal issues in 2020. However, 2021 proved to be even more chaotic and scary.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2022 (IPS)* – “Racism and discrimination have no place in our world — least of all at the United Nations”, warns UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will soon appoint a Special Adviser to investigate the growing discrimination based on racial, national or ethnic origins in the world body.
UN staff in New York. Credit: United Nations
“The diversity of our personnel is a source of profound richness. Yet I am fully aware and deeply concerned that colleagues have experienced the indignity, pain and consequences of workplace racism and racial discrimination. This is unacceptable,” says Guterres in a message to UN staffers January 25.
(UN News)* — G20 leading industrialized nations must embrace their role as influential leaders against climate change, by aligning development and economic recovery with international nature and climate goals, according to a new UN report, published on Thursday [27 January 2022].
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CIFOR/Axel Fassio | Woman plant peanuts in Yangambi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In its joint report on finance for nature in the G20 countries, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative, examined how wealthy nations can better support nature-based solutions (NbS).