'Unseen' News and Views
– In a previous article, IPS reported on some of UNICEF’s key findings about the harsh impacts on the world’s children –and the whole Planet Earth– of the excessive consumption by mostly rich countries.
If everyone were to consume resources at the rate at which people in the United States, Canada and Luxembourg do, at least five Earths would be needed. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS
One of these is that if everyone were to consume resources at the rate at which people in the United States, Canada and Luxembourg do, at least five Earths would be needed.
But there is a problem…
And it is that there is one Earth.
– As an introduction to this year’s World Environment Day on 5 June, this report deals with how the excesses of the world’s population, mostly in the wealthiest countries, are causing so much harm to Planet Earth.
The world population is already using the equivalent of 1.6 Earths to maintain the current way of life. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS
For this purpose, the following account of some of the major facts and figures that the world’s largest multinational body–the United Nations Organisation– has been successively providing, should be enough to complete the picture.
To start with, the fact that the richest 1% of the global population account for more greenhouse gas emissions than the poorest 50%.
From unimaginable habitat loss to heartbreaking species extinctions, it shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us that our biodiversity – the variety of life in the world – continues to suffer from human greed, exploitation, encroachment, and neglect – putting short-term profit above all else. All life on this planet interacts and interconnects. All life relies on the biodiversity that surrounds it to thrive and survive.
This article shows how media uses computer modeling and “virtual crime scenes” to assign blame for some extremely important international events.
Protesters at a Managua roadblock, 30 May 2018. SITU Research
In these examples from Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria, many people died in complex circumstances. The deaths at the “Mother’s March” in Managua, Nicaragua precipitated an attempted coup. The Maidan Massacre in Kyiv led to an actual coup. The claims of a chemical attack in Douma led to the US, France and the UK bombing Syria.
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UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern over the fall in Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), at a meeting of the UN Chief Executives Board, which brought together the heads of 30 UN agencies, to discuss ways of alleviating the crises holding back economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and boost implementation of the SDGs. May 2022. Credit: UN News/Abdelmonem Makki
“The world’s richest countries are providing healthier environments for children within their borders, yet are disproportionately contributing to the destruction of the global environment”. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
Over-consumption in the world’s richest countries is destroying children’s environments globally, explains UNICEF (the UN Children Fund) in its report Innocenti Report Card 17: Places and Spaces.
“Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity weaves the web of life. It is not corporate ‘intellectual property’. It is not a financial asset of those whose greed drives biodiversity extinction and loss.”
— Dr Vandana Shiva
To celebrate World Biodiversity Day, Navdanya International presents Biodiversity Is Health.
We break down how all levels of biodiversity have a direct and tangible tie to human health.
– So busy as they are with strengthening military alliances and devoting billions of taxpayers’ money to double their war budgets and subsidise fossil fuels, European Governments seem not to care about the reiterated alerts that their continent faces a serious risk: the reduced availability -and the more polluted– drinking water.
It is estimated that more than one third of the European Union will be under “high water stress” by the 2070. Credit: Bigstock
Two specialised bodies –the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO)– have warned that plans to make water access possible in the face of climate pressures “are absent” in the pan-European region.
Droughts represent 15% of natural disasters but took the largest human toll, approximately 650,000 deaths from 1970-2019, Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS
But it is not about only them. Also you are already affected. In fact, around 1.700 billion of drylands, home to two billion people, are already covering 41% of the planet’s land surface.
Moreover, an additional 1 billion dryland hectares are now under threat.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 