The water supplying many of Kyrgyzstan’s farmers flows from Uzbekistan. Rarely there is enough for everyone. The water comes from glaciers that are disappearing. “During the summer time, there are daily conflicts over irrigation water […] They are usually between villages, sometimes inter-ethnic and people have killed each other over irrigation water.” Tynar Musabaev, executive…
Week 45: Deadly air pollution, deadly drought, deadly climate
New calculation: Air pollution causes more than 500,000 premature deaths in Europe every year. Although it might feel like we heard this accounting of subjective violence before. What also bears repetition is that climate change creates conflict and that the Middle East risks a water wars. His body was bloodied, swollen, and just lying there……
Week 44: Forced migration, civil disobedience, and political killings
My handful of primitive news collecting helpers have unceremoniously done their work for another week. So, I bid you welcome to a short summary of the highlights produced by yours truly over a blended Scotch in a dark and quiet Sunday evening hour. A large group of desperate Central Americans are walking towards the US…
Week 43: Climate rights violations, corrupted minds, and cute animals
When I think about our engagement in sub-Saharan Africa, in Somalia, in other places of the world, I see that climate change has already had a massive impact on population movement, on fertility of land. It’s moving the border between pastoralist and agriculturalist. […] It’s very obvious that some of the violence that we are…
Week 42: Chainsaw, murder, water wars, and Banksy
They can kill me at any moment, but they are going to regret it forever because, after I’m dead, others will take my place. Aluisio ‘Alenquer’ Sampaio Alenquer was shot and killed Thursday the 11th of October 2018. He was a campaigner for family farm rights in Brazil, and had received death threats for years…
Week 41: Colonialism and German coal
US “First Lady” Melania Trump went to Africa wearing the very symbol of colonialism. While this inspired some criticism, Elliot Ross found it to be perfectly fitting. Beginning in Arabic, Foreign Minister of Austria, Karin Kneissl, held her speech at the UN General Assembly in multiple languages. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire created a…
Week 40: The Scallop War, scientific alarm, and Hitler
In the English Channel, British and French fishermen have clashed in the Scallop War. In the absence of fishery management, climate change might lead to more fish wars, argues Kathleen McGinty. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s new special report on 1.5°C warming is alarming. But the summary for policymakers is not nearly alarming…
Week 39: The dumbest policy in the world, the social cost of carbon, and terrorist environmentalists
Spending tax money to keep the one industry the biosphere needs to have shut down urgently going – that’s dumb. According to new research, the Canadian government spends “hundreds of millions of [Canadian] dollars per year” on subsidies for oil and gas business. Go ahead and tweet something angry with the hashtag #stopfundingfossils. The Canadians…
Week 38: The oil wars, deaths, more deaths, and drowned farm animals
The civil war in Libya is still raging. Earlier this month, gunmen attacked the headquarter of the national oil company. “[local militia fighters] started shooting at the assailants inside while the assailants threw grenades down on them from the second floor. I think that most injuries happened because the respondents were shooting in.” Baha Elddin,…
Week 37: Global protest, Chilean lithium, and Florence
On September 8, hundreds of thousands of people marched on all continents to demand a much more determined political approach to climate change. #riseforclimate Growing demand for lithium used in batteries inspires increased mining. The mining operations use lots of water – in dry areas. In Chile, authorities are beginning to wonder if they have…
Week 36: Dead bodies, vigilante groups, and an award
How often do you despair that so little action is taken even in the face of mounting signs of trouble to come? It “takes dead bodies on the table”, a saying in Danish goes. And this summer’s Californian wildfires at least led to that Democrat led US state’s pledge to transform to 100% renewable energy….
Week 34 & 35: Blood-soaked crime scenes, objective violence and fake news
“The Pacific Ocean off Central America remains a blood-soaked environmental crime scene” writes Post Magazine in a sad report on illegal shark fishing by Chinese fleets. In one case, the Ecuadorean navy caught a Chinese freighter carrying 150 tonnes of dead shark. In China, the price of shark fins are sometimes higher than the price…