New Delhi: The team that produced the video ‘Kodaikanal Won’t‘, featuring Chennai-based rapper Sofia Ashraf, has come together to produce another video, ‘Kodaikanal Still Won’t’. Through the video, activists are hoping the garner support and signatures for their campaign against Hindustan Unilever’s “environmental racism”.Read More »
India hosted World Environment Day this year with active participation from government, civil society, private organisations and citizens in large numbers. This reflects an evolved awareness and concern towards environment – or did it?
Like every year, the dominant activity on this occasion was a mass drive towards ‘greening’ through distribution of saplings and plantation. Before we rejoice in having contributed “our bit” towards saving the environment, it’s pertinent to understand how much and where the trees were planted, using Chhattisgarh as a case study.Read More »
[Editors Note: In commemoration of the World Environment Day, June 05, Journal of People editorial board has decided to reproduce this essential essay on ecosocialism and Marx’s thought on ecology in the hope that it would help our readers understand the current ecological crisis and its political economic aspects]
While mainstream ecological theory has been dismissive of Karl Marx, serious research in recent decades has recovered some of his very important insights on ecological issues. The pioneers have been James O’Connor and the journal Capitalism, Nature and Socialism — a tradition continued by Joel Kovel — but the most systematic and thorough investigations on Marx’s ecological views are those of John Bellamy Foster and his friends from Monthly Review.Read More »
The article uses the Eco Marxist perspective to look at deforestation and the impact it has on Earth in terms of soil erosion, air pollution and the threat it places on plant and animal life.
1. Introduction
The world is changing. Many countries are modernising and adapting to new ways of living in the 21th century. Population growth is on the rise and there is a constant need for industrialisation and urbanisation in order to meet all the social and economic needs that come with modernity. Rapid demographic and technological changes have placed a lot of strain on the environment as a lot of plants and animal species are on the brink of extinction. All these changes, driven mostly by those who seek profit at all cost, have degraded nature’s ecosystems.
A study published in Science Friday presents what authors call a sobering “reality check” on global efforts to protect biodiversity—one third of all conservation areas set aside as wildlife sanctuaries or national parks are “highly degraded” by human activities.Read More »
Pune: “In this kharif season at the peak of summer, my two-acre farm is pretty green with crops – groundnuts, maize and fodder for animals. Since I came to this village after my marriage in 2002, every summer would begin with waiting for water tankers to get water to drink and for daily use. Farming in summer was not an option,” said Swati Waghmode, a resident of the Sule hamlet in Waghmode Wadi village. The village is in Mann taluka of Satara district, 250 km from Mumbai – a region known for severe droughts.
In 1995, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, listed Monsanto among the top 5 lethal corporations dumping toxic waste, as it was recorded dumping nearly 37 million tons of toxic waste, through air, water, and land. Read More »
