Home/Posts Tagged ‘capitalism’
Posts Tagged ‘capitalism’
Conservation, Nature, Jun 2nd, 2011,
The second installment of Adam Curtis’ new documentary series “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” (recently on the BBC) focuses on how ecologists once reasoned that nature was made up of mechanistic, computer-like systems, consisting of many factors working in harmony in order to maintain balance. This view of ecosystems, which does not fully account for the chaos caused by the inherent flux of nature, has fallen out of fashion among many contemporary ecologists. They claim previous ecological theories were inspired by man-made machinery and not nature itself. Yet despite the fact that nature may be chaotic,…
Tags: Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, biodiversity, capitalism, commodification, Conservation, Defra, ecology, ecosystems, natural capital, NEA, TEEB
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Apr 12th, 2011,
Despite the global Left establishment’s almost complete sell out, maybe market capitalism shouldn’t be the only game in town. OK, the Berlin Wall fell over 20 years ago and the Soviet Union collapsed and of course capitalism eventually results in democracy. Or does it? Look at China – centrally controlled, lacking rule of law – it has become less egalitarian and no more democratic in the process of embracing capitalism with unprecedented gusto. In the meantime iconic Western liberal democracies are playgrounds for the rich where the masses scramble for crumbs. The US and UK are using an economic downturn…
Tags: capitalism, Climate change, Left, Slavoj, Zizek
Green living, Pollution, Weird Stuff, Nov 26th, 2010,
Earlier this week we posted a reminder about today’s Buy Nothing Day. Although the Buy Nothing Day movement gets bigger every year, so does the Black Friday craze, on and off the Internet. According to the Wikipedia page, Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving in the U.S., which also marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. That day shops open very early, offer plenty of discounts and special offers to lure customers in to kick off sales for the season. The term Black Friday was introduced in 1966. It refers to the overcrowded streets and shops and to…
Tags: Black Friday, black friday holiday, Buy Nothing Day, capitalism, consumption
Green living, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 16th, 2010,
Slavoj Zizek has kind of been carrying the torch for intellectual Marxists in recent years. He is both a polemic and entertaining figure – a true academic ‘rock star’. He also lectures in clear, understandable language unlike many academic types, though some of his scholarly writings can be pretty bewildering. In the following video Zizek discusses what he calls ‘cultural capitalism’. It is essentially about how we may do good things within the structures of a bad system, while in fact contributing to it. For example, we ‘offset’ ecological and human damage by buying fair trade and organic products so…
Tags: academic, capitalism, cultural, fair trade, greenwashing, organic, Slavoy, Zizek
Green living, Videos & Documentaries, Jun 22nd, 2010,
Anti-consumerism activist and DIY filmmaker Annie Leonard spent 10 years looking into the lifecycle of consumer goods. Her short, web-based film, ‘The Story of Stuff’ has been watched over 10 million times and has recently been made into a book, further detailing Annie’s extensive research into the cycle of production, consumption and disposal that has become intrinsic to American-style capitalism. Here is an excerpt from the book (via asiaone.com): Currently we have this great illusion of choice in this country – but it is almost entirely limited to the consumer realm. Walk into any supermarket these days, and what do…
Tags: Annie, book, capitalism, consumer, consumerism, film, Guardian, Leonard, story, story of stuff, stuff
Climate Change, Politics, Apr 22nd, 2010,
Bolivia has been hosting an international summit, named the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in the city of Cochabamba. The talks began on the 19th and finish today. From a report by the Environmental News Service: More than 20,000 indigenous, environmental and civil society delegates from 129 countries were in attendance as President Morales welcomed them to the conference at a soccer stadium in the village of Tiquipaya on the outskirts of the city of Cochabamba. The tone in Bolivia is decidedly political, with an emphasis on nature, poor and indigenous peoples and…
Tags: Bolivia, Bolivian, capitalism, climate, Climate change, Cochabamba, conference, environmental, Guardian, indigenous, justice, mine, Morales, people, President, rights, talks, water
Climate Change, Politics, Mar 25th, 2010,
In an interview with Der Spiegel, economist and globalization critic Noreena Hertz discusses the flaws of judging a country’s success by GDP and brings up other ways to measure economic and material prosperity: GDP only measures a small part of economic success. Some really important aspects are ignored. Take sustainability, for example. It’s absurd that a country can have high growth rates because it has a lot of polluting industry. The quality of the air, health, progress made by women, child care and social cohesion — these are all important economic factors. The innovation or robustness of an economy are…
Tags: capitalism, economic, economics, economy, environment, equality, GDP
Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Oct 16th, 2009,
Ecological Debt – the idea that developing world suffers more and benefits less from their own resources which are exploited by rich nations and former colonial powers. Therefore an effective way to discourage developing countries from industrializing irresponsibly and with dire environmental consequences is for those rich nations to pay them not to. Disaster Capitalism – the post-war, post-natural disaster grab for resources and land by wealthy corporations and governments, such as the carving up of Iraq’s oil reserves after the Gulf War or strong arm development projects in post-tsunami Thailand. Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein, author of The…
Tags: capitalism, disaster, ecological debt, environment, Naomi Klein, war
