Home/Posts Tagged ‘war’
Posts Tagged ‘war’
Climate Change, Politics, Jul 22nd, 2011,
What does the UN Security Council have to do with climate change? Last year the UN Secretary for the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, warned that population growth, urbanization, agriculture and climate change increase poverty and decrease security. He may not have been talking about war, but the links between armed conflicts and water and food shortages, as well as population movements due to natural disasters, are not so hard to see. Food prices have been associated with climate change and NATO has already made the connection between issues of global security and the global environmental crisis. Now Achim…
Tags: Achim Steiner, Climate change, famine, link, security, Somalia, UN, war, world peace
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Feb 23rd, 2011,
Time Magazine has cited a source close to Colonel Gaddafi’s regime in Libya claiming that the North African dictator may sabotage oilfields and pipelines to the Mediterranean Sea. In the first Gulf War of 1991, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered engineers to burn oil fields and blow up wells in Kuwait, burning one billion barrels of crude and creating an ecological catastrophe which killed vegetation and wildlife, polluted groundwater and poisoned the local human population. Besides cutting oil supplies to Europe, if Gaddafi carries out such an act of wanton destruction, a serious environmental tragedy may add to the human…
Tags: dictator, Gaddafi, Libya, Mediterranean, oil, pipelines, sabotage, war
Politics, Science & Technology, Sep 27th, 2010,
It may sound illogical to produce biofuels in the Middle East, a region generally associated with oil. It may sound even stranger to ship biofuel all the way from the US to the Afghanistan in order to power the vehicles of the US military. Well this is geopolitics, don’t try to make simple sense of it. Afghanistan, though neighbors with some big oil producers in the Persian Gulf, does not have a fossil fuel industry. It does, however, have a big opium and heroin economy. A recent study proposes that a biofuel industry in Afghanistan, with the US military as…
Tags: Afghanistan, biodiesel, biofuels, fossil fuels, Military, Navy, opium, poppies, poppy, United States, US, war
Politics, Pollution, ,
The ongoing web of problems between rubbish and corruption has turned Italy’s once rustic region of Campania into an area known for the mafia and toxic waste. Naples, the capital of Campania, is once again the center of protests, in which 2,000 locals rioted, threw stones and burned garbage trucks early Friday and during the following three nights. The protesters are against their city being used as a giant dump for the north of Italy – including further plans to build yet another waste facility on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. From a report in the Edmonton Journal: The clashes…
Tags: Campania, garbage, Italy, mafia, Naples, rubbish, toxic waste, war
Climate Change, Pollution, Jul 13th, 2010,
Iraq’s Mesopotamian marshes, drained under the regime of Saddam Hussein during the early 1990s to punish a local uprising, are recovering nicely due to the efforts of Iraqi conservationists and local inhabitants. This former Garden of Eden is believed by some scholars to be the actual Garden of Eden mentioned in the Bible. You know, where Adam and Eve frolicked and had that nasty run-in with the snake. What was nothing but a wasteland nearly a mere 20 years ago is now once again a thriving ecosystem: The story of this once almost impossible restoration is told in an exhibition…
Tags: carbon, Garden of Eden, Gulf War, Iraq, marshes, Mesopotamian, Middle East, Strategic Foresight Group, war
Climate Change, Green living, Nature, Jun 5th, 2010,
Palm oil has made its way into countless processed foods, soaps and cosmetics. It is also used to make ‘biofuel’ and even napalm – the gelled gasoline used to horrifying effect during the Vietnam War. Now palm oil is engaged in another war – a war of the environment. Palm oil cultivation often destroys vital natural resources via the utilization of slash and burn agriculture and rainforest clearing in Indonesia and Malaysia. This type of cultivation not only results in the loss of habitats for many species including vulnerable Sumatran tigers and orangutans, but the burning of the forests releases…
Tags: co2, cosmetics, environment, forests, Lush, oil, palm, palm oil, plantations, rainforest, soap, UK, war
Climate Change, Politics, May 30th, 2010,
Belief in global warming plummeted amongst the British public after the climate change conference in Copenhagen last December, according to a BBC poll early this year. A similar poll commissioned by the London Times also showed increased skepticism regarding climate amongst those surveyed. Belief in climate change amongst scientists has not changed, but in the war of the press, the climate skeptics – often called climate deniers – did gain significant ground in Copenhagen’s wake. From a May 24th article in the New York Times: Two independent reviews later found no evidence that the East Anglia researchers had actively distorted…
Tags: climate, Climate change, copenhagen, environment, global, Guardian, Independent, poll, press, skepticism, skeptics, Telegraph, Times, UK, war, warming
Climate Change, Videos & Documentaries, Dec 17th, 2009,
NBC Nightly News continues their environmentally themed segment ‘A Perfect Storm’, this time examining how changes in climate might contribute to violent conflicts among deprived communities. Drought, flooding, population displacement and resulting wars over water and other resources can be caused or exacerbated by climate change, according to this NBC report. Military organizations like NATO and the Pentagon are already conscious of possible future economic, social and political instability, which can be influenced by climate change. One case in point is Egypt’s Nile River Delta. Watch NBC’s latest ‘A Perfect Storm’ installment for more. Climate change to spark armed conflicts?…
Tags: A Perfect Storm, Climate change, conflicts, Egypt, NBC, Nile, war
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Oct 16th, 2009,
Many American military experts, among them retired admirals and generals; believe that dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels in general is a national security threat. The price of gasoline in the U.S. is also deceptively low when all the tax money spent on military operations to ensure the flow of oil is considered. Former General Charles F. Wald has estimated the actual cost to be at around $7 dollars a gallon, or €1.25 per liter, which is closer to the cost at the petrol pump in most European countries. Clifford D. May, former New York Times foreign correspondent and…
Tags: Clifford D. May, CNA, environment, oil, war
Politics, Videos & Documentaries, ,
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
