Worldwide, there are now over a thousand coastal areas where fish can’t breathe. The nitrogen that makes crops grow is also destroying offshore ecosystems.
Metabolic Rifts
Author Archive | Ian Angus
Book Review
People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons
Not just renewable energy, but global system change! A call to arms for a transformative approach to energy and a new society.
Pandemic responses
Covid-19: Asian contrasts and lessons
Some Asian countries have effectively contained the disease, while others have dramatically failed. What’s behind the differences?
Greenhouse Gas
‘Worst case’ emissions scenario is best match for reality
The IPCC’s most extreme projection of the impact of global climate policies is tracking within one percent of actual results.
Agrochemical pollution
Pesticides speed the spread of deadly parasites
Even low concentrations of pesticides can increase transmission and weaken efforts to control the second most common parasitic disease
Reading matters
Ecosocialist Bookshelf: Mid-July, 2020
Six new books … Greta Thunberg’s story; Fighting corporate food systems; Revolutionaries on climate; Food and revolution; A case for meat; Our carbon world
Film review
Is lab-grown meat the future of food?
Documentary on ‘clean meat’ fails to question the technology’s rationale and blindly accepts dubious claims made by its promoters
Time to change course
False Promises: The ‘Green Revolution in Africa’ is failing on its own terms
The Gates Foundation’s billion dollar project is a vicious circle that drives small-scale food producers further and further into poverty
Blue Acceleration
Deep sea mining threatens more than the seafloor
The damage caused by proposed deep sea mining projects can extend hundreds to thousands of feet up
deadly heat
Frightening numbers: Biosphere heating accelerates
The Earth is warming at an astounding speed, equivalent to absorbing 907 times the USA’s annual energy use, far faster than biological species can adapt
Lockdown reading
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, Pandemic Edition (July 2020)
A special edition of Ecosocialist Bookshelf: six books we recommend for understanding the deadliest global health crisis of our time
Climate crisis
Heatwaves are longer and more frequent, worldwide
New study provides ‘unequivocal indicators’ that global warming is not just underway but speeding up. Scientists insist ‘the time for inaction is over.’
Covid kills
Not just meat: All farm and food workers are in peril
The profit-driven food system endangers the lives of millions of low-paid workers. It’s time to adopt more humane and robust methods of feeding humanity.
Capitalism fouls things up
Tonnes of ‘recycled’ European plastic pollute the oceans
Researchers find that much supposedly recycled plastic from Europe is in fact exported to Southeast Asia and dumped
Break Neoliberalism
A Ten-Point Agenda for the Global South After COVID-19
Neoliberalism has driven the the world system into a cul-de-sac. The Global South must lead in building a new international economic order
Real rides and fantasies
Cars and drivers in the age of inequality
A magazine for fans of very expensive cars unexpectedly exposes the gross economic inequality that characterizes the U.S. today
Xenophobia weakens the fight
Banning wild animal sales won’t prevent another pandemic
‘If wildlife-oriented solutions distract from the weaknesses that COVID-19 has exposed in global health security, the next pandemic will levy a higher toll.’
Insect Atlas 2020
Agribusiness drives severe decline of essential insects
Four million tonnes of poison a year, most produced by four agribusiness giants, are killing essential insects everywhere. One-third of species face extinction.
Global heating
Despite pandemic, CO2 hits new record
Greenhouse gas in atmosphere continues accelerating, reaching the highest concentration ever recorded in May 2020.
Reading in Lockdown
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, June 2020
Books we’re reading this month … The Life of V. Gordon Childe; The Tragedy of US Science; Four Billion Years of Life; Marx and Climate Crisis; Tell the Bosses We’re Coming; Essays on Red Rosa