Six new books to read while maintaining social distance. Yellow Earth; Socialist Practice; Friedrich Engels; Chicken History; Traveling Plants; Coal and Empire
Reading, red and green
Archive | Food and Farming
Agribusiness kills
Capitalist agriculture and Covid-19: A deadly combination
A socialist biologist explains the tight links between new viruses, industrial food production, and the profitability of multinational corporations.
Rainforest Resistance
Indigenous people may be the Amazon’s last hope
“We are protecting our land and the life on it. We have to preserve this life for our children’s future.”
Real action needed
Record climate disasters hit Africa … and worse is coming
Nnimmo Bassey: Africa will face calamitous roasting unless radical social and ecological transformation starts soon
Cutting Pollution
In Cuba, greener farming means cleaner rivers
Joint Cuba-U.S. study finds sustainable agriculture in Cuba keeps river pollution far below levels in U.S. waterways
Industrial Disease
Coronavirus: Agribusiness breeds another deadly epidemic
Once again, authorities are scrambling to deal with a fast-spreading disease after the fact, while the systemic causes remain in place.
Deadly gains
A system that steals from our future
“We have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realize economic and development gains in the present”
Healing a metabolic rift
Urban farming as a response to climate-driven food crises: Cuba shows the way
Cuba’s experience suggests that urban farming can help stave off potential famine when the climate crisis cuts food production
Metabolic rifts
When will the world’s wells run out of water?
Within three decades, almost 80% of the lands that depend on groundwater will start to reach their natural irrigation limits as the wells run dry.
Metabolic Rifts
Capitalism ‘Solves’ the Nitrogen Crisis: A Brief History
Part Three of Ian Angus’s examination of the disruption of the global nitrogen cycle by an economic system that values profits more than life itself.
BOOK REVIEW
The Fight Against Monsanto’s Roundup
Activists make the case that this widely used pesticide is wreaking havoc on the earth, killing not just weeds but multiple species, including our own
IN-DEPTH Q&A
What the new IPCC report says about climate change and land
Summary of new UN report that documents the impact of climate change on land and agriculture — and how land misuse accelerates climate change.
Book Review
Confronting the rising tide of marine disease
Warming the climate and polluting the sea is leading to explosive outbreaks of new infectious diseases
Food Sovereignty
On the future of farming and ecomodernist illusions
Some writers imagine that machines can feed the world. They ignore the damage caused by industrial agriculture, and don’t value the work of people who feed most of humanity today.
Six new books
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, June 2019
Marxist environmental essays … Science and the Anthropocene … Is disaster avoidable? … Capitalism at sea … Beef and class struggle … Climate and the biggest volcano
New books for reds and greens
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, May 2019
Two views of food and farming. The origin of climate science denial. The high cost of living well. And a socialist who mostly disagrees with ecosocialism
Metabolic rifts
Nitrogen glut: Too much of a good thing is deadly for the biosphere
Part Two of Ian Angus’s examination of the disruption of the global nitrogen cycle by an economic system that values profits more than life itself.
Metabolic rifts
Nitrogen Crisis: A neglected threat to Earth’s life support systems
Part One of a discussion of the disruption of the global nitrogen cycle by an economic system that values profits more than life itself.
Book review
Biofuels: A pseudo-green scam that only enriches agribusiness
Ethanol and biodiesel boost corporate profits while doing nothing to solve the world’s growing social and environmental crises
Metabolic rift
Broiler chickens: The defining species of the Anthropocene?
Forget jokes about crossing the road. New research identifies chickens as a vivid symbol of the transformation of the biosphere in our time