Three Names the World Should Know

06/11/2007 Stephen CANADA, developing world, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News

By Stephen Leahy

Nov 5 (IPS) – “I am staying in Afghanistan to prove that women are brave and strong,” says Afghan journalist Farida Nekzad.

Nekzad has been threatened with death even as she attended the funeral of Zakia Zaki, a female radio broadcaster murdered by gunmen as she slept with her eight-month-old son at her home near Kabul in June.

“I was given asylum by some countries but I am not going to hide,” declared Nekzad, the current editor in chief of the Pajhwok News Agency, the sole independent news agency in Afghanistan.

“If I leave, the next woman journalist will become a target,” she told IPS.

Nekzad was in Toronto last Thursday to receive one of this year’s three International Press Freedom Awards from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). CJFE promotes and defends free expression and press freedom and grants thousands of dollars to aid persecuted journalists in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Iraqi journalist Sahar Al-Haideri, shot and killed on Jun. 7 this year by four unidentified gunmen in Mosul, and Canadian journalist Ali Iman Sharmarke, who was killed by a remote-controlled landmine in Somalia Aug. 11, were the other award recipients. Continue reading →

Make Climate Change Art, Not War

21/10/200722/10/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Culture, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media

“Unlike the scientist, we artists have the freedom to weave facts, opinions, thoughts, emotion and color all together. We can instill passion and motivate change. That is our palette.” — Visual artist Franke James

Toronto artist Franke James is doing great work both in expressing her concern and understanding in her colourful and insightful visual essays about climate change but also as a teacher of others in workshops for young artists — Six Tools to Make Climate Change Art.

Artists are desperately needed to help us understand the impacts of climate change at an emotional level and to inspire action. Information and knowledge are not nearly enough. As Franke wisely notes:

“Think of this: If any one of us stands up and tells a group an idea we have, it may spread — or it may disappear into the ether. A far more effective way to make an idea spread is to give it ‘tangible form’.” Continue reading →

Facebook: Last Hope for Environment?

14/09/200728/09/2010 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News, Pollution and Toxics, Science, sustainability

Global trends indicate a looming environmental catastrophe, and engaging high school students around the world may be the only hope.

By Stephen Leahy

Sept 14’07 (IPS)
Governments, the corporate sector and media continue to champion industrial and economic growth at the cost of escalating impacts on the environment, concludes the latest report from the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, “Vital Signs 2007-2008“.

For a number of years, the “Vital Signs” report has tracked 44 trends that are shaping the future, and they document a record level of industrial growth, says Erik Assadourian, Vital Signs project director.

“‘Vital Signs’ also documents the escalating impacts of such growth on the environment,” Assadourian told IPS in an interview from Barcelona.

The scale of the environmental crisis, in which catastrophic climate change is just one of many, is undermining the ecosystems that support life on Earth.

“Climate change and other environmental problems are symptoms of the root problem, which is the obsession with consumerism,” he said.

Vital Signs reports that in 2005, more wood was removed from forests than in any previous year. Fossil fuel usage dumped 7.6 billion tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Meat production hit a record 276 million tonnes (43 kilogrammes per person) in 2006. Rising meat consumption is driving rising soybean demand to feed cattle, which in turn is a driver of deforestation as tropical forests are turned into soy fields.

And on it goes: global seafood consumption breaks records, steel and aluminium production too. None of this is sustainable — another three or four or five planets would be needed to maintain these levels of production and consumption. Continue reading →

Greenland on Verge of Meltdown

22/08/200706/01/2011 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, Media, News, Science Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Greenland, Greenland ice sheet, NASA

Deniers Jump on NASA Gaff, While Greenland on Verge of Meltdown
By Stephen Leahy

Aug 16, 2007 (IPS) – Scientists warn that climate change tipping points are imminent, and will lead to potentially catastrophic events like a seven-metre sea level rise. Meanwhile, conservatives in the North American media are focusing on a NASA admission of a climate calculation error.

First the error.

Continue reading →

How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy

04/06/200707/08/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News, sustainability

Toward a Green Economy
By Stephen Leahy*

May 31 (IPS) – Humanity is facing historic and truly unprecedented challenges from climate change and the rapid decline of ecosystems that sustain life.

This article is final part of a three-part series published by IPS on natural capital and how future global prosperity and equity can be achieved through the preservation of ecosystems. See Part One: Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy and Part Two: Global Warming is Real But I didn’t Do It

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) found that 83 percent of the planet’s natural systems are in serious decline or on the brink. Adding to this already dire situation are the twin pressures of population growth and increasingly consumptive lifestyles.

Global population is expected to soar from today’s 6.6 billion to 9 billion by 2050. Even though we crossed the point of sustainable use of natural resources in the mid-1980s, many of the 2.4 billion people living in China and India are striving mightily right now to approach the materialistic lifestyle of the average North American.

So how can we find our way around the global calamity the human race seems to be hurtling towards?

“Humanity needs a fundamentally new approach to managing the assets upon which we all depend,” said Janet Ranganathan, director of the People and Ecosystems programme at the World Resources Institute, an environmental group based in Washington.

“We need new ways of making decisions at all levels that fully value ecosystems and the services they provide us,” she said.

Continue reading →

Bio-Pirates of the Pacific

06/04/2007 Stephen Interconnections, Media

A Brazilian publication ‘ambiente’ made this clever graphic to illustrate my Pacific Islanders Preyed on by Bio-Pirates story of a couple of weeks ago.

FYI magazines, newspapers and news websites around the world subscribe to the IPS wire service and stories are translated in different languages. I’ve seen mine in Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Malay , Suomi– it’s a little weird to be honest.

Thanks to Terry Collins for letting me know.

PlayStation 3 vs Global Warming

19/12/200607/01/2007 Stephen CANADA, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News

Stephen Leahy

Dec 18 (IPS) – This was the year that most people in the U.S. and Canada began to take climate change seriously and express hope that their governments would take action to reduce emissions — but it is unclear if they will take action themselves.

Last month, thousands of people stood outside electronics stores for three, four and more days and nights to be the first to spend 600 dollars for the latest electronic video game console, but how many would spend two hours protesting the inaction of their governments on climate change?

“There is increasing public support for action but I’m not sure there’s a willingness to do anything,” said Eileen Claussen of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, a U.S. environmental think-tank working with business leaders and policymakers.

Public opinion polls conducted last fall show that Canadian and U.S. citizens are clearly worried about the impact of climate change on their children and grandchildren. And they know their governments aren’t doing much to reduce emissions, the polls show..

The recent film “An Inconvenient Truth” by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, in which he systematically lays out the enormous body of evidence that the world is becoming dangerously warm due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, is the third-highest-grossing documentary in the United States ever and has been screened around the world.

But experts caution that simply raising public awareness of the problem is not nearly enough.

“The most important action needed is to establish a national policy to reduce emissions,” Claussen told IPS. “Cities, states, industry and business all agree we need a national policy.”

For example, the U.S. retail giant Wal-mart is both insisting that its 30,000 plus suppliers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and also informing people who shop in their stores about the issue, she said.

“But there won’t be a U.S. national emission reduction policy for at least two years and more likely four,” she added — in other words, long after the George W. Bush administration has left office.

— Full story “The Climate Change Tipping Point?”

Contact: writersteve AT gmail . com (no spaces)

Radio Ecoshock — Podcasting Latest Talks by Top Environmental Thinkers

05/12/200605/12/2006 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News, Pollution and Toxics

Hear the latest speeches and interviews with leading environmental thinkers such as Amory Lovins, David Suzuki, George Monbiot along with environmental news and features at Radio Ecoshock. Vancouver’s Alex Smith trolls the media world to find the best enviro talk and puts it together in a slick, professional format. And Smith’s enviro newscasts serves up latest enviro news with a light touch and silly sound affects.

Check it out here.

TRUTH TELLING – JOURNALISTS RISK THEIR LIVES

03/11/200603/11/2006 Stephen developing world, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News

“I am not afraid of being killed,” says Egyptian journalist Abeer Al-Askary

Honouring the Best Who Cover the Worst

By Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Nov 3 (IPS) – “I am not afraid of being killed,” says Egyptian journalist Abeer Al-Askary, who has been repeatedly threatened and beaten by Egyptian government security forces.

“The journey towards full freedom of expression is long and it is difficult,” Al-Askary told IPS.

Al-Askary was in Toronto Wednesday to receive one of this year’s three International Press Freedom Awards from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).

Colombian print and television journalist Hollman Morris and Pakistani writer and photographer Hayat Ullah Khan were the other award recipients.

Khan’s family will receive the 3,000-dollar award because he was abducted on Dec. 5, 2005. His body was found in North Waziristan near Afghanistan on Jun. 16 this year. He had been handcuffed and shot in the head. Pakistani intelligence services are suspected since Khan was kidnapped four days after reporting on and releasing photos about a missile attack on North Waziristan by what may have been a U.S. drone.

— complete story

*Photo Courtesy of Canadian Journalist for Free Expression