Nature versus Nurture is still used to broadly categorize the influences on human development, literally, what make us human. It is a question tied with the past (even back to Shakespeare) when the understanding of the genetic blueprint was vague, a gap we’ve filled in with theory. Nature was what you inherited from your parents and nurture was everything else – total environmental influences.
In the wake of the Pope’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si, in which he calls for action on climate change and other environmental challenges, Mike Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus of the Oakland-based energy and environment think-tank The Breakthrough Institute, along with Mark Lynas, campaigner and author of The God Species, have put together a response entitled “A Pope Against Progress.” Herein, I want to focus on this piece as a means of broader response to the general project of ‘ecomodernism’, recentl
“They” in my title refers to the major players in our food system. First is Big Ag—Monsanto and Dow being prominent—and those industrial farms that use Big Ag’s products. Second are large food corporations—General Mills and the like—who churn out processed foods and store their goods in warehouses before moving them to market. Third are those who breed and raise the livestock we eat. Fourth are those who import food from overseas.
We need to ban glyphosate from our own communities as most governments fail to protect citizens Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji
Forward this article to your MEPs and ask them to vote against the re-approval of glyphosate herbicide
Also, please support research of Seralini’s team on analysing glyphosate residues in rats exposed to Roundup here: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Support_Seralini_Team_for_New_GMO_Risk_Research.php
You and I constitute the very system that we blame for the world’s problems, which is starkly illustrated at Christmas when we rob our fragile earth on the high streets in the name of Jesus. What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ this year than to unite under the banner of freedom and justice, and peacefully demonstrate for an end to hunger and poverty across the world, writes Mohammed Mesbahi.
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Asked how human beings get the Ebola virus, National Institutes of Health infectious-disease director Anthony Fauci described, in a radio interview, the scenario of someone in Africa using a fruit bat “for protein nourishment.” The virus spills over to humans from nonhuman animals, to invoke David Quammen’s informative book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.
Organic food is more healthful than conventional food by a long way, many studies are now showing. There are two main reasons why: pesticides and nutrients. Conventionally produced food is sprayed with numerous forms of pesticides, from insecticides to herbicides to fungicides and more. In large scale agriculture, these pesticides are petrochemical derivatives.
The implications of moving towards a global sharing economy are immense, but there are many reasons to embrace this simple concept – which is far more radical and urgent than it may at first seem. As a primer from STWR makes clear, the necessity of sharing the world’s resources is central to the most critical issues that face humanity in the 21st century.
Editor’s note: Oh, the pharm-ag industry. It is a complete nightmare out there, as all of humanity is one giant petri dish and mice lab. Environmental factors, aromatic particles, nanoparticles, endless combusted materials, plastics, ugly chains of percolated fats, GMOs, pesticides, metals, resins, hydrocarbons, the entire mess that is American-European capitalism through chemistry.
If the sharing economy movement is to play a role in shifting society away from the dominant economic paradigm, it will have to get political. And this means guarding against the co-optation of sharing by the corporate sector, while joining forces with a much larger body of activists that have long been calling – either explicitly or implicitly – for more transformative and fundamental forms of economic sharing across the world.
