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Journalist Zoe Blunt on the Great Bear Rainforest
Zoe provides her perspective on things as a journalist as well as a participant in the efforts to save what's left of the Great Bear Rainforest. She goes into more detail about the particular deals made between 'environmental' organizations and the government, and talks of other ecological issues in BC, including the Haida Gwaii, and Burn the 2010 Olympics.
Judy Mills from the Save the Tiger Fund
"We need to start imagining a world without the great predators. It is about to become a reality. I stand before you completely defeated. So little has been done since we exposed this last year. The countries involved - India, China and Nepal - have done so little to curb the slaughter. India will soon have no tigers. It's just a handful of years before you have none left." So began another sad day of reading the news... This quote above was from Belinda Wright, someone living in India who is working to stop the illegal killing of tigers. I got a hold of Judy Mills of the Save the Tiger Fund, which is an organization that, "sponsors effective efforts to stop the killing of wild tigers and to enable wild tigers to recover and flourish, while empowering local people to live in balance with natural resources and providing tangible benefits to them whenever possible.
B. Blake Levitt on Electromagnetic Pollution
B. Blake Levitt is an award-winning journalist who has specialized in medical and science writing for nearly two decades. She has researched the biological effects of nonionizing radiation since the late 1970's, and has authored two books, Cell Towers, Wireless Convenience? or Environmental Hazard?, and Electromagnetic Fields, A Consumer?s Guide To The Issues And How To Protect Ourselves.
Vance Vredenburg on the Declining Amphibian Phenomenon
Vance, who works in the University of California's Department of Integrative Biology, explains some of the facts behind the rapid worldwide decline in amphibian populations. In what has become the Earth's sixth mass extinction crisis, 1 in 3 amphibians are currently at risk of extinction. Because they spend their lives both underwater and on land, and because their skins are highly permeable, they are more susceptible to toxins in the environment than other organisms such as birds or mammals. Many scientists believe that amphibians serve as "canaries in a coal mine," a warning to the rest of us that danger lies ahead.
Gender, Capitalism & Climate Change
Cayetana Carrion, of the Women's Environmental Development Organization, explains how poverty, the lack of access to energy, and the effects of climate change are interlinked, and how the impacts on women’s lives, both in developing and industrialized countries, reflect the gender inequalities prevailing in the social, economic and political arenas. Considering that sexism is so endemic in our world that it can be nearly invisible, the solution to this problem leads us to a questioning of capitalism itself.
The Battered Earth Hits Back
In an informative, frightening, and moving interview, I spoke with Lara Hansen, chief climate change scientist with the World Wildlife Fund. From rapidly melting ice, to dying oceans, to the tipping points of climate collapse, she makes the connections. We are facing unprecedented challenges, none of which have ever been experienced by humans. How do we cope, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, with the recognition that civilization is destroying the planet’s ability to support life? The sheer enormity of the vanishing ice caps and the burning forests, the spreading deserts and the thousands of species that go extinct each year, are too much to wrap one’s mind and heart around.
Water in Peril and Environmental Justice
Mark Mattson, an environmental lawyer with the organization Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, begins by stating that the Great Lakes are on the verge of collapse, and he outlines the main reasons why and how. We explained in detail information on different chemicals in our tap water, in the great lakes, and in the groundwater, the effects on groundwater of the aggregate industry and the bottled water industry, the holistic importance of swamps, creeks, and tributaries to the health of aquifers, and the legal tools citizens have to fight back in the judicial system. |
