Global debt defaults near milestone
Gavin Jackson and Eric Platt, Financial Times
Global debt markets are on the cusp of an unwelcome development with the number of companies defaulting on their obligations set to reach the century mark, driven largely by struggling US shale gas providers… [sign-in required]
If ‘Life Must Go On,’ Say Groups, France Must Lift Ban on Climate Protests
Jon Queally / Common Dreams, via Truthdig
Ahead of international climate talks which are about to begin in Paris, an international coalition of NGOs, political figures, and civil society groups on Thursday demanded French President François Hollande lift the ban on protests and marches and said officials, despite recent violence, cannot proclaim a “commitment to democracy and freedom” while simultaneously suspending “democracy and freedom.”
In a letter addressed to Hollande, which has also taken the form of an online petition that anyone can sign, the climate justice leaders expressed understanding for how the recent violence in Paris—also mirrored in attacks in Beirut, Ankara, Bamako, and over the skies of Egypt—has made the security situation tense, but indicated the effort to shut down large scale protests is both short-sighted and counter-productive…
The Idea of a Local Economy
Wendell Berry, Orion
A total economy is one in which everything — “life forms,” for instance, — or the “right to pollute” is “private property” and has a price and is for sale. In a total economy significant and sometimes critical choices that once belonged to individuals or communities become the property of corporations. A total economy, operating internationally, necessarily shrinks the powers of state and national governments, not only because those governments have signed over significant powers to an international bureaucracy or because political leaders become the paid hacks of the corporations but also because political processes — and especially democratic processes — are too slow to react to unrestrained economic and technological development on a global scale. And when state and national governments begin to act in effect as agents of the global economy, selling their people for low wages and their people’s products for low prices, then the rights and liberties of citizenship must necessarily shrink. A total economy is an unrestrained taking of profits from the disintegration of nations: communities, households, landscapes, and ecosystems. It licenses symbolic or artificial wealth to “grow” by means of the destruction of the real wealth of all the world…
Pesticide exposure in bumblebees ‘harms pollination’
Helen Briggs, BBC
Bees exposed to nicotine-like pesticides are not as good at pollinating crops, research suggests.
A study found bumblebees collected pollen from apple trees less often when exposed to the chemical, reducing the success of the crop.
Scientists say policymakers should consider the potential impact on agriculture in the debate over the use of neonicotinoid pesticides…
Report Highlights Concerns on Antibiotic-Resistant ‘Superbugs’ in Farm Animals
Gillian Mohney, ABC News
Animals raised with no antibiotics are less likely to contain drug-resistant "superbug" bacteria than those routinely given antibiotics, according to a new report.
Ground beef from conventionally raised cattle — which are given antibiotics to promote growth and reduce disease — were twice as likely to carry drug-resistant bacteria than that from cattle that received no antibiotics, according to findings published this week by Consumer Reports…
Iowa’s Climate-Change Wisdom
Jeff Biggers, New York Times
NEGOTIATORS en route to the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris, scheduled to begin later this month, should take a detour on rural roads here in Johnson County. A new climate narrative is emerging among farmers in the American heartland that transcends a lot of the old story lines of denial and cynicism, and offers an updated tale of climate hope.
Recent polls show that 60 percent of Iowans, now facing flooding and erosion, believe global warming is happening. From Winneshiek County to Washington County, you can count more solar panels on barns than on urban roofs or in suburban parking lots. The state’s first major solar farm is not in an urban area like Des Moines or Iowa City, but in rural Frytown, initiated by the Farmers Electric Cooperative.
In the meantime, any lingering traces of cynicism will vanish in the town of Crawfordsville, where children in the Waco school district will eventually turn on computers and study under lights powered 90 percent by solar energy. Inspired by local farmers, who now use solar energy to help power some of their operations, the district’s move to solar energy will not only cut carbon emissions but also result in enough savings to keep open the town’s once financially threatened school doors.
A glimpse into the promising future of wheat
Katherine Martinko, Treehugger
It has become easy to source locally grown meat, vegetables, fruits and, to some extent, dairy. But when it comes to wheat, it is a much bigger challenge. Wheat production has evolved from local, regional growth along the coasts of the continent in the 18th and 19th centuries, to heavily centralized production in the Midwest. Almost all of the wheat we consume comes from huge mono-crop farms and is processed by only 200 mills in the United States – a drastic drop from the 23,000 mills that once serviced the country in the mid-1800s…
Stephen Jones, director the Bread Lab in Mount Vernon, Washington, is on a mission to change this. He believes that wheat, like wine grapes, has “terroir.” This is the idea that a combination of factors, including soil, climate and sunlight, can give wine – or, in this case, wheat – a distinctive regional flavor. Jones wants Americans to return to a healthier, more varied and robust, local version of wheat that tastes unique depending on where you are…
TTIP talks: EU alleged to have given ExxonMobil access to confidential strategies
Arthur Neslen, The Guardian
The EU appears to have given the US oil company ExxonMobil access to confidential negotiating strategies considered too sensitive to be released to the European public during its negotiations with the US on the trade agreement TTIP, documents reveal…
Two American Answers to the Refugee Question
Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
When Republicans, and a few dozen Democrats, in Congress rose up last week to vote to make it almost impossible for Syrian refugees to enter the United States, President Barack Obama defended his decision to make America a safe haven. He accused those in favor of erecting barriers of being un-American: “Slamming the door in the face of refugees would betray our deepest values. That’s not who we are.”
It’s tempting to believe in Obama’s picture of American history, but it puts something of a rosy gloss on the facts. At several key moments, slamming the door on vulnerable outsiders is precisely what the United States has done. In other words, Obama may have morality on his side, and even the judgment of history, but not necessarily its precedent…
After uproar, German town warms to refugees who took over church
Tina Bellon, Reuters
When Daniela Handwerk looked out of her window earlier this month and saw the church across the street being emptied out and turned into a refugee shelter, she panicked – and she was not alone…
But nearly a month on, the uproar, played up at the start in the German media, has died down and residents are beginning to warm to the refugees, including 20 children, who are camped out in the ochre-colored brick church built in the early 20th century…
