ERICA CIRINO – Plastic particles and chemicals pollute all of our bodies. But people living on the fencelines of the fossil fuel, plastic, and waste industries face even more life-threatening pollution.
Tag: World Health Organization
Great Plains Farmers Push Back Against CO2 Pipelines Encroaching on Their Land
LEANNA FIRST-ARAI – Farmers, ranchers, and other rural community members across five Great Plains states and Illinois — many of whom were previously sued by developers of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines wanting to build through their land — are finding their property, safety and livelihoods encroached upon yet again by corporations. This time, they’re coming up against developers, many with fossil fuel ties, who are seeking to cash in on climate solutions tax credits to build a massive network of carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines across the United States.
We Need a Coordinated Global Response to the Pandemic
JERRY TETALMAN – If we are to win the real world game of Pandemic, we must strengthen and reform our global institutions in order to apply a global cooperative response, rather than our current patchwork approach of every country for itself.
Building Social Solidarity Across National Boundaries
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Although there are no guarantees that social movements and enhanced global governance will transform our divided, problem-ridden world, we shouldn’t ignore these movements and institutions, either. Indeed, they should provide us with at least a measure of hope that, someday, human solidarity will prevail, thereby bringing to birth “a new world from the ashes of the old.â€
Intensifying the Threat of Nuclear Devastation is not a Security Strategy
DR. MARC PILISUK – After a war has ended, historians, elected officials, and faith leaders, no less than the people involved, often raise doubts over whether the outcomes were worth the many horrific costs. But mourning diminishes over time and life for the survivors goes on. Such a recovery from destruction is no longer assured or even likely in the age of nuclear weapons. World leaders, however, continue to play the game of war in ways that risk the war that could end life on earth.
Peace on the Korean Peninsula Needs to Be a Priority
KEVIN MARTIN – This year marks the sixth annual edition of coordinated advocacy days calling for peace in Korea. When it first started in 2015, just 12 people participated; the effort has now grown to include more than 200 people. Korean-Americans, the fifth largest Asian-American population in the U.S., are leading the effort and have become more politically engaged than just a few years ago, but everyone in this country, in Asia and around the world, would benefit from a more peaceful, less militarized Korean peninsula.
Trend: Nationalism Declines in Many Countries
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Although, beginning in about 2015, nationalist political parties made enormous advances in countries around the world, more recently they have been on the wane.
The Biden Administration Needs A Kinder, Gentler Foreign Policy
DR. MARC PILISUK – In a world increasingly threatened by nuclear annihilation, there is need for a new vision in which adherence to the values of peace with justice and environmental sustainability are prominent. This goes with support for the international institutions supporting them like the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the International Criminal Court. The outmoded world of aggressive gamesmanship will need dramatic U.S. reformist initiatives if it is ever to change.
Where Does the Democratic Party Stand on War, Peace, and International Relations?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – After nearly four years of the Trump administration, U.S. voters have a pretty good idea of the policies that the President and his Republican allies champion when it comes to America’s dealings with other nations. These policies include massive increases in military spending, lengthy wars abroad, threats of nuclear war, withdrawal from climate and nuclear disarmament treaties, a crackdown on refugees, and abandonment of international institutions. But what about the Democrats?
Humans Are an Endangered Species: Will They Act to Save Themselves?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Although there is not much time left before the world succumbs to one or more catastrophes, human beings have been able to alter their behavior and institutions. Let’s hope they will rouse themselves and do so again.
Newsweek: ‘National Security’ is Too Crude to Protect Us From Pandemics. It’s Time to Shift to Human Security Instead
JONATHAN GRANOFF and BARRY KELLMAN – As the coronavirus pandemic spirals around the world, and as militaries lie helpless before it, it’s appropriate to ask whether we would be better off if more resources and attention were pooled and devoted to addressing threats to human security.
Governments Have ‘Historic Opportunity’ to Accelerate Clean Energy Transition, IEA Says
CHLOE FARAND – IEA head Fatih Birol is calling on heads of state and international financial institutions to make coronavirus recovery plans sustainable.
It’s Time to Try Fossil-Fuel Executives for Crimes Against Humanity
KATE ARONOFF – It isn’t hyperbole to say that fossil-fuel executives are mass murderers. We should put them on trial for crimes against humanity.
The United States is First in War, But Trailing in Crucial Aspects of Modern Civilization
LAWRENCE WITTNER -Maintaining the U.S. status as “No. 1†in war and war preparations comes at a very high price. That price is not only paid in dollars—plus massive death and suffering in warfare―but in the impoverishment of other key sectors of American life. After all, this lavish outlay on the military now constitutes about two-thirds of the U.S. government’s discretionary spending. And these other sectors of American life are in big trouble.
Depleted Uranium Weapons Leave Shameful Legacy of Radioactive Death
BARBARA KOEPPEL – Although the United States and its allies call their newest weapons conventional, which means non-nuclear, the truth is more complicated. Scientists I interviewed here in the United States, and in Canada, Europe, and Lebanon describe this latest generation of weapons as radioactive and chemically poisonous. While not nuclear, they leave high levels of uranium in their wake. And it’s now documented that cancer and birth defects associated with exposure to radiation have soared in countries where the United States and its allies have waged wars since the early 1990s.
Fukushima Baby Milk Formula Declared Unfit by China
JOHN LAFORGE – Chinese authorities seized more than 881 pounds of baby milk formula that had been imported from Japan because it had been produced in areas known to be heavily contaminated with radioactive material emitted by three damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi complex. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that quarantine officials said that no excessive radioactive material was found in the formula, but the baby food was sent back to Japan because China has had a ban on any imports from the areas around Fukushima.
Your Doctors Are Worried About Nukes
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Your doctors are worried about your health―in fact, about your very survival. No, they’re not necessarily your own personal physicians, but, rather, medical doctors around the world, represented by groups like International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). As you might recall, that organization, composed of many thousands of medical professionals from all across the globe, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for exposing the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons.
Special Report: Food, Beverage Industry Pays for Seat at Health-Policy Table
DUFF WILSON and ADAM KERLIN – As the world’s foremost health agency, the World Health Organization bills itself as an impartial advocate working on behalf of 194 member nations. Its mission as the public health arm of the United Nations ranges from stanching communicable diseases such as malaria and AIDS to battling what the U.N. considers the latest “global epidemic”: chronic ailments such as diabetes and heart disease caused primarily by unhealthy diets.