For Unity and Mobilization of peoples For Life and Commons, social and environmental Justice Against Commodification of Nature and « Green economy One month before the United Nations Conference Rio+20, peoples of the world don’t see any positive advances in the...
technology
Love and Its Discontents: Irony, Reason, Romance | by Eva Illouz
...in my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love. Like falling in love. Do the young still fall in love, or is that mechanism obsolete by now, unnecessary,...
The key to ending the race to the bottom
A spectre starting to haunt the international labour movement — a spectre of a descent into barbarism. It is the image of a possible future, reflected in signs such as South Africa’s Olympians marching proudly in London in national colours, made in China, and in the...
Productivity is rising even as wage share dips, data show
Last week, the Reserve Bank (SARB) issued its latest Quarterly Bulletin. It covers economic development in South Africa up to June 2011 and economic prospects for the coming period, as the SARB views it. As usual, the bank also discussed developments in labour...
Durban COP17: failures in the making | by Patrick Bond
The failure of Durban’s COP17 – a veritable “Conference of Polluters” – is certain, but the nuance and spin are also important. Binding emissions-cut commitments under the Kyoto Protocol are impossible given Washington’s push for an alternate architecture that is also...
The climate change government White Paper: the right colour for South Africa? | by Jacklyn Cock
The South African government’s climate change policy is rooted in a green neoliberal capitalism: reliance on market mechanisms, technological innovation and expanding markets. Underlying all these strategies is the broad process of commodification: the transformation...
The Triumph of King Coal: Hardening our coal addiction | by Fred Pearce
Despite all the talk about curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the world is burning more and more coal. The inconvenient truth is that coal remains a cheap and dirty fuel –and the idea of ‘clean’ coal remains a distant dream.This year’s UN climate negotiations are in...
Carbon trading in Africa: Who will benefit? | by Wally Menne
History is littered with the fallout from failed financial schemes that have resulted in massive losses for ordinary people and private institutions, whose investments were plundered by unscrupulous consultants and bankers. Such economic crimes have commonly been...
Nuclear power for South Africa? | by Peter Becker
The South African government is planning to order six nuclear reactors at an estimated cost of R1 trillion. What would the consequences of this be?Before we can understand this, we need to have some other plan to compare it to, which requires an understanding of how...

