Climate change, peak oil and soil depletion will inevitably drive up food prices globally in the future. Some nations are looking to secure their future by investing in farming in developing countries. This can create the possibility of addressing local food shortages and rural development. But when wealthy developed countries (like China, Saudi Arabia, India and Japan) start purchasing land in poor countries (like Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Sudan), it is for growing their own crops.
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Understanding Money as Debt
There are innumerable expert opinions available these days about solutions to our current economic crisis. But are those solutions just band-aid solutions? How did we get here? What is money at its root? What are the problems with interest?
Money As Debt offers a different perspective on the basic principles of the current financial system. Watch the full 80-minute Promises Unleashed series online to better understand the historical
Holiday Travels & H1N1
Here are some helpful tips for travelling this holiday season:
Review international policies. Some countries do screenings and exams at airports, and can quarantine passengers in a hospital or hotel chosen by the government for up to 7 days. Around the holidays, screening procedures (including filling out questionnaires and having your temperature taken) could cause significant delays. At the moment, neither the U.S. nor Canada screen incoming travellers
Trashing Tiger
By Jim Selman | Bio
I have not spent any time at all reading, watching or listening to the media about what are euphemistically referred to as Tiger Wood’s “transgressions”. I haven’t had to: it seems to be on every channel, and the ‘talk of the town’ wherever I go. Whatever the pain and anguish this is causing him and his family, it is disgusting for our voyeuristic nation to be so fixated on what, at the end of the day, have been human foibles for centuries and are commonplace in many parts of the world. I know that celebrity-watching is becoming a growth industry, but have we ever considered why?We seem to put our heroes on pedestals one day and then begin to systematically destroy them the next. None of us are Saints. If we don’t keep our agreements and commitments, we will pay the consequences. But we should be relating to this and stories like it with at least some compassion, rather than self-righteously deciding who is the villain and who is the victim and dramatizing what already is a tragedy into a public spectacle.
I understand that public figures must
Life Expectancy and Income
Statisticians have long seen life expectancy rates as being a superficial measure of longevity and quality of life. We know that life expectancy in Canada, for example, is 82 for a woman and 76.9 for a man. Statistics Canada has been drilling down into this data to look beyond mortality, and has now come up with Disability-Free Life Expectancy (DFLE) figures. DFLE is 68.6 years, which means most people can expect to live almost a decade with a chronic health condition or significant mental or
Destiny
By Shae Hadden
Choose to wait, wish and hope. At the end of your life, when you
reflect on the chance encounters, strange coincidences, unlikely timing,
and uncanny
events you experienced, you may say that all of your ‘bad luck’ was
your ‘destiny’.
Choose to be, do and have. At the end of your life, when you reflect on all the chance encounters, strange coincidences, unlikely timing, and uncanny events you experienced, you may say that all of your ‘good fortune’
Cap and Trade
Annie Leonard, who brought us The Story of Stuff, just released her latest animated online video, The Story of Cap and Trade. It only takes 10 minutes to watch this fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate change solution on the table in Copenhagen and in the halls of Congress. You’ll learn how cap and trade works, who benefits, what the major concepts
Alternative Economic Paradigms: Holiday Alternatives
By Shae Hadden | Bio
Perhaps as a reaction to the annual peak of consumerism (the pre and post-Christmas holiday season sales), I’m thinking these days of ways of alternative non-material gifts for my friends. What comes to mind are the types of things we, in our technology-driven world, may be taking for granted as everyday conveniences. Yet, in many parts of the world, these are considered luxuries.It’s easy enough now to share images and videos of ourselves with either the world at large or a select group of friends and colleagues using sites like Flickr, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Facebook and YouTube. When it comes to gifts for loved ones, creative items
Gimme Shelter
Imagine what it would be like if your world were suddenly thrown into chaos, your home burnt to the ground and you had to flee with only the clothes on your back. You are alone and lost and have to walk for days in search of a place of safety and to escape from the chaos around you…
This is the reality that 1.8 million people have faced in Somalia over the past 20
years. What can we do about it?
The UNHCR (the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees) has launched a new initiative
of
Climate Change: Take Action Canada!
Canada is lagging behind other nations when it comes to addressing climate change. Our country produces less than 1% of its energy from renewable
sources like wind and solar power and only employs a few thousand people. The U.S. is now investing 6x more person to build a clean-energy economy and ‘green’ jobs. And we emit 2 to 3 times more global warming pollution per person than most European countries.
Canadians can help stop climate change by speaking up. Call Prime Minister Stephen