ROJAVA, REFUGEES & EU RESPONSIBILITY

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged arms trade, assad, complicity, conflict, daesh, democracy, ecology, ecosocialism, Erdogan, EU, featured, feminism, genocide, ISIS, Kurds, liberation, media, migration, MSM, PKK, radical, refugee, refugees, revolution, Rojava, Syria, turkey, USA Military, war crimes, YPG, YPJ.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

Since Turkey’s aggressive offensive against Rojava, an area of North Eastern Syria, began early in October 2019, at least 160,000 Syrians have fled their homes. A BBC report from the 17th October states that airstrikes and ground attacks have killed civilians on both sides of the Turkey / Syria border and quotes a UNICEF estimate that 70,000 children have already been displaced. This is a tragedy for the Kurdish citizens of Rojava, as well as the broader Middle East, given what the Rojava political project represented. Continue Reading

ROJAVA: A REVOLUTIONARY VISION UNDER FIRE

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged arms trade, assad, conflict, democracy, ecology, ecosocialism, Erdogan, featured, feminism, genocide, ISIS, Kurds, liberation, PKK, radical, refugees, revolution, Rojava, Syria, turkey, USA Military, war crimes, YPG, YPJ.

by Yali Banton-Heath

It’s been over a week since Turkey launched a fresh military offensive targeting Kurdish forces in northeast Syria. The death toll in Rojava is rising, and an exodus of civilians from the area has already reached a mass scale. Conflict in Syria thus deepens, becoming ever more complex, with the Syrian regime armed forces now reported to have moved into Kurdish controlled Manbij in order to counter the Turkish invasion. But what has sparked this new wave of insurgency? What role does the US have? What are the Kurds fighting for? And what significance does this have for the wider global justice movement?

AGAINST POPULAR ENVIRONMENTALISM

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged canada, capitalism, climate change, coffee cups, corporate, ecology, economy, environment, environmentalism, Erik Solheim, Europe, featured, grassroots, India, levy, Mark Fisher, Michael Gove, Naomi Klein, Narmada, Narmada Bachao Andolan, NGO, non profit, Paris Climate Agreement, policy, private sector, profit, science, South Africa, Tar Sands, uk, UN.

by Scott McLaughlan

The earth is facing major – and quite possibly irreversible – environmental catastrophe and ecological breakdown. No need to panic. The Paris climate agreement was a resounding success, was it not?

On the one hand, one set of researchers estimate that at our current trajectory, we have about a 5% chance of remaining below the 2C threshold set out in the Paris agreement in 2015. On the other, a recent audit of the agreement conducted by the United Nations (UN) made it clear that even if the Paris agreement was to be met in full, it won’t be enough of a shift to avoid a total planetary clusterfuck of epic proportions. In his statement on the matter, head of UN Environment Erik Solheim suggested that “if we invest in the right technologies, ensuring that the private sector is involved, we can still meet the promise we made to our children to protect their future”.

What if the “private sector” is the problem? In order to decode the question we need to be clear what the private sector is, what its objectives are, and the kind of power it has over environmental policy.Continue Reading

HOTSPOT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL KILLINGS: THE PHILIPPINES MOVING INTO 2018

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged advance, Bobby Chan, Brazil, Colombi, Dailo Madal, Datu Victor Danyan, duterte, ecology, El Nido, Elioterio Moises, environment, environmental justice, farming, featured, Federico ‘Pande’ Plaza, Global Witness, human rights, impunity, journalism, Karapatan, killing, martial law, murder, Palawan, PAN Asia Pacific, Philippines, politics, Richard Heydarian, Ruben Arzaga, Tony Lavina.

by Yali Banton Heath

A figure which always captures my attention at the end of each year is the number of environment and land defender murders that have taken place over those past dozen months.

2016 was bloody. 200 people lost their lives that year while protecting their land and natural resources. The Guardian and Global Witness have estimated that last year, in 2017, there were 185 such deaths. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, these figures are always underestimations, as in reality far more deaths occur over land and environmental struggles than get reported.

As the country with the third highest environmental defender death toll globally (beneath Brazil and Colombia), the Philippines continues to have the highest environmental activist death toll for any Asian country. The archipelago of over 7,000 islands is seen to be one of South East Asia’s booming economies. But what will 2018 bring with regard to the country’s piss poor human rights and all too frequent environmental killings?Continue Reading

IT’S OUR ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ – WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF IT?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged activism, capitalism, collective action, consumerism, corporate power, crisis, democracy, ecological crisis, ecology, economic crisis, economics, elites, featured, future, GE17, government, housing crisis, individualism, inequality, jeremy corbyn, Labour, mental health, momentum, neoliberalism, organise, Oxford Dictionaries, political apathy, political parties, politics, possibility, poverty, snap election, society, technology, tuition fees, uk, wage stagnation, westminster, word of the year, young people, youth culture, youth engagement, youth politics, youth turnout, youthquake.

by Bradley Allsop

Young people can’t catch a break. On the one hand, we’re scolded and ridiculed for our apparent lack of engagement with traditional political institutions, which is generally assumed to be a result of our ‘laziness’ or ‘apathy’, with our disillusionment and distrust with politicians that have continually failed us apparently precluding our ‘right to complain’. On the other hand, when we do engage politically, in those rare moments when we do seek to take an active role in our futures, we’re painted as thuggish, fragile or naïve. In short, the message we continually get is: “engage – but not like that!”

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH: THE MYTH AND THE PARADOX

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged climate, climate change, climate crisis, david martin, ecology, economics, economy, environment, environmental, environmental sustainability, environmentalism, european committee on international trade, european union, fossil fuels, growth, hinkley point, MEP, molly scott cato, sustainability, sustainable, sustainable growth, trident.

by Olivia Hanks

The graph that emerged recently showing the unprecedented fall in global sea ice coverage was a chilling sight for many. Not, though, for Labour MEP David Martin, author of a European Committee on International Trade document celebrating climate change as creating new opportunities for the economic development of the Arctic”.

The comment, spotted and lambasted by Green MEP Molly Scott Cato, might seem extreme in its suicidal logic: we’re burning down the house, but look, we can use the newly exposed rafters for more firewood!

THE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS IS A CRISIS OF RACE

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged #shutdown, animal produce, anthropocene, biodiversity, black bodies, black lives matter, blmuk, brown bodies, capitalism, climate change, climate crisis, climate migrants, co2 emissions, contaminated water, crisis of race, deforestation, development, ecology, environmental racism, ethnicity, Flint, g20, holocene, industrial growth, industrialisation, london, london city airport, mass extinction, migrants, oil, paris climate change, plastic pollutants, race, racism, sea levels, theresa may, ukblm, working class.

by Emmanuel Agu

Perhaps not in its inception, though undeniably, the climate change crisis is one of race. The protest today launched by the UK chapter of the Black Lives Matter (BLMUK) stands as a call to arms in opposition of worrying statistics of the UK’s Influence on both global climate change and the local effects — highlighting the disproportionate nature of these adverse affects on communities of colour in the west and world wide. Continue Reading

HOW CAN WE LEARN TO IDENTIFY WITH OUR PLANET?

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Inter|national and tagged activism, anthropocene, Arne Naess, climate change, COP21, deep ecology, earth, eco, ecology, environment, humanity, Kris Kelvin, philosophy, planet, politics, sci-fi, science, science fiction, Solaris, Stanislaw Lem.

by Liam Hawkes

I haven’t read a lot of science fiction. I have only heard of a handful of authors, and probably couldn’t name many of their books. But as soon as I turned the first page of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, I was hooked. His beautiful philosophical musings – in Bill Johnston’s English translation – about the nature of consciousness, perception, and the environment struck a chord with me. Which started me thinking about how we interact with our own environment here on Earth, and how perhaps we could benefit from a revaluation of our ideals. Continue Reading

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, CORBYN IS NOT A GREEN

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged austerity, caroline lucas, Caroline Russell, Citizen Income, clean coal, coal mines, decentralisation, ecology, fossil free, Gatwick, Green Party, greens, growth, Heathrow, jeremy corbyn, Labour, Lesley Grahame, neoliberalism, policy, pollution, sustainability, Unite.

by Rowan van Tromp and Lesley Grahame

As Caroline Lucas so eloquently put it, “Climate change is not just another issue that we add to a list of policy areas, it’s the lens through which we see everything, and there is no evidence yet, that that kind of understanding is in Jeremy or indeed the rest of the Labour Party”. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party is something that offers hope to all of us who oppose the neoliberal religion and the brutality of the current government. But even if Corbyn can help break the consensus over austerity, he is both unable and unwilling to promote true ecological sustainability, something at the core of all Green policy.Continue Reading

ecology

ROJAVA, REFUGEES & EU RESPONSIBILITY

ROJAVA: A REVOLUTIONARY VISION UNDER FIRE

AGAINST POPULAR ENVIRONMENTALISM

HOTSPOT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL KILLINGS: THE PHILIPPINES MOVING INTO 2018

IT’S OUR ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ – WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF IT?

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH: THE MYTH AND THE PARADOX

THE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS IS A CRISIS OF RACE

HOW CAN WE LEARN TO IDENTIFY WITH OUR PLANET?

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, CORBYN IS NOT A GREEN

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