El Niño could be the most powerful on record, scientists say – ‘There is no doubt: It’s coming’

By Rong-Gong Lin II and Rosanna Xia17 November 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – Temperatures in a key location of the Pacific Ocean are now hotter than they ever were in the record 1997 El Niño. Some scientists say the readings show that this year’s El Niño could be among the most powerful on record — […]

Record El Niño set to cause hunger for 10 million poorest, Oxfam warns

By Oliver Milman30 September 2015 (The Guardian) – At least 10 million of the world’s poorest people are set to go hungry this year because of failing crops caused by one of the strongest El Niño climatic events on record, Oxfam has warned. The charity said several countries were already facing a “major emergency”, such […]

Seizing wells and going on strike, Peruvian protesters stand up to Big Oil

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer2 September 2015 (Common Dreams) – Demanding reparations for industrial pollution and adequate compensation for use of native lands, Indigenous activists in Peru shut down 11 wells in an Amazonian oil block on Tuesday. According to the Spanish EFE news agency, native protesters led by the Federation of the Achuar and […]

A global gold rush is decimating South America’s tropical forests – 1680 square kilometers of tropical forest lost in mining sites between 2001 and 2013

  28 July 2015 (Institute of Physics) – A global “gold rush” has led to a significant increase of deforestation in the tropical forests of South America. This is according to a study published in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, which has highlighted the growing environmental impact of gold mining in some of the […]

Primary rainforest cleared for massive palm oil plantations in Peru – 12,188 hectares of standing forest leveled

By John C. Cannon 20 May 2015 (mongabay.com) – More than 9,400 hectares of closed-canopy Amazonian rainforest has been removed for two oil palm plantations in the Peruvian region of Ucayali since 2011, according to scientists working for MAAP, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project. The two plantations are linked to Czech entrepreneur Dennis […]

Graph of the Day: Change in debt-to-GDP ratio in advanced and developing nations, 2007-2014

February 2015 (McKinsey Global Institute) – A new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, Debt and (not much) deleveraging [pdf], examines the evolution of debt across 47 countries—22 advanced and 25 developing—and assesses the implications of higher leverage in the global economy and in specific sectors and countries. The analysis, which follows our July 2011 report […]

WikiLeaks releases secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) investment chapter – ‘Finally everyone can see for themselves that the TPP would give multinational corporations extraordinary new powers that undermine our sovereignty’

WASHINGTON, D.C., 25 March 2015 (Public Citizen) – The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Investment Chapter, leaked today, reveals how the pact would make it easier for U.S. firms to offshore American jobs to low-wage countries while newly empowering thousands of foreign firms to seek cash compensation from U.S. taxpayers by challenging U.S. government actions, laws, and […]

Indigenous Peruvians win Amazon pollution payout from U.S. oil giant – ‘My son and daughter died vomiting blood’

By Dan Collyns5 March 2015 Lima (The Guardian) – Members of the indigenous Achuar tribe from the Peruvian Amazon have won an undisclosed sum from Occidental Petroleum in an out-of-court settlement after a long-running legal battle in the US courts. They sued the company in 2007, alleging it knowingly caused pollution which caused premature deaths, […]

Most Americans see combating global warming as a moral duty – ‘When climate change is viewed through a moral lens it has broader appeal’

By Bruce Wallace; Editing by Stuart Grudgings27 February 2015 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A significant majority of Americans say combating climate change is a moral issue that obligates them – and world leaders – to reduce carbon emissions, a Reuters/IPSOS poll has found. The poll of 2,827 Americans was conducted in February to measure the impact […]

Deforestation puts cultural survival of forest-dependent peoples at risk

10 December 2014 (mongabay.com) – Forest-dependent peoples face grave threats from deforestation and other depredations, warns a new report that urges greater recognition of traditional land use and support of community-led initiatives to fight forest loss. The report, published Monday during climate talks in Lima, is based on research by dozens of indigenous and forest […]

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