From the category “creative responses to environmental challenges“: Edible Cutlery. As the world is wasting incredible amounts of mostly fossil-fuel based plastic, and wood-based chopsticks cutlery, a couple of people in India (Bakeys.com)have come up with practical, edible cutlery. Including Forks, Spoons and chopsticks, this cutlery is made from double-dried bread, has a shelf-life more than three years. It also bio-degrades within just a couple of days and is reported to be very tasty. A truly creative response to a considerable problem.
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Problems with Billionaire Philanthropy: The Global Justice Now Report on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Global Justice Now, a NGO based in the UK released a report on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), criticizing it on a number of reasons and questioning their overall positive contribution to society. The report relies solely on publicly available data and statements from experts and insiders of relevant fields. They criticize the BMGF for the following, prime reasons: Lack of democratic accountability and oversight despite being the 12th largest development aid donor Extensive support for an intensified role of multinational corporations worldwide Extensive support for GM research, including financing for GM PR Extensive support for intellectual property…
Anatomy of the Deep State
Many years ago Bill Moyers made a documentary on the Secret Government in the US, a scathing critique of the Executive Branch of that carries out secretive operations contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. In the video interview below, Moyers presents an updated version of this same phenomenon, called “the Deep State.” It’s a fascinating interview with government insider Mike Lofrgren, who has also written this related article for the Bill Moyers program. Here is the original Bill Moyers documentary on the Secret Government:
The other inconvenient truth
Johnathan Foley is director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. He recently received a Heinz Award, which is given annually to people who improve the human condition and environment through work in areas ranging from poverty alleviation to the arts and sciences. The award citation for Foley begins as follows: A scientist on the leading edge of understanding global ecosystems and the study of complex environmental systems, Jonathan Foley, Ph.D., has dedicated his career to examining and finding solutions for the challenge of feeding an ever-growing population while at the same time protecting our planet…
Cognitive biases
An earlier post featured three TED lectures by the behavioural economist Dan Ariely, each of which revealed some of the predictable ways in which the human mind falls short of the ideal of perfect rationality. Ariely is just one of a large and growing number of researchers interested in human irrationality. These researchers come from the fields of cognitive and social psychology, behavioural economics, behavioural ethics, and experimental philosophy. And just as the research in this area is increasing, so too are the findings concerning the full extent of human irrationality. The following extensive list from Wikipedia summarizes some of…
Predictably irrational (TED lectures by Dan Ariely)
Dan Ariely is a behavioural economics researcher, most famous for his two books Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, both of which challenge the assumption of rationality at the heart of classical or “rational” economics. As a behavioural economist, Ariely is interested in showing the multitude of ways in which the human mind departs from the norms of rationality. In this series of TED lectures, Ariely uses optical illusions and humorous anecdotes to expose in a vivid way some of the biases of the human mind and the predictable mistakes most of us make in judgement and decision-making. More…
The future of the human species
Today’s headlines from the political left and right form a striking diptych that surely tells us something about the future of the human species. From Truthout comes this article, The March of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, providing the sombre and sober truth about the state of the environment on planet Earth. While most of us do our best to ignore them, the signs of catastrophic climate change are all around us. This article does a good job of detailing several of the most recent signs and driving home the point that we are probably long past the point of no return…
Max Blumenthal
One of the clearest and bravest voices on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today is that of Max Blumenthal. Whereas many other commentators on this never-ending conflict approach the topic from a moral, political, or historical point of view, Blumenthal’s refreshing perspective is that of a journalist, on assignment, providing an up-close-and-personal account of daily life in Israel and the occupied territories. And unlike other reportage on Israel, Blumenthal speaks frankly without any filters or fears of offending. His most recent book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel has attracted a good deal of attention and deservedly so. This is his…
9/11 conspiracies
A conspiracy is defined as “a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal.” Since nobody doubts that the infamous acts of violence and destruction carried out in Manhattan and Arlington VA on September 11, 2001 were planned by two or more people, it follows that, strictly speaking, no one really doubts that a conspiracy was carried out on that fateful day. This is worth repeating: everyone is a conspiracy theorist (at least in this one sense) with respect to the events of 9/11. Accordingly, the intense and vitriolic debates over 9/11…
Zionist cabal tries to hijack Wikipedia
CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) is the Orwellian name of a pro-Israel media watchdog group that monitors, influences, and seeks to control all mainstream media coverage of issues affecting public opinion on all matters related to Israel. It has some 1000 members and chapters in several major American cities. It’s staffers scour all media coverage of Israel and “engage and directly contact” (some would say “harass”) reporters, editors, producers and publishers concerning what they regard as “distorted or inaccurate coverage” (some would say “the truth”) about Israel. They also offer “factual information” (some would say “propaganda”) to…
Why online privacy matters (TED lecture by Alessandro Acquisti)
In this informative and also humorous TED lecture, Allesandro Acquisti, a researcher on the behavioural economics of privacy, talks about the current state of privacy online and why we should care about it. He concludes his talk with the following thought: “I do believe that one of the defining fights of our time will be the fight for the control over our personal information. The fight over whether big data will become a force for freedom rather than a force which will manipulate us. Right now, many of us do not even know that the fight is going on. But…
Does money make you mean? (TED lecture by Paul Piff)
Paul Piff is a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies how wealth, the perception of being wealthy, and even the type of car one drives all affect people’s moral behaviour. His findings are both fascinating and disturbing. In general, the wealthier people are, the less compassionate they tend to be and they more they feel entitled to their wealth. These finding hold even with one’s “wealth” is clearly undeserved, as in a rigged game of monopoly. There already exists a large body of evidence indicating that the more economic inequality there is…
Scientists begin to consider human extinction
Within the climate science community there is now virtually no debate that human-induced climate change is real and that it poses a serious challenge to the future of human civilization and the existence of many other plant and animal species on this planet. However, there is still plenty of debate among climate scientists over other questions, including the questions of just how grave and how immediate the threat of climate change really is. This recent article by Dahr Jamail is a summary of the some of the latest findings from those scientists who are most alarmed about the current situation.…
Climate change and capitalism
Scientists have been ringing the alarm bells about climate change for decades now, but the message, which is barely filtering through into the public consciousness, has yet to do anything to reverse the destructive path that human civilization is on. There are perhaps many reasons for this, but the crux of the matter is corporate capitalism and it’s control of the political process. Corporations are driven by the logic of maximizing profits at all costs, including costs to society and to the environment, and politicians are driven by the logic of catering to these corporations, on whom their political careers…
Fukushima and the mainstream media
On March 11, 2011, the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was severely damaged as a result of a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that wreaked havoc along parts of the eastern Japanese coastline. Numerous equipment failures at the power plant led to nuclear meltdowns, a rapid loss of coolant inside the facility, and the release of large quantities of radioactive material. It was the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and is one of only two disasters (the other being Chernobyl) to be classified as a Level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale. In the days and weeks following…
The internet and mind-change (lecture by Susan Greenfield)
In this fascinating lecture, Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist and professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University, talks about the effects of a digitized world on the human brain. She argues that the brain’s frontal cortex, the area responsible for abstract thought and analysis, is significantly altered in adolescents growing up with a high exposure to digital technologies. Many of the points made in this talk are consistent with Sherry Turkle’s findings on the happiness of contemporary “digital natives”. This is not only interesting material, it also has practical significance for every parent and every adolescent growing up today. On her website,…
Rationality and the belief in life after death
Anna Corwin is a Ph.D. student in anthropology at UCLA. She has spent a significant amount of time in a Catholic convent trying to figure out why nuns outlive other women and seem to enjoy such healthy aging. She summarizes her observations in this interesting article in Yes! Magazine.” The six tips are as follows: 1. Keep moving – nuns are apparently on their feet most of the day. 2. Practice positive emotions – nuns communicate a sense of love to each other and also in prayer daily. 3. Have a purpose and work for it – many nuns continue…
More guns = more gun violence
While the US has the highest rate of gun ownership of any country in the world, gun ownership and gun control legislation are deeply divisive issues among Americans. Some take pride in their country’s permissive gun culture; others see it as a national disgrace. At the heart of the debate between gun enthusiasts and their opponents lie a few questions of fact, chief among which is the question of whether more guns make people more or rather less safe. Fortunately, there is now enough evidence now to provide a convincing answer to this question. Two recent, independent studies, both published…
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The religion of capitalist economics
In earlier posts we mentioned the Oxfam report entitled “The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all,” which outlined how the annual income of richest 100 people is enough to end global poverty four times over (i.e. while the annual net income of the world’s richest 100 billionaires is about $240 billion, the estimated cost of raising everyone worldwide above the $1.25 a day poverty line is about $66 billion). Recently Oxfam released another report, “Working for the Few: Political capture and economic inequality,” which maps the the general distribution of wealth on a global level.…
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