Produce Less – Exploring Degrowth

Mr. President, If you can pardon your son, why can’t you free the Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier? The 80-year-old man, a leader of the American Indian Movement, has been imprisoned for 48 years. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and a heart condition. The FBI framed Leonard Peltier in retaliation for the historic 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. Three years of violence followed this courageous stand for Indigenous rights, with over 60 AIM members and supporters murdered. Despite a large FBI presence, nothing was done to stop these murders and even more numerous assaults.

Shortly before midnight on December 2, 1984, a terrible cloud, consisting of tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate (MIC), along with other chemicals, began to leak into the atmosphere from the storage tank of the U.S. multinational corporation Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)’s pesticide plant on the outskirts of Bhopal in central India. The immediate consequences of the mass poisoning were catastrophic. As many as 10,000 people are believed to have died within three days of the leak. As the world marks the 40th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, what lessons should we take from what happened on that awful night? I think perhaps there are at least three important ones.

As someone who has been exploring the human relationship to money and work, I’ve always had a quiet tension in my mind as I move between the personal world and the one we need to build. It has been well established that we urgently, desperately need to change the growth-at-all-costs paradigm of capitalism that we are operating under. The consequences of the climate crisis become ever more clear, wars wage on, and the same cycle of austerity is imposed as the answer for conserving security. Like many, I’ve been looking towards the degrowth, post-growth, and economic justice movements for answers. The umbrella of policy proposals and bolstering already implemented and successful reforms seem to show that they will provide the just transition we need. But this article is not about that — but rather the possible tension in values, and the versions of ‘The Good Life’ imposed by growth that is still deeply embedded throughout the world.

As Mozambique faces a new wave of repression following disputed elections, it’s clear that the FRELIMO-led government’s response is a continuation of its entrenched hold on power. The revolutionary origins of FRELIMO, once a proud symbol of liberation from Portuguese colonialism, have long been diluted by neoliberal policies, corruption, and alignment with international finance capital. In recent years, Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s resource-rich northern province, has become a target for corporate giants. Cabo Delgado has long been neglected and underdeveloped, with locals facing high rates of illiteracy, unemployment, and poverty. However, this region is anything but forgotten by corporate interests that have dispossessed thousands of their land and livelihoods to make way for lucrative gas extraction projects. The gas industry has left a trail of environmental degradation, destroyed livelihoods, and ongoing conflict that has turned nearly a million Mozambicans into refugees in their own country. Communities once connected to their land and resources are now subjected to relentless corporate greed, which has driven Mozambique deeper into debt without delivering any tangible benefits to the local population. The exploitation of Mozambique’s resources, with the complicity of international finance and local elites, exemplifies deep-seated issues that stem from neo-colonial states across the continent.

The BHP Group has become a master of the greenwashing experiment, an adept promoter of sham environmental responsibility and it transpired recently, a ruthless negotiator and litigant over contentious claims. After nine years of negotiations and attritive legal proceedings, BHP has reached a settlement with Brazilian authorities regarding its role in the Fundão tailings dam collapse in Mariana, Minas Gerais. Taking place on November 5, 2015, the results were catastrophic to human life and nature, leaving 19 people dead and spilling toxic sludge over some 700 kilometres of land. The Samarco-owned facility, which held something like 26,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of tailings (50 million cubic metres), was a joint venture between BHP and Vale. In addition to killing 14 company employees and five residents, the released tailings rapidly reached Bento Rodrigues, and part of the communities of Paracatu de Baixo and Gesteira and, for good measure, flooded the centre of the town of Barra Longa.

Thirteen years on from the catastrophic triple explosions and reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in NE Japan, emergency responders are still trying to observe and examine the melted fuel under the reactors (sometimes called “corium”). Contractors from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) have repeatedly failed in attempts to robotically collect a mere three-grams (one 10th of an ounce) of the corium from reactor 2, a project that started three years ago.

Odisha is home to abundant reserves of high-grade natural resources like iron, bauxite, chromite, and manganese ore, along with other valuable minerals such as coal, limestone, dolomite, tin, nickel, vanadium, lead, graphite, gold, gemstones, diamonds, and decorative stones. The people of Odisha are neither shareholders nor beneficiaries of the state’s vast mineral resources. Ironically, the poorest of the poor reside in the mineral-rich regions of Odisha, highlighting the stark inequality in the distribution of wealth and benefits from these natural assets. The paradox of plenty defines the state of development in Odisha where poverty and hunger continue to be the national and international news.

On September 19 nearly 100 civil society representatives, farmer organizations, scientists and academics of Nigeria issued a statement calling upon their government to discontinue plans to introduce GM potatoes and to reject all GM crops. These critics drew attention to similar plans to introduce GM potatoes elsewhere in Africa too and said that potato farmers would be devastated if these plans went ahead.

Critics Of Israel Say They Know The Answer. Journalist and author Alison Weir has raised concerns over what she describes as an unsettling visit from the FBI, alleging that agents showed up at her home unannounced to question her. In a public statement on November 18, Weir revealed that she was approached by agents who informed her the visit was connected to a matter involving Press TV, the Iranian state-owned news outlet. She said she asked agents to allow a family member to be present before continuing the discussion, during which she learned the agents had been directed by one of their offices to “check in with certain people.” The encounter has drawn attention amid growing fears among advocates for Palestinian rights, who say federal authorities are targeting individuals critical of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The FBI has declined to comment on the visit or clarify whether it is part of a larger investigation.