CounterCurrents: The More Deforestation The More We Increase Risks For Food Production, Climate Denial And Mis-Education From Mark Lynas

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Binu Mathew
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Saudi-Led Air War In Yemen Enters Second Week
By Niles Williamson

http://www.countercurrents.org/williamson030415.htm

As Saudi-led air strikes continued throughout Yemen on Thursday military forces loyal to former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, who are backing the Iranian supported Shiite Houthi militia, seized control of the presidential palace in the southern port city of Aden


Iran Makes Sweeping Concessions To US In Nuclear “Framework” Deal
By Keith Jones

http://www.countercurrents.org/jones030415.htm

Iran and the P-6—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany—announced Thursday that they have finalized the “parameters” for an agreement to “normalize” Iran’s civil nuclear program. Reached after eight days of heated bargaining, during which time the US twice threatened to quit the talks, yesterday’s agreement will form the basis for a final agreement to be reached no later than June 30


Al Shabaab Benefited From Western Destruction Of Libyan State
By Robert Barsocchini

http://www.countercurrents.org/barsocchini030415.htm

Al Shabaab, the Islamic terrorist group that has just laid siege to a Kenyan university, killing nearly 150 people, benefited from the 2011 Western aggression that backed al Qaeda and affiliated militias to destroy the state of Libya


Israel As The Crashed Germanwings Airbus A320
By Alan Hart

http://www.countercurrents.org/hart030415.htm

Though it is provocative and contentious I think my headline is appropriate for an article about an Israel in the process of committing suicide. I'd also like readers to know that the inspiration for my headline was an observation made by Uri Avnery, the Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. In a post which called for the formation of an Israeli Salvation Front, he wrote: "The country is in existential danger. Not from the outside, but from the inside." (That's the way it was for the passengers and crew on Germanwings Flight 9525)


Climate Denial And Mis-Education From Mark Lynas
By Bill Henderson

http://www.countercurrents.org/henderson030415.htm

"We must reclaim the climate debate from the political extremes." In his latest Guardian Comment-is-free op-ed, part of the Guardian's esteemable Keep it in the Ground climate series, Mark Lynas submits a howling clanger, commits a serious mistake that will surely come back to haunt him and diminish his hard earned credibility as climate pundit extraordinaire. Lynas attacks Naomi Klein and the anti-GMO and nuclear activists who have always been against the unfettering of the global economy. He does not lead in detailing how rational-comprehensive planning to achieve needed emission reduction must now trump market-based governance if this particular political economy, civilization, or even humanity itself are to survive


Sing Another Song
By Kathy Kelly

http://www.countercurrents.org/kelly030415.htm

Recognizing our need to support one another, to overcome the scourges of our time, to pick up a pace commensurate to the needs of those surrounding us, focused on our sick society with the same determination to heal that we would bring to a very sick child, we all have the task of going beyond our places of comfort, of escaping the stable and trotting if we can't manage to gallop, of building new affinities in which to imagine and then co-create a better world. I hope the Pope will pick up the scent of spring renewal, maybe even imagine a Kentucky Derby, as he prepares to speak a clarion and expansive wake-up call, calling us to sing another song, a new song: just as we've called to him


Cold War 2.0
By William Blum

http://www.countercurrents.org/blum030415.htm

Is there anyone left who still thinks that Barack Obama is some kind of improvement intellectually over George W. Bush? Probably two types still think so: (1) Those to whom color matters a lot; (2) Those who are very impressed by the ability to put together grammatically correct sentences


British Values: Real And Imagined
By Dan Glazebrook

http://www.countercurrents.org/glazebrook030415.htm

David Cameron’s attempts to style himself as the latest incarnation of a long tradition of ‘British values’ of tolerance, democracy and the rule of law is belied by both British history and his own policies. It also plays right into the hands of ISIS


The Enduring Reality Of Government By Wealth And Some Of Its Consequences
By John Chuckman

http://www.countercurrents.org/chuckman030415.htm

So here is America, self-proclaimed land of the free, mired in a vast situation where it works to suppress democracy, supports tyrants, and supports aggressive war because its leaders, with no genuine consent of the governed, have put it there, and this is just one of many unhealthy and destructive consequences of wealth’s rule in the United States. Wealth has no inherent interest in democracy, and it is entirely up to a people anywhere to demand respect for democracy through laws


Ukraine's Economy Plunges: So, Who Should Pay For It?
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse030415.htm

According to Ukrainian news-accounts, Ukraine's economy is rapidly falling. On April 2nd was reported that “Sales of new cars in Ukraine fell to the lowest in 15 years,” and that March's sales-volume (number of cars sold) was 23% less than that in February. Even more startlingly, "The general decline in sales of vehicles in Ukraine in January-February 2015 compared to the same period in 2014 was 67%.” So, whenever comparisons go back not merely month-to-month but to the situation prior to the February 2014 coup by the Obama Administration in Ukraine (which was quite violent and surprised EU leaders, who knew nothing about it in advance), this automotive sales-decline is especially stark


Biofuel Crops Replace Grasslands In US
By Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc030415.htm

Clearing grasslands to make way for biofuels may seem counterproductive, and University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study that crops, including the corn and soy commonly used for biofuels, expanded onto 7 million acres of new land in the U.S. over a recent four-year period, replacing millions of acres of grasslands


The More Deforestation The More We Increase Risks For Food Production
By Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc030415A.htm

The more forests we clear, the more we increase risks for food production due to changes in temperature. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization we have already lost 130 million hectares -- an area roughly equivalent to twice the size of France -- of the world's forests just in the past decade. A new research published in Nature Communications provides insight into how large-scale deforestation could impact global food production by triggering changes in local climate


Vote For Dignity
By Kim Scipes

http://www.countercurrents.org/scipes030415.htm

Standing room only for Sue Sadlowski Garza, Karen Lewis, Chuy Garcia, and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders... Jammed Steelworkers union hall as the 10th Ward turns out in celebration, determination to elect Garza alderman on April 7...


Land Acquisition Bill- Misgivings Justified
By Syed Ali Mujtaba

http://www.countercurrents.org/mujtaba030415.htm

Modi government’s determined move to enact the Land Acquisition Bill has caused considerable misgivings in the country, for which there appear to be justifiable reasons