Progressive Commentary Hour – 12.29.15

Professor Henry Giroux holds the Global Television Network Chair of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Ontario Canada. He was previously the Waterbury Chair Professor at Penn State University and Director of the Forum in Education and Cultural Studies. Professor Giroux is a leader in the field of critical and public pedagogy which describes the nature of spectacle in our new media, body politic and corporate education. He is a prominent advocate of radical democracy, which opposes the powers of neoliberalism, corporatism, and religious fundamentalism that diminishes our sense of civic virtue, free-thought and well being. He has also been named among the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern Period. Henry has authored many books including “Disposable Futures” and more recently this month “America’s Addiction to Terrorism”. His website is HenryAGiroux.com

Guggie L. Daly – The Religion of Anti-Science Fanaticism

I’ve said it before and will say it again. We all need to work together to call people out when they toss around the term “anti-science” or when they claim they “believe in the science.” For too long, we have accepted the misapplication of this anti-science term instead of rightly questioning those throwing it around. sci·ence (sīəns/noun): the intellectual and practical …

William Lynn – Setting aside half the Earth for ‘rewilding’: the ethical dimension

A much-anticipated book in conservation and natural science circles is EO Wilson’s Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, which is due early next year. It builds on his proposal to set aside half the Earth for the preservation of biodiversity. The famous biologist and naturalist would do this by establishing huge biodiversity parks to protect, restore and connect habitats at …

Research Confirms Hydroelectric Dams Not Environmentally Friendly After All – Sarah Lazare

A new study by University of East Anglia researchers confirms what numerous Indigenous communities have long charged: gigantic hydroelectric dam construction projects are not environmentally friendly, as proponents claim, but in fact pose a profound threat to biodiversity and life in the Amazon. Widespread Forest Vertebrate Extinctions Induced by a Mega Hydroelectric Dam in Lowland Amazonia was published Wednesday in the …

Unregulated Capitalism Is Destroying the Planet

We are in the middle of the first great mass extinction since the end of the age of the dinosaurs. That’s the conclusion of a shocking new study published Friday in a journal called Science Advances. The study, which was conducted by a group of scientists from some of the United States’ leading universities, found that over the past century-plus, vertebrate species …

Biodiversity reduces human, wildlife diseases and crop pests

With infectious diseases increasing worldwide, the need to understand how and why disease outbreaks occur is becoming increasingly important. Looking for answers, a team of University of South Florida (USF) biologists and colleagues found broad evidence that supports the controversial ‘dilution effect hypothesis,’ which suggests that biodiversity limits outbreaks of disease among humans and wildlife. The paper describing their research …