Economic Update – System Toxicity – 08.16.15

Updates on China’s currency moves, UK’S Corbyn like US Sanders, adjuncts unionize, Pepsi and Coke offer self-serving health advice, Rand Paul’s misunderstanding of economics. We answer questions about what happened to US real wages from 1974 to 2014. We analyze why no consensus about global warming, what are toxic effects of rising inequality, and role of psychologists in advertising.

Vandana Shiva – Get the GMO Out of My Mustard

India is the home of oilseed diversity—coconut, groundnut, linseed, niger, mustard and rapeseed, safflor, sesame. Our food cultures have evolved with our biodiversity of oilseeds. Sarson is called “Sarsapa” and “Rajika” in Sanskrit. Diverse Varieties of Sarson are are grown and used in India, including Krsna Sarsapa (Banarsi Rai), Sita Sarsapa (Pila Sarson), Rakta Sarsapa (Brown Sarson), Toria, and Taramira. …

Josh Schlossberg – The Bio-Massters: If You Build It, They Will Cut and Cut and Cut B

Generating biomass energy doesn’t result in more logging, according to the biomass industry, whose spokespersons claim facilities only make use of “waste” wood already coming from existing logging operations. Ron Kotrba, Senior Editor for Pellet Mill Magazine, wrote in the May/June 2015 issue that biomass is the “most unlikely of the forest products to drive the general practice of forestry …

Barbara Loe Fisher – India Still Reporting Cases of Polio-like Acute Flaccid Paralysis

India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has reported that it has investigated approximately 18,000 cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) in the country since January 2015 as part of its national polio surveillance program, established in 1997, and that all of the cases have tested negative for poliovirus. Some 50,000 cases of AFP are being detected annually in India.12 …

Amanda Froelich – Statistics says that by 2100, the human population will exceed 11.2 billion and will continue to rapidly increase. With this huge increase in numbers, it is important to educate and create awareness to prepare.

Is the world really overpopulated, or are humans just utilizing resources at an unsustainable rate in irresponsible fashion? Debate persists, but what is known is that by the year 2100, the population of humans on planet Earth is expected to be at an all-time high of 11.2 billion.  Reported by Upriser, the number of people on Earth is expected to grow …

Impact of Rapid Urbanization on Health by CESAR CHELALA

Rapid urbanization has significant repercussions on migrants’ health. The increasing movement of people from rural to urban areas often alters the characteristic epidemiological disease profile of the country, and at the same time new diseases appear or old ones reemerge. Such is the case of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Urbanization is also associated with changes in diet and exercise that …

Bangladesh Cuts Hunger Rates in Half By Supporting Small Farmers and Women – Christina Sarich

Once a recipient of food donations from around the world, Bangladesh has now become a model for reducing food hunger. By supporting small farms and women, the country has reduced the number starving citizens significantly. A recent UN report outlines how Bangladesh, a South Asian country who was once among the poorest in the world, has turned the corner when it …

BP Data Suggests We Are Reaching Peak Energy Demand – Gail Tverberg

Some people talk about peak energy (or oil) supply. They expect high prices and more demand than supply. Other people talk about energy demand hitting a peak many years from now, perhaps when most of us have electric cars. Neither of these views is correct. The real situation is that we right now seem to be reaching peak energy demand through low …

A “Secular ISIL” Rises In Southeast Asia By Andrew KORYBKO

A triad of Great Power interests intersects in the confined area of the India-Myanmar border, and each actor has differing objectives, motivations, and apprehensions. When one includes Myanmar itself into the foray, a ‘quarrelling quartet’ of contradictory trajectories emerges: Myanmar: Internal Balancing Beginning with the country most adversely affected by domestic and foreign militancy (as well as the subject of …

The Deadly Duo of Genetically Modified Food and Toxic Pesticides

The Deadly Duo of Genetically Modified Food and Toxic Pesticides Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD Progressive Radio Network, August 12, 2014     After decades of rearing hogs, Danish farmer Ib Borup Pedersen was alarmed the growing incidence of malformations and biological defects among his new born piglets. Deformities included gaps in piglets’ skulls, deformed bones, missing limbs and …