Plastics – Destroying Our Pretty Blue Planet
An anonymous ‘they’ are accused of damaging our pretty blue planet, but we know for certain it is not ‘they’. It is ‘Us’. ‘We’. It’s we who are ravaging and…
Environmental Protection
Reflections on Earth Day
Are you personally or people who you know placing too many demands on our planet to provide relative extravagance and indulgences for us? After all, the world is expected to…
Earth Day Greetings!
As I bicycled to work this cool, breezy spring morning in the Pacific Northwest, I admired the vibrant growth of multitude of plants reaching for the sun, and spring flowers seeking bees and…
Philippines Court Decision Gives Great Hope to Efforts to Save Farmers and Consumers from GM Crops and Food
At a time when there is increasing concern that powerful GM crop lobbyists backed by enormous resources of giant multinational companies may be able to bulldoze food safety and environmental…
Rejecting the Facade: Unveiling the Ecological Toll of War and Genocide
As Earth Day approaches, prepare for the annual spectacle of U.S. lawmakers donning their environmentalist hats, waxing poetic about their love for the planet while disregarding the devastation their actions…
22 Ways to Create the Economy that Protects Both People and Environment
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders, Man over Machine, A Day in…
Coleridge’s poem and our water crisis
Mr R Chidambaram, a major figure in India’s nuclear weapons programme, quoted from poet Coleridge’s line Water Water everywhere and not a drop to drink, at a conference on water…
What’s So Green About Burning Trees? The False Promise of Biomass Energy
Bioenergy companies are clear-cutting American forests to heat and electrify Europe. This broken system harms public health, the environment, and the climate. Renewable energy comes from matter that nature produces…
New Delhi Most Polluted City in The World, India Third Most Polluted Country
New Delhi, 19 March 2024: The 6th Annual World Air Quality Report finds New Delhi to be the most polluted capital city in the world, while India ranks as the…
Did Agasthya Muni have a solution for the World’s Water Conflicts?
Sixth Abhee Dutt Mazumdar Memorial Lecture, Kolkata, 26 July 2019 INTRODUCTION Honouring Abhee Dutt Mazumdar It is a great honour to deliver the Abhee Dutt Mazumdar Memorial Lecture this year.…
Dr S Faizi Receives 2024 Planet Earth Award
Corvallis, OR — The Alliance of World Scientists (AWS) is pleased to announce the six recipients of the 2024 Planet Earth Award: Dr. S Faizi, Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Denise…
Tigers and Goats–Protection of Wild Life can be in Harmony with Sustainable Livelihoods of Villagers
While there is widespread and increasing support for the protection of wild life, avoidable obstructions have been created by the insistence of some conservationists and project authorities on pursuing conservation…
Global Pet Craze Is Becoming a Major Contributor to the Extinction Crisis
In 2019, an independent international science group—the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services—announced that about 1 million species around the world are threatened with extinction. The number, based…
67 Countries Banned This Toxic Product –But the EPA Says: “Go for it!”
Sixty-seven (67) countries have banned paraquat, a toxic chemical used to control weeds that was discovered in the 1950s subsequently widely used throughout the world in agriculture. Despite a deadly…
Environment Education In A Government School: My experiences at Hengavalli
Government Higher Primary School, Hengavalli, is located at a village named Hengavalli, in Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District, Karnataka. My friend Poornima studied in this school and her father is the…
Why Ecosystems Need Healthy Populations of Apex Predators to Be Restored
What if restoring ecosystems was as easy as letting nature do what she intends? From the microscopic level, which constantly churns and builds the “living soil”—from where all life originates—to…
GMOs will destroy Indian agriculture, which is Non-GMO and will harm the health of 1 billion Indians and their animals
Hybrid Bt cotton, the only commercialised GM crop in India, has failed conclusively. Based on this failure and the evidence on GM crops to date, the Union of India’s proposal…
The Animal Feed Industry’s Impact on the Planet
The diet of factory-farmed animals is linked to environmental destruction around the globe. In some parts of the continental United States, you might drive through a nearly unchanging landscape for…
The Largest Dam Removal in U.S. History Has Begun
The largest dam removal project in U.S. history took an irreversible step forward earlier this month when crews opened a 16-foot-wide tunnel in the base of the Iron Gate Dam…
Groundwater Around The World Is Rapidly Depleting, Finds Study
Groundwater is rapidly declining across the globe, often at accelerating rates. Writing in the journal Nature, UC Santa Barbara researchers present the largest assessment of groundwater levels around the world, spanning nearly…
Fight against incessant transportation by Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Mayem, Goa
Mayem village in Goa connects Bandodakar Tixel Jetty to Bicholim, this route is used for transportation of mineral ore by the mining transportation companies and Almost 17,696.69 MT of mineral…
Supreme Court Case Should Consider the Growing Evidence against GM Crops and the Serious Flaws in Government’s Edible Oil policy
In the on-going case on GM Mustard in the Supreme Court of India the bench has taken the very appropriate stand that the court cannot get involved beyond a point…
Plastic Pollution Caused $249 Billion In U.S. Health Care Costs In 2018, Finds Study
Chemicals leaching from plastics are leaving Americans notably sicker and poorer, according to a new study found. By contributing to the development of chronic disease and death, a group of hormone-disruptive…
Controversial Genetically Engineered Chestnut Tree Loses Support From Its Backers
A stunning admission by the American Chestnut Foundation exposes the nation’s broken regulatory system. On December 8, the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) announced it withdrew support “for several pending regulatory petitions that would authorize…
Cyclone Michaung has left over 5 km long oil seepage in Chennai
Cyclone Michaung has left behind a trail of destruction and for the environmentalists, the Oil mixed with rainwater that flowed through a stormwater drain on Manali High Road, Tiruvottiyur in…
Why the World’s Most Popular Herbicide Is a Public Health Hazard
Known by its brand name Roundup, glyphosate is a clear and present danger to human health. Glyphosate, known by its famous brand name, Roundup, is a widely used herbicide (a…
Brazil: Indigenous land rights victories are a win for the planet
Recent decisions for Native communities’ land rights mark historic defeats for agribusiness, mining giants, illegal settlers, and the far-right politicians who support them. Just this last May, capitalism’s insatiable agribusinesses and…
Yemen’s Socotra Archipelago: The UAE’s Occupation and Destruction of a World Heritage Site
by Mouna Hashem and Martha Mundy The United Arab Emirates is destroying the biodiversity of a Yemeni archipelago. Environmental destruction entails two intertwined processes: climate change and the destruction of biodiversity,…
The Great Nicobar Island mega project and the recent amendment to the Forest (Conservation) Act in violation of the Supreme Court’s directions
The Great Nicobar Island mega project and the recent amendment to the Forest (Conservation) Act in violation of the Supreme Court's directions pose a serious threat to India's forests and…
Tropical forests in Greater Nicobar Islands to Aravalli forests in Haryana – The “Green” connection between politicians and their corporate allies
On October 27, 2022, the Union Environment Ministry gave hush-hush clearance for deforesting 131 sq. km of forests in Great Nicobar Island to accommodate a mega industrial project, a pet…
Char Dham Project: A Crossroads Between Convenience and Catastrophe for the Majestic Mountains
Interview with Dr. Ravi Chopra: Unmasking the Environmental Toll of the Char Dham Project On the festive day of Diwali, while the nation reveled in celebrations, 41 laborers found themselves…
Does Modern Science Already Allow Us to Manage the Weather?
Weather manipulation is increasingly common around the world, but the dangers of privatization and weaponization abound. As winter settles over New Delhi, cold air sinks, trapping pollution in the city.…
Palm Oil in Common Household Products Is Destroying the World’s ‘Orangutan Capital’
A nationally protected wildlife reserve in Indonesia is under attack by popular, big-name brands. Picture a rhinoceros in the rainforest. Add a herd of elephants, families of orangutans swinging through…
Pristine to Polluted: Vembanad Lake’s Microplastic Threat to the Food Chain
Vembanad Lake in India, the longest in the country and the largest in Kerala, is alarmingly polluted with microplastics, according to a study from the Alfred Wegener Institute. All sediment…
Reviving Maharashtra’s Soil
I vividly recall my childhood walks through the lush green fields and forests of rural Maharashtra. Today, much of this land lies barren and eroded, a somber testament to decades…
Will River Kushkarni* Wake Up Again
(1) The Movement and some probable first steps to Revive the River; (2) What else may be necessary for the people living in the river basin; (3) Few Additional Comments…
The Case for Protecting the Tongass National Forest, America’s ‘Last Climate Sanctuary’
The “lungs of North America,” the Tongass National Forest is the Earth’s largest intact temperate rainforest. Protecting it means protecting the entire planet. Spanning 16.7 million acres that stretch across most of…
‘Sacrifice Zones’: The New ‘Jim Crow’ That’s Sickening and Killing People of Color
A product of entrenched, historic racism, “sacrifice zones”—designed to site pollution hot spots within communities of color—are a front line in a largely silent, often deadly, and steadily growing health…
Keeping Cattle on Public Land Is Bad for People, Cows, Wildlife, and the Planet
The U.S. beef industry is destroying the American Wild West and worsening the climate crisis. When conservationist Aldo Leopold persuaded the U.S. Forest Service in 1924 to establish the nation’s first federally…
Why Healthy Forests Mean Fewer Pandemics
As scientists continue to research the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, one fact has become clear: Deforestation is linked to emerging diseases. When humans destroy forests to create land for…
Why a Campaign to Save Ken River is Urgently Needed
While the famous Ganga and Yamuna rivers have at least received some attention regarding their protection, several of their important tributaries have been badly neglected even at a time when…
Profit Trumps People and Planet in Brazil’s Eucalyptus Industry
by Steve Taylor and Orin Langelle Brazil is set to unleash several varieties of genetically engineered eucalyptus, which will worsen a bad situation. Valued for its termite-resistant wood for building…
The Genesis of Covid-19 in Environmental Degradation
Universal constants are a set of mathematical values, fine-tuned to incredible precision to sustain the clockwork functioning of the universe. Life on Earth is a microcosm of those very forces,…
Deep sea mining destroys Marine biodiversity
Oceans are experiencing rapid and dramatic changes as a result of human activity. Data indicate that during the last twenty to twenty-five years, concerns have been raised regarding uncontrolled collection…
Birding and Health
Baba Mayaram is a freelance Hindi journalist from Madhya Pradesh. He grew up in a village in Hoshangabad District and has worked as a journalist in Indore and Raipur. He…
Water Wars: Cooling the Data Centres
Water. Data centres. The continuous, pressing need to cool the latter, which houses servers to store and process data, with the former, which is becoming ever more precious in the…
Ban on Single-Use Plastic items in India, an elusive dream
One year after India banned nineteen single-use plastic items for tackling plastic waste, the situation on the ground tells us a different story. Banned single-use plastic items are found to…
The Impact of Plastic on Human Health
We know that plastic is choking the planet. But it could be killing us, too. In 2019, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks published a statement that…
The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Africa
The framework of our civilization is premised on the destruction of the planet. The struggle for environmental justice in Africa is complex and broad. It is the continuation of the…
Medicine Residue Is Everywhere in Our Rivers and Lakes—and Fish Are Behaving Strangely
For all the well-documented sources of environmental pollution—think chemical manufacturers, energy plants, mining operations, and agricultural processes—there’s another major source of contamination that continues to get short shrift by those…
Decolonizing Environmentalism
We are witnessing a historical push toward the dismantling of imperialism, the decentralization of power, and the welcoming of non-White, non-European values into conservation. Whenever you talk about race relations…
Is Kelp the Next Ocean Hero? Only if We Can Protect It
New research shows we’ve long underestimated the environmental benefits from kelp forests. Now these important ecosystems are threatened. Floridians are bracing for an unwanted visitor this summer: sargassum. A 5,000-mile-long island of…
Where Are the World’s Water Stresses?
Around the world, significant issues are negatively impacting water security. While the situation appears dire, cooperation initiatives show some signs of relief. In May 2023, the Arizona Department of Water…
The US Shouldn’t Stand in the Way of an Ambitious Global Plastics Treaty
The United States has so far backed country-specific over global plastic-reduction targets, but relying on national targets alone undermines the sincerity and cohesiveness of a global effort to reduce plastics…
Vanishing of Many Stretches of Aravalli Hills Will Prove Very Costly
Recent preliminary findings of important research conducted by the Central University of Rajasthan has identified over 31 hills in the upper Aravalli range that have disappeared during just the last…
Stop Plastic Pollution as We Commemorate 50th World Environment Day 2023
There is widespread acknowledgement that the present-day structures of society are ill-prepared to address the needs of humanity in its current travails. Therefore, cooperation and reciprocity should be our highest…
Thoughts on World Environment Day
The big challenge for environment movement today—grow, expand, broaden, link with justice and peace movements The biggest hope for resolving life-threatening environmental problems of our planet increasingly rests now not…
World Environment Day in India: Doing Justice with the Day
World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 5th, and it serves as a global platform to raise awareness about environmental issues and encourage positive action. In India, this day…
Plastic Pollution in Destinations: A Growing Threat to Environmental Sustainability
The natural surroundings of tourist destinations play a significant role in attracting visitors. However, the contamination of these environments by plastic garbage poses a threat to tourism. When tourist spots…
Supremes Declare War on Wetlands
The Supreme Court is effectively axing a major component of the Clean Water Act, rolling back 50 years of wetland protection in a declaration of war against nature by changing…
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