Seven hundred years ago this month, people across northern Europe saw a comet in the sky and feared the worst. They were already running out of food. It had rained too much in 1315—sometimes every day for weeks at a stretch. Wheat, barley, and oats rotted in the fields, and it was too wet to make hay. Then, after an unusually cold winter, the rains started again, and the 1316 … [Read more...]
Children dying of hunger – a failure for humanity
Mary Robinson, MRFCJ (Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice) President, delivered the Inaugural Concern Worldwide Hunger Lecture in Belfast on Monday 8 October 2012. In her address Mrs Robinson spoke of the need to be innovative, bold and revolutionary in our responses to hunger and under-nutrition and their underlying causes. She said: "For me this means embracing a … [Read more...]
Important speech for the world
"One of the world’s biggest myths is that going organic is a choice. From the perspective of food security, there is no choice." On Tuesday 19th June, the opening session of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, forming part of UNCSD Rio+20. At this Sustainable Development Learning Event, the following … [Read more...]
Women will save Africa
African women and children constitute the majority of the continent’s poor and play a vital role in food production in Africa. Therefore they will be the hardest hit by famine due to climate change, if they are not effectively prepared and food security issues are notaddressed properly. The continent will suffer as a result. Hoping for an intervention, it is with this … [Read more...]
Another 600 tons for Somalia relief
South Africa's Ubuntu Spirit knows no bounds. We are indeed making an emphatic continental statement that Africa is coming to the aid of Africans unreservedly. The power is not in the proclamation but in the execution: being the first African agency and the only agency in the world to fly 6 planes into Mogadishu in a two week period delivering 112 tons of aid, gave a very good … [Read more...]
Famine in Somalia: A desperate call for help
"As the hunger took its toll a husband and wife left their two children in the 'forest'. They could not bear the thought of their children dying in front of their eyes nor did they want their children to sense that they (the parents) were dying". This is Somalia; a monumental African tragedy that requires an urgent, co-ordinated international response to alleviate a massive … [Read more...]
Famine stricken Somalia vs Climate Diplomacy at COP17
Realist Foreign Policy refers to the policy of a sovereign state in its interaction with other sovereign states. It might seem strange that an article that opens with a line like this finds itself in an environmental publication. Yet, it is not strange at all, as environmental issues like climate change don't 'respect' state boundaries. There is an environmental side to … [Read more...]
The Naked Option: a last resort
The Naked Option: A Last Resort celebrates the power of an organized group of women! Fueled by the determination for a better future, grassroots women in Nigeria's Niger Delta use the threat of stripping naked in public, a serious cultural taboo, in their deadly struggle to hold the oil companies accountable to the communities in which they work. Through the leadership … [Read more...]
