CURITIBA, Brazil - Emotions and sensitivity are "the essence, the core dimension of the human being," said the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff at a panel on "ethics, biodiversity and sustainability". The panel formed part of the Global Civil Society Forum, held parallel to the Mar. 20-31 Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8).
It is not reason but feeling that is involved in our first contact with reality, and "today's great crisis is not economic, political or religious, but a crisis of affect, of the capacity to feel a connection with
Read moreAsk someone who's studied industrialized agriculture and they'll tell you it's bad because large monocultures and confined animals pollute the air and water. Then they'll tell you the food that comes from industry is tasty but unhealthy. They'll tell you it's cheap because it's subsidized by the government with so many subsidies that the big companies ought to give it away.
Then they'll tell you the big guys hog the resources and put farmers out of business rather than helping rural economies. They'll cite the studies that say that rural counties with small farms have less spousal
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Jerry Hagstrom
<http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforksherald/14030096.htm>
in an article posted on Monday at the Grand Forks Herald webpage (ND), reported that, "President Bush's budget proposal to eliminate funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food program <http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/csfp/ , which distributes food
packages to 420,000 mothers, children and the Read more
Wednesday marks World Water Day, an international observance that grew out of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development more than a decade ago. It's a day for repeating the terrible numbers: More than a billion people on the planet don't have access to clean water. Nearly 2 billion don't have adequate sewage and sanitation. Dirty water kills two children every minute.
These heart-rending statistics are driven home with images of thirsty
children and intense warnings about future water wars and the coming water crisis.
It's all Read more
In the last couple of years, bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) have become immensely popular with governments disillusioned by the slow pace of trade liberalisation talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). At present there are over 200 FTA negotiating processes under way across the globe. While ostensibly aimed at breaking down trade barriers, these agreements are increasingly targeting indigenous peoples' and local communities' traditional knowledge in very real ways.
Traditional knowledge has come up in a dozen or so FTA drafting processes over the last
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for Economics and Trade