How lucky are those living in relatively small and not so powerful states...When some big and powerful (?) ones will not allow their citizens to search online and learn what happened on this day, 20 years ago. "Ignorance is Strength"? Does anyone really believe that a hybrid system which is fast becoming the very opposite of the classless and stateless society, combining capitalist exploitation, rising inequality & corruption, environmental degradation, labour abuses, lack of press freedom, internet bans & monitoring, and minimum right to protest and nationalism - can last for ever? The above sadly applies to various degrees to most if not all places on earth. Because not enough people have had enough of being ruled/interpreted/exploited/represented and have not yet realised that there is is no real need for a compromise or choice: individual liberty and common ownership/mutual aid. There cannot be one without the other! If you have realised...

As the old adage goes tourism is like fire, it can cook your food, or it can burn your house down.But it was not tourism, but probably pro-mining interests, that burned down the house of eco activist Stefanos Kollias in the village of Kaloskopi in the Mt Giona area of Central Greece, on Sunday night (March 30). Kollias, originally from Athens, has been campaigning against the further expansion of bauxite mining in this largely pristine area. A few days ago he had tried to legally block an environmental impact assessment study conducted for a large mining company. This is the second time in recent months his house is set on fire. A campaign is underway to rebuild his house see here for details (in Greek)while protests are also planned.Next time you think of consuming a multinational soft drink or beer packaged in an aluminium can, remember that it is created and...

(Editorial in Issue 100 of ECOCLUB, International Ecotourism Magazine) QUOTE“The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules” – Albert Einstein, Why Socialism? , Monthly Review, May 1949 No one really knows how long this latest systemic crisis may last or how it will end - hopefully not in tears, not like the 1929 one. But it does present a unique opportunity: it can help reveal the resilience and the necessity of small-scale, sustainable tourism, family & community-owned, and prove the unsustainability of mega-resorts, in particular all-inclusive, condo hotels and golf, the funders of which are getting weaker by the...

Diane was a hotel housekeeper in the Niagara Falls area of Ontario, Canada. When she tried to start a union in her hotel, she was fired. Following action by UNITE HERE, she was re-hired by the hotel, however harassment has not stopped.More details:http://www.istandwithdiane.ca/index.php?op...id=44&Itemid=59Related Report:http://www.niagarahotelworkers.ca/download...otel_Sector.pdfFrom Unite Here's website:UNITE (formerly the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union) merged on July 8, 2004 forming UNITE HERE. The union represents more than 450,000 active members and more than 400,000 retirees throughout North America.UNITE HERE boasts a diverse membership, comprised largely of immigrants and including high percentages of African-American, Latino, and Asian-American workers. The majority of UNITE HERE members are women.

The new 703km long - 8m tall wall separating the West bank from Israel, will eventually have the luck of the old one in Berlin. In the mean time, it can also start looking more colourful, like the Berlin one eventually did, with graffitti!With Euros 30, you can have something written on it (not as exciting as Banksy's of course)and at the same time - organisers promise - support peaceful, small social, cultural and educational projects in Palestine.How about the classic "walls have ears, and ears have walls"Related:http://www.sendamessage.nl

Every mainstream politician seems to have an opinion about the root causes of the latest crisis. But let's hear it from someone far more intelligent: The Einstein few know, writing in 1949, in the first issue of the Monthly Review: QUOTEI have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence........Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society. The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the...

  zero carbon travel from your desktop! wonderful pics & sounds from Africa, live Technology gives us so many solutions. We must rethink if it is worth covering thousands of kilometres just to annoy wild animals, or insisting on seeing them when visiting a country. And something surreal: as I was watching this, an ad "Taxidermy Mounts" came up. OOps!

Athenians riot when a 15 year old student, Alexander Grigoropoulos is killed in the Exarheia district, Athens' "Quartier latin", by a policeman's bullet, a "ricoched one" according to the policeman's lawyer, a direct hit according to eyewitnesses. What is certain is that he is a victim of an uninhabitable city that hosted the pharaonic Olympics, which added more unsustainable buildings and roads and brought security paranoia, cameras and an armed & militarised police with "rambo" mentality patrolling the sea of cement that is the inner city of Athens, once more (as in ancient times) a globalised metropolis complete with ghettoes for all those who fail to partake in the bright side of globalisation, unemployed and radicalised youth, poorly paid "illegal'' immigrants fleeing western wars in the east, trafficked prostitutes from western Africa and eastern Europe, mob gangs and laid off workers and ... and...In Athens, and other large cities worldwide, citizens...

IUCN regularly issue updates of their famous "Red List of Threatened Species". The latest results for mammals show at least 1,141 of the world's 5,487 recognised mammal species to be threatened with extinction. Some, unfortunately even within the sustainability ranks, try to justify conservation via Economism, arguing that it pays to conserve an animal and 'sell' it many times over to tourists, rather than killing it. According to this argument however, the rarer (i.e. the more endangered) an animal, the higher would be its economic value. So it would pay to decimate numbers reducing them to an 'optimum' endangered level, that would also minimise human-animal conflict. Is this what is actually taking place? It would be interesting to research a correlation between countries that have successfully developed mass tourism in protected areas and those with a high percentage of endangered species. Some endangered species percentages in popular nature tourism destinations are:...

According to Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), meat production puts more greenhouse gases (18% of the total) into the atmosphere than transport. This 18% includes gases released by clearing forested land, making & transporting fertiliser, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles and "the front and rear end emissions of cattle and sheep" as BBC politely puts it.So "offset" your meat, rather than your flights, and offset it the real way, by not consuming it!Which may also help you limit your rear end emissions