The planet is facing a meltdown - from the global financial system to the unprecedented environmental crisis. Almost everyone from stockbrokers to scientists to economists agree the situation is dire.
Yet Wall Street banks are given hundred-million-dollar bailouts, while millions face home foreclosures. In the 3rd world it's worse - crops are used to provide fuel for thirsty 1st-world SUVs, while 100 million more people face starvation due to the growing food crisis.
The disregard for the hardship of the majority has seen food riots and strikes hit over 30 countries.
How can we understand the crisis, how is it effecting the "Rudd honeymoon" and how can we organise for sustainable, people & planet-centred solutions?
Jim McIlroy (pictured right) explores the roots of this global crisis in a talk delivered to a Green Left Weekly forum in Brisbane on July 15, 2008.
Jim's suggested reading guide:
- Crisis of the Global Economy: Report of the Institute of Globalisation and Social Movements, Moscow. By Vasily Koltashov, trans by Renfrey Clarke. LINKS.
- Global economic crisis: “No one knows where the toxic waste is buried.” Interview with John Bellamy Foster, GLW May 7, 2008.
- Behind the food crisis: Capitalism’s historic failure. By Ian Angus, GLW May 14, 2008.
- Capitalism, agribusiness and the food sovereignty alternative. By Ian Angus, GLW June 25, 2008.
- Capitalism behind biggest food crisis known. (Venezuela and Cuba speak). By Kiraz Janicke, GLW June 18, 2008.
- Big oil, enemy of people and planet. By Dick Nichols, GLW June 25, 2008.
- Philippines: Dealing with the oil crisis. By Walden Bello. GLW June 25, 2008.
- Ecology crisis: The moment of truth. By John Bellamy Foster et al. LINKS.
- Class struggle, not the market, to save the planet. By Patrick Bond. GLW July 9, 2008.
- Social change needed to stop climate change. Statement from Climate Change/Social Change Conference. GLW May 28, 2008.
- G8: Rich countries retreat from climate change. LINKS.
