Almost a billion people live without clean drinking water. We call this the water crisis. It’s a crisis because it only starts with water — but water affects everything in life.
Health. Education. Food security. And the lives of women and children, especially.
We can end the water crisis in our lifetime. But first we have to let everyone know it’s happening. Learn how water changes everything — and share this with everyone you know.
Thanks to Charity Water for making this remarkable video.
Dambisa Moyo, the Zambian economist and author doesn’t pull punches when talking about foreign aid and Africa. “It severs the link between individuals and their ability to hold their governments accountable”.
‘Going local’ is a powerful strategy to repair our fractured world—our ecosystems, our societies and our selves
Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment. There are personal costs too. For the majority of people on the planet life is becoming increasingly stressful. We have less time for friends and family and we face mounting pressures at work.
The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.
We hear from a chorus of voices from six continents including Samdhong Rinpoche, the Prime Minister of Tibet’s government in exile, Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten and Zac Goldsmith. They tell us that climate change and peak oil give us little choice: we need to localize, to bring the economy home. The good news is that as we move in this direction we will begin not only to heal the earth but also to restore our own sense of well-being. The Economics of Happiness restores our faith in humanity and challenges us to believe that it is possible to build a better world.
Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car.
Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.
Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children’s marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.
Watch parts 2-7 of the documentary now (playlist – 1 hour, 6 minutes)
Corporations can have an enormous negative impact on the rights of individuals and communities. Through its research, Amnesty International has exposed how these impacts can range from community livelihoods being threatened or destroyed to forced evictions carried out to make way for extractive operations.
The World Bank Group, among other functions, finances the activities of corporations in developing countries. This is done through an agency called the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IFC frequently supports industries of a particularly invasive nature, such as oil, gas and mining projects. These industries are often associated with environmental damage and human rights harm.
The IFC must make sure it has strong safeguards to prevent human rights abuses as a result of its operations.
Unfortunately the World Bank Group is refusing to take human rights seriously. In May 2011 the IFC will adopt new policies to manage social and environmental risks associated with the activities it supports. Not only is the IFC proposing to adopt safeguards that are inadequate to prevent negative human rights impacts, but it is REFUSING to even make a commitment to respect human rights.
As an institution that claims to be committed to fighting poverty and improving people’s lives, and which is governed by member states that have international human rights obligations, this is entirely unacceptable.
Singer, songwriter, activist and environmentalist,… Xavier Rudd – Better People
People saving whales,
And giving your thanks to our seas,
My respect to the ones in the forest,
Standing up for our old trees
Them giving food to the hungry,
Hope to the needy,
Giving life to a baby,
Giving care for free,
‘Cause there is freedom around us,
We have everything we need,
And I will care for you,
‘Cause you care for me.
And we all have opinions,
Some of them get through,
But there’s better people,
With more good to do.
Good to do
And what I have could be my search
Or just some words
From my heart
My respect to the ones making changes
For all the lives they’ll give their all
Like
Giving food to the hungry,
Giving hope to the needy,
Giving life to a baby,
Giving care for free,
‘Cause there is freedom around us,
We have everything we need,
And I will care for you,
‘Cause you care for me.
And we all have opinions,
Some of them get through,
But there’s better people,
With more good to do.
Good to Do
When our world it keeps spinning round and round it goes
Human nature keeps spreading its disease
And our children keep growing up with what they know
From what they teach and what they see
And it’s only a question of the time we have
And the lives that our children need
Cause they can only keep growing up with what they know
And what we teach, and what they see
Like,
Giving food to the hungry,
Hope to the needy,
Giving life to a baby,
Giving care for free,
‘Cause there is freedom around us,
We have everything we need,
And I will care for you,
‘Cause you care for me.
And we all have opinions,
Some of them get through,
But there’s better people,
With more good to do.
This new campaign from NYC Health continues the shock theme, adding up the amount of sugar somebody with a sweet tooth can easily consume — in drinks alone — during the day, and showing graphic medical consequences.
In the press release, Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner, states:
“Too many sugar-sweetened drinks are fueling the obesity epidemic. Obesity and the serious health consequences that result are making hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers sick or disabled. This new campaign shows how easy it is to drink a staggering amount of sugar in one day without realizing it. We hope that this campaign will encourage people to make the simple switch to healthier alternatives such as water, seltzer or low-fat milk. If this campaign shifts habits even slightly, it could have real health benefits.”
Scary stuff. And although I generally dislike shock tactics, this one may just work in making a few people think twice about ordering that high calorie hot milkshake they call a “coffee”.
