Issue 373 - March 2007
Making Permacultural Change: Biojustice, Biosustainability, Bioactivism
Featuring
- What is Biodemocracy?
- African Farmers Question Biotech Revolution
- Open-Source Biotech: Science as a Tool for Social Justice?
In This Issue
 To stop this war, for the soldiers to stop fighting it, you must show potential military resisters that no matter how long they sit in prison their families will have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. |
 At the World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi, Kenya, African civil society rejected the Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations' $150 million Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa -- AGRA. The Green Revolution consisted of converting cropland to "high-yield" seeds which need to be purchased each season, and which require intensive fertilizer and pesticide use. The creators of AGRA promise to bring benefits to the African continent's 180 million impoverished farmers who, they claim, have until now been bypassed by the first Green Revolution. |
 A shared biotech commons could enable us to analyze the options for social, environmental, and economic interventions independent of corporate control. |
| From the Editor's Desk | ||
| Our Government's Behavior is Simply Unacceptable | I set up a table in our school cafeteria. In 30 minutes I collected 98 signatures. | |
| Peace, Justice, AND a Clean Energy Revolution | George Bush, the denier-in-chief of global heating, had more to say about green energy in his State of the Union speech than the 25 or so speakers at the rally. | |
| Proposed Bills Mandate US Troop Withdrawal from Iraq | Congress' power over the appropriations process can mandate a change in policy. | |
| MA Legislators Introduce Anti-War Resolution | Resolution urges the US pull troops out now, which the voters approved in November. | |
| Nonviolent Action to Defund War | We have voted. We have vigiled. We have marched. Now we are organizing nonviolent action for peace. | |
| Stopping War in Iraq & Iran: Why Not Ask for More? | Are conditions ripe for a grand bargain in the Middle East? | |
| Somalia: The Tough Part Is Ahead | The government is weak, unpopular, and faction-ridden, and the power vacuum in southern Somalia is rapidly being filled by the same faction leaders and warlords the Courts overthrew less than a year ago. | |
| China's Anti-Satellite Test Punctuates Need for New Space Treaty | There is a very narrow window available for an international agreement keeping space free of weapons. | |
| Creating Permacultural Change | I practice permaculture, the art of designing beneficial relationships to produce systems modeled on natural systems. | |
| Call to Action: BioJustice 2007 | ||
| What is Biodemocracy? | Biodemocracy means democratic control by the global grassroots over the policies and institutions that impact our health and environment. | |
| Biofuels: Green Energy or Greenwashing? | The grain required to make enough ethanol to fill an SUV tank is enough to feed a person for a whole year. | |
| Campaign for the Peaceful Development of the Biological Sciences | The current biodefense expansion has the potential to seriously threaten public safety, international security, and the vitality of open biomedical research, and to drain scarce resources from key public health programs. | |
| Offensive US Biowarfare Research Violates US Law Spending Endangers Basic Biological Research | The Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense Program of 2003 endorsed a "first-use" strike of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) in war, thus violating the law. | |
| No Bioterrorism Labs in Boston | ||
| Could Biotech Cotton Seeds Feed the Planet? | By supressing the action of a gene, cottonseeds could become a safe and nutritious protein source for 500 million people. | |
| Pieces | Events, Gatherings, Campaigns, Opportunities, Resources | |
| Conflict Barometer Tracks Crises Around the World |
