Posts Tagged ‘Medio Ambiente’
The Global Village
In 1962 the Canadian sociologist Marshal McLuhan spoke of “the global village” to suggest that, thanks to advances in communications technology, the world had become smaller and more managable.
Read MoreColombia’s Environmental Near-sightedness and Clumsiness in ECLAC
In contrast to the majority of countries that want a treaty that guarantees the right to the free access to information in Latin America, Colombia has done everything in its power to make the instrument simply a declaraton of principles without teeth.
Read MoreTackling Income Inequality to Combat Climate Change
If we want to combat climate change, we must start with combatting economic inequality at the national and international level.
Read MoreFraming Climate Change as a Human Rights Issue
States have the responsibility of protecting human rights violations that arise not only from climate impacts, but from actions taken to mitigate emissions or adapt to climate change.
Read MoreThe Beginning of All Things
Thales of Miletus was the first philosopher of Classical Greece that tried to find the origin of everything; something that could explain what exists. This origin, which he called Arche, he found in water. Everything is made up of water, said Thales, “the earth rests on water, like an island.” His disciples later added three elements to this explanation: earth, air, and fire.
Read MoreIncoherence and Fumigations
It would be contraditory, legally unacceptable and politically inconvenient for the Government to renew fumigations with glyphosate in Catatumbo by arguing that coca cultivation has increased in this region.
Read MoreThe Order of Priorities
There is a famous poem, erroneously attributed to Jorge Luis Borges that reads as follows: “If I could live my life over again,/ in the next one I would try to make less mistakes./ I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more./ […] I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones.” The poem is not so good, but it does get something right: the ease with which human beings get lost when they have to try to distinguish what matters and what doesn’t.
Read MoreFranciscan Environmentalism
Reading the new papal encyclical Praise Be To You, it is clear that Francisco I seeks for climate change what Leon XIII acomplished in Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor, the social issue at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Read MoreFumigating Reason
Some of the opposition’s arguments in response to the Health Minstry’s recommendation to suspend fumigation would be laughable, if it were not for the fact that they put into play something much too important: the health of many Colombians.
Read MoreMontaigne, Five Centuries Later
Michel de Montaigne, the great French renaissance thinker, said that humans are not superior to animals and that the idea of evading our own animal condition is stupid and stubborn arrogance.
Read MoreCésar Rodríguez Garavito at the Constitutional Court’s Constitutional Conference on Lands
Talk “The New Frontiers of Constitutional Justice,” in the Participation and Environment panel.
Read MoreA Navigation Chart for the Bogotá River
As the Judge of the Council of State who authored the decontamination of the Bogota river order said, the decision is a “navigation chart” for Colombia´s environmental policy.
Read MoreWho Decides When it Comes to Mining?
Contrary to what the Minister of Mining and the newspaper El Tiempo said, referring to the recent decision of the Constitutional Court, citizens can organize consultations to oppose the effects of mining in their territories,
Read MoreThe Bullying Continues
Based on all the criticism the Inspector General´s Office received (including from those who did not support Petro), some of us thought, mistakenly, that the Inspector General would calm down.
Read MoreCosigo, the Amazon and Prior Consultations
“To see a world in a grain of sand” wrote William Blake. And in a grain of gold – of the mine that Cosigo Resources is planning to build in the natural park Yaigoié – Apaporis- we can see the future of mining and the environment in Colombia.
Read MoreClimate Injustice and Social Movements: Latin America’s Chance
César Rodríguez Garavito writes about the failure of the Climate Change World Summit in Warsaw and on the upcoming meeting in Lima in 2014, that may be the last chance to save the Planet from catastrophe.
Read MoreEnvironmental Democracy
While the Inspector General ignores the popular vote in Bogotá, in the rest of the country local democracy is flourishing. Last Sunday was Tauremena’s turn (in Casanare), where they voted against petroleum projects that put the municipalities water sources at risk.
Read MoreEnvironmental Injustice and Social Movements
The Warsaw Summit failed. The sobs and the hunger strike of the representative of the Philippines were not enough. “It’s time to end this madness,” he told the stubborn leaders of the world, referring to global warming which exacerbated the effects of the Haiyan typhoon that destroyed his family.
Read MoreThe Inspector’s General’s Crusade Against the Environment
Thanks to information sent by several readers, I see that my last column fell short in criticizing the pressure that the Inspetor General’s office asserts on public officers protecting the environment
Read MoreThe Inspector General´s Ecological Bullying
Piedras, Tolima. In this remote rice region of the country, it is clear that the Inspector General’s crusade against the rights of the citizens is more ambitious and ubiquitous than what it appears from Bogotá.
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