ecology – Page 75

Kropotkin.. Updating Mutual Aid

O. Wilson and Peter Kropotkin are not often discussed in the same breath. Yet Kropotkin, who in his professional life was a geographer, devoted a substantial work (Mutual Aid, 1902) to elaborating his ideas on cooperation as an important factor in species evolution. Although his ideas never achieved dominance, as evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould observed in 1997, “Kropotkin was no crackpot.” His efforts were a reaction to Social Darwinism, the misbegotten, deformed progeny of Darwin’s biological theories of evolution,…

….However, in recent years, Wilson has reversed his position on the importance of the paradigm he championed. Kin selection theory, now the dominant model, is, Wilson believes, inadequate to explain the observed cooperative behavior that species, from humans to ants, exhibit. His alternative theory: that groups of perhaps quite unrelated individuals who cooperative amongst themselves achieve greater evolutionary success. The idea is certainly intuitive. In a social species like humans, it is evident that cooperation is a fundamental component of our natures…..cont/

via ideas and action » Kropotkin Selection? Updating Mutual Aid.

Climate Change Causing Tornadoes?

Today, the US policy of burning fossil fuels unabated has increased the probability of life-threatening storms.

By the time the link between climate change and any one weather event can be absolutely established, it may be too late to do anything—as horrifically demonstrated in the South last week.

—A NASA study in 2007 predicted climate change would lead to more tornadoes and lethal storms in the United States, and ignoring this warning in light of recent events would seem foolhardy.

Whether or not last week’s tornadoes were caused by climate change, extreme weather is on the rise.

Environmental refugees

The disappearance of Lohachara beneath the waters of the Bay of Bengal created environmental refugees. Dan McDougall reports on other islanders in the Sundarbans delta who have no escape from the rising ocean.

His exhausted body a prisoner to the Bay of Bengal’s violent tides, Dependra Das stretches out his bony arms to show his flaky, ravaged skin. He is covered in raw saltwater sores…. cont

via Environmental refugees – The Ecologist.

Bin Laden spoke sense on Climate Change

Bin Laden spoke sense on Climate Change ……”It has become clear to all that they are the real tyrannical terrorists. In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations. Despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistic speaks of the resulting death and displacement of millions of human beings, especially in Africa. This greatest of plagues and most dangerous of threats to the lives of humans is taking place in an accelerating fashion as the world is being dominated by the ‘democratic’ capitalist system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their representatives…….”

….Bin Laden ends his address by suggesting that Americans choose Islam as the ‘alternative upright methodology’ he mentioned, but I can hardly imagine the average citizen of America bowing down five times a day in the local mosque to pray in the direction of Mecca, stoning adulterers, and cutting off the hands of shoplifters…..

via Osama on 9/11 – What the Perp is Saying these Days about the Empire, Capitalism, and JFK by Michael Dickinson.