Perhaps the best way to get to know Alba, a small town in the province of Cuneo, in the Piedmont region, is to open a book by Beppe Fenoglio, one of the major Italian writers of his time. He wrote extensively about the city and the surrounding hills, the (…)
Should construction industry giants be worried? After open-source software and the manufacture of machines and objects, the global fabber [3-D printer] community is now turning to actual open-source house construction. Providing plans and techniques that are accessible to everyone, collaborative construction and assemblage of components (from the United States to France, by way of Great Britain), a true community of “free housing” is emerging and self-organizing to revolutionize construction and its financing and to provide everyone access to more suitable housing.
Walls and wire fences are not all that’s being built at Europe’s borders. The European Commission and Security Companies dream of “smart borders”: a multitude of automated and interconnected files and control apparatuses able to follow each individual. The program’s objective? Counter-terrorism and keeping migrants out. But these structures — the effectiveness of which remains to be demonstrated — risk straining public finances, while threatening civil liberties and private life, should some states decide to pass from border control of each person to surveillance of everybody
Blockades are popular these days in France. This time, it was the turn of the Bolloré group, located in Puteaux (Hauts-de-seine), to experience this form of protest. For nearly three hours on the morning of 3 June, around a hundred protesters peacefully blockaded the entrances to the headquarters of one of the country’s most powerful companies. Protestors challenged Bolloré shareholders as they attempted to enter their meeting.
Instead of concrete and fibreglass, what about opting for straw? An inexpensive, readily-available insulation material that is both renowned for its high performance and for being environmentally friendly. Although for a long time it was used primarily for houses, straw is now being successfully put to use in public buildings, schools, kindergartens and community halls with an increasing number of experiments in both cities and rural areas thanks to a few proactive councillors. And since 2012, an official building code on straw constructions is available, which consulting firms and insurance companies can refer to. But these projects would not see the light of day without the motivation and determination of local councillors and building professionals. An encounter with the pioneers of the low-carbon buildings of the future.
How many Vietnamese workers is Cristiano Ronaldo worth, according to Nike? How many Chinese workers is Adidas’ sponsorship contract with the German team worth? Global sportswear brands have spent massive amounts on advertising and sponsorship for the Euro 2016 championship. Basta! and Alternatives économiques investigated what happens at the other end of the chain, where workers make shoes or jerseys for players and their fans. Despite the rhetoric about “social responsibility”, these major brands are still engaged in a race to the bottom. They are now leaving China – where wages are on the rise – for countries with even lower “labour costs”.
Grande-Synthe, in the north of France, is one of the very few French towns that welcome hundreds of migrants with dignity and respect. Despite 28 percent unemployment of its active population and a third of households living below the poverty line, Grande-Synthe is also a place where ambitious environmental and social policies are conducted. Mayor Damien Carême and his team support a popular university in the service of the town’s residents, have created the first renewable energy stadium in France and are building an eco-neighborhood accessible to the poor. Their political resolution is compounded by solidarity with refugees en route to the United Kingdom, making the experience of Grande-Synthe’s refugees very different from the fate reserved for migrants in Calais’ nearby seedy shantytowns.
Half of World Heritage sites are currently threatened by industrial development, and the oil and mining sectors pose a particular threat. So many invaluable sites and biodiversity sanctuaries face being wiped off the map just because we are unable to do anything about our voracious model of development. Several French transnational corporations are among those involved in projects that could herald the end of these exceptional sites. Some of the sites facing destruction include national parks in Africa, the Arctic islands, virgin forests in Asia, and the Amazon Basin.
The large majority of France’s car fleet runs on diesel, despite its lamentable health effects and the enormous costs involved for society. But who is to blame? Since the eighties, political authorities, industrial figures and transport professionals have persistently backed the diesel engine even though its emissions have always been recognized as extremely harmful – and even carcinogenic. And the evidence continues to mount against it. But the French government recently announced an increase in the price of diesel. After thirty years going backwards, is there hope that things will finally change?
Within the last few years, a little network of health centers unlike any other has been forged all through working-class neighborhoods in France. “Health Space,” “Health Square” and “Massilia Health System” are all projects conceived by social workers, doctors and residents who want to prove that it’s possible to provide health care in a different way, without endless prescriptions and assembly-line consultations. With a leitmotif: If health is determined by the social environment, then access to social rights and services is as important as health care. If it gets financing, this promising model could well have a significant impact.
In the North of Paris, the Carton plein association collects, cleans and sells discarded boxes. People in precarious situations recycle, deliver by bike and help move – gaining professional and life skills in the process.
While ninety companies are responsible for two-thirds of recorded greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, journalists, scientists, academics and artists among 100 signatories calling for keeping fossil fuels in the ground. They call for mass mobilisation on the scale of the slavery abolition and anti-apartheid movements to trigger “a great historical shift”.
Personalities across the continent are deeply worried by the delicining moral standards in Europe these days: “They encourage racism, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia rather than goodwill, fair treatment, and a proper organisation of migrant reception.” These personalities call on politicians and the media to change their outlook on migrants, while 22,000 of them have died in the last 15 years while trying to reach Europe. They initiated the idea of solidarity marches. The first of these marches should be take place between Calais and Brussels in August.
Given the massive inequalities generated by capitalism and the ecological urgency of climate change, “everything can change”, Naomi Klein claims in a new book. Provided we do not “give in to despair”, because “too many lives are at stake”, and “fight for a more just economic system”. The Canadian anti-globalization activist and essayist is famous for her inspired criticism of capitalism: No Logo denounced the tyranny of global brands, and The Shock Doctrine the brutality of neoliberal reforms. She now takes aim at the total impunity of major oil and gas corporations which have declared war on our planet. Interview and video.
Late in the night, 194 countries of the UN framework convention on climate change finally found an agreement in Lima. Far from satisfactory, this agreement jeopardizes any “historic agreement” in Paris. In a statement, more than forty civil society organizations say they “will reclaim power from those who don’t act in our interests”. “We are struggling for survival and for the safety and security of our homes and livelihoods from climate disasters”. Our website Basta! relays their statement.
A enormous tailings pond containing waste from a nearby gold and copper mine collapsed last month in British Columbia (B.C.), releasing billions of litres of wastewater and toxic sludge into nearby lakes and streams. A local state of emergency was called following the incident, and a temporary ban put on using water from the area. But was this just an unfortunate accident, or the inevitable result of Canada’s increasingly lax and mining-friendly environmental regulation?
Deforestation, child labour, underpaid farmers: in the countries where it’s grown, cocoa isn’t really synonymous with social well-being. Whilst chocolate giants such as Mars, Mondelez or Nestle have never been doing so well, the cocoa industry is failing both socially and environmentally. The food multinationals are trying to react by announcing a shift towards ‘responsible’ cocoa, with a number of fair trade certifiers offering them customised labels. But for Mars and others, these moves are primarily a way to secure and optimize their supply chain.
This article was originally published in French. Translation: Jocelyn Timperley. ‘Manufacturers must answer for the poisoning caused by PCBs!’ demands the Coalition against Bayer Dangers, a German organisation that has fought against the abuse of the (…)
This article was originally published in French. Translation: Mathilde Balland. Who ever said that sustainable development was incompatible with profit? The boss of the food and beverage multinational Unilever, Paul Polman, received for the first time in (…)
Holdings, foundations and subsidiaries all around the world, all entangled in complex structures: the owners and managers of the Swedish multinational IKEA are expert at cultivating obscurity and concealment, and they seem to have a fondness for tax havens and tax-‘optimising’ financial arrangements: i.e. avoiding tax as much as possible. Rachel Knaebel digs into this financial maze, so remote from the philanthropic ideas promoted by IKEA’s founder.
