NI 424 - July, 2009

Surviving change in the Arctic

A note from the editor

Some like it cold

Am I a hypocrite? In order to put this magazine together, I flew halfway across the world, contributing to the very problem – climate change – that is threatening the Arctic’s future. Some of my colleagues felt that I shouldn’t have gone: it caused a heated discussion in the New Internationalist Co-op while I was planning my trip. They felt that the flight wasn't justified and that we risked losing our readers’ respect.

But what is the alternative? Could I have written with accuracy about this extraordinarily remote, unimaginably different part of the world if I had never set foot in it? More importantly, how can we fulfil our mission to tell the stories that are ignored and bring out the voices that seldom get heard if we do not, from time to time, venture off the beaten track to find them?

It’s a painful dilemma for anyone who is paying attention to the scale of the climate crisis – especially those of us who work on international issues. Here at the NI we will continue to wrestle with it. Don't worry, we're still all speaking to each other – but we’d love to know where you stand.

While I was breaking every rule in the Good Climate Citizen’s handbook, thankfully our Australian co-editor was Doing The Right Thing. Chris Richards attempted to survive without using her car. You can find out how she fared in this month's Special Feature.

In Mixed Media we review some fascinating documentaries – exposing the way NGOs are packaging poverty for Western consumption, and Big Pharma's latest money-spinner: 'female sexual dysfunction'. If that all sounds a bit heavy, then discover with us the powerful beats of Comrade Fatso, Zimbabwean rapper and modern-day freedom fighter. Enjoy!

Jess Worth for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

An Inuit hunter jumps across a gap in the sea-ice. Climate change is causing the ice to melt, making hunting increasingly perilous.

Photo: Bryan and Cherry Alexander Photography

NI 424 - July, 2009

Surviving change in the Arctic

A note from the editor

Some like it cold

The big story

The Arctic is changing dramatically. Jess Worth finds out what it means for the people who live there.

Features

Facts and figures about the planet's thermostat.

Jess Worth meets two indigenous activists battling Big Oil's dirty tricks.

Images of the unique landscapes and wildlife under threat.

A mythical place – land of the frozen ocean, the aurora borealis and the midnight sun.

Could countries come to blows over the North's resources? Professor Michael Byers explains.

What does the future hold? Jess Worth learns from five leading figures.

Organizations, campaign groups, news, books & films on the Arctic.

Jess Worth talks about the NI magazine on the Arctic with Climate Radio.

Chris Richards goes cold turkey in her umpteenth attempt to do without her car – and fumes about the structure of modern life that makes the task so hard.

Blogs

The West has been using Africa to dump its toxic waste and unwantables for years and continues, despite it having being illegal since 1992.

Opinion

In an upside-down world, there are many questions to be asked, writes Eduardo Galeano.

Currents

The largest solidarity movement between two peoples offers hope in Western Sahara, writes Paul Rigg.

Environmentalists oppose the genetically engineered poplar trees for the production of cellulosic ethanol or industrial biofuel.

Don't buy Uzbek cotton

Regulars

Hossam Bahgat is one of Egypt’s most prominent and effective human rights campaigners. He explains why things are getting worse in his country.

If you’ve heard of Ponzi Schemes, it could be thanks to Bernie Madoff. About time he got his comeuppance...

Previous US policy towards Cuba failed. Leonardo Padura Fuentes considers what needs to happen next.

Nowhere near as religious as its neighbour, Saudi Arabia, nor as bling-obsessed as nearby United Arab Emirates, Qatar has astutely observed the paths other Gulf states have chosen, and then cherry-picked what seems to work best.

Maria Golia recalls a moment of cultural confusion.

Film, Book & Music Reviews

An excellent first novel, teeming with memorable characters and dealing with momentous events; the sort of old-fashioned yarn in which the patient reader can become immersed.

Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir challenges the idea that there is a ‘new anti-Semitism’.

A gritty, uncomfortable offering from Renzo Martens that brought outraged responses from some of the NGO and media people in the audience.

US documentary-maker Liz Canner takes on Big Pharma over the creation and marketing of a disease called ‘female sexual dysfunction’.

This film documents the corporate chicanery and disinformation that has followed since the Exxon tanker dumped millions of gallons of crude oil into Alaska's pristine Prince William Sound.

This is the story of ‘Joshua’, an underground video journalist. By Anders Ostergaard

An album that is very much the sound of a modern-day freedom fighter.

An odd title, given the political geography of Israel/Palestine, this album projects a vision of multicultural music that seems to have little space for Palestinian musicians.

A grim but compelling reading – a fitting testament to all the women killed who had sex outside marriage.

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