NI 525 - May, 2020

The fight for clean air

A note from the editor

A world of change

As I’m sure is the case for everyone reading this, a lot has changed at New Internationalist over a very short span of time. We are all now working at home, some of us with young children also at home full time or trying to support those around us on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Like so many businesses, the pandemic has hit New Internationalist hard financially. We are giving it all we’ve got to come out the other side of this and keep delivering socially responsible journalism.

In February we started a new project as part of the Nesta Future News Fund. Working with On Our Radar, who major on surfacing unheard stories, we held two community journalism workshops with clean air campaigners in Newcastle. The second had to be held remotely and tips on doing interviews with people on the street became tips for doing community journalism in a time of social distancing. The participants have been collecting stories on experiences of air pollution in their community, some of which can be read in ‘I don’t want to live like this’.

Nearly every article in this magazine was written before Covid-19 became a global pandemic. As one global health emergency unfolded, I had become obsessed with another one – air pollution. The more I read, the more the threat loomed large. How much impact has living near main roads had on my health? How much did it have to do with my father’s stroke or his siblings’ dementia?

Elsewhere in the magazine, Jelena Prtorić writes about the troubling permissiveness towards the hard right in Croatia, Maaza Mengiste talks to Subi Shah about the women who fought Mussolini in Ethiopia and Neil Vallelly analyses why the state keeps passing the buck to the individual.

Amy Hall for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

A young boy wears a gas mask to protect himself from the fumes during a fire in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya.

Photo: Donwilson Odhiambo/Sopa Images/Lightrocket via Getty Images

To protect life

Covid-19 has shown us that swift action on global health is possible, even if it still falls short. What could we achieve, asks Amy Hall, if we took an urgent approach to air pollution, another widespread killer?

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NI 525 - May, 2020

The fight for clean air

A note from the editor

A world of change

The big story

Covid-19 has shown us that swift action on global health is possible, even if it still falls short. What could we achieve, asks Amy Hall, if we took an urgent approach to air pollution, another widespread killer?

The Big Story

Links for campaigning and more reading on air pollution/air quality.

How many die?, Air inequality, Noxious journeys, and Cleanest vs dirtiest.

Dana Drugmand explains how the powerful car industry has continually blocked change to keep us hooked.

Dirty air in Nigeria takes a huge toll on lives and livelihoods. But civil society is not short of ideas for change, as Michael Simire finds out.

Dirty air is not an impossible problem. Beth Gardiner assesses some places cleaning up their act.

Community journalists from the northeast of England on the impact of air pollution on their lives.

India’s air pollution crisis affects millions, and not just in Delhi. Aruna Chandrasekhar meets people forced to live, and resist, at Mumbai’s toxic perimeter.

Agricultural air pollution seems to be a tough nut to crack. Amy Hall explores the air-pollution problem down on the farm.

The country’s political class is letting fascists off the hook and allowing history to be distorted. Jelena Prtorić asks: Whose purposes does this serve?

The state is in retreat. So guess who’s in charge? Why you, of course. At least that’s what the dominant political rhetoric from Right and Left would have us believe, argues Neil Vallelly.

In Palestine, Futura D’Aprile meets the peaceful change-makers who want to create hope for their divided city’s future.

Popular wisdom has it that everything is speeding up, including population growth. Danny Dorling shows just how wrong that is – and argues that we are actually in a time of slowdown.

Opinion

Leonardo Sakamoto on why black women are so active in fighting growing misogyny.

Nilanjana Bhowmick on the dangers of ignoring concerted anti-Muslim violence.

Nanjala Nyabola questions why the West always has to put itself at the centre of the story.

Currents

Zoe Holman reports that Greece is at breaking point as refugees cast out by Europe.

Richard Swift introduces Mary Lou McDonald, who led her party to an astounding result in the Irish Republic’s general election.

Report from Canada by Husna Rizvi

Vanessa Baird reports on a landmark ruling in Peru.

Husna Rizvi reports that many people refuse to treat the vulnerable as expendable.

Husna Rizvi writes that informal settlements and refugee camps are perhaps the most dangerous places of all.

Report from India by Husna Rizvi.

Land justice; Ebola-free; Transition triumphs

Regulars

Praise, blame and all points in between? Give us your feedback.

Befriending a namesake leads Yewande Omotoso down paths she hadn’t followed before.

Tables turned, by Nils Adler

Minister for women and equalities?

Climate Crisis reporting vs Corona Virus reporting

Hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants

The photos, facts and politics of Ukraine

ILYA recounts the illustrious deeds of South America’s independence hero, ‘the Liberator’ Simón Bolívar

Does celebrity activism do more harm than good? Andrés Jiménez and Paul Cullen politely disagree on this tricky issue.

Fresh hell by Kate Evans.

Karachi-based photojournalist Bilal Hassan encounters a kick-ass personality.

Is Amit Shah, the scandal-ridden Indian home minister, too cunning for his own good?

Lazinho and Lucas di Fiori of Brazil’s famous Banda Olodum talk to Alessio Perrone about 40 years of drumming up change.

Protecting the vulnerable, by Marc Roberts.

Danny Chivers is buoyed up by three decisive victories led by indigenous groups against fossil-fuel interests in Australia, Brazil and Canada.

Bull market, by P J Polyp.

Ethical and political dilemmas abound these days. Seems like we’re all in need of a New Internationalist perspective. Enter stage: Agony Uncle.

We had binding quotas for women in politics? Vanessa Baird looks at what gender parity can do.

Crossword Puzzle, Association Words and Wordsearch

Film, Book & Music Reviews

Barn 8; Footwork: What your shoes are doing to the world; Sinews of War and Trade; The System: Who Owns the Internet, and How It Owns Us

Ema; It Must Be Heaven

A Day Will Come; Kvitravn