As the global demand for fossil fuels rises and the Arctic sea ice continues to melt, multinational corporations are increasing efforts to deepen oil exploration and expand trade routes through the region. While environmentalists see a crisis, corporations see profit.
“European governments are knowingly complicit in the torture and abuse of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants detained by Libyan immigration authorities in appalling conditions in Libya,” Amnesty International charged in the wake of global outrage over the sale of migrants in Libya.
There has been a surge in international migration in recent years, reaching a total of 244 million individuals in 2015. Forced displacement has also reached a record high, with 65.3 million individuals displaced worldwide by the end of 2015 – including refugees, internally displaced persons and asylum seekers.
In a world where only 8 individuals – all of them men—possess as much as half of all the planet’s wealth, and it will take women 170 years to be paid as men are, inequality appears to be a key feature of the current economic model. Now a new study reveals that there is also a widening gap in hunger.
Each year, the electronics industry generates up to 41 million tons of e-waste, but as the number of consumers rises, and the lifespan of devices shrinks in response to demand for the newest and best, that figure could reach 50 million tons this year.
The UN estimates that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 – with over 5 trillion pieces of plastic weighing more than 260,000 tonnes currently floating in the world’s oceans. “Right when we need them the most, we are losing these crucial ecosystems,” the UN warns.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019
