At the Tusk conservation awards, Prince William suggested that population growth was responsible for the endangerment of wildlife in Africa. He was promoting the theory that argues humans are overburdening the planet and that some populations are more responsible than others.  It is an ideology with racist undertones – in short, Black, Brown and marginalised people are blamed for overpopulation and consequently the environment’s demise.

Heather Alberro, a lecturer in global sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University, explained, “Focusing only on human numbers functions as a red herring. What research increasingly shows is that extreme poverty, socioeconomic inequality and capitalist systems predicated on endless growth for maximising shareholder value are greater predictors of ecological decline.

“Is it any wonder that a poacher, driven by poverty and the lucrative price tag associated with ivory, would be compelled to kill an elephant?”

She argued, the focus should be on how global inequities are at the heart of the climate crisis. 

“Reckoning with the ongoing, violent legacies of colonial capitalism, which continue to drive the exploitation of people, places, resources, other species, is an important first step towards truly transformative change,” she said. “The irony is that recent research has found that Indigenous peoples are often the best stewards of ecosystems.”

“‘Conservation’ comes from a very colonial time. It treats people who are living there as feckless and worthy of being kicked off the land,” Josina added. “Some of the most dangerous narratives come from upper-class environmentalists. It’s not just Prince William; it’s not just his father, it’s also David Attenborough, it’s also Jane Goodall,” they said, referring to the British broadcaster and natural historian, and English primatologist.

“All these people promote this idea that it’s other people irresponsibility, that it’s poor people’s responsibilityJosina, from the grassroots environmental collective Land in Our Names, who also has a background in sexual and reproductive health, told Al Jazeera that the narrative on overpopulation is often linked to the “demonisation of Black and Brown women’s fecundity”.

“There’s a long history of Black women being blamed for having too many children. Now, what is too many? There’s no one in the royal family who will be demonised for having too many children. Boris Johnson has got quite a lot of kids.”

We should also recall the environmental damage done to the moors by the Royal Family with its game-bird shooting and heather burning. 

Most experts agree that Africa will witness a population boom. However, according to the UN, the continent only contributes to 2 to 3 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Experts critique Prince William’s ideas on Africa population | Wildlife News | Al Jazeera

 At the Tusk conservation awards, Prince William suggested that population growth was responsible for the endangerment of wildlife in Africa. He was promoting the theory that argues humans are overburdening the planet and that some populations are more responsible than others.  It is an ideology with racist undertones – in short, Black, Brown and marginalised people are blamed for overpopulation and consequently the environment’s demise.

Heather Alberro, a lecturer in global sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University, explained, “Focusing only on human numbers functions as a red herring. What research increasingly shows is that extreme poverty, socioeconomic inequality and capitalist systems predicated on endless growth for maximising shareholder value are greater predictors of ecological decline.

“Is it any wonder that a poacher, driven by poverty and the lucrative price tag associated with ivory, would be compelled to kill an elephant?”

She argued, the focus should be on how global inequities are at the heart of the climate crisis. 

“Reckoning with the ongoing, violent legacies of colonial capitalism, which continue to drive the exploitation of people, places, resources, other species, is an important first step towards truly transformative change,” she said. “The irony is that recent research has found that Indigenous peoples are often the best stewards of ecosystems.”

“‘Conservation’ comes from a very colonial time. It treats people who are living there as feckless and worthy of being kicked off the land,” Josina added. “Some of the most dangerous narratives come from upper-class environmentalists. It’s not just Prince William; it’s not just his father, it’s also David Attenborough, it’s also Jane Goodall,” they said, referring to the British broadcaster and natural historian, and English primatologist.

“All these people promote this idea that it’s other people irresponsibility, that it’s poor people’s responsibilityJosina, from the grassroots environmental collective Land in Our Names, who also has a background in sexual and reproductive health, told Al Jazeera that the narrative on overpopulation is often linked to the “demonisation of Black and Brown women’s fecundity”.

“There’s a long history of Black women being blamed for having too many children. Now, what is too many? There’s no one in the royal family who will be demonised for having too many children. Boris Johnson has got quite a lot of kids.”

We should also recall the environmental damage done to the moors by the Royal Family with its game-bird shooting and heather burning. 

Most experts agree that Africa will witness a population boom. However, according to the UN, the continent only contributes to 2 to 3 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Experts critique Prince William’s ideas on Africa population | Wildlife News | Al Jazeera

 At the Tusk conservation awards, Prince William suggested that population growth was responsible for the endangerment of wildlife in Africa. He was promoting the theory that argues humans are overburdening the planet and that some populations are more responsible than others.  It is an ideology with racist undertones – in short, Black, Brown and marginalised people are blamed for overpopulation and consequently the environment’s demise.

Heather Alberro, a lecturer in global sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University, explained, “Focusing only on human numbers functions as a red herring. What research increasingly shows is that extreme poverty, socioeconomic inequality and capitalist systems predicated on endless growth for maximising shareholder value are greater predictors of ecological decline.

“Is it any wonder that a poacher, driven by poverty and the lucrative price tag associated with ivory, would be compelled to kill an elephant?”

She argued, the focus should be on how global inequities are at the heart of the climate crisis. 

“Reckoning with the ongoing, violent legacies of colonial capitalism, which continue to drive the exploitation of people, places, resources, other species, is an important first step towards truly transformative change,” she said. “The irony is that recent research has found that Indigenous peoples are often the best stewards of ecosystems.”

“‘Conservation’ comes from a very colonial time. It treats people who are living there as feckless and worthy of being kicked off the land,” Josina added. “Some of the most dangerous narratives come from upper-class environmentalists. It’s not just Prince William; it’s not just his father, it’s also David Attenborough, it’s also Jane Goodall,” they said, referring to the British broadcaster and natural historian, and English primatologist.

“All these people promote this idea that it’s other people irresponsibility, that it’s poor people’s responsibilityJosina, from the grassroots environmental collective Land in Our Names, who also has a background in sexual and reproductive health, told Al Jazeera that the narrative on overpopulation is often linked to the “demonisation of Black and Brown women’s fecundity”.

“There’s a long history of Black women being blamed for having too many children. Now, what is too many? There’s no one in the royal family who will be demonised for having too many children. Boris Johnson has got quite a lot of kids.”

We should also recall the environmental damage done to the moors by the Royal Family with its game-bird shooting and heather burning. 

Most experts agree that Africa will witness a population boom. However, according to the UN, the continent only contributes to 2 to 3 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Experts critique Prince William’s ideas on Africa population | Wildlife News | Al Jazeera

 Cuts to education spending in England over the last decade are “effectively without precedent in postwar UK history” and have hit the most deprived schools hardest, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Its report highlights how the most disadvantaged fifth of secondary schools have faced the biggest cuts, with a 14% real-terms fall in spending per pupil between 2009 and 2019, compared with 9% for the least deprived schools.

Colleges and sixth-forms have faced the biggest cuts, and even with additional funding from the spending review, spending per student will still be lower in 2024 than in 2010, the report says.

It also says recent changes to the way education funding is distributed has compounded that disadvantage by providing bigger real-terms increases for the least deprived schools, making the government’s stated levelling-up goals harder to achieve.

It also confirms earlier findings that the most deprived schools have lost out most in the reorganisation of schools funding via the national funding formula, with the least deprived schools receiving real-terms increases of 8%-9%, compared with 5% for the most deprived, between 2017 and 2022.

The pupil premium, which provides additional funding for children on free school meals, has failed to keep pace with inflation since 2015. “These patterns run counter to the government’s goal of levelling up poorer areas,” the report states.

In the early 1990s, health and education spending each represented about 4.5% of national income, but while education investment has stayed pegged at about this level, health spending rose to more than 7% of national income before the pandemic.

“Whilst we have been choosing to spend an ever expanding share of national income on health, we have remarkably reduced the fraction of national income we devote to public spending on education.”

The IFS said: “The cuts to education spending over the last decade are effectively without precedent in postwar UK history, including a 9% real-terms fall in school spending per pupil and a 14% fall in spending per student in colleges.

It said the government had ambitious goals to level up poorer areas of the country, including a big role for technical education. “However, changes to the distribution of education spending have been working in the opposite direction. Recent school funding changes have tended to work against schools serving disadvantaged areas. Cuts to spending have been larger for colleges and adult education, and still won’t be reversed by 2024.”

Luke Sibieta, an IFS research fellow and an author of the report, said: “Extra funding in the spending review will reverse cuts to school spending per pupil, but will mean 15 years without any overall growth. Recent funding changes have also worked against schools serving disadvantaged communities. This will make it that much harder to achieve ambitious goals to level up poorer areas of the country and narrow educational inequalities, which were gaping even before the pandemic.”

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the IFS report was a “grim indictment” of the government’s record. “It is a pretty dreadful legacy to have presided over cuts to education which are without precedent in postwar UK history.”

Most deprived schools hit hardest by education cuts in England, IFS says | Education policy | The Guardian

The remuneration of Australia’s highest-paid chief executives has exploded by an average of almost 70% in the past year.

Kogan boss, Ruslan Kogan, enjoyed the biggest increase among the top 50 highest paid executives, his pay skyrocketing from $594,000 to almost $9m this year – an increase of more than 1,400%.

Macquarie Group’s CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake, enjoyed the largest package among the top 50, worth $15.97m, up 7% from $14.91m.

On a take-home basis, CSL’s boss, Paul Perreault, pocketed $61m this year, boosted by a share price that has steadily risen over the past five years.

OpenDirector’s CEO, Donald Hellyer, said executive pay had “come roaring back” this year.

He said base pay had barely changed but short-term bonuses went up dramatically as share prices surged due to record low interest rates.

“The cynic in me says, is this a result of good, hard work, or is this just a result that very low interest rates are driving up the stock market?

“Who wins and who loses when you have really low interest rates, and the stock market goes up, housing market goes up. Well, people with money win out when interest rates go down, because they’re basically involved with risky assets.”

There was no skills shortage among executive ranks, he said. He questioned whether company directors, who oversee the pay and performance of executives, “have the strength of character to be prepared to lose senior executives based on pay”.

“I don’t see it,” he said. “You don’t really see executives leaving from one ASX 50 company to go work as a CEO for another ASX 50 company, so it’s certainly not happening at the top end of town.”

Australian executive pay ‘roars back’ with 70% increase for top 50, analysis finds | Executive pay | The Guardian

 The government’s plan to mandate electric car chargers across all new homes in England from next year risks making access to charge points “exclusive”, leaving behind motorists from poorer areas, industry leaders have warned.

Senior figures in the energy and motoring sectors said the plan for all new homes and buildings to be fitted with car charging infrastructure risks benefiting wealthier areas with space for off-street parking and leaving “blackspots” in areas where homes have less space. Guy Jefferson, the chief operating officer of Scottish Power’s energy network business, warned that the burgeoning electric vehicle market was “less likely to provide for all in our society” without deliberate action to ensure a fair energy transition.

“It’s essential that [electric vehicle] chargers are available not just in new homes, private driveways, wealthy high streets and motorway service stations, but in remote, rural and socially disadvantaged areas too,” Jefferson said.

Ross Easton, a director at the Energy Networks Association, added that the government “must make sure access to charging points is not exclusive”.

“Charging points must be accessible to everyone. To truly ‘level up’ charging point access and deliver on the Cop26 electric vehicle pledges requires strategic planning at all levels of government, nationally and locally,” he said.

Many modern homes do not have car parking spaces, and the number of new homes built each year in the UK is so small it would take decades to make much difference by this measure alone, according to industry sources.

Sarah Winward-Kotecha, the director of electric vehicles at RAC, said it was “important to remember that a lot of new housing stock, especially in cities, doesn’t even come with any car parking at all, let alone provision for electric charge points”.

Two-thirds of local authorities in the UK had no plans for public charging points. More than half said they were prohibitively expensive, and more than a third cited other constraints such as a lack of energy network capacity.

Plan for car chargers in all new homes in England ‘will make access exclusive’ | Automotive industry | The Guardian

 Thousands of Roma women were forcibly sterilized in Slovakia, a practice that continued until 2004. The government of Slovakia has now made a formal apology.

The human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, welcomed the “apology to victims of forced sterilisation as a first important step,” in a message on Twitter. “I now look forward to quick progress on an accessible and effective compensation mechanism,” she added.

One-fifth of Slovakia’s population belongs to the Roma minority. They have long been excluded from society, generally living in segregated settlements that often lack basics like electricity and running water, heating and gas. Roma tend to make up some of the most marginalized ethnic groups in Europe.

Slovakia issues apology for forced sterilizations of Roma women | News | DW | 25.11.2021

It was a disaster waiting to happen. The drowning of 27 refugees who were attempting to reach the UK across the English Channel in a flimsy inflatable was avoidable unnecessary and predictable. The media prefers to describe them as migrants, not refugees seeking asylum and sanctuary.

The British and French governments place the blame on one another and both countries will accuse the gangs of people-smugglers as the direct cause of the tragedy.  And we will watch both nations politicians shed crocodile tears as they prepare stringent plans that will most likely bring yet another calamity with their enforcement.  We heard the sanctimonious fake sympathy in 2020, when a family of five Iraqi Kurds perished crossing the Channel with the body of their 15-month-old baby, Artin, washing up in Norway months later.

“To accuse only the smugglers is to hide the responsibility of the French and British authorities,” said l’Auberge des Migrants, an advocacy group that supports refugees and displaced people.

Describing the latest deaths as “truly heartbreaking”, the British Red Cross called on the UK government to make it easier, not harder, to claim asylum in the UK.

Mike Adamson, the organisation’s chief executive, said in a statement that “nobody puts their life at risk unless they are absolutely desperate and feel they have no other options”.

 Zoe Gardener from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants told the BBC that although the UK is a “compassionate country”, it’s also a rich, powerful and stable place that is “very able to offer protection to lots more refugees than we currently do”.

Clare Moseley of the charity Care4Calais explained that the migrants lost their lives seeking a better future for themselves in the UK.

“Part of the worst thing for us is that every single one of those people who are refugees by definition has already suffered something horrific whether they’ve been through conflict, torture, persecution,” she says. “The thought that somebody could escape from something really terrible, could go through hell, travel an immense journey of thousands of miles, to die at our border,” she adds. “When they’ve come here seeking safety, they’ve come here seeking our help, the scale of the tragedy – that it’s here that they die – is quite overwhelming.”

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “How many tragedies like this must we see before the government fundamentally changes its approach by committing to an ambitious expansion of safe routes for those men, women and children in desperate need of protection? Every day, people are forced to flee their homes through no fault of their own. Now is the time to end the cruel and ineffective tactic of seeking to punish or push away those who try and find safety in our country.”

Tom Davies, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights campaign manager, asked: “How many more times must we see people lose their life trying to reach safety in the UK because of the woeful lack of safe means to do so?”

Beth Gardiner-Smith, CEO of Safe Passage International, said: The tragic truth is that these deaths could – and should – have been prevented. No one should have to risk their life to reach safety. Every day, men, women and children are having to make extraordinary efforts to reach safety, sanctuary and loved ones here in the UK because there is no other way. To prevent a repeat of this tragedy, refugees urgently need safe routes to reach their loved ones, find refuge and have the chance to rebuild their lives.” She continued, “More and more people are risking the freezing, frightening journey across the Channel in small, unstable boats since the Government closed safe routes to the UK last year. Choosing to play politics with people’s lives, the Government has failed to prevent people risking the crossing and this is the result. The Government must act now to save lives by opening safe routes to the UK, and scrap their unworkable plans in the Nationality and Borders Bill which will only make the situation worse.”

Pierre Roques, coordinator of the Auberge des Migrants NGO in Calais, said the Channel risked becoming as deadly for refugees as the Mediterranean which has seen a much heavier toll over the last years of migrants crossing, AFP reports.“People are dying in the Channel, which is becoming a cemetery. And as England is right opposite, people will continue to cross.”

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 One in 10 UK families – about 3m households – are facing a cost of living crisis this winter, unable to cover even basic bills such as food and heating, according to a survey by the consumer charity, Citizens Advice.

One in five of all adults had cut back on their food shopping or turned off their heating.

One in 10 anticipated having to use food banks

Citizens Advice found that even when placed on a strict “minimal budget” – the financial plan used by the charity to support clients through a debt management process – more than 3m households were unable to meet basic living costs. A further 400,000 were left with just £50 a month once bills were paid.

One in 10 UK families will struggle to cover basics this winter, charity finds | Poverty | The Guardian

The 1.3 million-member Teamsters union has a new incoming president, Sean O’Brien. 

He says his top priorities are to unite the rank and file to take on employers, organize Amazon and other competitors in the union’s core industries, and withdraw support from politicians who don’t deliver on union demands.

“Our biggest selling point to potential members is showing in black and white what a union contract can do,” he said. “We’ve got to have a grassroots campaign to engage our members working in similar industries and showcase what Teamsters can do — and that means negotiating strong contracts that people want to be part of.”

In UPS negotiations in 2023, he says, the union must abolish the second tier of drivers, raise the starting pay of part-timers from $14 an hour to $20 and crack down on subcontracting and Uber-like deliveries by “personal vehicle drivers.” He and his running mates have pledged to strike UPS if necessary.

UPS workers have lived out the consequences of a bad deal pushed through by former union leader Jimmy Hoffa Jnr: two-tier wages and another five years of rampant forced overtime and harassment from supervisors. “It doesn’t matter where we went when we were campaigning—that’s what everybody was furious about,” said Eugene Braswell, a New York City Local 804 UPS driver.

Teamsters United Takes the Wheel – Consortium News