The Big Issue 11/15/2021

While we wait to see whether the promises made at COP26 will be kept, action is needed urgently for indigenous communities around the world. When over 100,000 people took part in the biggest protest during COP, leading the way through the streets of Glasgow were representatives from the Indigenous Environmental Network and the NDN Collective, among many others. However, communities from the global south disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, found it difficult to travel due to prohibitive costs and travel restrictions. One group that did make it was Association Jiboiana, there to represent indigenous Amazon communities. In Brazil, indigenous peoples represent only 0.02 per cent of the population yet they protect 12 per cent of the territory, having lived harmoniously with nature for millennia. The group visited the Cormonachan Community Woodlands in…

FUTURE GENERATIONS The UN has gone where The Big Issue has previously led. It’s a welcome move The Big Issue, led by the parliamentary action of Lord John Bird, has been calling for some time for baked-in legislation that considers long-term better futures for all. Now the world is listening. Last week, fresh from hosting the climate change COP26 summit in Glasgow, the United Nations announced it would establish a UN Special Envoy for Future Generations and a UN declaration for future generations as well as holding a Futures Summit in 2023. This is a landmark and significant announcement – and it represents an important leap forward in international recognition for the Future Generations movement. Wales introduced the Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) in 2016 and appointed the UK’s first Future Generations Commissioner Sophie Howe…

The fallout over post-Brexit arrangements for Irish Sea trade, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, is not just the legislative headache for Boris Johnson’s government it has been painted as. It has far-reaching consequences that include the potential to set back a still emerging and fragile post-conflict society to a very dark place. Last month, Brexit minister Lord David Frost declared the trade deal, that keeps NI aligned with EU rules, as “unsustainable”. He said the nation may have to trigger Article 16 if there is no “significant change from Brussels” by December. In response, EU commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said there would be “serious consequences” if Downing Street suspended the post-Brexit deal. While the British press focused on a potential UK-EU ‘trade war’, little was mentioned of what was happening in Northern Ireland. In the last…

The argument that MPs using their position to feather their nest is only a Westminster issue has long since sailed Human beings, said the great Italian writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, are biologically built for an activity aimed toward a goal. Work without purpose, he said, gives rise to suffering and to atrophy. I haven’t heard this used as an excuse yet for MPs who desire to take on a glut of highly paid extra work, but we can’t be THAT far from it. Although if you’re pulling down several hundred per hour to advise the gambling industry you might not have much time to read. Especially if you have to find a way to raise a supportive point about the gambling industry in Westminster. The argument that MPs using their position…

Perhaps it was not an entirely good idea to go from COP26 one day to an art exhibition the next day and not realise that it might influence my viewing pleasure. The exhibition was Late Constable at the Royal Academy in London’s West End and I had loved the works of John Constable (1776-1837) since I discovered him when I was a ‘locked up’, aspiring boy painter. I preferred him to all other English painters so I looked forward to the RA exhibition with great expectations. I was not disappointed but found my mind wandering away to the climate crisis that had been the theme of the immense Glasgow conference. Unlike his rival competitor and contemporary JMW Turner, he was not given to painting the ‘satanic mills’ of the industrial revolution.…

YOU REACT TO OUR FEATURE: BRIAN COX [November 1] Logan Roy – is he a loving dad? I think he loves himself and he sees his kids as extensions of himself, like all big narcissists do. But if they do anything that doesn’t fit in with the idea he has of them as extensions of himself, he will do decidedly cruel and unloving things to them. KittyGrewAMoustache I don’t believe it to be true he “loves” his kids… I agree he “loves” them as extensions of himself. If Logan could go on living forever and not have to worry about his kids taking over he totally would. He loves power and control that’s it. FranceinBaby He very much loves them. He just remembers all the awful stuff from his childhood and thinks making sure his kids…