by Pip Roddis
Week 1 of COP22 has come to an end. Listening to music, musing over the experience of being a youth delegate to a UNFCCC conference, familiar lyrics took on a new meaning:
“Our hopes and expectations, black holes and revelations…”
Global Eyecare Workshop Discusses The Future of Eyecare Provision
by Lora Cracknell
According to the World Health Organisation, 285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide; 39 million of these are fully blind. This past month, Sussex DevSoc, in collaboration with the School of Global Studies, hosted a vibrant and interactive workshop; Innovation in Global Eyecare.
The workshop gave insights into contemporary issues of health care provision, innovations under development, as well as assistance being delivered globally by NGOs and governments. The main driving force for the gathering was trying to answer the question “what more can be done, and how can we do it?”
Britain is Right to Celebrate the Abolition of Slavery, But Must Acknowledge Excesses of Empire
by Alan Lester
As the UK celebrates its role in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, it’s important to recognise that Britain’s humanitarianism was ultimately cut from the same cloth as imperial expansion. Britain’s Anti-Slavery Day should remind us that – despite the country’s abolition of the slave trade in 1807 – the global trafficking and enslavement of people is still very much with us. When the country celebrated the bicentenary of its abolition of the slave trade in 2007 the government explicitly linked the celebration with reminders of the continuing problem of slavery and human trafficking.
Unearthing the Senses in Our Experience of Woodlands
This blog post originally appeared on the Woodland Trust News and Blog.
Have you ever stood in a woodland and closed your eyes, even for a few moments? Could you hear the rummaging of the squirrel, smell the familiar pungency of the damp musk that follows the rainfall, or feel the movement of the wind as it danced through the trees?
I have often found myself watching the woodlands, those beautiful, radiant colours that turn and change with the moods of the seasons. Tracing the contours of the twisting limbs which rise towards the sky to finally burst with offshoots of green. But there is so much more to the woodlands than what is seen. So often the beauty of the woodland is a scene to behold with the eyes alone.
Risk, Property, and the Politics of Nature
By Kelly Kay
Last year, the School of Global Studies (through the Centre for Global Political Economy), in conjunction with the ESRC STEPS Centre, held a conference on the Financialisation of Nature. The conference produced some exciting and thought-provoking dialogue on this important issue.