The Green Planet Monitor

GPM # 50 Israel and its allies moved heaven and Earth to prevent it from happening. This past week in The Hague, it did. On Monday, February 19, in response to a late December request from the UN General Assembly for its authoritative legal opinion — a request Israel, the US and fifteen other states voted against — the UN’s supreme judicial body, the International Court of Justice, con...

GPM # 49 Some like it hot – or get used to it. In Iceland, where volcanoes belch hot gases and volcanic cracks burst open, spewing thousand-degree magma across the landscape, volcanism is a way of life . This past November, the town of Grindavík , population 3400, on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, was evacuated as red hot magma — 1200-degree hot; that’s 2200 Fahrenheit — started pourin...

GPM # 48 We have heard it before – to avoid impending Earth crisis (if it isn’t too late), people need to change their eating habits. Those who have the choice, should opt to eat food grown or raised close to home. Unpackaged, unprocessed foods contain less embodied carbon. Grilled Meat (David Kattenburg) And, experts says, eat less meat. Takes lots of energy to grow meat. Livestock production gen...

GPM # 47 Remember the closing scene from Planet of the Apes? The first in the franchise? American astronaut George Taylor, played by Charleton Heston, trots on horseback down a lonely beach, accompanied by a female human buddy. Suddenly, astronaut George spies an awful sight, something terribly familiar, poking out of the sand. This isn’t a far-off planet, it’s Planet Earth, Taylor’s home, l...

GPM # 46 Israel’s high-flight lawyers may have thought they dodged a bullet at the International Court of Justice last Friday, in The Hague, when it ruled on South Africa’s application against Israel under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Days after that ruling, the Israelis are not uncorking champagne. In a virtually unanimous decision , on January 26, the UN’s supreme judicial body deli...

GPM # 45 It’s an astonishing fact: In the 248 years since the United State of America became an independent state, the American republic has only been at peace for about eleven. The United States of War, you could call it. David Vine does. Vine, a Professor of Anthropology at American University, in Washington D.C., has recently completed the third in a trilogy of books about permanent war a...

GPM # 44 On January 11 and 12 in The Hague, the international community’s highest judicial body, the International Court of Justice , heard arguments for and against the proposition that Israel is committing genocide in its war on Gaza. South Africa is asking the court to issue an injunction bringing Israel’s genocidal war to a halt. A provisional measures order, this would be called. In an 84-pag...

GPM # 43 This coming Thursday and Friday, the international community’s highest judicial body, the International Court of Justice , will be hearing arguments for and against the proposition that Israel is committing genocide in its war on Gaza. That proposition has been put forward by the Republic of South Africa. In an 84-page submission to the ICJ , lawyers for South Africa argue that Israel’s a...

GPM # 42 Eighty days have passed since the deadly events of October 7. Israel’s retaliatory assault – Operation Iron Swords – has been way deadlier. Eighty days into its bombing campaign – likened to the savage bombardment of Dresden, Cologne and Hamburg – Israel has dropped an estimated 25,000 tonnes of ordnance on the tiny enclave, among the most densely populated in the world, already crippled...

GPM # 41 The world’s largest source of untapped energy … What comes to mind? Remaining oil/gas reserves? How about clean wind and solar? In fact, it’s the world’s oceans. Huge volumes of energy are stored in ocean waves, tides and surface heat. Then there’s salt gradient energy . Wherever fresh river water flows into salty seas, salt ions can be directed across a stack of p...

GPM # 40 Today, Sunday, December 10, is the 75th anniversary of the international community’s most canonical human rights statement – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Promulgated by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 – in the wake of the horrors of World War II – the Declaration sets forth what its drafters considered the most basic rights all people should enjoy, regardless o...

GPM # 39 Few things in life are more precious than a good night’s sleep. Six or seven hours of shuteye, punctuated by brief visits to the loo. Better yet, sleep bursting with pleasant dreams. Microsleeping in the middle of an important meeting, or behind the wheel of your car, is an entirely different story. This past week, scientists reported that nesting chinstrap penguins do just that, nodding...

GPM # 38 It was a convoluted but portentous American declaration: “The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any Europea...

GPM # 37 Hamas, its leaders and armed militants are alien to Gaza and its people. They’ve parachuted in from some other place and are hiding out in the civilian population — criminally and cynically — using ordinary, innocent Gazans as human shields. Such is the wisdom of the highest authorities. People like Joe Biden and top European diplomats . Ilan Pappe sees things differentl...

GPM # 36 Imagine this scenario: A G20 summit is taking place near Quebec City. Protesters will be there. Among these, “anti-capitalists” vowing to disrupt the gathering, exploiting the presence of international media to further their radical cause. Wise to their aims, the Canadian Air Force launches an unmanned surveillance drone that can carry weapons, but in this instance does not. S...