By Isabel Govier, Assistant Editor and Campaigns Manager of GLOBUS Over recent years the world has been met with ever-increasing waves of activism, with over a third of all human rights climate cases being filed between 2020 and 2021. At the University of Warwick there are 42 charity and campaigning societies, striving to increase sustainability via... Continue Reading →
Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Complex Relationship
By Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Correspondent Most people are familiar with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (also known by its acronym SDGs) or have at least heard of them. Similarly, I assume that most people have heard of human rights – also a concept supported and ratified by the UN. Even if you don’t know... Continue Reading →
Protection From The Virus: At The Price Of Modern Slavery?
by Sakeena Rajpal, GLOBUS Correspondent "It is awful to think that PPE we have been wearing through this pandemic may have been made by Uyghur forced labour”. Nus Ghani, Conservative MP We are all only too familiar with the devastating consequences caused by Covid-19, the disease that has led to a global pandemic with unprecedented... Continue Reading →
Myanmar’s First Anniversary Since The Failed Military Coup – A Passage Far From Celebration
By Sakeena Rajpal, GLOBUS Correspondent It has been just over a year since the military took over control in Myanmar on the 1st February 2021, denying their people of democracy and freedom. Over this time, the destructive impact of the military coups’ brutal and terrorising power on the country is evident. According to the IRC (International Rescue Committee)... Continue Reading →
Can A Doughnut Save The Planet?
by Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Correspondent When you think of a doughnut you usually think of a tasty, sweet ring of dough pumped full of sugar and topped with even more sugary icing – it’s somewhat of a guilty pleasure. What does this delicious pastry have to do with saving the planet though? Well, the doughnut... Continue Reading →
Can Fashion Save the Planet? The Importance of Regenerative Fashion
By Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS correspondant Inspired by Safia Minney's talk entitled 'Regenerative Fashion: Pathways in the Climate Emergency', delivered at the TED Countdown event organised by TEDxWarwick and GLOBUS. What does fashion have to do with climate change? How does fashion relate to ecosystems? What do we mean by ‘regenerative fashion’? Becoming more aware of how we... Continue Reading →
The Shades of Grey in Wildlife Conservation
– With Aaron Gekoski, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019 – by Sara Azeem, Editor-in-Chief Pen and camera are weapons against oblivion, they can create awareness for that which may soon be lost forever. It was towards the end of the interview that Aaron quoted these words of the legendary conservationist George Schaller, but... Continue Reading →
Green Words and their Impact: The Role of Language in Greenwashing
By Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Correspondent Anyone who has read up on greenwashing will know that the topic is highly complex. It’s being increasingly considered by companies, investors, governments, and NGOs because of how big of an effect it can have on everyone involved. The Volkswagen scandal in 2015 is only one example of how greenwashing can have... Continue Reading →
THE VOICE OF THE YOUTH
by Šimon Michalčík, GLOBUS Correspondent Roughly a year ago, all of us were probably experiencing difficult times. One day, when the gravity of self-isolation (both physical, and consequently, social) laid on me, I wrote a poem. I thought about how the pandemic was most likely just a mere glimpse into the uncertainties and falls of... Continue Reading →
The Capitalist Curse
By Clint Broadway, guest writer from this year's GSD competition Our interactions with each other and the world around us have always been governed by currency. Whether it be the Mesopotamian shekel, used to pay mercenaries in the 6th century B.C, or computerized dollars, which have erected immense corporations more influential than most countries, currency has been idolized... Continue Reading →
Cotton- The Most Unsustainable Fibre?
By Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Correspondent When talking about fashion, which materials would you name as being the most sustainable? There’s a good chance that the answer to this question is ‘cotton’. Cotton seems to be the perfect fibre because it’s cheap, natural and plentiful. However, what most of us don’t realise is that the production... Continue Reading →
The UK’s ‘neo-colonial’ Nationality and Borders Bill: devoid of dignity, morality, and compassion
By Caitlin Hoyland, GLOBUS correspondant In June of this year, the UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, proposed the Nationality and Borders Bill. This bill aims in part to implement new legislature as part of Patel’s ambition to create a ‘fair, humane, compassionate, and outward-looking Home Office’. Yet the UK Government isn’t planning on investigating the... Continue Reading →
The Webs We Weave
By Sara Azeem, Editor-in-Chief of GLOBUS Lin Chen, China Mainland, 2018 Sony World Photography Awards I came across this photograph a while ago and was immediately struck by the intensity of the colours and the surreal energy it exuded. It took me a while to wrap my head around what it was – a boat... Continue Reading →
Resisting HS2: THE Welsh Road Protection Camp
by Alexandros Kassapis, GLOBUS Correspondent Cutting through 108 ancient woodlands, 693 local wildlife sites, 18 Wildlife Trust Nature Reserves, and many more protected areas, the UK’s current largest construction project, the High-Speed Rail 2 (HS2), has triggered a massive natural disaster. Since the construction of HS2 began in 2020, a long belt of resistance camps... Continue Reading →
Can drug decriminalization be socially sustainable?
By Silia Tsigka, GLOBUS Correspondent In November 2020, the possession of hard drugs, like heroin and cocaine, as well as the medicinal use of hallucinogens, like mushrooms, was decriminalized in Oregon. Oregon became the first US state to adopt this policy through a democratic vote and, soon after, other states moved towards a looser drug policy... Continue Reading →
Treading the murky waters of fast fashion
By Naomi Carter, GLOBUS Correspondent Boohoo have been getting a lot of press recently, and not only because they have just signed a £55 million deal to buy Debenhams. Since lockdown 1.0, shocking conditions in their Leicester factories have been revealed - failure to pay minimum wages, inadequate fire protection, lack of social distancing, unpaid overtime, and... Continue Reading →
Electric Cars, as sustainable as they seem?
by Amy Denton, GLOBUS Correspondent Electric cars are the future, are they not? We have been told that they are more efficient and produce fewer emissions than traditional vehicles. An EU study in 2020 found that an electric car running on electricity generated solely by an oil-fired power station would use only two-thirds of the... Continue Reading →
Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund: a viable solution to climate change or mere hypocrisy?
By Silia Tsigka, GLOBUS Correspondent In February 2020 Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos announced the commencement of the “Earth Fund”, to which he intended to donate an initial amount of 10 billion dollars, dedicated to causes relevant to combating climate change. In mid-November 2020, he announced the first beneficiaries of this fund, which include scientists, activists, and other institutions and organisations, making Bezos the biggest contributor to... Continue Reading →
THE HIDDEN FACE OF THE FRENCH GLOBAL SECURITY LAW
By Laura Chevrot, GLOBUS Correspondent ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’: Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood. Three words that have served as a symbol of French values since the French Constitution of 1848. But to what extent does France serve these principles? Controversy has recently been sparked in France over the passing of a bill designed to protect security officials... Continue Reading →
Murders of social activists in Colombia: a violation of human rights and a threat to sustainable development
By Silia Tsigka, GLOBUS Correspondent At the beginning of October, there were 263 confirmed murder cases this year of humanitarian, environmental and social activists, by Colombian death squads. Such a violation of human rights reached its peak during the outbreak of the coronavirus in March; however, the situation did not improve, and the mainstream media found themselves covering the issue once more in October. Nevertheless, the murdering of innocent activists and protesters is not something new and in order to... Continue Reading →