A Message to China: Stop Eating Shark Fin Soup! 鱼翅汤背后的成本:鲨鱼可能消失

For some years now, ocean scientists and many other concerned citizens around the world have been aware of the danger that shark finning is bringing to the world.  Sharks are being consumed by the millions, just for their fins.  After being brutally definned, their bodies are tossed back into the ocean to die.  This is going on in support of a multi-billion dollar industry surrounding the purported benefit of shark fins for human health—a completely unsubstantiated belief.  China is especially guilty of contributing to the extinction of sharks worldwide.  Here in China, shark fin soup is considered a delicacy, and people pay a premium to consume it. 

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Nile Perch and Blue Jeans: Videographing inequalities in globalized labor in China and Africa

Anybody concerned with globalization and the inequalities it produces ought to be aware of where the clothing and food he or she consumes on a daily basis comes from and who made it.  Yet when it comes to the labor that goes into producing our consumables in the modern industrial world, as Karl Marx understood so well, we are too often in the dark.  Enter two filmographers who have managed to shed some light on the globalizing forces of labor and production.

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Sustainable Development and the "Eco-City" of Dongtan near Shanghai

Wired Magazine has published a feature article on the planned eco-community of Dongtan.  Dongtan is under development on the eastern edge of Chongming Island, a large island at the mouth of the Yangzi River near Shanghai.  It is an experiment in urban sustainability financed by the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation and designed by the European firm Arup. 

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