VANDANA SHIVA ON FIGHTING BIO-IMPERIALISM (MF GALAXY 038)
Scientist Eco-Warrior on Stopping Monsanto from Owning Life
Vandana
Shiva is a world-renowned environmentalist and physicist who earned her Ph.D.
on “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory” at the University of
Western Ontario. She’s also a featured interviewee in the acclaimed Canadian
documentary The Corporation and the
author of over three hundred papers and dozens of books.
She founded the
Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which according to her
website vshiva.net, “works on biodiversity conservation and protecting people's
rights from threats to their livelihoods and environment.” She also founded
Navdanya, an Indian movement to protect bio-diversity and life-form integrity,
especially for native seeds.
Way
back in 2004, Shiva spoke in Edmonton for the Revolutionary Speakers Series
curated by the University of Alberta Students Union. We met outside an organic
chain store in Edmonton’s historic Old Strathcona district to discuss—what
else—saving the planet. She explained many things, including:
- Why people living under corporate agriculture are “bio-serfs”
- How the fight for traditional farming is a fight for human rights
- The meaning of "planet rights"
- The agribusiness worst case scenario that’s already happening, and
- How rich countries use agribusiness subsidies to destroy the agricultural viability of developing nations
Along
the way, Shiva referenced Percy Schmeiser, the Saskatchewan farmer who battled
agribusiness megacorp Monsanto all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and
lost.
We
began by discussing the how differences between North American and European
cultures affect the relationship between politics and science.
TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD FREE,
RIGHT-CLICK AND SELECT "SAVE AS"
allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen
mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen>
Comments