The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Glenn is a multidisciplinarian with a background in geography. Besides being a published author, he also edited "A Patented World? The Privatisation of Life and Knowledge," published by Jacana in South Africa. He currently is on the editorial board of the SA Journal of Natural Medicine.
Additionally, Glenn has written many commentaries and analyses of wide ranging issues including waste management, water use, food security, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, health, agricultural fuels, marine resources, climate and many other environmental and socially relevant issues.
He has also presented many papers and talks to a wide range of audiences. He specialises in communicating complex scientific issues in an accessible manner. He is a freelance writer and researcher.
Glenn Ashton -
At the birth of our democracy the incoming government ambitiously stated they would redistribute thirty percent of agricultural land, 25 million hectares, by 1999. When it was obvious the goal could not be met, the delivery date was shifted to 2014. Today we are not even a third of the way to achieving this limited target.
The question of redistribution, restitution and broadened access to land remains a powder keg. The jobless and hopeless are increasingly receptive to this explosive...
Glenn Ashton -
A few decades ago city workers anticipated a cheap, relatively healthy lunch of a bunny chow – a dollop of stew or curry in a half loaf, along with a pint of milk. Today inflation and industrial food have shifted us to where a lunchtime visit to the corner shop or local supermarket reveals the extent of our dietary rot. For too many, lunch often means a half a loaf of bread and a bottle of cool drink.
In our cities cool drinks have almost become ubiquitous, the daytime drink of...
Glenn Ashton -
Over the course of the past century our food supply has shifted from local to global. Most food our grandparents ate was grown regionally, often by neighbourhood farmers. Today our food comes from across the world. More importantly, it is often produced in highly destructive ways, at the lowest possible cost.
Consequently our food production system is responsible for accelerating the rate of destruction of the very ecosystems we are reliant upon in order to maintain our delicate global...
Glenn Ashton -
Edward Snowden, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning and Julian Assange have all attained legendary status amongst citizens’ rights advocates. They have exposed the extent that modern government has, under the aegis of security and intelligence gathering, encroached into all of our lives. This blanket surveillance of the citizenry, on a previously unimaginable scale, is the current manifestation of Orwell’s 1984 Big Brother.
Yet few have heard of Jeremy Hammond, sentenced to 10 years for...
Glenn Ashton -
This week the latest round of climate negotiations, the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) is meeting in Warsaw Poland, to grapple with the stalled Climate Change Convention. At the opening of the conference Dr Alicia Illinga, a Filipina delegate highlighted how her country had already been hit by 22 typhoons this year. The devastating Typhoon Haiyan, the most powerful typhoon to have ever made landfall, hit the Philippines on the eve of the conference, causing thousands of fatalities and...
Glenn Ashton -
Imagine fighting fatigue to struggle out of bed each morning, to eat nothing beside a thin gruel of maize meal. Now you must go to work, or seek work or get your exhausted brain to consider ways to get your family though another day, without additional sustenance to fuel your failing body.
This is the reality of more than 40% of South Africans. Worse yet, the situation is deteriorating; food inflation markedly exceeds broader inflation. The limited existing food security programmes reach...
