Environment

2015 was not kind to Brazil. 

In addition to a seemingly intractable political crisis that has rendered Congress effectively useless when it comes to passing legislation aimed at shoring up an increasingly precarious fiscal situation, the country is also mired in what might as well be a depression. 

Inflation is running in the double-digits, unemployment is soaring, and output has collapsed in the face of an epic downturn in commodity prices, slowing demand from China, and a yuan deval that drove a stake through the heart of the already beleaguered emerging world. 

Any other time, the following video would be a ringing, if comical, endorsement of Keynesian economics: build it up just to tear it down again, and then build it back up again.

Old people, unlike the young, frustrated by their confinement and yet unable to channel their anger and energy, just sit outside their homes and gaze at the passerbys. They watch their misery unfold, as they have for decades. This time however, their hardship is not only the work of Israel, but that of their Arab "brothers" as well.

Analysis of our energy, climate and political impasse featuring suggestions for transformative action.

On Sunday, we brought you “Huge Fukushima Cover-Up Exposed, Government Scientists In Meltdown,” in which we highlighted a piece from Sean Adl-Tabatabai who asks whether government-funded researchers are intentionally downplaying rising levels of radiation in the Pacific Ocean stemming from the 2011 meltdown in Japan.