thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
Disagreements between christians and atheists seem to have heated up in the last decade or two. Whether it is because atheists have become more convinced of the evils of religion, or there are just more of them these days, or whether it is because christians are feeling more under threat, I don’t know. Or perhaps […]
Hurricane Sandy has been in the news, as it left a trail of destruction and loss of life. The finger has sometimes been pointed at climate change as one of the causes, which it probably is, though no-one can know for sure. Yet the destruction could have been worse, and recovery far more difficult, if […]
I’ve been intending for a while starting a new section on Is there a God? about making a difference in the world. Finally, the baby’s born! The first topic is climate change. Don’t go away just yet. Even if you’re not all that interested, please check out the rest of this post to see why […]
There has been a long campaign for chocolate companies to only source their cocoa from farms that don’t use trafficked child labour, and who pay the workers a fair wage. And progress has been slow. I have previously reported how I have joined many others in writing to chocolate companies here in Australia asking them […]
Almost one billion people, an eighth of the world’s population, are hungry as you read this. Why?
I have previously reported on the ethical dilemmas posed by eating chocolate, due to the trafficking and exploitation of children in growing cocoa in West Africa (see My pleasure, their misery? and Easter eggs and slavery), and on the responses to my letters to chocolate manufacturers (see Fair Trade chocolate – report 1). I have […]
Easter’s coming soon, and if you live in the west as I do, you’ll probably be eating your share of easter eggs. But what if the eggs came from cocoa grown using child labour, that is effectively slave labour?
Back in November I reported on exploitation in the world cocoa trade in My pleasure, their misery?. At that time I wrote about this to two prominent chocolate manufacturers. I subsequently reported (Fair Trade chocolate – report 1) that I had received a reply from Cadbury indicating their ongoing support for Fair Trade products. I […]
A couple of weeks ago, I outlined some facts about exploitation in the growing of cocoa for chocolate (see My pleasure, their misery?) and at the same time wrote to two prominent chocolate manufacturers expressing my concerns and asking them to make more concerted moves to only source cocoa from growers who were paid a […]
A short time ago, I posted on poverty and the growing world population (7 billion and counting), and about the challenge of deciding how to respond (The cost of addressing world poverty). Let’s start with something small which most of us can do this week, or this year.