A call for Millennium Consumption Goals

Feizal Samath in IPS: A Sri Lankan scientist is calling for the drafting of "Millennium Consumption Goals" to force rich countries to curb their climate-damaging consumption habits, in the same way the poor have Millennium Development Goals to get them out of poverty.

Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, expert on sustainable development and climate change, says, "We now have Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for the poor. We should extend that to the rich and make sure they consume more sustainably." He said this is needed because 85 percent of all consumption in world is done by the top 20 percent of the world’s rich.

"If they can be more sustainable in consumption, it can reduce the environmental burden by a tremendous amount," said Munasinghe in an interview with IPS in Colombo, where he is based. Munasinghe is vice-chair of the Geneva-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore.

He noted the severe changes in the weather pattern due to El Niño and La Niña happening one after the other in December. El Niño is a regional phenomenon that heats up parts of the Pacific region, affects South America and the rest of world, while La Niña, which also starts in the Pacific, sets off a cold spell…

At the Louvre: Side B (reverse) of a two-sided Mithraic relief. Found at Fiano Romano, near Rome "couché dans un petit réduit de briques" in 1926. White marble (H. 62cm, W. 67 cm, D. 16 cm) on a travertine base (H. 10cm, W. 76cm, D. 50cm). 2nd-3rd century.In the middle, a bull's hide, of which the head and one hindleg are visible. Sol and Mithras recline on it side by side. Mithras holds a torch in his left hand and extends his right hand behind Sol. Sol is dressed only in a cape, fastened on his right shoulder with a fibula. Around Sol's head is a crown of eleven rays. He holds a whip in his left hand and extends the right towards a torchbearer who offers him a rhyton. In the lower right is another torchbearer, with raised torch in his left hand. In his right hand, a caduceus held into the water emerging from the ground. In the middle, an altar in the coils of a crested snake. In the upper left corner, Luna in a cloud, looking away. Traces of red paint on the attire of Sol, Mithras and the torchbearers.