Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods: A taste of what’s to come

By Simon Butler
from Green Left Weekly

If you are not at least a little bit scared about the Russian heatwave or the huge floods in Pakistan, then you really should be. Extreme and dangerous weather events will be far more common in a warmer world.

These devastating fires and floods are a taste of our future climate — unless we can force a political breakthrough on climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions sharply.

The disasters of the past few weeks sound an unmistakable warning: we’ve emitted so many greenhouse gases already that we are losing a safe climate.

Russia has not gone through a comparable heatwave in the past 1000 years, said the Russian Meteorological Centre on August 9.

The centre’s Alexander Frolov told newsagency RIA Novosti: “We have an 'archive’ of abnormal weather situations stretching over a thousand years. It is possible to say there was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat.”

Bolivia’s UN ambassador: rich countries fail to cut greenhouse gases

from Democracy Now!
August 10, 2010 

Even as the world faces a series of extreme weather events that scientists warn is related to global warming, international climate negotiations are moving at a glacial pace. The latest round of climate talks in Bonn, Germany, ended last week, and diplomats have just one more short meeting in China in the coming months to hash out their differences before the critical high-level climate conference in Cancún, Mexico, at the end of the year.

At the meetings in Bonn, the negotiating text got a lot bigger, and a number of proposals from developing countries were added into the controversial agreement that came out of the divisive Copenhagen summit last year. Some fear the new text could slow down talks in Cancún, but others say the concerns of the majority of the world’s countries are finally represented in the text.

For more on what this means for a binding global agreement on climate change, I’m joined here in New York by ambassador Pablo Solón, Bolivia’s permanent representative to the United Nations. He was just in Bonn last week.

The harsh reality of climate change

by LPRENT
from The Standard
19 June 2010

The most comprehensive collection and analysis of global temperature trends comes from NOAA (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) who collect data worldwide through the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Global Telecommunication System (GTS) from more than 200 countries world wide. In the context of the debate over climate change from global warming, the report for May 2010 makes sobering reading. Highlights for the global climate (skipped a regional highlight) in May include

• It was the warmest May on record for the global surface temperature as a whole, and for the land surfaces of the globe.
• It was the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere and for land areas of the Northern Hemisphere.
• This was the 303rd consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th Century average. The last month with below average temperatures was February 1985.

Texts from the People’s Conference on Climate Change

Links has all the key documents from the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth availiable here.

Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth

April 27, 2010

This Declaration was adopted by the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in Bolivia. The Bolivian government has submitted it to the United Nations for consideration.


Preamble 

We, the peoples and nations of Earth:

considering that we are all part of Mother Earth, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny;

gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and learning and provides everything we need to live well;

recognizing that the capitalist system and all forms of depredation, exploitation, abuse and contamination have caused great destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth, putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change;

convinced that in an interdependent living community it is not possible to recognize the rights of only human beings without causing an imbalance within Mother Earth;

affirming that to guarantee human rights it is necessary to recognize and defend the rights of Mother Earth and all beings in her and that there are existing cultures, practices and laws that do so;

conscious of the urgency of taking decisive, collective action to transform structures and systems that cause climate change and other threats to Mother Earth;

proclaim this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and call on the General Assembly of the United Nation to adopt it, as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations of the world, and to the end that every individual and institution takes responsibility for promoting through teaching, education, and consciousness raising, respect for the rights recognized in this Declaration and ensure through prompt and progressive measures and mechanisms, national and international, their universal and effective recognition and observance among all peoples and States in the world.

Article 1. Mother Earth 

(1) Mother Earth is a living being.

(2) Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.

(3) Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth.

(4) The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.

(5) Mother Earth and all beings are entitled to all the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as may be made between organic and inorganic beings, species, origin, use to human beings, or any other status.

(6) Just as human beings have human rights, all other beings also have rights which are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist.

(7) The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of Mother Earth.


Article 2. Inherent Rights of Mother Earth

(1) Mother Earth and all beings of which she is composed have the following inherent rights:

(a) the right to life and to exist;

(b) the right to be respected;

(c) the right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions;

(d) the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated being;

(e) the right to water as a source of life;

(f) the right to clean air;

(g) the right to integral health;

(h) the right to be free from contamination, pollution and toxic or radioactive waste;

(i) the right to not have its genetic structure modified or disrupted in a manner that threatens it integrity or vital and healthy functioning;

(j) the right to full and prompt restoration the violation of the rights recognized in this Declaration caused by human activities;

(2) Each being has the right to a place and to play its role in Mother Earth for her harmonious functioning.


(3) Every being has the right to wellbeing and to live free from torture or cruel treatment by human beings.


Article 3. Obligations of human beings to Mother Earth

(1) Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with Mother Earth.


(2) Human beings, all States, and all public and private institutions must:

(a) act in accordance with the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;

(b) recognize and promote the full implementation and enforcement of the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;

(c) promote and participate in learning, analysis, interpretation and communication about how to live in harmony with Mother Earth in accordance with this Declaration;

(d) ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;

(e) establish and apply effective norms and laws for the defence, protection and conservation of the rights of Mother Earth;

(f) respect, protect, conserve and where necessary, restore the integrity, of the vital ecological cycles, processes and balances of Mother Earth;

(g) guarantee that the damages caused by human violations of the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration are rectified and that those responsible are held accountable for restoring the integrity and health of Mother Earth;

(h) empower human beings and institutions to defend the rights of Mother Earth and of all beings;

(i) establish precautionary and restrictive measures to prevent human activities from causing species extinction, the destruction of ecosystems or the disruption of ecological cycles;

(j) guarantee peace and eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons;

(k) promote and support practices of respect for Mother Earth and all beings, in accordance with their own cultures, traditions and customs;

(l) promote economic systems that are in harmony with Mother Earth and in accordance with the rights recognized in this Declaration.

Article 4. Definitions 

(1) The term “being” includes ecosystems, natural communities, species and all other natural entities which exist as part of Mother Earth.


(2) Nothing in this Declaration restricts the recognition of other inherent rights of all beings or specified beings.

The Cochabamba Protocol: People’s Agreement on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

April 26, 2010

Final Declaration of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia

Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger.

If global warming increases by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large extensions of forest would be affected, droughts and floods would affect different regions of the planet, deserts would expand, and the melting of the polar ice caps and the glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas would worsen. Many island states would disappear, and Africa would suffer an increase in temperature of more than 3 degrees Celsius. Likewise, the production of food would diminish in the world, causing catastrophic impact on the survival of inhabitants from vast regions in the planet, and the number of people in the world suffering from hunger would increase dramatically, a figure that already exceeds 1.02 billion people.

The corporations and governments of the so-called “developed” countries, in complicity with a segment of the scientific community, have led us to discuss climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system.

Indigenous Peoples’ Declaration: “Mother Earth can live without us, but we can’t live without her”

 “The aggression towards Mother Earth and the repeated assaults and violations against our soils, air, forests, rivers, lakes, biodiversity, and the cosmos are assaults against us.”

Indigenous Peoples’ Declaration adopted at the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Translation by Ben Powless, who was co-chair of the Indigenous People’s Working Group.

We, the Indigenous Peoples, nations and organizations from all over the world, gathered at the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, from April 19th to 22nd, 2010 in Tiquipaya, Cochabamba, Bolivia, after extensive discussions, express the following:

We Indigenous Peoples are sons and daughters of Mother Earth, or “Pachamama” in Quechua. Mother Earth is a living being in the universe that concentrates energy and life, while giving shelter and life to all without asking anything in return, she is the past, present and future; this is our relationship with Mother Earth. We have lived in coexistence with her for thousands of years, with our wisdom and cosmic spirituality linked to nature. However, the economic models promoted and forced by industrialized countries that promote exploitation and wealth accumulation have radically transformed our relationship with Mother Earth. We must assert that climate change is one of the consequences of this irrational logic of life that we must change.

Australian socialist: Some Initial Reflections on the Summit in Cochabamba

Ben Courtice is a member of the Australian Socialist Alliance who attended the World People’s Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. He posted this article on April 25 on his blog, Blind Carbon Copy. This version is copied from Climate & Capitalism. 


by Ben Courtice
April 24, 2010

This is just a first reflection on the monumental World People’s Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which just finished in Cochabamba. I will post more on particular aspects of the summit soon.

The event was huge, with at least 20 000 (I’ve heard over 30 000) attending at the university Univalle in Tiquipaya, a municipality on the northwest edge of Cochabamba. There was a huge attendance from Bolivians, who are very much engaged in the political process of their country, and generally very supportive of their charismatic President Evo Morales. Delegations came, many in their traditional costume (which they still wear every day), from indigenous tribal people in the Amazon, from the Aymara and Quechua peoples of the Andes, from a plethora of unions, peasant and indigenous associations and NGOs, from all of what is called the “plurinational state of Bolivia.”

There were also big delegations from pretty much all the countries of Latin America. There was a fair scattering of North Americans, a few from Central America, and a pretty sparse representation from the rest of the world. Europe, Asia and Africa were under-represented partly because any flights going through Europe were cancelled after the volcanic eruption in Iceland. It was a clearly left gathering: the conservative NGO and aid milieu were keeping a low profile if they were there.

The summit had 17 working groups to write a document each for adoption by the summit. Topics of these ranged from the somewhat esoteric “shared vision” to concrete discussions such as on forests, and on a world referendum on climate action proposed by the Bolivian government.

In many ways the summit was driven by the radical agenda of the Latin American socialist governments – Bolivia of course, and Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador. The discourse from the Bolivians, in particular, was largely based on an indigenous philosophy of vivir bien – living well – in harmony with Pachamama – mother earth.

Democracy Now! videos interviews from Climate Change Conference

Democracy Now! has heaps of coverage of the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in both video and transcripts.

Below are a few of the videos, with links to the transcripts.

From Melting Glaciers to Structural Adjustment: Maude Barlow on the Need for Water Justice

Transcript here at Democracy Now! webpage.

Mesa 18: Dissident Groups Host Alternative Meeting Outside World Peoples’ Climate Summit

Transcript here at Democracy Now! webpage.

 

Bolivia Climate Conference Moves to Establish Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth

Transcript here at Democracy Now! webpage.

20,000 at Bolivia climate conference

 Delegates at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and The Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia (Pic: Kris Krüg)

By Suzie Wylie and Jonathan Neale
in Cochabamba, Bolivia
From Socialist Worker UK

Some 20,000 people gathered for a “people’s conference on climate change” in Cochabamba, Bolivia, this week.

The event is historic. The leaders of the world’s major powers decided that they would do nothing about climate change at the UN’s climate talks in Copenhagen last December.

Many environmentalists were enraged. The same leaders who were prepared to bail out the banks were not prepared to save the planet.

There was a danger that the climate movement would collapse in demoralisation.

But Evo Morales, the left wing president of Bolivia, called a global conference of the social movements to continue the fight against climate change.

Canadian youth activist reports from Cochabamba

Kimia Ghomeshi from the Canadian youth climate movement reports back from Cochabamba:

I am now about half way through the 3 day peoples conference and feel a great sense of empowerment and sadness all at once.  I feel a deep sadness for our civilization that is so incapable of living in harmony with one another and with mother earth.  The developing world are to this day paying the price for colonialism in the form of neoliberal and capitalistic practices that are destroying their air, land, water and food – destroying their way of life.  I feel a deep sadness that capital accumulation has taken precedence over human life so that developed countries like Canada can continue to develop, exploit and consume.

But I also feel incredibly empowered because what I am seeing before me, here in Cochabamba, is a truly global resistance.  A resistance to the world’s greatest polluters– polluters who refuse to accept their responsibility for causing this global catastrophe.   And this movement is building, becoming more tactful, more united, more committed, with a common vision: Systems change, not climate change. 

Read Ghomeshi’s full report here: http://www.ourclimate.ca/wordpress/

Hat tip http://climateandcapitalism.com

Voices from the first day of the Bolivian Climate Change Conference

Report by Anjali Kamat and Rick Rowley
Democracy Now

As the peoples’ climate change talks here move into their third day, thousands of participants from across Latin America and around the world are streaming into this small Bolivian town to discuss how to slow the impact of global warming. Anjali Kamat and Rick Rowley file this report on Tuesday’s opening ceremony.




Click link below to read Rush Transcript

World People’s Conference on Climate Change starts today

From Without Your Walls

At least 15,000 people from 126 countries are expected to attend the World People’s Conference on Climate Change which has been called by Bolivia as a response to the failure of the recent COP15 climate change negotiations.

As one of the few countries that openly criticised the negotiations in Copenhagen and has refused to sign the Copenhagen Accord, Bolivia has invited governments, organisations and people to take part in finding real solutions to fight climate change.

Auckland event, 3rd May: 
New Zealander Sandy Gauntlett of Global Forests Coalition and the international Climate Justice Now! network will be speaking on what happened at the conference on his return to New Zealand. 
For more details and to confirm your attendance [via facebook] click here.

 
The objectives of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth are:

1)    To analyze the structural and systemic causes that drive climate change and to propose radical measures to ensure the well-being of all humanity in harmony with nature

2)    To discuss and agree on the project of a Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights

3)    To agree on proposals for new commitments to the Kyoto Protocol and projects for a COP Decision under the United Nations Framework for Climate Change that will guide future actions in those countries that are engaged with life during climate change negotiations and in all United Nations scenarios, related to: Climate debt, Climate change migrants-refugees, Emission reductions, Adaptation, Technology transfer, Finance, Forest and Climate Change, Shared Vision, Indigenous, Peoples, and others. These are split into 17 working groups, which will form basis of the final document of the conference.

4)    To work on the organization of the World People’s Referendum on Climate Change

5)    To analyze and develop an action plan to advance the establishment of a Climate Justice Tribunal

6)    To define strategies for  action and mobilization to defend life from Climate Change and to defend the Rights of Mother Earth.







Keep updated and participate:

You can follow what’s going on the following this blog, this blog and social network sites

Watch the conference live

As Glaciers Melt, Bolivia Fights for the Good Life

by Jessica Camille Aguirre
Yes Magazine

Bolivia is watching its glaciers melt, early casualties of a changing climate. As communities struggle to adapt and the government tries to pioneer an alternative way forward, rural Bolivians believe the answer lies not in consumerist striving to live better, but in learning to live well.

Don Alivio Aruquipa [pictured right] is smiling as he gestures around his community. Behind him, groups of yelping children kick a soccer ball around a sloping green plaza. Every so often, the ball goes flying off the mesa into a plot of cultivated land below, and the children send someone to go retrieve it.

Looming over the verdant square that stretches among squat square buildings is Illimani, a blue, breathtaking colossus of craggy rock and snow.
 
On the other side of the mountain sits La Paz, the burgeoning capital city of Bolivia. But here, in the village of Khapi, the hush of remote tranquility is interrupted only by children’s cries.

Alivio, stocky and affable, is one of Khapi's community leaders. He turns somber as he explains how yellow water is beginning to come down from Illimani. The animals don’t like it, he says; they get sick or they refuse to drink. The water flowing down from the mountain has also become unpredictable, he adds. It has become impossible to know when to plant the crops.

Khapi is a village of 40 families in the western part of the Bolivian altiplano; its residents rely on agriculture to survive. It is the closest community to Illimani (the name for both the mountain and the glacier atop it, which provides water not only to Khapi but also to La Paz). For as long as anyone who lives here can remember, the community has relied on water from the glacier to drink, wash, cook, and cultivate food. But now Illimani is disappearing.

Bolivia creates a new opportunity for climate talks that failed at Copenhagen

Bolivia’s UN ambassador Pablo Solon-Romero during a press conference.

Photograph: Paulo Filgueiras/UN Photo

By Pablo Solón Romero

In the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate conference, those who defended the widely condemned outcome tended to talk about it as a “step in the right direction”. This was always a tendentious argument, given that tackling climate change cannot be addressed by half measures. We can’t make compromises with nature.

Bolivia, however, believed that Copenhagen marked a backwards step, undoing the work built on since the climate talks in Kyoto. That is why, against strong pressure from industrialised countries, we and other developing nations refused to sign the Copenhagen Accord and why we are hosting an international meeting on climate change in Cochabamba, Bolivia, from April 19 to 22, 2010. In the words of the Tuvalu negotiator, we were not prepared to “betray our people for 30 pieces of silver”.

Saving Public Water & defending democracy in Canterbury

Environment Canterbury’s (Canterbury Regional Council) elected councillors are getting the sack, to be replaced by a Government appointed commissioner.

This anti-democratic move will save supporters of industrial dairying from humiliation at October’s local elections, and allow industry and government to get on with their goal of polluting and privatising Canterbury’s water.

The Water Forum has called a public meeting to bring together water campaigners to discuss the next step.

Saving Public Water

Saturday April 10

4 to 6 pm

WEA, 59 Glouchester St

Christchurch

Climate Camp hui discusses next step

North Island Climate Camp activists met in Hamilton on February 27 & 28. UNITYblog asked Gary Cranston, a member of the Auckland Climate Camp local group and editor of Without Your Walls blog, about the meeting and the way forward for the climate justice movement in Aotearoa.

How many people were at the meeting? Were they mostly people that had been at the Wellington Climate Camp?

Approximately 15 people attended the 2010 North Island Climate Camp gathering in Hamilton. Folks travelled from Wellington, Auckland, Whangarei and Hamilton and input was gathered from many other places before-hand.

Around half of those attending had been involved in organising the first Camp for Climate Action Aotearoa (CCAA), the other half were new faces who had either attended the camp and wanted to get involved, or couldn’t make it to the camp, but still wanted to get involved in Climate Justice / Climate Camp activism.  


How did people feel the Climate Camp went? How do you feel it went?

Around 50 people completed the feedback form that was sent around after Climate Camp. We spent a few hours reflecting on the camp itself and reviewed feedback sent through.

Feedback was almost all positive, with a strong sense of people having had quite powerful and positive experiences of organising horizontally, something that was quite new to many folks coming to Climate Camp for the first time, and to many folks who had never had the chance of being involved in climate campaigns / activism in such a democratic and hands on manner.

Most suggestions for change focussed on how packed the workshop schedule was and some disappointment by some regarding their inability to attend workshops that were happening parallel to one another.

Two people actually said “it was the best week of my life!”. :)  


Do people want to have another one this year?

Absolutely. Climate Camp is to be a catalyst for the emergence of a Climate Justice movement here in Aotearoa and there is strong understanding throughout those who were involved in CCAA 2009 that the post-Copenhagen climate movement requires a time and place to get its sh*t together and take action from below.

We expect to see Climate Justice come to the forefront of the Climate debate in the vacuum opened up by the predictable failure of the ‘big greens’ and the worlds so-called ‘leaders’ to tackle climate change, and most see the politics of Climate Camp becoming more relevant than ever in 2010 and the need for this movement to get together, gather strength, strategise and take action beyond 2010.

Yes, another climate camp is necessary, but only within the context of an emerging climate juctice movement, which leads us on to the next question...  


Are there Climate Camp / climate justice groups up and running anywhere?

There are currently seven towns / cities in Aotearoa that have climate camp local groups working within them, and there is talk of a mobilisation / speaking tour this year. Whether that be aimed at creating more climate camp local groups, or generally focused on helping climate justice groups and projects emerge in general is unclear at the moment but it is being looked into.

If anybody out there is keen on setting up a new Climate Camp local group, or joining an existing one, just go to the website and see how to get involved here... http://www.climatecamp.org.nz/

Hamilton was chosen as the venue for the North Island Climate Camp meeting because there has been interest from people living in Hamilton in setting setting up a Waikato region Climate Camp local group.

With increasing international awareness of the injustices and climatic inpacts of industrial agriculture and with the opening up of new deadly loopholes in the Kyoto / UN climate process regarding agriculture and climate change [the REDD mechanism and soil carbon credits] attention is now being focussed on New Zealand’s role in greenwashing its corporate dairy machine. New Zealand will host the world dairy summit in Auckland in November 2010 and it is expected that agricultural false solutions and general greenwash is being lined up well in advance.

No better place to set up a new climate camp group than the Waikato. But yes, we do expect to see more and more Climate Camps emerging this year, along with more climate juctice focused initiatives, and hope that local Climate Camp groups will be getting invloved in the setting up of and supporting of such groups across the country.


What are the local Climate Camp groups doing? What are they planning to do?

Much time was spent over the weekend on brainstorming ways that Climate Camp groups can take action at the root causes of climate change at a local level. It was recognised that the areas for action will vary from one area to another, and that this reflects the need for a multitude of responses to the climate crisis in contrast with the failed approach of international summits persuing the mirage of the silver bullet / green capitalist climate fix. So, although a plethora of areas for action were identified, it will be up to local groups to identify and take action at a local level themselves.  


What would you like to see them doing?

Who knows – I dont think it’s up to me to say what I’d like to see them doing, it’s up to each group to respond to the failure of Copenhagen and to find new ways forward that are relevant to their communities and their struggle for climate justice at a local level.

But in a broader sense, I’d like to see people taking bold steps, with conviction. Copenhagen failed because of greed, and now its up to us to sort this out. There are no short cuts around the political organising that is required to build power from below.

This is now clearer than ever and that’s what we need to do, build power from below and organise within our communities to build a powerful movement that will resist green capitalism while opening up new ways of living that put people and the planet before profit... what that looks like in your town, that’s up to you to figure out.

North Island Climate Camp planning hui, this weekend

The Climate Camp movement is holding its first major get together since the first Climate Camp Aotearoa, which was held in Wellington last December. What: North Island Climate Camp planning hui When: Saturday 26th Feb [9.00am start] and Sunday 27th Feb Where: 135b Dey St Hamilton East Contact Louise to confirm attendance: (07) 8566857 or email globalaroha@gmail.com Proposed agenda: 1. Camp debrief and the feedback form to look at and learn from. 2. Feedback from Jan 30 movement mapping climate conference in Wellington 3. Safer space, conflict resolution process revised 4. Possible name change eg. climate justice aotearoa or structure change?(having issues explaining ourselves as a ‘climate camp’ group while doing local project stuff…) 5. Helping set up new members / groups eg. hamilton, Dunedin 6. Funding Sources 7. The NZ Climate Movement / How we fit in [or not / or whatever] 8. Campaigning Opportunities [community / project opposition based] 9. Campaigning Opportunities [issue based] 10. Allies [existing / new groups] 11. Agriculture and Climate / Agriculture and Emissions Trading – our response 12. Researching for Climate Justice [and agriculture?] 13. Future actions/camps 14. Considering a climate justice speaking tour?

Avatar – Anti-imperialism in 3D

There is much more to Avatar than the spectacular special effects, says Nagesh Rao

from US Socialist Worker

7 January, 2010

AVATAR IS a visually stunning marvel of film technology, as many reviewers will tell you, but what really stands out in James Cameron's newest film is its unabashed critique of corporate greed and its inspiring tale of solidarity and resistance against occupation.

Set on a distant planet called Pandora, Avatar re-enacts the genocide of indigenous populations by colonial capitalism, and links this history to the rapacious resource wars of our own times. The film is not a moralistic wringing of hands that relies on "white-guilt fantasies" as some commentators have claimed; rather, it is an uncompromising defense of the principle of self-determination and the right to resist exploitation and plunder.

Read more...

Climate change catastrophe took just months

Scientific researchers have discovered that, 12,800 years ago, Europe's temperature was flipped from warm and sunny into the last Ice Age over just a few months, rather than decades or even years. (See below the Sunday Times article by Science Editor, Jonathan Leake. Just as apparent climate stability can suddenly flip, given the right combination of factors, so too, we should remember, can apparent social stability collapse at speed.

Climate change catastrophe took just months by Jonathan Leake from Sunday Times 15 November 2009 Six months is all it took to flip Europe’s climate from warm and sunny into the last ice age, researchers have found. They have discovered that the northern hemisphere was plunged into a big freeze 12,800 years ago by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream that allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic. Previous research had suggested the change might have taken place over a longer period — perhaps about 10 years. The new description, reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of past climate changes yet attempted. “It would have been very sudden for those alive at the time,” said William Patterson, a geological sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who carried out the research. “It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months.” His findings, published at a recent conference, reinforce a series of studies suggesting that the earth’s climate is highly unstable and can flip between warm and cold very rapidly with the right trigger. Most such research is based on analysing cores drilled from ice or from the sediment found at the bottom of oceans or lakes. In such cores the ice or sediment is found in layers whose composition shows what the climate was like at the time they were laid down. Ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice cap have already shown that the big freeze of 12,800 years ago — known as the Younger Dryas mini-ice age — happened fast but lacked the detail to pin it down precisely. Patterson, however, obtained mud deposits from Lough Monreagh, a lake in western Ireland, a region he says has “the best mud in the world in scientific terms”. Patterson used a precision robotic scalpel to scrape off layers of mud just 0.5mm thick.Each layer represented three months of sediment deposition, so variations between them could be used to measure changes in temperature over very short periods. Patterson found that temperatures had plummeted, with the lake’s plants and animals rapidly dying over just a few months. The subsequent mini-ice age lasted for 1,300 years. What caused such a dramatic event? The most likely trigger is the sudden emptying of Lake Agassiz, an inland sea that once covered a swathe of northern Canada. It is thought to have burst its banks, pouring freezing freshwater into the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, disrupting the Gulf Stream, whose flows depend on variations in temperature and salinity. A single year’s disruption in the Gulf Stream could have been enough, said Patterson, to let ice grow far to the south of where it usually formed. Once it had taken over, the Gulf Stream was unable to regain its normal route and the cold took hold for about 1,300 years. Some scientists have suggested that if the Greenland ice cap melts it could have a similarly dramatic effect by disrupting the world’s ocean currents. Other research has shown that rapid climate flips are normal. In its 4.5-billion-year history, the earth has experienced at least four main ice ages, of which the last, the Quaternary, is still continuing. Within each ice age, however, there are periods when ice advances or retreats, and in the past 60,000 years alone the earth is thought to have warmed or cooled by up to 7C at least 20 times. The current interglacial period has lasted about 10,000 years. “Human civilisation has grown up in a period of remarkable climatic stability,” said Tim Lenton, professor of earth system sciences at the University of East Anglia. “In the period from 65,000 to 10,000 years ago there were periods of abrupt warming and cooling roughly every 1,500 years, when the temperature in Greenland might fall or rise by 10C in a decade.” Patterson’s findings are supported by the research of Chris Stringer, professor of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. He believes the extinction of Neanderthals roughly 30,000 years ago was linked to a series of rapid climate fluctuations that began more than 40,000 years ago. He said: “Climate is basically unstable, so one of the mysteries is why it has stayed warm for the last 10,000 years. “Some researchers have suggested this may be linked to the activities of early humans, who started growing crops and clearing forests 8,000 years ago. “That may have put enough greenhouse gases into the air to stave off another ice age, but the problem now is that we have gone too far the other way. “The amount of greenhouse gases in the air is greater than at any time in the last million years, so ironically, the threat now is from global warming.” Patterson is still focusing his efforts on the past. He has built a new robot capable of shaving tiny slivers from the shells of fossilised clams, showing temperature almost day by day from millions of years ago.