Richard Levins on Cuba, Ecology and the Need for a Dialectical Approach to Eco-social Distress
The January 2008 issue of Monthly Review includes a short memoir by Richard Levins, co-author with Richard Lewontin of the wonderful book The Dialectical Biologist, which is now sadly out of print but highly worth searching used bookstores for. Read more
Eco-socialist Network Formed in Adelaide, Australia
By Leslie Richmond
From Green Left Weekly, 26 January 2008
In October 2007, with the federal election looming, and global warming generating a lot of tepid air in parliaments around the country, a diverse group of people in Adelaide established the Eco-socialist Network to attempt to generate more serious discussion of environmental issues. Read more
How to Avoid Action on Climate Change
The following is the text of Ian Angus’s keynote speech at “Smells Like Green Spirit,” a conference sponsored by the University of British Columbia Student Environment Centre, on January 19, 2008. Read more
Tar Sands Crimes
Climate Change – Social Change Conference,
Australia, April 11-13
Climate change – Social change conference Read more
Options for Ecosocialists in 2008
(The general line of document below was endorsed by a meeting of the Green Left (a group within the Green Party of England and Wales) at their meeting this month. Read more
“More Forest, Less Bank!”
Protecting the World’s Forests Will Take More than Money
Media reports on last month’s Bali conference focused almost exclusively on what happened inside the conference hall and in negotiating sessions. But while politicians and bureaucrats haggled over the details of their toothless “Action Plan,” something quite different was happening outside. Read more
New Publication: Confronting the Climate Change Crisis
Available now: A new anthology of 10 frequently downloaded articles by Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism. Read more
From False to Real Solutions for Climate Change
by Patrick Bond Read more
Ethanol and the Gulf Dead Zone: More Echoes of Engels
I previously quoted Friedrich Engels in regard to the impact of the U.S. ethanol boom on Brazilian rainforests. Here’s the quote again: Read more
2007 Was Britain’s ‘Second Warmest Year’
Share this with any global-warming-deniers you may be acquainted with — also with anyone who has a few doubts, or just isn’t certain, and everyone else as well. Read more
More on the People’s Protocol on Climate Change
A previous post on Climate and Capitalism included the full text of the Draft People’s Protocol on Climate Change, along with a request for more information about its authors and origins. I received this email from Ava Danlog of the IBON Foundation, an independent research organization based in Quezon City, Philippines.
The idea of a People’s Protocol originated from the Asia Pacific Research Network’s Conference on People’s Sovereignty on Natural Resources (with the theme People and Planet over Profits) held on October 23-25, 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand. The more than 170 participants from the Asia Pacific region adopted the idea of a People’s Protocol on Climate Change in recognition of the Kyoto Protocol’s failure to offer a sustainable solution to climate change.
Through a workshop on climate change during the conference, participants came up with resolutions on the issue. based from these ideas, IBON and AidWatch took the lead to synthesize the resolutions/proposals to come up with a draft People’s Protocol which serves to highlight key issues and guide people’s discussions on climate change.
The need for a People’s Protocol has been endorsed by organizations and individuals from many countries. in addition, the series of workshops to discuss, critique and adopt the draft People’s Protocol has already started. Thousands of signatures have been gathered in Indonesia but these signatures need to be uploaded in the online petition.
As of this moment, there is a plan to hold a Grand People’s Assembly in Poland which will ratify the People’s Protocol. From then on, efforts will be directed at pushing for the consideration and inclusion of the People’s Protocol in the drawing up of Kyoto II.
The campaign is still new so developments (such as putting up a website etc) are still under way.
I hope this helps. Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you need further information.
So far, this excellent initiative has received very little publicity outside of Indonesia and the Philippines, and there is very little information about it on the web. I hope that will change quickly: this is a project that the Ecosocialist International Network and other green-left/left-green activists should publicize and support.
Climate and Capitalism will follow it closely and report developments as they occur.
Time to Stop the Greenwashing
by Glen Barry
from Earth Meanders, January 4, 2008
It’s a very positive sign for the green left that some mainstream green activists are publishing statements as strong as this one. Dr. Glen Barry is the President and Founder of Ecological Internet (EI). He is a conservation biologist and political ecologist, a writer of essays and blogs, and a computer specialist and technology researcher.
Global ecological sustainability depends upon identifying and acting upon ambitious, sufficient eco-policies now; and rejecting misleading, exploitative and inadequate reformist pandering
The Earth and all species including humans are threatened with imminent ecological ruin. You should be afraid, very afraid. Yet real hope remains that fundamental social change can avert looming failure of global ecosystems. The biggest current obstacle to such change is that now that everyone, every product and every business claims to be "green"; we have been diverted from urgent, adequate ecological change required to secure being.
Many mainstream (and some "radical") environmentalists, most businesses and essentially all governments are greenwashing — misleading the public regarding the environmental benefits of their practices, policies and products. Certified FSC logging destroys ancient forests, climate and water. Coal is unlikely to ever be clean as existing plants emit into the atmosphere, and sequestration is unproven. Biofuels hurt the environment, geo-engineering will destroy remaining natural processes, and buying more stuff is rarely good for the environment.
It is time to stop the greenwashing. After two decades of successfully raising awareness regarding climate change, forest protection and other challenges to global ecological sustainability; increasingly my time is spent reacting to dangerous, insufficient responses that fail to address root causes of ecological decline, provide a false sense of action, and frequently consolidate and do more environmental harm.
Many "greenwash" to make money, some to be perceived as effective advocates, while others believe incremental progress without changing the system is the best that can be done. Yet all are delaying policies necessary simply to survive. The greatest obstacle to identifying, refining, espousing and implementing policies required to maintain a habitable Earth may come from "environmentalists" proposing inadequate half-measures that delay and undermine the rigorous work that must be done to bring humanity back into nature’s fold.
Sufficient policies required to save the Earth are massive in scope and ambition. Deep-seated change is required in how we house, feed and clothe ourselves; in our understanding of acceptable livelihoods and happy lives; and in our relationship with the biosphere and each other. To maintain a livable Earth there is no alternative to less people and consumption, a smaller and restorative economy, and an end to cutting natural vegetation and burning fossil fuels.
Systematic failure of global ecosystems and social systems must be addressed in more than a token manner. A whole series of policy actions exist that we know are needed, would work, are sufficient, and could start immediately. These include massive investments into subsidizing renewable energy, implementing population controls, banning coal, ending old-growth logging and financing carbon emission reductions.
Given the Earth has already exceeded what can be sustained in these regards, not only must the destruction stop, but massive regional scale ecological restoration must commence to establish rewilded and connected ecological reserves. Economic growth beyond steady-state use of natural capital must be stopped, and sustainable relocalized communities built around bioregions.
Certainly ecologically positive technology has a role to play. Living in the country and needing a vehicle I recently chose the best transportation option society offers me and bought a Toyota Prius. But leading environmentalists touting technology as the primary emphasis to save our environment are dreadfully misinformed, and are obviously unaware of the ecological nature of being. They seem to have forgotten about the primacy of maintaining and restoring ecosystems.
Even as we personally strive to live frugal, rich lives; necessary consumption should focus upon durable items that will last. Strong tools are required to grow food, make a living, and otherwise practice ecological living. Excessive consumption is a poor substitute for a truthful, fully aware, knowledge filled and experience rich life. All can enjoy some luxuries, rather than some enjoying all.
Global ecological threats are intensifying — oceans lifeless, forests tattered, water scarce, and the atmosphere perhaps irreparably damaged. This occurs even as a climate change backlash builds, largely as a result of truthful apocalyptic warnings without adequate policies that go beyond greenwash responses and actually promise a hope filled solution.
Given this increased urgency and public awareness, the environmental community must espouse rigorous, sufficient polices "while the iron is hot"; and demand real actions that are sufficient to solve global ecological crises. And greenwashers beware: if you stand in the way of sufficient ecological responses to the greatest emergency of all times, you will be exposed as Earth destroying charlatans and resisted.
A Conversation About Green Socialism
Svend Robinson: Canada’s Role in Bali Was Painful to See
Svend Robinson, Canada’s first openly gay elected official and a leading activist for gay rights, was a New Democratic Party member of Canada’s federal parliament from 1979 to 2004. He is now working with Public Services International, based in France. He can be contacted by email at svend.robinson@world-psi.org. Read more