[Cja] Fwd: [climate09-int] Fwd: Take Action: Oct 10 and 12

Tue Oct 5 17:21:58 UTC 2010

and here's a slightly longer story to complement the shorter one in the call put out by CJA. if you like it, spread it, and the usual apologies for crossposting
tadzio

System Change not Climate Change! Taking direct action
for climate justice

In
2009, indigenous peoples throughout the world called for a global mobilisation
‘in defence of mother earth’ on October 12, reclaiming the day that used to be
imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this call, and the demand for a day of
action for ‘system change, not climate change’ issued by the global movements
gathered in Copenhagen last year, Climate Justice Action is proposing a day
of direct action for climate justice on October 12, 2010.

Today, we know…

For
years, many had hoped that governments, international summits, even the very
industries and corporations that caused the problem in the first place, would
do something, anything to stop climate change. In December 2009, at the 15th
global climate summit in Copenhagen (COP15), that hope was revealed as an
illusion: a comfortable way to delude ourselves into believing that ‘someone
else’ could solve the problem for us. That ‘someone’ would make the crisis go
away. That there was someone ‘in charge’.

Today,
after the disaster of COP15, we are wiser. Today we know:

-
That we cannot expect UN-negotiations to solve the climate crisis for us.
Governments and corporations are unable (even if they were willing) to deliver
equitable and effective action on the root causes of climate change.

-
That the climate crisis isn’t a natural process, nor is it accidental. Rather,
it’s the inevitable outcome of an economic system that is bound to pursue
infinite economic growth at all costs.

-
That only powerful climate justice movements can achieve the structural changes
that are necessary, whether it is through ending our addiction to fossil fuels,
replacing industrial agriculture with local systems of food sovereignty,
halting systems based on endless growth and consumption, or addressing the
historical responsibility of the global elites’ massive ecological debt to the
global exploited.

Today
we know that is up to all of us to collectively reclaim power over our daily
lives. It is we who must start shutting down and moving beyond the engines of
capitalism, the burning of fossil fuels, the conversion of all life into
commodities, and the toxic imaginaries of consumerism. It is we who must create
different ways of living, other ways of organising our societies.

Today
we know that climate justice means taking action ourselves.

The 12th of October: then, and now

As
the COP15 came crashing down, so did any remaining belief in the capacity of
UN-negotiations to implement equitable or effective solutions. As they plan to
stage their 16th summit in Cancun, Mexico, it is becoming clear already that
the movements will need to put up a strong fight to stop any attempt to use the
UN to profit from the crisis through privatising our forests and carving up our
atmosphere. But real and just solutions to the climate crisis will come from
elsewhere – we must create other strategies, find other ways out of the crisis.

In
the ashes of the COP15, a meeting of global movements proposed organising a
global day of action under the banner ‘System Change not Climate Change’.
Climate Justice Action, the network responsible for organising some of the
disobedient actions in Copenhagen, took up this suggestion by calling for a
‘global day of direct action for climate justice’. Rather than once again
following the global summit circus around the world, being forced into nothing
but a reaction to their failures, we decided to set our own rhythm and our own
schedule for change.

On
the 12th of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus first set foot on the landmass
that we know today as the Americas, marking the beginning of centuries of
colonialism. Thus began the globalisation of a system of domination of the
Earth and its people in the eternal pursuit for growth, the subordination of life
to the endless thirst for profit. Latin America’s liberation at the beginning
of the 19th century put an end to direct rule by foreign crowns, but failed to
put an end to the exploitation of the many for the benefit of a few. Instead,
this system has become ever more pervasive, reaching to the bottom of the
ocean, to the clouds above us, and to the farthest depths of our dreams. This
is the system that is causing the climate crisis, and it has a name:
capitalism.

This
day has recently been reclaimed by movements of indigenous peoples – those who
first felt the wrath, the violence, the destructive force of this
project – as a day ‘in Defense of Mother Earth’. On May 31, 2009, the IV
Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas) called for
a Global Mobilization “In defence of Mother Earth and Her People and against
the commercialization of life, pollution and the criminalization of indigenous
and social movements”.

Today
it is all of us, and the entire planet, who increasingly suffer the fate that
some five centuries ago befell the indigenous of the Americas and their native
lands. Then, it was the colonisers’ mad search for the profit obtained from
precious metals that drove them to wipe out entire cultures; today, it is
capital’s search for fossil fuels to drive its mad, never-ending expansion,
that still wipes out entire cultures, and causes the climate crisis. Then, they
were enslaved and often killed to provide labour to the infernal machines of
Europe; now, we are all enslaved and exploited to provide labour to the
infernal machines of capital. Then, it was a continent and its people that was
driven to destruction; today, it is a world and its people that is being driven
to destruction. Today, we are all the global exploited.

Of
course, not all life submitted to the rule of capital in a single day.
Capitalism is a complex web of social relations that took centuries to emerge
and dominate almost the entire planet. Nor will we bring down the entire
system, or build a new world, in a single day. This day is a symbol, and
symbols matter. This day is the unveiling of the root causes of the climate
crisis – capitalism. It is an affirmation that – wherever you live and whatever
your struggle – we struggle against capital and for other worlds, together.

There’s only one crisis

But
why focus on the fight for climate justice at a time when, all around the
world, people are losing their jobs, governments are imposing austerity
measures, all while the banks are once again posting their exorbitant profits?
Doesn’t the ‘economic crisis’ trump the ‘climate crisis’? This perspective,
however, looks at the world from above and outside of it. Seen from above,
there is a ‘climate crisis’, caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere, which is
a threat to future stability and future profit margins; seen from above, there
is an economic crisis, which is a threat to current stability and current
profit margins; seen from above, there is an energy crisis, a food crisis, a
water crisis… But from where we stand, there are no separate crises. There are
only threats to our livelihoods, our reproduction – in short, our survival: it
doesn’t matter whether it is a physical tsunami that destroys our houses, or a
tsunami of destruction wrought by recession. Either way, we end up homeless.

The
reason we can’t treat the apparently separate crises as separate? They are
all symptoms of the same sickness. They are, all of them, the result of
capital’s need for eternal growth, a cancerous growth that is fuelled by the
ever-expanding exploitation of social and natural ‘resources’ – including
fossil fuels. Crisis is, in fact, the standard mode of operation for this
global system.

To
struggle for climate justice, then, is to recognise that all these crises are
linked; that the climate crisis is as much as social and economic crisis as it
is an environmental disaster. To struggle for climate justice is at the same
time struggling against the madness of capitalism, against austerity enforced
from above, against their insistence on the need for continued ‘growth’ (green
or otherwise). Climate justice isn’t about saving trees or polar bears – though
we probably should do both. It is about empowering communities to take back
power over their own lives. It is about leaving fossil fuels in the ground and
creating socialised renewable energy systems; it is about food sovereignty
against the domination of, and destruction caused, by industrial agribusiness;
it is about massively reducing working hours, and starting to live different
lives; it is about reducing overproduction for overconsumption by elites in the
North and the South. Climate justice, in short, is the struggle for a good life
for us all.

Global movements for climate justice

In
April this year more than 30,000 people came together in Cochabamba, Bolivia,
for the Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC). Together we
produced a ‘Peoples’ Agreement’ which offered a different way forward, a
counterbalance to the failure of the neoliberal market driven ‘solutions’
peddled in the COPs. Despite its submission to the UN, it was completely
ignored at the intersessional meeting of the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany. 
The failure of the UNFCCC to respond to
the Peoples Conference is of no surprise to us, and as was perhaps the
intention of its submission, it has only further delegitimised the COP process. Perhaps
most importantly, it has once again shown that it is only ‘the movement’ that
can bring about real changes for climate justice. But what is this movement,
and where are its edges? Movement is precisely that – movement. The movement is
all those moments when we consciously push a different way of living into existence;
when we operate according to our many other values rather than the single Value
of capital. And now we are trying to make these moments resonate.

We
invite all those who fight for social and ecological justice to organise direct
actions targeting climate criminals and false solutions, or creating real
alternatives. This means taking direct responsibility for making change
happen, not lobbying others to act on your behalf, but through actively closing
things down and opening things up. This is an open callout, we are not picking
targets. But it is not a day for marches or petitions: it is time for us to
reclaim our power, and take control of our lives and futures.

--- On Tue, 10/5/10, Chris Kitchen <chriskitchen at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kitchen <chriskitchen at gmail.com>
Subject: [Cja] Fwd: [climate09-int] Fwd: Take Action: Oct 10 and 12
To: "Climate Justice Action" <cja at lists.aktivix.org>, "CJN!" <cjn at lists.riseup.net>
Date: Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 6:32 AM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: dr.woooo <dr.woooo at gmail.com>
Date: 5 October 2010 10:15
Subject: [climate09-int] Fwd: Take Action: Oct 10 and 12
To: climateorg copenhagen <climate09-int at lists.riseup.net>,
climatejusticetalk at yahoogroups.com, enviro-people
<enviro-people at yahoogroups.com>,
socialwar-energy-climatewar at googlegroups.com, g8-int at lists.riseup.net,
juliadehm at yahoo.com, money_banks_crisis at lists.riseup.net

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Root Force <rootforce at riseup.net>
Date: Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:26 AM
Subject: [Rootforce] Take Action: Oct 10 and 12
To: rootforce at masses.tao.ca

oct 12th

We've just posted two new calls to action, the first for folks in the
Vancouver, BC area and the second for everyone:

* Oct 10: Dig For Justice (Vancouver, BC). The action involves physically
undoing the beginnings of freeway construction and redirecting that
material toward the community. We’ve signed on as sponsors of this action.
Read more about it at
http://www.rootforce.org/2010/10/04/oct-10-dig-in-for-climate-justice/

* Oct 12: Third Minga/ Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and
the Peoples. Take action against infrastructure as part of the global
mobilization! Learn more at
http://www.rootforce.org/2010/10/04/take-action-oct-12-global-mobilization-in-defense-of-mother-earth-and-the-peoples/

Tear it Down,

Root Force

--
Root Force: Demolishing Colonialism At Its Foundations
www.rootforce.org

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