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

Tue Oct 5 21:58:07 UTC 2010

Solidarity. We are with the struggle to realize justice.

Regards,

Ahmed

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 12:21 AM, Tadzio Mueller <tadziom at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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 UNFCCCin 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<http://mc/compose?to=dr.woooo@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<http://mc/compose?to=climate09-int@lists.riseup.net>
> >,
> climatejusticetalk at yahoogroups.com<http://mc/compose?to=climatejusticetalk@yahoogroups.com>,
> enviro-people
> <enviro-people at yahoogroups.com<http://mc/compose?to=enviro-people@yahoogroups.com>
> >,
> socialwar-energy-climatewar at googlegroups.com<http://mc/compose?to=socialwar-energy-climatewar@googlegroups.com>,
> g8-int at lists.riseup.net <http://mc/compose?to=g8-int@lists.riseup.net>,
> juliadehm at yahoo.com <http://mc/compose?to=juliadehm@yahoo.com>,
> money_banks_crisis at lists.riseup.net<http://mc/compose?to=money_banks_crisis@lists.riseup.net>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Root Force <rootforce at riseup.net<http://mc/compose?to=rootforce@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 <http://mc/compose?to=rootforce@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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rootforce mailing list
> Rootforce at masses.tao.ca <http://mc/compose?to=Rootforce@masses.tao.ca>
> https://masses.tao.ca/lists/listinfo/rootforce
>
>
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-- 
Ahmed Swapan Mahmud
Executive Director, VOICE
House 67, Block-Ka
Pisciculture Housing Society
Shyamoli, Dhaka 1207
Bangladesh
Tel : +88-02-8158688
Cell-phone : +88-01711-881919
Alternate e-mail : exchange.voice at gmail.com
Website : www.voicebd.org
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