[Dissent-bristol-info] Climate Change

[anarchist606 at hushmail.com]

If interested in writing about climate change, then the other 
person working on the subject is crash at subsection.org.uk

Here is the draft (so far) of the sustainable development test - 
feel free to email me suggestions....

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Myths of the G8:  Sustainable Development

Buried in the recent rush of important news of who was a celebrity 
and needed getting out of here, you may have missed a series of 
reports that show that our earth's eco-system (the bit we rely on 
to live) is being destroyed at an ever frightening rate: Sample 
news, BBC: "'Worst' sea bird breeding season" or The Independent: 
"Final bid to save water vole from extinction in Britain" and "The 
polluted planet: Alarm as global study finds one-third of 
amphibians face extinction" or the Guardian: "Hundreds of bird 
species going the way of the dodo".  Scary stuff.  

On the day George Bush was re-elected last brown bear native to the 
Pyrenees was shot.

If you think worrying about the natural world is for tree-huggers 
then consider that for every 1 barrel of oil discovered, we are 
using up 3.  Add to this that North Sea oil and gas supplies peaked 
in 1999 and are currently being depleted at an ever increasing rate 
- this while the UK's use of oil and gas is being projected to rise 
by 0.4% per year until at least 2030.  

By whatever measure you choose to take, the world of globalisation 
and capitalism is just non sustainable.

To blind us to this reality, the politicians have invented the 
concept of 'sustainable development' - in their words, "A higher 
quality of life for all people is the goal of sustainable 
development." (G7  1995 Meeting).  The problem with this lofty 
statement is that for all people on the planet to achieve the 
living standards of the US, would require 3 planets worth of 
resources - how is this possible with the rat-race in full flow?  
It is not, but they are not tells us this truth.

Thankfully Tony Blair and his band of merry men are on hand to save 
the day; "To become more resource efficient we need to accelerate 
the de-coupling of resource use and growth in GDP."  In plain 
English, Tony and his cronies are saying that we need to get rich 
without using stuff (oil, timber, gas, metals etc.) - How is this 
economic magic going to work? "The Prime Minister asked the Cabinet 
Office Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) to investigate how the 
government could shift our economy onto a more sustainable 
footing....The report highlights the crucial resource provided by 
the natural environment in absorbing waste and pollution, and 
emphasises how important it is that we ease the increasing 
pressures on that resource."  More beaurocrat speak to say, we need 
to stop polluting the planet.  Great, Tony! You could have started 
by meeting your own commitments on global warming but you were too 
busy going to war in Iraq to worry about that sort of thing.  And 
George Bush?  His plans to help with sustainable development?  Tax 
cuts for the rich.  Drilling for oil in the Alaska wildlife refuge 
and a perpetual war without end.  

Here's a final pearl of wisdom from the government; "It is a simple 
fact that, as we become more efficient at producing things we will 
get wealthier. And as we get wealthier we are able to produce and 
consume more goods and services. In the longer term therefore it is 
only by finding new, less wasteful ways of meeting our needs that 
we can move to a sustainable path."  Fist you might ask, who the 
hell is 'we'?  Besides that being 'less' wasteful is not the same 
as being 'sustainable'.  'Less' means not as much as before.  
'Sustainable' is a cycle that can be kept going for ever while 
'development' in this context means economic growth – growth that 
can be kept going for ever?  On a planet suffering from our 
pollution?  This simply does not add up – a dossier every bit as 
doggy as the infamous Iraq Dossier on the non-existents WMDs.

Reject their fantasy.  Their Babylon must fall.

Alternatives to the G8:  Life in Balance

Not every life on this planet needs to be reduced to dollar bills.  
If we reject the notion that profit is God we can build a world 
that works with nature rather than smashes it into submission.  
First we need to reject the notion of capitalism.  In our society 
to are trained to see money as trade as wealth, that this trinity 
are inseparable.  This is a lie.  To say there can be no wealth or 
trade without money is to say there can be no time without hours.  
With this in mind, below are some inspirational examples of life 
getting back in balance:

Navdanya or 'nine seeds' meaning 'ecological balance'
Dr. Vandana Shiva, and Indian Physicist has been championing the 
idea of 'freedom zones': "It lead her to help found the 
organization Navdanya, [translation 'nine seeds' meaning 
'ecological balance'] which forms seed banks and trains Indian 
farmers to produce traditional crops without chemical pesticides or 
fertilizers. To date, she says, about 100,000 farmers have returned 
to traditional, organic farming methods in villages now dubbed 
'freedom zones '. Navdanya has opened an organic market in New 
Delhi to sell the produce. Bioengineered crops may work in the 
short term, Shiva says, but because they are costly and deprive the 
soil of moisture and nutrients, ultimately they cannot be 
sustained." (This quote is from an article at 
http://www.mindfully.org, plus you can find lots of good 
information at http://www.vshiva.net/ and http://www.navdanya.org  
)

Buena Vista Fossil Fuel Club
Cuba – famous for laid back funky music, rum and socialism.  When 
the USSR mutated into Ru$$ia and replaced one set of authoritarian 
rule for another – it stopped the preferential supply of oil to 
both Cuba and North Korea.  While people strave in North Korea, 
Cuba looked towards autonomous self-management rather than 
militarization and the results have been pretty spectacular.  
Outside of capitalism, Cuba is successfully making the transition 
to a low oil society, a move that soon we will all need to make: 
"The World Bank has reported that Cuba is leading nearly every 
other developing nation in human development performance. Because 
Cuba's agricultural model goes against the grain of orthodox 
economic thought, the World Bank has called Cuba the "anti-model." 
….This despite that fact that the Cuban model flies in the face of 
the neoliberal reforms prescribed by both the World Bank and the 
IMF." (This is from the article 'Drawing Lessons from Experience 
Part 2' by Dale Allen Pfeiffer which can be found at 
http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/ )


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http://anarchist606.blogspot.com
Bloging as radical as the issues the world faces.




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