Supporters of geoengineering have proposed radical ways to alter the planet to decrease the level of greenhouse gas emissions. Proposals include creating artificial volcanoes to pollute the atmosphere with sulfur particles, fertilizing the oceans and placing sun-deflecting aluminum foil in the sky. But opposition is growing to geoengineering. Democracy Now! hosted a debate on July 8 between Indian environmentalist, scientist, philosopher and eco-feminist, Vandana Shiva, and geopolitical analyst and columnist, Gwynne Dyer.
IFG Board Member, Maude Barlow, Opens the People’s Summit in Toronto
The People’s Summit is civil society’s alternative “counter Summit” to the G8 and G20 Summits in Huntsville and Toronto, June 25th – 27th. It aims to create a space where diverse local and international movements can democratically organize to advocate and educate for global justice.
Barlow is the Council of Canadians national chairperson. The Council of Canadians says the G20 is promoting a 'business as usual' agenda rather than what is needed, namely trade, climate and water justice.
Recovery or Restraint? Rebalancing or Redistribution?
G20’s real challenge is reigning in, not restarting, unsustainable growth
Declaring that, “the G20’s highest priority is to safeguard and strengthen recovery and lay the foundation for strong, sustainable balanced growth,” world leaders at the G20 Toronto Summit widened the gulf between political rhetoric and ecological reality. While at times recognizing natural limits and the imperative to respect natural resource restraints, they agreed to actions that aim to restart the engines of unsustainable industrial growth. G20’s real challenge is the rapid redirection from growth to a steady-state economy, shrinking humanity’s overall levels of consumption while reversing the growing gap in equity.
Toronto focused on a false debate over how fast to cut governments’ fiscal deficits without undercutting growth. Either scenario, if “successful,” would reignite runaway demand, ignoring the reality of resource restraints increasingly recognized by corporate executives and financial markets. While global capitalism has in no way incorporated the fact that endless growth based on extraction and waste is a dangerous fallacy, clear market signals indicating a need to adjust to ecological limits are seen on a daily basis.
Today’s global economy is entering a historic new era of resource scarcity due to shrinking atmospheric space from growing greenhouse gas emissions, dwindling supplies of cheap energy, desiccating farm land, decreasing sources of fresh water, and depleting marine fisheries. The resources on which we rely are surpassed in their downward spiral only by the natural systems that support the absorption of industrial waste and that regenerate our air, water, seeds, and soil.
Recovery and rebalancing our global economy requires a “powering-down” of consumption in the over-developed countries, and among the rising elite in developing countries. With the world’s richest 500 individuals still controlling nearly as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity, a new economic paradigm includes a rapid redistribution of assets to the most marginalized populations.
Since the G20’s September 2009 Pittsburgh Summit, leaders have increasingly acknowledged that today’s economy is rapidly depleting natural resources and our planet’s life support systems are in danger, including both renewable, such as fisheries, and nonrenewable, like fossil fuels. Downward distribution of income, if done carefully, would both reduce poverty and overall pressure on our planet.
Among the many changes the G20 has on its agenda yet remains unable to advance are:
- Raising requirements on how much capital banks must keep on reserve in order to safeguard against losses and limit “over-leveraged” lending. Ecological economist Herman Daly notes that raising reserve requirements is one of the most important steps toward reigning in growth;
- Internalizing costs to reflect the real prices of social and ecological damage being done to people and the planet. Getting the prices right and sending the correct market signal is imperative to ecologizing our economies;
- Influencing international energy investments — via clear rules that punish fossil fuels and reward renewables — to peak global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, when science says our climate risks will reach a real tipping point;
- Shifting state support and subsidies from fossil fuels to conservation, efficiency, and renewables. Clear criteria are needed—including the core concept of “net energy”— to guide what types of energy technologies should be supported by both pubic and private investments.
The World Has Divided into Rich and Poor as at No Time in History
As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto's Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Maude Barlow was one of the key speakers at the event. She heads the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy organization, and is a founder of the Blue Planet Project. (More)
IFG Board Members & Allies Present Conclusions from Cochabamba to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
7 May 2010 - IFG Board Members Maude Barlow, Meena Raman and others present UN Secretary General with conclusions from World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth More
Maude Barlow and Daphne Wysham (IPS) on Democracy Now!April 22, 2010Watch
Independent People's Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab, & Operation Green Hunt
April 9-11, 2010
Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi
Let us stand in solidarity with voices from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal.
Justice Sawant, Justice Suresh, Admiral Taheliyani, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. P.M. Bhargava, and other eminent judges will preside over the tribunal, joined by activists, social scientists, lawyers, writers, and other experts.
Hosted by Citizen’s Against Forced Displacement and War on People More information - (Tel.) +91-9899111320 or +91-9818905316
People's
Will to Stay GMO Free, Feb 10, 2010 - by Vandana Shiva The Minister of Environment Jairam Ramesh
announced the Moratorium on the Bt. Brinjal. As he stated,
moratorium implies rejection of this particular case
of relief for the time being. It does not in anyway mean
conditional acceptance....
Read full story or download the entire 200K
pdf Read
"Indian Farmers' Letter To Minister on Bt Brinjal"
The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced,
fact-filled look at the leading climate solution - emissions trading
- on the negotiating table at Copenhagen and in other capitals.
Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street
financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils
in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits
to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what's really
required to tackle the climate crisis. If you've heard about Cap & Trade,
but aren't sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film
is for you.
The thick-lined drawings of the Earth, a factory
and a house, meant to convey the cycle of human consumption, are
straightforward and child-friendly. So are the pictures of dark
puffs of factory smoke and an outlined skull and crossbones, representing
polluting chemicals floating in the air.
Which is one reason “The
Story of Stuff,” a
20-minute video about the effects of human consumption, has become
a sleeper hit in classrooms across the nation.
The video is a cheerful but brutal assessment
of how much Americans waste, and it has its detractors. But it
has been embraced by teachers eager to supplement textbooks that
lag behind scientific findings on climate
change and pollution...
(Read
entire article.)
Live
like a green heroine - and hold the stuff Wednesday, April 8, 2009, Noelle Robbins,
Special to The SF Chronicle
Annie Leonard, named one of Time magazine's
2008 Environmental Heroes, knows better than most: It's not so
easy living green.
Leonard created and narrates the international Web documentary
phenomenon "Story of Stuff," which summarizes her 20
years of global sleuthing: tracking the source of the stuff we
buy and the fate of the stuff we throw away. This lively animated
film makes the point that if everyone on Earth consumed at U.S.
levels, we would need five planets.
Leading by example, Leonard shows how simple
steps and a little patience can help people create environmentally
friendly, energy-efficient, stuff-free lives..... (read
entire article)
IFG
Congratulates our Board Member Annie Leonard,
creator of the acclaimed video "The Story
of Stuff" on being named a TIME Magazine
Hero of the Environment 2008
Heroes
of the Environment 2008: Annie Leonard By BRYONY SCHWAN Bryony Schwan is executive director
of the Biomimicry Institute in Montana
My friends often don't believe
me when I say I can spend an entire evening listening
to stories about garbage and be completely mesmerized.
That's because they haven't met Annie Leonard. She
has been relentlessly explaining the absurdity of
our throwaway culture to me and many others for decades.
While her mastery of detail is impressive, it's her
passionate style that transforms bleak facts into
emotive stories that compel you to take action. Read
the rest of the TIME Magazine Article....
UN President Appoints Canadian as New Senior
Advisor on Water Maude Barlow appointed first
Senior Advisor on water issues by Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, President
of the 63rd session of the United Nations. More...
New
Report from the Council of Canadians Our Water Commons - Toward a new freshwater
narrative
Written by Maude Barlow
