Bolivarian Ecosocialism

By Sam McGill
Venezuelanalysis.com

In March 2010 I attended a national meeting in Caracas held by the forum for Bolivarian Ecosocialism. This conference developed plans and proposals for the Forum for Indo-Bolivarian Ecosocialism, which formed a part of the World People’s Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia in April 2010. Natalie Lázaro Barrios presented the work of ANROS (National Association of Social Networks and Organizations) at this event and agreed to tell us more about her project.

Can you explain a little of the history of Indo Bolivarian Ecosocialism Forum? How did it begin and what are the projects and achievements so far?

The Forum for “Ecosocialismo Bolivariano Indoamericano” (Indo-American Bolivarian Ecosocialism) was organized as part of the World Peoples summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba in April 2010. The forum arose from our interest to demonstrate internationally that there has been work in Venezuela to strengthen socialism. For us “Bolivarian ecosocialism” is a term that is synonymous with 21st Century Socialism. This socialism is ours, endogenous, and is based on transforming collective consciousness to establish new relationships within society and with the environment.

Ag Diversity Best Option for Cuba, Says Prizewinner

Patricia Grogg interviews Humberto Rios, Cuban winner of the 2010 ‘Green Nobel’

HAVANA TIMES, May 31 (IPS)

Cuban biodiversity scientist Humberto Ríos, one of the six recipients of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize, probably won’t be able to collect the 150,000 dollars in prize money, though that setback is unlikely to cause him to lose any sleep — or keep him from singing.

“I’m preparing my second album, with my children,” he told IPS in this interview. In his April trip to the United States to receive the award, widely known as the “Green Nobel”, Ríos visited the White House and the U.S. Congress as part of the itinerary for the six laureates, who came from Cambodia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Poland, Swaziland, and United States.

New nuclear plants vastly more dangerous: report

GreenPeace Canada

A Greenpeace report shows that newly designed reactors Ontario proposes to build at the Darlington nuclear facility would produce long-lived waste two to 158 times more radioactive than waste from existing reactors in Canada, increasing costs and dangers to health and the environment.

“Our report documents how the nuclear industry and governments are hiding the true costs of new reactors by turning a blind eye to the legacy of highly toxic waste they would produce,” said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, Greenpeace nuclear analyst.

Feds Undercut BC's Oil Spill Prevention Panel

Tories rewriting safety regs with no input from their own expert panel, says member.

By Mitchell Anderson

TheTyee.ca

Many British Columbians watching the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are wondering what safeguards are in place to ensure such a disaster does not happen here. What they don't know is that the federal government recently made sweeping changes to the primary advisory panel put in place to ensure that a major oil spill does not occur on the B.C. coast.

Those changes have weakened the panel's power to prevent a disaster, according to one current member, as well as other sources interviewed by The Tyee.

View full article and comments here.

Moving to a Green Economy with Good Jobs

Investment in Transit and Passenger Rail

Andrew Jackson
Canadian Labour Congress

A major medium- to long-term government investment in public transit would make a significant contribution to reduction of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, and would also create literally tens of thousands of new jobs. Such an investment would also more than pay for itself in narrow economic terms.

Rising energy prices have already promoted greater use of public transit in Canada in recent years, with a 20% increase to 1.82 billion trips per year between 2003 and 2008.1 However, Canada is one of very few advanced industrial countries which lacks a national transit strategy, and federal investments fall far short of what is needed to build an optimal transit infrastructure in major urban centres. On top of low investment, very heavy reliance on passenger fares to finance operating costs compared to other countries works against the optimal development of public transit.

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Columbian Greens come in distant second in first round

Jack Kimball
REUTERS, BOGOTA

Former Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos will enter a presidential runoff in a strong position after voters gave him a comfortable lead in the first-round vote on Sunday

With no candidate securing more than 50 percent of the votes needed to avoid the June runoff, Santos, an ally of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe, will face off with former Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus on June 20. He led Mockus by 47 percent to 22 percent with most polling stations counted.

Whoever takes the helm of the Andean nation will inherit a waning, cocaine-fuelled insurgency, a boom in the expansion of the commodities' sectors and increased appetite for Colombian assets.

* Santos' commanding lead against his main rival, Mockus, defied the trend of recent opinion polls, which showed the two deadlocked in the first round and likely headed for a tie in the runoff. Santos won every state, except for one province, according to electoral results. He will also enter second-round campaigning bolstered by his U Party's dominant role in Congress.

* Mockus, who surged in opinion polls before the vote due to his push for clean government and more jobs, will have to take a tough look at his campaign in the next round after getting only about a fifth of the national vote. His party has only a few seats in Congress and lacks the political machinery of the U Party. That may make beating Santos insurmountable in the runoff.

* Alliances in the second round will be key to winning the presidency. Santos will seek support from the Conservative and Cambio Radical parties, while Mockus will try to claim the moderate, middle ground. The leftist Democratic Pole Party will also play a role in any grouping to oppose a pro-Uribe candidate.

* Colombia's peso currency and local TES bonds are not expected to react on Monday due to a holiday in the United States and since the June runoff was widely expected. The two candidates are seen continuing Uribe's pro-investment policies. Market players generally see Santos as more favourable due to the expected continuity of Uribe's policies and strong presence of his party in Congress. Mockus -- whose party is weak in Congress -- would have a tougher time pushing through legislation.

* Santos' strong showing in the first round may irk neighbours Ecuador and Venezuela. They have had strained ties with Colombia, the main U.S. ally in the region, since an attack against Colombia's FARC guerrillas on Ecuadorean soil -- an operation that occurred while Santos was defence minister. Late last week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he hoped Colombia's next leader would want dialogue.

Andre Gorz: Ecology as Utopistics

by Richard Burke
Synthesis/Regeneration 51 (Winter 2010)

About 30 years ago, South End Press published Ecology as Politics by Andre Gorz, compiled from two earlier books released in 1975 and 1977. In this work Gorz, a French socialist whose friends included both Jean-Paul Sartre and Herbert Marcuse, came to terms with the capitalist division of labor and the nature of the technology used in production. He recognized the revolutionary changes that would be needed in these areas in order for the ideals of self-management he supported (in works of the 1960s such as Strategy for Labor) to succeed.

Gorz also began to recognize the importance of ecological issues for the socialist movement. In particular he became influenced by the work of Ivan Illich, a penetrating critic of industrialism who argued against the civic religion of production and limitless growth. Gorz addressed these themes in Ecology as Politics, as well as in books such as Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay in Post-Industrial Socialism and Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation from Work. His later books, such as Critique of Economic Reason and Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology, written in a cooler, drier style are extended meditations on themes he explored in his previous books, while Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage Based Society returns to the more passionate style of his earlier works. Gorz died in 2007, at age 84, in a suicide pact with his wife Dorine. She had terminal cancer, and they both agreed that neither wanted to live without the other.

Bolivia: Evo Morales calls for global mobilization for the planet

(AFP) Bolivian President Evo Morales on Saturday called on social organizations in the world to mobilize in defense of the planet in the event that the climate summit in Cancun does not take into account the resolutions of an alternative forum held in April in Bolivia.

If the organizers of the Cancun summit, scheduled for December, do not take into account the requests raised by the alternative forum to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases "of course again we have an obligation to speak out, organize, mobilize," he proposed Morales.

"I want to appeal to all social movements in the world (to) be alert, pending, and if not taken into account, obviously again we have an obligation to speak out, organize, mobilize because it is about defending life, humanity , saving the planet Earth, "he said.

This call is also relevant "to the environmentalists, who defend the so-called green environment, the humanists, scientists who did many studies to defend the Mother Earth," he said.

Morales, prompting the Peoples' Conference on Climate Change, delivered on 7 May to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon to the conclusions of the meeting to be taken into account in Cancun.

Among the findings, calling on industrialized countries to halve their emissions of greenhouse gases and global referendum on how to tackle climate change, and the creation of an international court for environmental crimes.

Confronting the climate crisis

Socialist Worker

Activists gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia, this April for a conference on climate change, just months after world leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark, at a summit sponsored by the United Nations. Both conferences claimed to take on issues of global warming and environmental devastation, but the differences between them wouldn't have been more stark.

Jonathan Neale is the author of several books, including Stop Global Warming: Change the World, as well as a recent article in International Socialism titled "Climate politics after Copenhagen." He was in Copenhagen for the protests of the UN--and in Cochabamba for the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

Neale spoke with Chris Williams, author of the forthcoming Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis about the prospects for a new environmental movement.
Read the interview here.

About the book, Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis

Around the world, consciousness of the threat to our environment is growing. The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus on individual lifestyle changes, yet the scale of the crisis requires far deeper adjustments. Ecology and Socialism argues that time still remains to save humanity and the planet, but only by building social movements for environmental justice that can demand qualitative changes in our economy, workplaces, and infrastructure.

Chris Williams is a longtime environmental activist, professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University, and chair of the science department at Packer Collegiate Institute. He lives in New York City.

Order here.

The Malthus Myth: Population, Poverty and Climate Change

By Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism, author of The Global Fight for Climate Justice, Anti-capitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction. Ian is also Associate Editor of Socialist Voice.

This was recorded at the Socialism 2010: Socialism or Barbarism Conference in Toronto.

Exploring the moral dimensions of climate change

Canadian Baha'i News Service

About fifty participants gathered in Toronto in mid April to explore Climate Change and Environmental Decline as a Moral Issue. The two-day retreat was organized by the University of Calgary faculty of social work and a group of Canadian faith-based, development and environment NGOs.

Dr. Mishka Lysack, assistant professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary, co-convener of the retreat, facilitated an exploration of the latest scientific issues surrounding the climate change challenge, the current political realities, and the emerging actions by faith-based communities to engage with climate change. In his opening remarks, Lysack reminded the participants that “climate change is about social justice on a planetary scale”.