Bolivia: Communities Pioneer Sustainable Development

In remote corners of Bolivia, local communities are pioneering sustainable mining and forestry strategies that could provide useful models in the global struggle against climate change.

Emily Achtenberg
Rebel Currents, NACLA
May 27, 2011

Cotapata Mining Cooperative

Miners

Deep in the Yungas cloud forest outside La Paz, Bolivia, in Cotapata National Park, the Cotapata Mining Cooperative [1] (see video below) is producing the world’s first “fair-trade/ fair-mined” [2] gold, certified last December by the non-profit Fairtrade International (FLO) and the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM).

The cooperative was officially formed in 1991 when it secured land rights and a mining concession from the government, after many years of informal mining activity.

The cooperative currently consists of 88 families, including 3 women who work as mining technicians.   

Opponents of natural gas in Quebec warn of civil disobedience

The Canadian Press
May 31, 2011

QUEBEC — Opponents of shale gas development in Quebec have warned that they might engage in civil disobedience to keep the industry from taking off in the province.

One protest leader said people would tie themselves to gas companies’ machinery and block their trucks if exploration activities went ahead.

REDD Light!

Indigenous say offset plan threatens traditional title

By Dawn Paley
The Dominion
May 30, 2011

Hector Rodriguez, posing defiantly in front of riot police, was among the thousands of Indigenous peoples, small farmers, women, environmental groups and other activists who took action and made their voices heard throughout the two-week COP 16 conference. "The market will not protect our rights," reads a statement by the Indigenous Environmental Network, which represents front-line Indigenous communities. "Approaches based on carbon offsetting, like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation [REDD], will permit polluters to continue poisoning land, water, air, and our bodies [and] will only encourage the buying and selling of our human and environmental rights."

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO—The carbon market was the hottest issue at last year’s Conference of the Parties (COP)-16 summit in Cancun. Inside the meeting, delegates approved the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Conservation program (REDD+). However, outside the official meeting, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous-led organizations clashed over its merits.

Nuclear Insanity

By Dr. Vandana Shiva
Global Research
May 25, 2011

Villagers protest Jaitapur nuclear plant

Fukushima has raised, once again, the perennial questions about human fallibility and human frailty, about human hubris and man’s arrogance in thinking he can control nature. The earthquakes, the tsunami, the meltdown at Japan’s nuclear power plant are nature’s reminders of her power.

The scientific and industrial revolution was based on the idea that nature is dead, and the earth inert matter. The tragedy in Japan is a wakeup call from Mother Nature — an alarm to tell us she is alive and powerful, and that humans are powerless in her path. The ruined harbours, villages and towns, the ships, aeroplanes and cars tossed away by the angry waves as if they were tiny toys are reminders that should correct the assumption that man can dominate over nature — with technology, tools and industrial infrastructure.

Tories left oilsands data out of UN report

Numbers indicate rise in annual pollution

By MIKE DE SOUZA
Ottawa Citizen
May 29, 2011 8:01 PM

The federal government has acknowledged it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.

The numbers, uncovered by Postmedia News, were left out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. It revealed a six per cent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, but does not directly show the extent of pollution from the oilsands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.

The data also indicated that emissions per barrel of oil produced by the sector is increasing, despite claims made by the industry in an advertising campaign.

A Brief History of Plastic's Conquest of the World

Cheap plastic has unleashed a flood of consumer goods

By Susan Freinkel
Scientific American
May 29, 2011

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Susan Freinkel's book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.

Combs are one of our oldest tools, used by humans across cultures and ages for decoration, detangling, and delousing. They derive from the most fundamental human tool of all—the hand. And from the time that humans began using combs instead of their fingers, comb design has scarcely changed, prompting the satirical paper the Onion to publish a piece titled "Comb Technology: Why Is It So Far Behind the Razor and Toothbrush Fields?"

The Stone Age craftsman who made the oldest known comb—a small four-toothed number carved from animal bone some eight thousand years ago—would have no trouble knowing what to do with the bright blue plastic version sitting on my bathroom counter.

Read more HERE.

Is Green the New Red?

By Robert Meeropol
Dissident Voice
May 28th, 2011

Aside from my parents’ case, United States v. Dennis is perhaps the most famous McCarthy Era Red Scare legal action. In that case the government convicted the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) of conspiring to organize a revolutionary movement. Once the hysteria abated, the Supreme Court decision upholding that conviction became one of the more embarrassing episodes of our judicial history. CPUSA leaders went to prison for coordinating the teaching of the principles of Marxist-Leninism, despite the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of assembly and speech.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Today we have the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) passed in 2006. AETA is a beefed up version of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA) that was passed in 1992.

Carbon Trading: An Ecosocialist Critique

Climate and Capitalism
March 23, 2008

Despite its popularity among advocates of market solutions to global warming, carbon trading cannot produce the quantitative and qualitative changes that the world needs

Daniel Tanuro is the ecological correspondent of La Gauche, newspaper of the Belgian Socialist Workers Party. This is the text of his talk at the Conference on the future of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading in the EU organized by the Slovenski E-forum, Focus and the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana, on March 21, 2008

Fundamental Inadequacies of Carbon Trading for the Struggle Against Climate Change

By Daniel Tanuro

This contribution identifies 5 fundamental reasons why carbon trading is inadequate for the struggle against Climate Change. It focuses in particular on the European Emission Trading System (EU-ETS) but most of the conclusions are generally applicable.

1. Carbon trading is a source of windfall profits for polluting sectors. They invest little or none of that profit in low carbon technologies, and instead try to slow or delay the implementation of climate policy.

The over-allocation of quotas in the phase 1 of the EU-ETS provided the steel sector a windfall profit of 480 million Euros at the end of 2005. In the same period, RWE, a German utility, made a huge profit of 1.8 billion Euros. Even the oil businesses made windfall profits: Esso (£10 million), BP (£17.9 million), Shell (£20.7 million).

Trade Unions at the Top of the World

ITUC News
27 May 2011

A member of Nepal’s Sherpa trade union, Dorje Khatri, yesterday planted the ITUC flag on the summit of Mount Everest, symbolising the trade union commitment to protecting the planet from climate change. Sherpa Dorje and his team placed the flag at 06.30 on 26 May and are now descending from the peak.

Dorje’s organisation, the Union of Trekking, Travel, Rafting and Airline Workers, belongs to ITUC Nepalese affiliate GEFONT, which said today that the ascent was to “draw attention of the international community that our planet is melting down”.

“Dorje Khatri’s union protects Sherpas from exploitation. It is also helping to protect the planet from catastrophic climate change. We salute the amazing courage and commitment of Sherpa Dorje and his colleagues,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

On previous ascents to the summit, Sherpa Dorje has planted the flags of GEFONT and its member organisations, as well as Global Union Federations BWI and IMF. Dorje, 46 years old, has now climbed Everest, which is known to Nepalis by its original name Sagarmatha, seven times.

For more information on the ascent of Everest

Nuclear Crisis in Japan

By Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Global Research

May 27, 2011

Thursday, May 26, 2011. Evidence is growing that the March 11 earthquake itself caused major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors even before the accompanying tsunami knocked out offsite power and ensured the subsequent meltdowns.

According to Keiji Miyazaki, professor emeritus of nuclear reactor engineering at Osaka University, the earthquake likely damaged the high pressure coolant injection system, part of the emergency core cooling system at Unit 3 (as we reported below, it already has been believed that Unit 1 suffered severe damage from the earthquake). This system is supposed to work to cool the reactor even if power is lost, but at Unit 3, it didn’t. A review of pressure readings at Unit 3 indicate that there likely was a major steam leak that ultimately led to the speedy meltdown there. Article from Asahi.com here.

El Salvadoran Government and Social Movements Say No to Monsanto

By Carlos Martinez
MRzine
May 26, 2011
 

On the morning of Friday, May 6th, President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador's left-wing FMLN party arrived at the La Maroma agricultural cooperative in the department of Usulután for a potentially historic meeting with hundreds of small family farmers.  Usulután has often been referred to as the country's breadbasket for its fertile soil and capacity for agricultural production, making it one of the most strategic and violent battleground zones during El Salvador's twelve-year civil war between the US-supported government and the FMLN guerrilla movement.

Once again, Usulután has entered the spotlight for its agricultural reputation.  The FMLN, which initially formed around an ideology of national liberation from US hegemony, has now adopted the goal of "food sovereignty," the idea that countries hold the right to define their own agricultural policies, rather than being subject to the whims of international market forces.  On Friday, officials representing the Ministry of Agriculture and the local governorship accompanied President Funes in inaugurating a new plan aimed at reactivating the country's historically ignored rural economy and reversing El Salvador's growing dependence on imported grains.

Green MP Elizabeth May questions federal climate change plan

By Stephen Hui
Straight.com
May 26, 2011

Elizabeth May, Green Party leader

Canada’s only Green MP claims she will “leave no stone unturned” holding Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s majority government to account on climate change, but she admitted that Canadians are probably looking at “four more lost years”.

“The [emissions reduction] target we have is 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020,” Elizabeth May (Saanich–Gulf Islands) told the Georgia Straight by phone. “They [Conservatives] have absolutely no plan to get there, and that target itself is too reckless and too high. Even if we met that target, we’d be the only industrialized country with emissions above 1990 levels by the year 2020.”