Earth Day at the Climate Justice Frontier

There are no shortage of ideas today for how global capitalism can be marshaled to slow down global warming. Never mind that we’re in this mess in the first place largely due to the take-no-prisoners industrialization that today’s wealthier nations built their fortunes upon. And many of the world’s poorer nations are paying the price, with intensifying rainstorms and lengthening droughts, among other things. Few of the market-driven ideas for dealing with climate change have addressed this hard reality.

This week’s World People’s Conference on Climate Change—a gathering of more than 20,000 in Cochabamba, Bolivia—hopes to redirect that narrow discussion into one about climate justice. ColorLines’ correspondents in Cochabamba have compiled a slideshow of climate justice heroes at the meeting. Some are big name government officials; others are community-based organizers. They are all the sorts of voices that have been too often dismissed in the global discussion about how we’ll save the planet.
SLIDESHOW

First we come to greenwashing:Greenwash of the Week: Earth Day!

Greenwash of the Week: Chevron’s Solar Project Bulls#%t

Greenwash of the Week: The Copenhagen Accord

ETA: The Rainforest Action Network is the maker of those greenwashing videos above. There is a rather interesting article on them here. Saving Trees and Capitalism Too basically, teh article made me grab for my copy of The Revolution will not be funded.

In fighting the corporations news:Tuvalu v. ExxonMobil?The coming wave of transnational lawsuits

and in more corporations running amuck news:French State-Owned Company "Poisoning" Poor

Lack of Data on Causes of Death Buffers French Company

Feminist Intersection: On hipsters/hippies and Native culture

Specific excerpt: Organic living and environmentalism as “new” concepts. One of my friends jokes that all Native people should get green energy for free because that’s how we’ve been living for centuries and also taught the colonizers how to live (which may or may not have screwed us in the end). I really do love the resurgence of the green movement and how things are becoming more environmentally friendly – but I don’t need certain members of the movement pretending like they started this or ignoring extreme realities we’re facing like environmental racism and justice. I also think we need actual Native people being in charge of and leading the responses to environmental degradation that are happening in our own territories. It’s not to say we don’t need allyship and support – but it’s also rather irritating when I read an event posting for a cause of some sort for a First Nation where there’s like two Native people in the whole place (who either barely say anything or are supposed to go along with the way the hippies organize without complaint because they’re “doing something for us”).

Removal of Elwha dams to bring back salmon, bear, eagles

New Brunswick Natives challenge limitations on salmon rights

The Sustainability Revolution

Copenhagen was a clusterfuck, and therefore we have Cochabamba
World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth: Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19 to 22, 2010 WordPress

Bolivia ‘s answer to UN climate summit

Lessons from Cochabamba on Borders, Labels and Justice

It’s fitting that migration has been a major focus at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which brought thousands from all around the world to gather and discuss the racial, socioeconomic and human rights issues that were all but ignored last year in the disastrous Copenhagen summit. The surge of activists in Cochabamba was a reverse reflection of the kind of climate migration that has exploded around the globe, as environmental turmoil begets mass displacement and the destruction of communities and indigenous cultures.
The working group on climate migrants linked population migration and the framework of social, environmental and cultural rights at the crux of the climate justice movement.MORE

In Defence of Pachamama

LA PAZ, Apr 16, 2010 (IPS) – Through their ancestral knowledge and traditions, indigenous peoples will make a unique and invaluable contribution to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which begins Monday, Apr. 19 in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba.

Julio Quette of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB) told IPS that the 74 different indigenous groups who inhabit South America’s Amazon region "have traditionally coexisted with nature and the forests," and that it is up to the industrialised countries to halt the pollution and destruction of the planet.

For her part, Jenny Gruenberger, executive director of the Environmental Defence League (LIDEMA), commented to IPS that "Bolivia could make an enormous contribution based on the traditional knowledge of the indigenous and aboriginal nations that make up this plurinational state." MORE

All eyes on Cochabamba

LA PAZ, Mar 30, 2010 (IPS) – A different way of fighting global warming will be tried out in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba when government representatives and thousands of activists gather for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

The social organisations sponsoring the Apr. 19-22 conference have announced an alternative platform to the efforts of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-15), which ended in failure in icy Copenhagen in December 2009.
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Voice of Civil Society Loud and Clear in Cochabamba

SANTIAGO, Apr 19, 2010 (Tierramérica) – The success of the climate change conference taking place in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba will depend on how unified civil society ultimately is in its efforts to influence the United Nations climate summit, in Mexico, say Latin American activists.

The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Apr. 19-22, convened by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, has brought together some 12,000 people from 130 countries, including international personalities, representatives from citizen groups and government officials.
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Save the Planet from Capitalism, Morales Says

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, Apr 21, 2010 (IPS) – Activists meeting at the people’s conference on climate change in this Bolivian city booed a message from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon but cheered at host President Evo Morales’s chant of "planet or death!"

A football stadium in Tiquipaya, in the suburbs of Cochabamba, was inflamed Tuesday with temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius and the fervor of around 20,000 environmental activists and delegates from 125 nations.
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Opposition Mounts to Carbon Compensation Schemes

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, Apr 19, 2010 (IPS) – The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which opened Monday in Bolivia, will reflect vigorous resistance to financial compensation for forest conservation in return for permits to emit greenhouse gases, activists told IPS.

The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) is the main topic at panel number 14, which aims to develop an alternative proposal to strengthen conservation of natural forests while recognising the rights of indigenous communities.

The REDD mechanism proposes that the richest countries pay to maintain forests in tropical regions, as compensation for their emissions of greenhouse gases.

Bolivian indigenous and social organisations, meeting in advance of the Conference, approved a resolution demanding that developed countries drastically reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, responsible for global warming.
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Then a quick visit to coal:Earth Day: Profiling Coal’s Eco Heroes

A stop in a Detroit:Green Detroit: Why the City Is Ground Zero for the Sustainability Movement

And then a hearty congrats to this years Goldman Prize winners!!
Enviro Heroes: Meet This Year’s Prestigious Goldman Prize Winners

Photo Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

The Goldman Environmental Foundation has announced the six recipients of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize, grassroots leaders who are taking on some of the most challenging environmental problems affecting local communities and the planet.
The prize recipients are dealing with issues surrounding factory livestock farming in the United States, shark finning in Costa Rica, the protection of wilderness in Poland, sustainable agriculture in Cuba, conservation that focuses on human rights in Swaziland and wild elephant conservation in Cambodia.MORE

2010 Goldman Prize for Africa: Thuli Makama

Thuli Makama, Swazilands only public interest environmental attorney, won a landmark case to include environmental NGO representation in conservation decisions and continues to challenge the forced evictions and violence perpetrated against poverty-stricken communities living on the edges of conservation areas. Learn more at Goldman Prize:Africa

2010 Goldman Prize for Asia: Tuy Sereivathana

Tuy Sereivathana worked to mitigate human elephant conflict in Cambodia by introducing innovative low-cost solutions, empowering local communities to cooperatively participate in endangered Asian elephant conservation. Learn more at Goldman Prize:Asia

2010 Goldman Prize for Islands: Humberto Ríos Labrada

A scientist and biodiversity researcher, Humberto Ríos Labrada promoted sustainable agriculture by working with farmers to increase crop diversity and develop low-input agricultural systems that greatly reduce the need for pesticide and fertilizer, encouraging Cubas shift from agricultural chemical dependence. Learn more at Goldman Prize: Islands

2010 Goldman Prize for South & Central America: Randall Arauz

Drawing international attention to the inhumane and environmentally catastrophic shark finning industry, Randall Arauz led the campaign to halt the practice in Costa Rica, making his country the new international model for shark protection. Learn more at Goldman Prize: South and Central America

Climate change is going to be a problem. We know this. Take a look at how US politics will be transformed:Democrats, Republicans and the Sunscreen Party

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration isn’t known for its political forecasts, but last spring, the agency quietly released a 40-page study that should give a jolt to any campaign strategist who hopes to work in the next dozen election cycles.

Simply called "Scenarios for 2035," the report never once mentions voting trends or red-blue divides, but it does explain how changes in climate could quickly and radically reshape American politics – upending the power balance in Congress, scuttling traditional paths to the White House, and igniting new fights over natural and financial resources.MORE

We then hold a while on the subject of water:

Rivers of Gold: An Examination of the Water Crisis

Lesoto:Getting Community Consultation Right on Water

IPS NEWS PORTAL Troubled Waters

Mexico City’s water crisis

Finally we take a quick look at whose behind the Canadian tar sands
Royal Bank of Canada Awarded Most Environmentally Irresponsible Company