Global Exchange Elect Democracy campaigner Hillary Lehr, one of the many US voters who turned out on Nov. 7th to cast her ballot

Did you feel it too? A nervous anticipation hung in the Global Exchange office all day yesterday as we wondered what the outcome of the U.S. Election would be – the President, the Congress, the state level initiatives and of course our local resolutions.

Now that we have the results – who won? (Share your answer in the comments!)

Here’s how the Global Exchange team has interpreted some of the results:

Barack Obama
Yep, “Bronco Bama” won the presidency for a second term. Obama’s victory represents the rejection of a breathtakingly dishonest campaign by an American plutocrat who amassed a personal fortune using techniques described by his own Republican primary opponents as “vulture capitalism.” His disdain for the 47% he deemed unworthy of his care became legendary. Fear that Romney and Ryan would shred social security, turn back the clock on health care, shut the door on educational opportunity, and pursue reckless military adventures abroad sealed the deal for Obama despite a chillingly effective 11th hours attempt by the Romney campaign to “shake the etch-a-sketch” and redraw a compassionate candidate.

The contours of the President’s winning campaign were largely drawn, not by the Obama campaign but by the Occupy movement; which brought to the forefront what filmmaker Michael Moore called the “huge popular sentiment against what the wealthy have done” to our country. As President Obama himself said on Spanish language TV during the campaign: Change does not come from Washington, but from outside.” We hope the President will listen with open ears to the voices and harbingers of conscious and genuine change.

Obama’s re-election, along with a rejection of Tea Party stalwarts in key Senate races could signal opening of doors to bi-partisan solutions to looming issues such as the fiscal cliff designed by the lame duck congress. Nevertheless, Obama’s winning coalition brought together communities concerned with peace, immigration justice, women’s rights, drug policy reform, LGBTQI equality, affordable health care, and safeguarding democracy from moneyed interests – all issues that we must continue to push President Obama to champion now that election stumping is over.  We have a lot of work to do in the next four years.

Meanwhile, there were other ‘winners’ too which we will watch. We must continue to build movements to roll back the Bush era restrictions on civil liberties that Obama has embraced, people and planet-killing global trade policies, cruel and counter productive drone warfare, saber rattling with Iran, the absurd blockade against Cuba. And we must address climate change, which shamefully didn’t come from the candidates’ platforms until tragedy hit the east coast.

WINS TO CELEBRATE…

Photo credit: http://www.winningprogressive.org/

Immigration Justice
This past summer President Obama announced that the Administration would no longer seek to deport ‘DREAMers’ (young, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children by their parents, have been in the US for at least five years, and are law abiding and willing to attend college or serve in the military), lifting the threat of deportation from nearly 1 million DREAMers and a step to make U.S. immigration system more fair and just. This was a step in the right direction and perhaps the only positive gesture Obama could make in the face of congressional opposition to humane immigration reforms. Nevertheless, the record rate of deportations during the Obama years and the continuing militarization of the U.S. border are alarming indicators that Obama needs to hear loudly and clearly from his base that the repression must stop.

Women’s Rights
Voters chose to elect the highest number of women to Congress in history and rejected 4 House and Senate candidates who had openly defended limiting a woman’s right to choose even in cases of rape. Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill’s resounding defeat of Todd Akin (the Missouri congressman who notoriously said that ‘legitimate rape’ does not lead to pregnancy) should put an end that discussion. A women’s right to make her own choices about her bodies and health was sealed decades ago. It is good to see that even in conservative regions, the expression of extreme views like Akin’s and that of Indiana’s Mourdock spell political doom.

Drug Policy
Washington and Colorado both voted to regulate marijuana much like we do alcohol. Historically, actions at the state level were what spelled the beginning of the end for Prohibition in the 1930s. How these new laws work out in practice will be key to the prospects for further national and international efforts to replace prohibition with regulation as the most effective way to end the destruction of the seemingly endless drug war.

Voters in California passed Prop 34 which limits lifetime incarceration via the ‘three strikes’ law to violent or serious third offenses. This will lower California’s incarceration rate and will help limit the prison sentences of nonviolent drug offenders.

Voting Rights
Reports of voter intimidation, faulty machines, long lines, voter ID problems, and other forms of mismanagement and direct voter suppression broke in real time via social media and were framed as a major issue of democracy in crisis by media outlets. Had this been a closer election this could have led to a serious crisis. Thanks to the hard work of our friends at Video the Vote along with legal observer teams across the country, the effects of voter suppression were minimized. Nevertheless, we should support laws and practices that discourage voter disenfranchisement and suppression, including laws that disenfranchise ex-felons.

Marriage Equality
On Election Day Massachusetts, Maine, and Washington legalized marriage equality, and Minnesota defeated a restrictive state constitutional amendment which would have upheld a ban. Now, one tenth of states in the U.S. uphold marriage equality. Onward! The first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin, was elected in Wisconsin last night as well. Congratulations, Tammy.

Affordable Health Care
New coverage for tens of thousands of Americans promised by “Obamacare” will not be snatched back on January 22, 2013, as Romney promised to do if elected.

WINS TO WATCH…

Money in Politics
This election was the most expensive election ever. Estimates place the final tally past $5.8 billion. We need campaign finance reform to protect democracy, plain and simple. This election saw some wins for the biggest spenders, but not across the board: in Connecticut, a losing candidate spent $50 million on the campaign and still lost.

It turns out that voters really stuck it to Super PACs by making their own choices at the polls yesterday. While Super PACs undoubtedly influenced the election, they certainly didn’t buy it. Huffington Post’s Mark Blumenthal summarized it well this morning: “As it turns out, you can’t buy a different electorate, or a better candidate, no matter how much money you throw at it.” Super PACs will have to face the fact that for the nearly $700 million they inserted into influencing the election, there isn’t a whole lot to show for it.

Elizabeth Warren, the candidate who ran on the issue of Wall Street regulation, won a tough race against Republican incumbent Rick Scott in Massachusetts. Last session’s Republican-dominated Senate refused to appoint Warren at the head of the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau but the people, with their votes, have said they want money out of politics.

Super PACs continue to attempt to influence state elections by funneling millions to influence voter choices on propositions such as California’s Propositions 30 and 32 – initiatives to raise taxes on the wealthiest in order to fund schools and to prevent union dues being spent on political action. The PACs’ misinformation is dangerous and, in some cases, illegal. An unfolding scandal to watch is the $11 million of Koch-bros-tied money that was laundered into the California election.

Global Exchange will continue our fight to Elect Democracy by challenging money in politics, especially with corporate campaign contributions and lobbying. Prepare yourself to push back against Wall Street’s greed and get ready to take on Wall Street’s post-election influence strategy: lobbying.

Free Trade Agreements
The presidential debates passed the blame for the economic crisis on shipping jobs to China, while supporting unfair free trade agreements that create conditions for off-shoring of jobs. President Obama’s support for the next big monster-free-trade deal, the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) will remain unchanged. The TPP aims to link 13 countries in free trade commitments – many written by corporation and is described by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch as a “NAFTA on steroids.” This is definitely NOT the direction we should be going to create jobs in the U.S. nor to ensure the economic safety and well-being of other countries.

Stick with Global Exchange to continue the call for fair trade, not free trade, so take action to shut down this dangerous trade deal. The election busted this issue wide open, now is the time to challenge unfair trade agreements out of the corporate back rooms. Starting on December 1st we will join thousands of others calling for a People’s Round in the TPP.

End the Blockade Against Cuba
Enacted in 1962 during the Kennedy administration the economic, social, and political blockade (El Bloqueo) has long outlived its supposed usefulness. Year after year U.S. government officials have developed new formats for strengthening the blockade and preventing two countries that have a shared history – and are only geographically 90 miles apart – from having normal political and economic relations.

President Obama loosened travel regulations for American citizens to travel to Cuba in the past Administration. Now, it’s time to end the blockade all together.

Global Exchange joins forces with other U.S.-Cuba organizations to educate the U.S. public and U.S. government on the right of U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba to persuade Congress and successive U.S. Administrations to end the restrictions on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba and on Cuban citizens traveling to the U.S.; These restrictions are a violation of our constitutional rights, as citizens of a democracy.

Drone Warfare and New (and ongoing) Wars
Drones built to kill must be stopped. As many as 3,000 people, including hundreds of noncombatants and even American citizens, have been killed in covert missions. The U.S. drone program has increased under the Obama Administration.

Iran. President Obama has given mixed and often nuanced messages on the U.S. position towards Iran. There must be peace with Iran, we simply can’t afford new wars and we must end the ones in which the U.S. has a continued presence.

Our friends at CODEPINK have launched Drones Watch, a coalition to monitor and regulate drone use. Start today by adding your name to this petition.

Climate Change: An Election Issue After All
Hurricane Sandy may have been an ironic October surprise for the election, but the consequences are enormous. Climate change and its related increasingly severe storms disproportionately impact poor communities and countries. Our thoughts are with Hurricane Sandy impacted communities in Cuba, Haiti and across the U.S. East Coast. Climate change and weather systems know no borders, and this wake-up call did indeed impact the election and the climate paradigm of U.S. voters. While it is technical ‘win’ that a “drill-baby-drill” candidate isn’t in the White House we must be prepared to push harder than ever to make President Obama take the real action to address climate change, including stopping the Keystone XL pipeline which he acknowledged in the second presidential debate a few weeks before the hurricane. This is one of the primary issues we must act on immediately for real and lasting change (and this does not mean increasing natural gas extraction by fracking.)

All in all, we’re encouraged by the results of a decisive election and like NPR, we’re sorry that the little red-headed kid was so exasperated by the election cycle. Nonetheless, voting is one of several essential tools for change-making. Participating in our elections (no matter how beleaguered and imperfect they may be) indicates strong values of respect, compassion, and integrity – the foundation of a healthy democracy (plus you get free stuff with your ‘I Voted!’ stickers).

But, while you may be celebrating, don’t let your guard down. A lot of angry corporations and rich folks woke up on November 7th and plan to fight harder than ever to protect their profits at all costs. If you are like me, you went home early last night, realized that there is much to do, woke up this morning, and got back to work.

TAKE ACTION:

What can you do? Join us and host a home screening of the award winning documentary “Heist: Who Stole the American Dream” and then set up a meeting with your Congressperson who will be home in December to call out the problems of Wall Street campaign contributions and lobbying. Find out more here.

REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is a controversial carbon trading scheme that California is about to implement as a way to reduce the state’s global emissions that will impact forest communities in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere.

On October 16th, a panel of Indigenous activists from Chiapas, Mexico, Pastaza province, Ecuador and Acre, Brazil, convened at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, CA for a discussion on the affects of REDD on their communities and ways of life. I had the opportunity to attend the panel discussion and screening of the film The Darker Shade of Green, which is part of a week-long tour through the state organized by the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN). The tour aims to educate Californians on the negative impacts the implementation of REDD by California will have on communities in places like Chiapas, Mexico and throughout South America.

What is REDD?

REDD, also called REDD+, is a controversial market-based carbon trading scheme which gives countries the ability to ‘pay’ developing countries to conserve their forests instead of cutting them down or allowing them to be logged. This ‘conservation’ allows the country/state purchasing the credits to reduce their count of global emissions—at least on paper—arguing that their polluting practices have been counter-balanced by preventing resource use in other countries. A key question is—have emissions been reduced, or merely moved around? REDD was first put forward as a United Nations program at the COP15 climate talks in Copenhagen back in 2009. Taken at first glance, the idea of “reducing emissions from deforestation” sounds appealing but when we unpack the ideas behind REDD there is more than meets the eye.

REDD is particularly controversial amongst forest peoples in Indigenous communities, who are often the frontline defenders of forests. Some welcome REDD, seeing it as a way to be paid to protect forests but more believe that it fundamentally alters Indigenous peoples’ relationship with the land and living in harmony with nature. As moderator of the event, IEN’s Tom B.K. Goldtooth said REDD “criminalizes peoples who protect and rely on forests for their livelihood and is promoting the biggest land grab of all time and may result in genocide”.

This system of carbon trading carbon not only makes industrial pollution and CO2 emissions by wealthy countries ‘acceptable’ but it also dictates what forest peoples in the Global South can do with land. Indigenous peoples especially are bearing the weight of these policies through land grabs, forced relocation, and government cutting off crucial services such as healthcare and education as a way of threatening them to relocate from their native lands.

The need for unified resistance

I was captivated by the first-hand experience of the panelists and the effects that REDD has had on their lives and communities. With a quiet dignity, Gloria Ushiga of the Association of Zapara women in Ecuador spoke about being persecuted and facing death threats for her outspoken opposition to REDD. Rosario Aguilar from Chiapas spoke about her experience witnessing healthcare services being cut to Indigenous communities that refuse to relocate from their lands. Marlon Santi of the Sarayaku in Ecuador spoke about the effects of ‘Socio Bosque’ (the “Social Forest”) – Ecuador’s national policy of privatizing lands to make way for REDD programs.

Rosario Aguilar of Chiapas, Mexico

There was one clear message throughout the evening: the struggle against REDD must be a united one – combining the efforts of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of the Global North and South.

California’s Role in REDD 

California is currently poised to adopt legislation AB32  (The Global Warming Solutions Act), a statewide mandate for reducing greenhouse gas emissions via carbon trading. If the law is passed next year, it has the potential to set the stage for how other countries will implement compliance with REDD. If REDD is implemented in California, it will not do anything to help reduce California’s global emissions. Rather, it will rely on carbon offsets from places like Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil to allow California corporations to continue to pollute.

Alberto Saldamando, Indigenous Environmental Network campaigner on California REDD has said the following about the possibility of California adopting REDD:

“The abuses of indigenous human rights by cap and trade, particularly under REDD programs have been well documented. They have led to forced or coerced displacement of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral lands, assassinations, imprisonment, and alienation from Indigenous lifeways and spiritual lives. California should not repeat its mistakes of the past with regard to Indigenous and Native Peoples, including their genocide or ethnocide, just to let their polluters continue to pollute.”

From left to right: Ninawa, President of the Federation of Huni Kui (Acre Brazil, translator, and panel moderator Tom B.K. Goldtooth of IEN

The panelists all made the point that the resistance to REDD in California must be as strong and determined as the resistance to REDD in the Global South. When California industry is allowed to pollute more it affects California communities. We must ask ourselves, for instance, how much more pollution and toxic contamination from the Chevron Refinery can residents in Richmond, CA take? With REDD, communities like Richmond will continue to serve as sacrifice zones for industry.

By claiming to curb climate change through putting a price tag on nature, we are further commoditizing forests rather than tackling the root causes of deforestation, climate change, and environmental destruction. If capitalism got us into this environmental crisis, how can we expect it to get us out?

The answer is, we can’t.

Can we protect nature as long as we treat the Earth as a resource for profit?

At the end of the panel discussion there was some time left for questions and comments from the audience. I stood up and took a few moments to speak about Rights of Nature as path forward which rejects REDD and other market-based schemes that push nature further into the marketplace.

Demonstrated by the passion of the presenters, the negative impacts on all of our communities can be so overwhelming sometimes that we lose sight of the alternatives, and what we are truly for.  We must make the transition toward living within the carrying capacity of the planet. The international movement for Rights of Nature has immense potential to take humanity in a positive direction towards protecting the planet by changing law to recognize that nature itself has inherent rights to exist, thrive, and regenerate. From there, local communities can act as stewards of their local environment and build resilient local economies that do not depend on the commodification of nature.

Rights of Nature is the alternative framework we need to truly protect the environment, without price tags.

• Global Exchange was a co-sponsor of the event and, along with thirty allies, a co-signer on a letter urging Governor Brown to reject REDD carbon offsets in California.
• To learn more about Rights of Nature in the context of REDD, read the articles that were written by Tom B.K. Goldtooth, Jeff Conant, and Pablo Solon in our report Rights of Nature: Planting Seeds of Real Change.
• Listen to a webcast recording of the October 16th panel.

Global Exchange’s Elect Democracy campaign knows that local grassroots power is what will eventually halt Wall Street’s destructive greed. We also know that every penny counts in our communities, so we want to help support *your* local organizing efforts by offering you (and 24 other groups) a $60 mini-grant for you to organize an event (with some good food) that brings people together to eat, talk, and build relationships of support and understanding.

Every BBQ will be different, but the goal is to support local communities around the country in building relationships with one another and to find common links in their struggle against Wall Street’s greed.

Whether your group has been challenging Wall Street’s undue influence in our political system for days, months, years, or you’re ready to start now, please check out our short online form and apply to be one of the 25 groups around the country to receive a $60 mini-grant to help you do what you do best: organize!

We hope this grant will be a small boost for groups impacted by (or organizing in solidarity with) local communities impacted by foreclosure, student debt, and limited social services. It may only help for one meeting, but the connections we create are important and lasting.

Deadline to apply for a mini-grant: September 15th, 2012. 5pm PST.

FAQ:

• When should the “Don’t Burn Democracy” BBQ‘s take place?

Anytime between Oct. 1-7.

• What if it is too cold for a BBQ in October where I live?

Any kind of gathering with food, inside or outside, is totally fine. Do what works for you and your groups’ needs and preferences.

• Who should we invite to our BBQ?

If your group is against Wall Street’s corporate greed, try to think of other groups who share this view, who have had enough, or who may be able to help you (or vice versa). Invite the people you want to build relationships with.

• Why is Global Exchange doing this?

Because we agree with the strategy, “Choose the place where corporations are weak and people are strong: organize there.” -Vandana Shiva
People power is strong where it is local, where it is nourished, and where people feel safe and comfortable. We hope to contribute to local groups being able to create this space to learn from one another, and potentially to find ways to collaborate.

• What tools will I receive to help with my BBQ?

In mid-September, Global Exchange will send BBQ hosts packets that include sample schedules, planning tips, stories of how other groups are challenging Wall Street’s greed in their communities, and information that Elect Democracy has compiled about Wall Street’s interference with our democracy. Use what’s useful for your local event!

• What do you want in return?

A) Follow through- please do make it happen. We will have conference calls and lots of resources to help out, every step of the way.
B) Report backs- let us know how it goes! If your group comes up with new action ideas, friendships, or photos, share these with other participants and supporters around the country.

So, are you ready to host a “Don’t Burn Democracy BBQ”? Apply today!

Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director Shannon Biggs returns from the UN Climate conference in South Africa where she, along with climate justice advocates including former Bolivian Ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon, Indigenous leader Tom Goldtooth, South Durban community activist Desmond D’sa and international colleagues from the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature held a series of activities in Durban to advance the Rights of Nature as an alternative framework to the corporate-led agenda of the COP 17 and the global economic system now being called environmental (or climate) apartheid.

South African civil society leader Desmond D’Sa participates in mass disruption of climate negotiations as negotiators fail to reach agreement. Photo Credit: Project Survival Media.

Accompanied by a cynical shrug, “Durban-shmurban,” sums up the sentiments of those who have long given up hope that the best and brightest (or the 1% and corrupted) among this league of nations could ever unite to solve the human-induced climate crisis. After all, other than vowing to drive less and become greener consumers, the grand scale and technical scope of reducing atmospheric greenhouse gasses is beyond the rest of us to solve.

For those paying attention, including thousands of NGOs who came to South Africa to play a role in preventing the worst outcomes of the COP 17 (or to protest the process itself), it’s been alliteratively billed as the “Durban Disaster,” following previous UNFCCC conferences: 2010’s “Catastrophe in Cancun” and 2009’s  “No-penhagen” in Denmark.

So why should anyone pay attention to what happened at the UN climate talks? The failure of international leaders to come to agreement in Durban South Africa sounds like business as usual, and it is—but make no mistake: officially choosing inaction now is a guaranteed death sentence for millions of people and ecosystems.  If the lesson of Durban is that climate change is the symptom, and not the problem, this may be our game-changing call to action.

First, the bad news

On the final scheduled day of negotiations in Durban, the UNFCCC stunned even seasoned observers with a plan tantamount to genocide. Country emissions targets were dropped far below what science dictates; loopholes for the worst offenders to avoid their commitments, and most critically, most decisions were put off until 2020.

Rights of Nature activists at press conference (L-R Desmond D'Sa, Tom Goldtooth, Shannon Biggs, Natalia Greene, Cormac Cullinan and Pablo Solon

As environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey explained, “Delaying real action until 2020 is a crime of global proportions. An increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius, permitted under this plan, is a death sentence for Africa, Small Island States, and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. This summit has amplified climate apartheid, whereby the richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%.

Apartheid is the Afrikaans word for “apartness,” and applied to the climate and ecosystems, it begins to get at what is behind the DNA-level failure of the UN’s COP process to achieve its stated goal of reducing greenhouse emissions.  Climate change is merely a byproduct of treating nature as human property (and therefore apart from us), to be destroyed at will. Our global economic system is property-based and driven by a value system of “endless more.”

As Pablo Solon stated at a press conference hosted by Global Exchange: “We can throw our garbage to the air and nothing happens. But we’re all part of one system, and the atmosphere is part of that system.   We have to respect the natural laws of this system. Because we have broken the vital cycle of carbon, its not only a matter of how big immediate reductions are, but how we change our relationship with nature.”

• Read results of exclusive, closed meetings in Durban here
• Global Exchange Human Rights Award winner Pablo Solon discusses outcome on DemocracyNow!

Occupying climate negotiations in the ICC official space.

Following news of the outcome, credentialed protesters gathered and filled the halls, stairwells and lobby of the ICC (official space).  When UN Security began to remove the activists, Anne Petermann, executive director of the Global Justice Ecology Project, sat down. “If meaningful action on climate change is to happen, it will need to happen from the bottom up,” she said. “The action I took today was to remind us all of the power of taking action into our own hands. With the failure of states to provide human leadership, and the corporate capture of the United Nations process, direct action by the ninety-nine percent is the only avenue we have left.” For more, click here.

Redefining the problem is a game changer.

As long as it was accepted that climate change is the problem, it made a lot of sense to turn to international institutions like the UN as the driver for change.  This has tethered much activism to seeking concessions in a rigged game of false solutions, because the UNFCC is based not on the root causes of environmental exploitation—but ‘market fixes’ to the same corporate-led economic model and ‘endless-more’ value system that have driven us to the cliff’s edge.

Kudzu vine

Like the slow strangulation of a creeping kudzu vine, our activism has been constrained to a smaller and smaller patch of sunlight, options and regulatory schemes that weren’t even of our design. In this sense, the utter failure of Durban can be quite freeing—if we chose it—because it means we can actually address root causes of climate change, chiefly, our cultural and legal traditions of dominating the Earth for profit.

Occupy is the other game changer.

We Are Not Asking, We Are Demanding

Occupiers and revolutionaries from Egypt to Wall Street and around the world have woken up millions of the disillusioned, and inspired them to find their own voice, their own power. Once awakened, we will seize this moment and shift the system itself that places corporate interests above our shared values of justice, equality, good jobs, healthy resilient vibrant communities and ecosystems.  In Durban, Anne Petermann and others sat down to remind us that we the 99% do have the power to change the rules. We can chose another way if we believe we can.

The Rights of Nature offers a platform for action to challenge the market-based approach that dominates the UN COP process.  “Why bring RON to climate change conference?” Pablo Solon was asked,  “Because if we are going to address climate change, we must address the issue of a new relationship between humans and nature. Its not just a problem with how many particles of CO2 emissions, it’s a problem of why does this happen?”

Where do we go from here? The Good news

A new framework for global action based on the needs of people and the planet already exists. The People’s Accord and the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth are key outcomes of the 2010 People’s Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, hosted by Bolivia and led by Indigenous communities and civil society. For more on this from the perspective of Durban see CJN! media release.

Those of us working on the rights of nature framework are seeking to reconnect humanity with the rest of species. We seek to change human law that can only “see” nature as a thing — separate and apart from us, property to be owned and destroyed at will. We seek to change the law because our own salvation can only come from a cultural mindset that we are a part of nature. Such a fundamental shift will require new laws that enforce and enable those cultural values.

•  Watch our Durban rights of nature press conference here
• Read our Durban Press release for rights of nature here

A People’s call to action, local national and global

While we take from nature the strength of diversity, we can remain diverse while uniting around the rules set forth by Mother Earth. We have in the past found solace strength and cohesion in broad strokes alignment with peasant farmers, landless workers, unions, Indigenous and non-indigenous communities.  That’s not going to be easy, but there is a lot of common ground.  For example, on the issue of rights of nature versus Indigenous rights, there are many different opinions among native traditions.  But there is tremendous Indigenous support for changing the dominant culture, and the fossil fuel economy that UNFCC is based on.

Shannon Biggs with Tom Goldtooth at the Global Day of Action in Durban

As Indigenous leader Tom Goldtooth says, “Our earth is our Mother, creator of everything, including two-legged people. Life as we know it is changing, we can no longer ignore the evidence, and it is our responsibility to be caretakers, guardians of our Mother. New economies need to be governed by the absolute carrying capacity of Mother Earth. More equitable, self-sustaining communities, with rights and respect.”

• For more see Council of Canadian’s System Change Not Climate Change “Rights of Nature” portal

The United Nations is not going anywhere, but our messaging to the UNFCCC might change (though it is worth saying that next year’s conference has been scheduled in the zero-tolerance-for-protesting capitol of Qatar).

From Pablo Solon: “Well, if there is no pressure from civil society, there won’t be the possibility to have any kind of agreement that is in some makes a difference. If you want to change the system, there has to be a huge movement developed outside of the main structures. We must open the discussion. We have a mandate that the Rights of Nature must be part of the discussion in climate negotiations.”

At the national level, in addition to Ecuador and Bolivia who have passed laws recognizing rights of nature, as many as half a dozen countries are working with the Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature and are seriously considering rights of nature laws, and how Constitutional provisions, like Ecuador’s could be transformational and provide new ways to protect ecosystems. Some of those concersations were moved forward in Durban.  They tell us that creating a vibrant global civil society movement of campesinos, workers, unions, Indigenous and non Indigenous communities, women’s movements, peace, climate and social justice activists can support their efforts at changing laws to reflect a new relationship with the Earth.

Oil refinery in South Durban

At the community level, campaigning around climate change and even climate justice is often hard. After all, we cannot feel the burden of atmosphere weighted by carbon storage or truly know where in the world accumulations of CO2 were manufactured.  But we can feel the burden of society’s inventions that leave polluted rivers, cancer clusters, poverty, and tons of carbon emissions in their wake.

From the oil refinery fence line in South Durban, the gathering of international experts offers no solutions on the ground. Desmond D’Sa lives and works in Durban South Africa, the dirtiest city in South Africa, and ironically, host city to the COP 17. There, he is the director of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), an environmental justice network. Over 300 toxic industrial plants — including two oil refineries — operate in and around the city, particularly concentrated in the neighborhoods of south Durban, an area particularly disadvantaged by the legacy of apartheid. Explosions, accidents, spills, and other toxic exposures are part of daily life there, and the reason why Desmond has begun to introduce the idea of rights for nature and residents in South Durban.

• See the toxic tour of South Durban, including the first ever rights of nature community action in South Africa.
• For more on Durban and Desmond, read Shannon Biggs’ article in Tikkun ‘A community perspective on rights of nature’

As a rights-based organizer in California, I, along with my legal and organizing partners at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assist communities to pass groundbreaking new laws that place the rights of residents and nature above the interests of corporations.

We’ve often heard the takeaway from the COP processes in Copenhagen and Cancun is that the same corporate-led system that created climate change cannot be part of the solution. From Durban, we add that a relationship of apartness with the system governing our wellbeing cannot continue. The lessons from Cochabamba and Occupy Everywhere are that we have an alterntative vision, and we have the power to make it real.  To change the course of humanity, we must be bold enough to believe we are capable, and strategic enough to know how to use the ecological principle of unity of diversity to work in solidarity in myriad ways.

Download the report: Does Nature have rights? Transforming grassroots organizing to protect people and the planet. This report calls for action from the community-level to the U.N., and offers case studies of legal changes already underway in favor the Rights of Nature.

The sun rises at 4:45 each morning in Durban, and like most of those still on California time, I woke soon after.  The beach here is beautiful and nearby so I decided to take a brisk walk amongst the shore fisherfolk and shell collectors, a great change the mad bustle of the ICC center, where the official negotiations for the climate conference are taking place.

Oil on the beach in Durban

The bluff beach is several miles south of the harbor—the largest on the African continent—and a few miles north of South Durban, where two oil refineries and dozens of other industrial plants operate. I walked and admired the wild coastline for a mile or so, then sat to watch the waves. Something black and sticky was on my feet, hands and shoes: it was oil.  Looking around, I noticed there were large plate-sized piles of black goo…everywhere.  Seaweed was coated in it, and as far as the eye could see there were literally tons of large and small deposits everywhere. Some firefighters up on the road were surprised when I showed them the sample I’d collected, and speculated that perhaps it came from a tanker spill in Kenya from last October, but no one knew for sure. Yesterday I’m told that the South African government is denying the “rumors” of oil deposits on the shore (and on my shoes and in my clear plastic bag). There were no big news items or beach warnings posted.

Shannon holding a bag of oil collected on the beach in Durban, South Africa

The disturbing and angering irony of a country hosting international climate talks while ignoring (and possibly denying) millions of tons of crude in the very midst of the negotiations is indicative of why international leaders will predictably fail to come to resolution or agreement on how to halt human induced climate change despite the stakes.  Instead, they speak of “adaptation” (get used to it) or “risk assessment” (what are we willing to lose next to feed the economic status quo).

Cynical, you say?  Not in the least.

Also gathering are pan-African and South African civil society and international climate justice activists—some to Occupy, protest and critique the continuing failure of the UN process itself to reach agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, some hoping to influence negotiators on minor concessions, and many others with reasons of their own. So many of the civil society participants come to talk about climate change in the context of the tangible work they are doing to stop dams, incinerators, deforestation or promote food sovereignty and indigenous rights.

We are here to talk to them—because when we stop putting false hope into the UNFCCC, we can finally turn to each other as the ones we’ve been waiting for. Global Exchange —and our partners including 2011 Human Rights Award Winner Pablo Solon (Bolivia) Fundacion Pachamama (Ecuador) South African activists from South Durban and environmental Earth Rights lawyer Cormac Cullinan, Indigenous Environmental Network, World Futures Council, and many others from the Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature — are here not just to critique the general framework of the UN climate process, but to share and discuss an alternative that requires we the 99% taking action.  The week ahead is for us, in this sense, is full of promise.

Banner from Duban protesting oil extraction

I brought my non-existent bagged oil along with me throughout the day’s activities. First to the Indigenous People’s Caucus, where Indigenous delegates report on the prior day’s negotiations around forestry, and to several other gatherings in the official and People’s space.  Saturday morning we gather for the Peoples’ march.

South Africa

This December, the 2011 UN Climate Talks will be held in Durban, South Africa. As we approach this year’s conference, environmental and climate justice activists around the world have reason to doubt that our world leaders will come together in Durban and reach a solid agreement on a solution to climate change. Past conferences have demonstrated a predictable failure among international governments to reach an agreement adequate enough to save the planet. Mainly, because the UN Climate Change framework is based not on the root causes of environmental exploitation – but ‘market fixes’ within the corporate-led economic model and a system based on continuous exploitation of the earth’s resources.

This is the way it has been, but this is not the way it has to be.

There’s good news – people across the world are rallying for a new approach to protect our environment and curb the effects of climate change – establish and enforce laws which actually elevate the rights of nature (and communities) above the claimed ‘rights’ of corporations whose sole interests are development for profits.

Durban community leader Desmond D'Sa

Global Exchange, Durban community activist Desmond D’Sa, and The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), in collaboration with our international partners and civil society groups gathering in Durban are working to present an alternative paradigm emerging from communities at the grassroots – recognizing the rights of ecosystems and communities. This rights-based approach offers a different way to protect nature, enabling communities (rather than corporations) to act as stewards of local ecosystems and asserting people’s rights over corporations. The Rights of Nature framework comes from a new understanding of our human relationship with nature, from viewing nature solely as property for humans to exploit for profit to the belief that ecosystems possess the right to exist, thrive, and evolve, and that our laws must put our planet before profits.

Community Rights Program Director, Shannon Biggs, will be on the ground in Durban this December both inside and outside the COP17 conference, joining citizens and activists there who are leading the call for nature’s rights.

Why is the location of COP17 in Durban particularly important?

Durban is the dirtiest city in all of South Africa. Some days the air is clouded with enough pollution to block out the sun. In Durban, more than 300 toxic, water-polluting and extraction-based industrial plants (including an oil refinery with frequent explosions) discharge toxic pollutants into the air, water and land, damaging the health of residents, particularly those oppressed by apartheid, as well as uncountable plants and animals; directly contributing to global climate change.

Toxic oil refinery in South Durban

With the world’s attention on Durban thanks to the COP17 climate summit, citizens and environmental activists have a unique opportunity to demand rights both for South Africans and the ecosystems on which their communities depend to thrive.

There are a number of actions and demonstrations already planned to carry the call for community and nature’s rights in Durban for the world to hear. Please stay posted for an upcoming piece on the events surrounding COP17 in Durban, including live updates from Shannon around the organizing on the ground. For info on how to get involved, please contact Shannon Biggs: (shannon@globalexchange.org)

Week of Action in Durban: Rights of Nature events

Dec 1st

- Global Alliance for Rights of Nature strategy session.  Members of the Global Alliance will gather in Durban to set priorities for 2012.

Dec 2nd

- HRA winner and lead UN negotiator for Bolivia Pablo Solon will be presenting to the public at the Wolpe Lecture on ‘The Rights of Nature and Climate Politics’

• When: 5pm-7pm

• Where: Shepstone 1, Howard College, UKZN

Dec 3rd

· Global Day of Action: C17 March

• When: 9am gather – march starts at 10:30am

• Where: Curries Fountain in the People’s Space

Dec 5th

· Rights of Nature Panel Discussion featuring Pablo Solon, Cormac Cullinan, Natalia Green, Shannon Biggs, and Tom Goldtooth.

• When: 2:00-3:30pm

• Where: The University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College at the T B DAVIS  BUILDING L4.

· Rights of Nature Teach-In

• When: 3:30-5:00pm

• Where: The University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College at the T B DAVIS  BUILDING L4.

Dec 6th

· Press Conference. Time & Location TBA.

-      Toxic Tour and Refinery Action and Rights of Nature march and action in South Durban. Speakers include GX’s Shannon Biggs (USA), Randy Hayes (USA), Pablo Solon (Bolivia), Cormac Cullinan (SA) Tom Goldtooth (Indigenous leader, Turtle Island), Natalia Green (Ecuador) Time & Location TBA.

Dec 7th

Rio+20 strategy session with all international allies. Time & Location TBA.

Dec 9th

· Rights of Nature: An Idea Whose Time Has Come – inside the COP17 conference

• When: noon-1pm

• Where: Blyde River Room

Join the sit-in this Monday, October 26!

Update: Monday Sept 26 – over 180 people were arrested for trespassing on Parliament Hill this morning including Maude Barlow, national chairperson at the Council of Canadians, Dave Coles, President of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers union and CEP Executive Assistant, Fred Wilson, Graham Saul of Climate Action Network and Mikisew Cree George Poitras. Check here for photos: CEP’s flickr photostream and Council of Canadians photostream
Thank you everyone!

On Monday, Sept 26 hundreds will gather in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, to protest the building of the Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico.

On the heels of the massive Tar Sands Action at the White House at the end of August, the invitation to mirror the DC action was issued by the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace Canada and the Indigenous Environment Network with a long list of expert, celebrity, organization and activist endorsements. While we in the US work to show President Obama that he has the support to stand up to the oil and gas industry and say no to the pipeline (he’s scheduled to approve the application this year), our Canadian and First Nations friends will be pressuring Prime Minister Harper to stop this massive increase in tar sands exploitation.

In August, I posted a blog with a link to a short film I helped put together called The Oil Up There. It’s worth encouraging you and others to watch it again – and remind ourselves why an expansion of the tar sands is a disaster for both people and the planet.

Daily from August 20 – September 3, hundreds of people joined the Tar Sands Action in Washington DC, where more than 1200 people were arrested at the White House in what is being called the largest act of civil disobedience in defense of the environment in US history.

James Hansen's arrest. Photo credit: Ben Powless

The DC days of action were colourful and moving and folks from all across the continent stepped up. It’s been noted that a photo of the arrest of NASA scientist James Hansen sums up the dire and immediate situation if Keystone XL goes ahead. In 1988 he testified on climate change to congressional committees about global warming and the need to take action to limit climate change. Twenty-three years later that message needs to be heard louder than ever.

This week the Canadian Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) held a briefing with Members of Parliament, calling for a reversal of the Keystone XL permit and raised questions about the apparently expired certificate approval held by TransCanada Keystone Pipeline CP Ltd, and whether President Obama thus has the ability to approve an international pipeline with an expired certificate and required National Energy Board (NEB) approval. In a letter to the NEB dated September 23, they note:

“Condition #22 to that Certificate stipulated that:
Unless the Board otherwise directs prior to 11 March 2011, this Certificate shall expire on 11 March 2011 unless construction in respect of the Project has commenced by that date.
Our understanding is that the Board made no direction prior to March 11, 2011, and that no construction in respect of the Project had commenced by that date. Accordingly, OC-56 expired on March 11, 2011, and there is no current approval that would allow TCPL to proceed further with the Keystone XL pipeline.“

Stay tuned.

To my friends in Canada, I wish I could be there with you on Monday, and thank you/meegwetch!

For those of you in Canada, visit the Ottawa Tar Sands Action web page to find out how you can get involved. Read Council of Canadians campaigner, Andrea Harden-Donahue’s, thoughts before the protest, here.

 In the U.S., the actions against the Tar Sands have not slowed. According to 350.org, the State Department is holding a number of public hearings on the proposed pipeline, and community members are being asked to attend the meetings and testify.

Get involved from wherever you are and STOP KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE.

It is not too late to change our human relationship with nature from one of dominance to one of interdependence and balance. In fact, the movement for nature’s rights is happening all over the world. Join us for a rich and interactive dialogue on how we can rewrite our human story on planet Earth, by signing up for a one-hour telecourse or a weekend seminar in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In this dynamic seminar we will learn about the historic 2008 event when Ecuador became the first country to include Rights of Nature in its national constitution and then cover movements since then in Bolivia and here in the U.S. as Rights of Nature takes hold as an idea whose time has come. Rights of Nature laws create a right to legal standing, offering citizens, communities, Indigenous peoples, and others a revolutionary new way to protect the vitality of ecosystems.

Climate activists have long been seeking a new way to protect the climate and all of the environment, which would enable communities affected by climate change to gain recognition for the harms done not just to human interests around the globe, but also to environmental ones. We come together with a common interest to actively advance the creation of human communities that respect the Rights of Nature. We will also explore how Rights of Nature invigorates momentum for a new cultural narrative that honors our living Earth. Join us and step into this historical moment!

The Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus in collaboration with Global Exchange welcomes you to an exciting Rights of Nature seminar, the first of six seminars and trainings in building Resilient Community. We would love to have you join us. Men are also welcome. Limited scholarships available.  Course size is purposefully will be kept small, so please sign up early.

FREE 1-Hour Telecourse

• Listen to a free recording of the telecourse! CLICK HERE

On September 7th we offered a free telelcourse to provide an overview of the upcoming seminar, it was hosted by the Executive Director of Transition US, Carolyne Stayton.

Rights of Nature WEEKEND Training
Friday, September 30th (7:00-9:00 pm) & Saturday, October 1st 10:00am-5:00pm

Course discussion includes:

• What are Rights of Nature?
  
• What is happening in the local/ global movement for Rights of Nature?
• How can we change our personal and cultural narrative to create an Earth-honoring society?
• How to understand Rights of Nature personally in our everyday lives
• Enter history in the making!

Location: Corte Madera Community Room in Marin County, CA in the office building at
770 Tamalpais Drive, Suite 201.

To Register: Course fee is $55.00 (some scholarships available). Register here: http://www.worldforum.org/rc.html  For more information: contact June Timberlake at jtimberlake@worldforum.org

Suggested reading:

• The Rights of Nature, The Case for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth (essays by many authors including Shannon Biggs)
• Wild Law: A Manifesto For Earth Jusisprudence, Cormac Cullinan
• Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature, Osprey Orielle Lake

Instructors:
Shannon Biggs is the Director of the Community Rights program at Global Exchange. She recently co-authored a book, Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots  (PoliPoint Press). Her current work focuses on assisting communities confronted by corporate harms to enact binding laws that place the rights of communities and nature above the claimed legal “rights” of corporations. Shannon@globalexchange.org

Osprey Orielle Lake is a lifelong advocate of environmental justice and societal transformation. She is the director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus (WECC) and on the Board of Praxis Peace Institute. Her book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature,(White Cloud Press) is a 2011 Nautilus Book Award winner. In 2010, she initiated Rights of Nature into the framework of WECC’s working groups and is a member of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

By Dahr Jamail

Burning sugar cane field in the Lower Lempa region of El Salvador for industrial-scale production (Erika Blumenfeld)

While debate about whether climate change is real or not continues in the US, the world’s leading producer of CO2 emissions per capita, those already living with the effects, like Jose Domingo Cruz in El Salvador, don’t have time to debate.

“Our storms are increasing in number and intensity,” Cruz, a member of his community Civil Protection Committee that responds to community needs during natural disasters, told Al Jazeera while standing on a levy that ruptured during Tropical Storm Agatha last year. “All of us attribute this to climate change.”

The levy, originally constructed in the aftermath of devastating floods caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, now has two huge ruptures in need of repair before the next hurricane season that begins in roughly six months.

A severe drought in 2008 and 2009, and Hurricane Stan in 2005, also took a severe toll on both land and lives in the area. Increasing sea levels will also heavily impact this part of El Salvador, which is largely populated by people who had to flee the US-backed war that raged in the country from 1979 to 1992.

A 2007 climate change study conducted by El Salvador’s National Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources focused on the Lower Lempa River and Bay of Jiquilisco areas of the central Pacific coast.

The study found that this area can expect more of what it is already experiencing: increasing minimum and maximum temperatures, a shift in observed seasons, more frequent observations of extremely wet and extremely dry years, and intensified extreme event activity, including tropical storms and hurricanes.

Against the backdrop of these dire predictions, the people are, however, forming a movement that is learning to protect and sustain itself in the increasingly chaotic world of global climate change and its severe ramifications on people, the environment, and local economies.

Social movement as survival mechanism

In addition to climate change, El Salvador faces environmental issues that include deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, and soil contaminated from decades of cotton and sugar cane production using toxic herbicides and fertilisers.

El Salvador is the 2nd most deforested country in the Western Hemisphere, second only to Haiti. Only two per cent of primary forest that existed 50 years ago remains today.

Estela Hernandez assists local communities in sustainable living practises (Erika Blumenfeld)

In response to increasing natural disasters related to climate change – and as an effort to promote environmental protections and sustainable living – a group known as The Mangrove Association was birthed in 1999. Members of the group are primarily subsistence farmers and fisher-folk whose livelihoods depend on the viability of local ecosystems now threatened by climate change and unsustainable farming practises like those practised by the sugar cane industry.

Estela Hernandez, member of the board of directors of the Mangrove Association, a group that assists local communities in sustainable living practises and in adapting to climate change.

“The sugar-cane industry here now has expanding borders,” Estela Hernandez, member of the board of directors of the Mangrove Association, told Al Jazeera. “They are taking more water, and the chemicals they use are making people in nearby communities sick.”

Hernandez’s group works to support a grassroots coalition of community groups called La Coordinadora, that today includes more than 100 communities. With assistance from EcoViva, a group that enables grassroots leadership in the area by assisting with financial and technical resources, the Mangrove Association functions as a grassroots response to address the crisis causing effects of climate change in this region of El Salvador.

“Local communities are on the front-lines of climate change, and many local organisations like the Mangrove Association are offering the only significant response to this very serious problem,” Nathan Weller of EcoViva told Al Jazeera. “Communities like those in the Bay of Jiquilisco can no longer rely solely on the conventional development model to intervene for them. They live the effects of climate change, are working actively on solutions to confront them, and the Mangrove Association serves to catalyse these efforts.”

In what has become a major grassroots social movement that aims to increase diversified sustainable farming, organic foods, food security, and all of this via environmentally friendly methods, many people living in this area are actually seeing their lives improve, despite the challenges.

Yet, the challenges are many, and are not going away.

Dr Anny Argeta is a kidney specialist at the New Dawn clinic in Ciudad Romero.

“There are agricultural chemicals that have been identified as causes of kidney failure,” she told Al Jazeera, “Ministry of Health records show one of the leading causes of death in this region is kidney failure.”

Hernandez and others in her association and the communities it is tied to are gravely concerned about what they believe is an epidemic of kidney failure in the area. They blame the aerial spraying of chemicals on sugarcane crops.

Other problems arise when the industrial farmers burn the crops, so as to enable easier extraction of the cane.

The deputy mayor of Jiquilisco, Rigoberto Herrera Cruz, provided Al Jazeera with a local government statement that articulated these issues.

“Burning of sugarcane contaminates the air, and our hospitals are showing bronchial and respiratory illnesses, mostly in our children. Use of chemicals on the crops contaminates the soil/water, and this leads to kidney failure, which has been increasing in society and we still don’t have an effective treatment to stop this trend.”

In addition, his office stated that the destructive method of burning the fields destroys organic material, increases greenhouse gasses, creates an altered micro-climate, reduces subterranean water, and an increase of soil loss and erosion. His office also stated that the salaries of sugarcane workers “are at a level of misery.”

“Burning the crops of sugarcane also kills the fauna we are trying to protect,” Hernandez added, “And the herbicides these companies use to help their crops mature faster, some of which are prohibited, is washed by the rain into the Mangroves where there are shrimp production pools.”

Hernandez and her association work to protect El Salvador’s mangrove forests. This is to protect the communities and rich ecosystems there, but also because of the critical role mangroves play in preventing increasing climate change. Mangroves, a saltwater-loving tree, trap carbon emissions and protect the coastline from hurricanes.

“The long-term sequestration of carbon by one square kilometre of mangrove area is equivalent to that occurring in fifty square kilometres of tropical forest,” Dr. Emily Pidgeon of Conservation International has said of the value of mangroves in their role in the climate change crisis.

The areas of focus for the Mangrove Association are the Lower Lempa River Estuary and Bay of Jiquilisco. Together they make up El Salvador’s largest protected area, which has been recognised as a wetland of world importance under the International Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, in addition to having been designated a UN International Biosphere Reserve. The majority of El Salvador’s 26,000 hectares of mangroves exist in these areas.

By addressing these issues in all their complexities, Hernandez and the Mangrove Association are creating a model that may well one day be used around the world.

A movement with teeth

Alonzo Sosa of the environmental unit of the mayor's office in Tecoluca (Erika Blumenfeld)

Alonzo Sosa with the environmental unit of the Mayor’s office of the Municipality of Tecoluca is part of the Movement for the Defence of Life and Natural Resources.

“We started this movement two and a half years ago because of the rampant health problems people in our communities were experiencing due to the unsafe farming practises of the industrial farmers, like the sugarcane producers,” Sosa told Al Jazeera.

“The chemicals they use, contaminating our water, overuse of land and widespread kidney failure, this is all very serious. So now, we are pushing for better farming practises, trying to eliminate these chemicals and burning, because it damages our biodiversity.”

According to Sosa, “It’s not just environmental units in local governments that will solve this crisis. We need local governments, journalists, communities, everyone. The only requirement to join our movement is for you to care for the environment and our resources.”

Needless to say, the larger producers of sugarcane in El Salvador have not met the movement’s requests with open arms.

“The bigger producers are carrying out these atrocious practises, because they are only interested in their own capital and profit,” Sosa added, “We are in a constant struggle with the cane operators who desire perpetual expansion.”

Antonio Lemus is an environmental lawyer with the University of El Salvador. Five years ago his university signed an agreement with the Mangrove Association to work together with the local communities towards better environmental policies.

After researching the negative impacts the sugar cane industry was having, he said, “We decided to get legally involved, because we’re clear that it damages human health, the environment, and these things are impacted on a national scale”.

Lemus is using the Ministry of Environment to enforce new environmental regulations, “But big producers and vendors of chemicals are ignoring and violating peoples’ health and their right to a healthy environment,” he said, “In El Salvador’s environmental law, Article 2, Section B, all people have a right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, and this is recognised by the UN.”

Antonio Lemus, an environmental lawyer with the University of El Salvador (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

Article 2, Section C of the same law says: “All economic activities must be carried out in harmony with the environment”.

Despite having the law on his side, Lemus said the state does not have overall control of what is happening, so his university has begun working with local municipalities to create a Municipal Ordnance called “The Ordnance for the Protection, Recovery, and Management of Natural Resources and the Environment”.

Once this ordnance is ratified, Lemus believes he will be better able to “help people stop this ecological crisis and the ecological crimes being committed in their communities”.

Thus, even though there will not be a national mechanism for filing lawsuits, this will exist on a local level so as to enable communities and municipalities to present lawsuits against violators.

Sosa believes these matters are urgent. “We are in a new historical context. If we don’t change how we live, we aren’t going to last very long, no matter how much money we have.”

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who has been covering the Middle East and Iraq for five years. He has reported from Iraq and is the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, and The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. His website is Dahrjamailiraq.com.

Climate Change

People's World Conference on Climate Change

This year, Global Exchange attended the People’s World Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where 35,000+ people  called for a dramatic rethinking of our place on this planet.  When it came time for the COP 16 climate talks in Mexico, we knew we would have our work cut out for us.  At the end of the day, the progress we made in Mexico was minimal, and we knew the best bet for real climate change solutions was a renewed organizing effort at home and around the world.  

Shannon Biggs published this on December 12th to Commondreams.org: “It is time to deliver the message of Cochabamba to the people who are capable of creating change, of creating 1,000 Cochabambas…If we want to be heard at the U.N., then we need to go home and build the revolution of change in the places where we live.”

Want to read the rest?  Click here.

Peace

Medea Benjamin speaking out

Is it crazy to act a little crazy to stop something you think is crazy?  We think not.  When Jon Stewart announced his rally to restore sanity, we had to say something. This piece written by Medea Benjamin appeared on the Huffington Post on October 27th, 2010.

“CODEPINK has been proposing solutions since the day we started.  Whether under Bush or Obama, our voices of sanity have been drowned out by a war machine that makes billions selling weapons and hiring mercenaries.”

Read the entire article here, then read how Medea was invited to appear on The Daily Show.

Antonia appearing on Democracy NOW! with Amy Goodman

Getting Tough on Big Oil

The oil spill in April opened up a lot of people’s eyes about the horrific dangers of the oil industry.  The lives lost, the ecosystems and livelihoods destroyed, plus the billions of dollars in damage were all testaments to the magnitude of the threat posed by this dirty industry.  When it came time to hear from the experts, our in-house authority on oil Antonia Juhasz weighed in on the debate. She shared her views on Democracy NOW! and in The Guardian, May 24, 2010 article entitled How Far Should We Let Big Oil Go? where she had this to say:

“The communities most directly harmed by oil’s abuse are organized, networked, and ready.  The public is roused, angered, and ready to act.  The oil corporations are on notice: the true cost of their operations is simply too great to bear.”

Click here to read more.

Reality Tours

Agriculture in Cuba

This year,  National Geographic decided to list Global Exchange Reality Tours as one of their 2010 Tours of a Lifetime.  Our Cuba trips, and the unique opportunities they afford travelers to cut through the misinformation and discover things for themselves, caught the attention of this esteemed travel magazine.

National Geographic praised our Cuba trip’s “commitment to authenticity, immersion, sustainability, and connection.”

Click here to read more.

Fair Trade

Hershey’s refuses to go Fair Trade.  Despite years of promises, despite the massive evidence of child slavery and other abuses on West African plantations, Hershey’s still won’t budge.  So, Global Exchange partners with other organizations to apply some pressure.  The result?  A CNBC news story covered far and wide, in which Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Global Exchange Fair Trade Cocoa Campaign Director, shared:

“Hershey’s demonstrates a commitment to children in the U.S. by funding the Milton Hershey School.  They can demonstrate the same concern for children and families in the African communities that farm their cocoa by using Fair Trade Certified cocoa for their chocolates.”

Want to read the rest?  The article is still cross-posted here.

Speaking Out About Violence in Mexico

Most of us have become all too aware of the gruesome violence that has gripped Mexico over the past year.  What is not as well known is the role played by the U.S. government and its allies in the Mexican government in the problems associated with narco-trafficking and arms smuggling.  Ted Lewis, director of our Human Rights Program, spoke out in the Seattle Times in September:

“…Any effective prescription to pull Mexico back from the abyss will require cooperation as well as introspection and substantive policy changes from the U.S.”

Read more by clicking here.

What’s Next?

Hosting a peace activist in residence, more Reverse Trick-or-Treating, elections monitoring in Mexico, Reality Tours to over thirty countries, Green Solutionaries, Green Festivals, renewable power payments…there isn’t enough room to include everything we’ve got planned for 2011.  But I can tell you this for sure: we’ve got big plans.