Posted by Shannon Biggs in Building Positive Alternatives, Community Rights, People Power, Not Corporate Power, World News & Events on 28th June, 2012 | 4 Comments
The United Nations Rio + 20 Summit on Sustainable Development was a dismal, if predictable, failure. Global Exchange’s Community Rights Director Shannon Biggs reports on the news from Rio—the not so bad, the bad, and the ugly and points to some inspiring youth voices that could be heard above the din.
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, People Power, Not Corporate Power, Uncategorized on 15th June, 2012 | No Comments
Should a river have the right to flow? Do trees have the right to grow? What does it mean to give nature rights and how different would our world look if we did? These are just a few of many questions youth will come together to discuss this summer at our Rights of Nature Youth Summit — with your help.
Read More...
Posted by Tex Dworkin in Community Rights, People Power, Not Corporate Power, World News & Events on 13th June, 2012 | No Comments
World leaders are gathering in Brazil for the Rio Earth Summit next week. Global Exchange will be there, but beforehand, we’re taking part in a global online action to demand an end to fossil fuel subsidies. You can too!
Read More...
Posted by Shannon Biggs in Community Rights on 7th June, 2012 | 11 Comments
For many activists currently packing their bags for Rio, the goal is to protest the so-called “Green Economy”, the name given to the primary agenda for the Rio + 20 negotiations. Nicknamed the “Greed Economy” by many, the theory says we can only “save” nature by putting a price tag on what nature “does” for us. But we’re not showing up just to stand up for what we’re against, but to articulate what we’re for. Rights of Nature is a movement capable of actually changing culture and law to institute new economies based on community values and Earth rights. Check out our new report just in time for Rio + 20.
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights on 25th April, 2012 | No Comments
I celebrated Earth Day along with hundreds of other earth-minded individuals at San Francisco’s Civic Center/UN Plaza. Everyone came out that day under a common idea: we live in a wondrous community of life that is planet Earth and that community deserves our awe, respect, and attention. I participated in a panel discussion at the celebration on Sunday around the question of “co-creating our sustainable future – what are the successful tools for coalition building and collaboration both within and beyond your organization’s work?”
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights on 11th April, 2012 | No Comments
The sacred fire was lit as over 100 primarily Indigenous peoples gathered—and hundreds more participated online—for the RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH: International Indigenous Conference APRIL 4 – 6, 2012 at Haskell Indian Nations University. “This is the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st Century. How do we re-orientate the dominant industrialized societies so that they pursue human well-being in a manner that contributes to the health of our Mother Earth instead of undermining it? In other words – how do we live in harmony with Nature?”
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, People Power, Not Corporate Power on 21st March, 2012 | No Comments
The international peasants and farmers organization, La Via Campesina, ends their global Call to Action for the upcoming June 16-18 Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) with ‘GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!! GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!’
The stakes are high in Rio. As Via Campesina points out, “Twenty years later, governments should have reconvened to review their commitments and progress, but in reality the issue to debate will be the “green economy” led development, propagating the same capitalist model that caused climate chaos and other deep social and environmental crises.”
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights on 8th March, 2012 | No Comments
Last week our friends at the Earth Island Journal published an article on the Rights of Nature in their spring issue. The article, titled Natural Law: From Rural Pennsylvania to South America, a Global Alliance is Promoting the Idea that Ecosystems Have Intrinsic Rights; takes a deep look at the evolution of the movement grant legal rights to nature from its origins in the small community of Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania, to the ground-breaking developments in Ecuador in 2008 when it became the first nation to recognize nature’s rights in an amendment to its national constitution, up to the present moment as environmental and climate justice activists gear up to advocate for nature’s rights at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil this June.
Read More...
Posted by Shannon Biggs in Community Rights, Global Exchange News & Events, World News & Events on 19th January, 2012 | 6 Comments
We could begin to ask new questions like: what if corporations aren’t the problem at all? Or: If the Supreme Court had never granted “personhood” rights to corporations, would they still be trammeling the rights of citizens and riding roughshod over communities and nature—Would we have democracy? The revolution for new rules is already here. Its happening at the grassroots. 150+ communities have already begun to challenge the system by writing new laws that place community and ecosystems above corporate profits and they’ve challenged the entire structure of law—right from Main Street, where they live.
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, Featured on 6th December, 2011 | No Comments
Our day began early as we worked feverishly with students who travelled across South Africa on the “Climate Train,”(one of the most visible campaigns in the COP 17 process) to finish decorating 10 4-foot tall beach balls emblazoned with “Earth Rights NOW” in English, French and Spanish.
Read More...
Older Entries
