Jun 2012 – The Free

After Rio, we know.. Governments have given up on the planet.

George Monbiot laments the craven sellout to rampant consumer capitalism as climate change and a host of environmental emergencies destroy conditions for life on the planet. His answer is not workers revolution nor assassinating billionaires, but local ‘rewilding’ to at least delay the biosphere’s collapse.

After Rio, we know. Governments have given up on the planet

The post-summit pledge was an admission of defeat against consumer capitalism. But we can still salvage the natural world
It is, perhaps, the greatest failure of collective leadership since the first world war. The Earth’s living systems are collapsing, and the leaders of some of the most powerful nations – the United States, the UK, Germany, Russia – could not even be bothered to turn up and discuss it. Those who did attend the Earth summit in Rio last week solemnly agreed to keep stoking the destructive fires: sixteen times in their text they pledged to pursue “sustained growth“, the primary cause of the biosphere’s losses. Continue reading “After Rio, we know.. Governments have given up on the planet.”

The DOOM LOOP: banks and States in Death Embrace !

In a vicious cycle of sorts, banks and states thus spin down together like two entangled paragliders caught in a mutual embrace of death.

Not excessive government spending but excessive bank lending lies at the root of the eurozone crisis. Here’s why the bankers, not the people, should pay.

We’ve been listening to the same tired old story for almost three years now: if governments don’t cut back on their reckless spending, the euro crisis will escalate and the world will face catastrophe. Collapsing banks, spiraling unemployment, rioting workers — all are said to be the direct result of irresponsible fiscal policies in the lead-up to the worst crisis since the 1930s. And if government is to blame for these ills, austerity is certainly its only cure.

“But hold on,” some hundreds of thousands of protestershave been asking over the past year, “if governments were spending excessive amounts of money, then where did all this money come from? And if we are running out of cash so rapidly that we need to sacrifice social security, education, healthcare and hard-earned pensions in order to keep our heads above the water, then why is there somehow always money left for the bankers when they run into trouble?”

COVER small 8 Jan — **As Capitalism collapses amid climate chaos… one lonely abused schoolgirl occupies herself… and sets off an explosive social and economic revolution…**

Continue reading “The DOOM LOOP: banks and States in Death Embrace !”

Amazon warriors occupy Belo Monte

Amazonian Indigenous Peoples Occupy Belo Monte Dam Site

Date:

Saturday, June 23, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Altamira, Brazil – Indigenous peoples affected by the controversial Belo Monte Dam complex now under construction along the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon have occupied the Pimental coffer dam that cuts across channels of the river since last Thursday, June 21. Warriors from the Xikrin and Juruna indigenous groups arrived from the Bacajá River and Big Bend of the Xingu River in order to occupy one of Belo Monte’s main dams and work camps, expressing dissatisfaction with the blatant disregard of their rights and the dam building consortium’s non-compliance with socio-environmental mitigation measures. The groups independently organized the action and are demanding the presence of the Norte Energia (NESA) dam-building consortium and the Brazilian government.

The occupiers come from a region of the Xingu downstream of Belo Monte that would suffer from a permanent drought provoked by diversion of 80% of the river’s flow into an artificial dam to feed the dam’s powerhouse…. Continue reading “Amazon warriors occupy Belo Monte”

Rio treaty ‘written for billionaires’..283 paragraphs of fluff.

How “Sustainability” Became “Sustained Growth”

The draft and probably final declaration is 283 paragraphs of fluff. It suggests that the 190 governments due to approve it have, in effect, given up on multilateralism, given up on the world and given up on us.

The Rio Declaration rips up the basic principles of environmental action. In 1992 world leaders signed up to something called “sustainability”. Few of them were clear about what it meant; I suspect that many of them had no idea. Perhaps as a result, it did not take long for this concept to mutate into something subtly different: “sustainable development”. Then it made a short jump to another term: “sustainable growth”. And now, in the 2012 Earth Summit text that world leaders are about to adopt, it has subtly mutated once more: into “sustained growth”…. Continue reading “Rio treaty ‘written for billionaires’..283 paragraphs of fluff.”