Agenda 21: Sustainabilty or buckets of Greenwash??

Here in Spain local right wing council’s are competing to declare support for Agenda 21, Sustainability, Environmental awareness, etc. All good citizens are urged to take part, and the response is good.   Because everyone knows by now that  we’re destroying the life supporting mechanisms of the planet.

Okay it’s super necessary that we all take part, but without touching the rampant consumption that is the base of capitalism, we are all pissing against a gale force wind.

Suddenly AGENDA 21 is all the fashion, nobody mentions that it was first agreed in 1992 at the Rio Summit, and has taken almost 20 years to get off the drawing board. Meanwhile every field of environment, climate and biodiversity crises have been taking giant steps backwards.

It seems like Agenda 21 may  be used by corrupt business and politicos as one more LOAD OF GREENWASH and even an excuse to CUT SERVICES in the name of sustainability. No reason not to support the idea, I support it, while exposing the hypocritical cant of those profiting from destroying our planet.

” The world’s leading ozone destroyer takes credit for leadership in ozone protection. A mammoth greenhouse gas emitter professes the precautionary approach to global warming. A major agrichemical manufacturer trades in a pesticide so hazardous it has been banned in many countries, while implying it is helping feed the hungry. A petrochemical firm uses the waste from one polluting process as raw material for another hazardous process, and boasts of an important recycling initiative. Another giant multinational cuts timber from virgin rainforest, replaces it with monoculture plantations and calls the project “sustainable forest development.”

”Welcome to the world of GREENWASH, where transnational corporations (TNCs) are preserving and expanding their markets by posing as friends of the environment and enemies of poverty. Greenwash takes many forms: from the pious concern for the environment expressed in expensive advertising campaigns, to the “continuous improvement” ballyhooed in voluntary codes of conduct; from the creation of benign-sounding corporate front groups, to the participation of TNCs in environmental conferences and events. All these efforts share the goal of avoiding national and international sanctions on dirty TNC operations, which are at the root of many global environmental crises.”

At +5 C, Africa will burn..100s of millions will be underwater,

“If developed countries don’t increase their reduction targets to 40 percent by 2020 without offsets, they are risking five [degrees] C of warming and a planetary emergency,” said Asad Rehman, head of the International Climate programme at Friends of the Earth.

representatives of civil society reminded delegates time and again. And it is likely even worse than that. Human civilisation has arisen and thrived during a time of little change in global temperature. The current temperature increase of 0.8 degrees C is only about half of what is now guaranteed even if all emissions ended today.

Even a 1.5 to 2.0 C temperature rise puts humanity effectively on a new planet, with a different climate than we have prospered in. Additional warming not only further threatens that prosperity it bring us far too close to the nightmare scenario of runaway climate change that will threaten our very survival, experts warn.

No developed country is close to the 40-percent cut that the science says is needed by 2020 to stay below two degrees C. ………………….READ here  

African Agriculture and Food Supply at Risk
By Julio Godoy

BONN, Jun 18, 2011 (IPS) – Climate change and global warming are likely to have dramatically negative effects on African agriculture and food supply by reducing river runoffs and water recharge, especially in semi-arid zones such as Southern Africa, two new reports say.

READ here 

 

CLIMATE CHANGE
Putting Children in Harm’s Way
By Miriam Gathigah

Extreme weather has exposed thousands of children to potentially dangerous situations. / Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS
Extreme weather has exposed thousands of children to potentially dangerous situations. Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

RIFT VALLEY, Jun 17, 2011 (IPS) – It is late afternoon and the lone figure of nine-year-old Nancy Chepkemboi trudges home. She is soaked to the bone and this now happens on a regular basis because of the unusually frequent and high rains, placing her at risk of contracting pneumonia. And possibly even malaria. Puddles of standing water are a common feature in these regions, and are responsible for the highest malaria infection rates.

According to the ministry of health, malaria is the number one killer of children under the age of five. Almost 34,000 Kenyan children die from malaria annually. And they are at higher risk for contracting malaria during the rainy seasons.

Climatically Kenya is experiencing two extremes. Due to climate change, there has been no rain in most parts of the country. The drought in the northeastern region has been labeled a national disaster. But in the Rift Valley and in Western Kenya the rains have been heavier than expected. And there is more to come.   Read here 

 

Snow monkeys

Japanese macaque

Japanese macaques are the most northerly-living non-human primates. In the forested and mountainous, region of Japan where they’re found, some populations have been known to bathe in hot springs during the freezing winters and swim during the sweltering summer heat. Japanese macaques have become famous for washing their food in saltwater before they eat it, both cleaning it and enhancing the taste. This skill has spread through the population and down the generations. For fun these macaques make snowballs, just like us…..

Bankers 36% pay rise. Banqueros ladrones!

La crisis financiera finalmente ha terminado! O al menos en lo que respecta a los sueldos que los grandes banqueros del mundo se conceden. El diario británicoFinancial Times  solicitó a la consultora especializada Equilar un informe para analizar los sueldos de los mayores ejecutivos de los 15 bancos que, en buena medida, fueron responsables por la debacle económica que azotó a los ciudadanos de prácticamente todo el mundo (claro, excepto a los de la propia élite) y cuyos efectos persisten en numerosas economías nacionales. El resultado fue confirmar que el salario de dichos ejecutivos aumentó, en promedio, un 36%, alcanzando los 9.7 millones de dólares anuales.

Science Fiction, Utopia, and the Radical Imagination

by anticapitalista on Mon, 05/09/2011 – 19:56. 

Second issue of Red River Radical http://redriverradical.wordpress.com
Cynicism, hope, and experimentation in genre fiction has always been an important part of Leftist culture.

 Taking a look at anarchism, feminism, and anti-colonialism in sci fi and contemporary sci fi’s lack of living up to much of any standards.

 
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Congo war on civilians.UN fails to protect.

Abau Adua has been homeless since the LRA descended on his village a year ago. ‘We were out on the river when the LRA attacked,’ he explains. ‘We heard the screams and the shouting. I saw 16 corpses, people beaten and stabbed to death. Two of my close family – my cousin and my nephew – were among them.’

‘Communities continue to live under daily threat of attack,’ says Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam in DRC. ‘The UN’s primary role is to protect civilians and to support the national army to become a stronger, more accountable force.’

One of the worst human rights offenders is the government army, which is poorly paid and ill-disciplined. In July 2009, the DRC government said there would be zero tolerance for soldiers who abused civilians, but elements of the army still prey on local people rather than protecting them.

Another year’s renewal of the mission is expected. However, despite this being the world’s largest peacekeeping force (some 18,500-strong), the first quarter of this year has seen a spike in LRA violence. As the UN reviews its mandate, it needs to move faster and more effectively to provide protection to people like Abau Adua.

Anna Ridout nin.tl/iWPf3G  read more HERE

Ferocious Archbishop attacks gay marriage

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Archbishop vs. the Governor: Gay Sera, Sera

 
Published: June 18, 2011
With his cigars, blogs, Jameson’s and Irish affability, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan prides himself on his gumption.
Certainly his effort to kill the gay marriage bill, just one vote away from passing in Albany, shows a lot of gall.
The archbishop has been ferocious in fighting against marriage between same-sex couples, painting it as a perversity against nature.
If only his church had been as ferocious in fighting against the true perversity against nature: the unending horror of pedophile priests and the children who trusted them.