(That image was cropped out of a photo taken by Jody B.)
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The COP15 talks in Copenhagen have been called “Brokenhagen” and “Failenhagen.” One write-up in The Guardian is titled “Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure.”
Here is some selected material about the betrayals and the sell-outs in Copenhagen -
A video -
“Bill McKibben reacts to climate deal announcement at flash rally”
“350.org founder and author, Bill McKibben offers his perspective of the end of the Copenhagen climate talks amidst a rousing rally to shame world leaders for not stepping up to the plate with a real deal.”
This Diggers’ Song video was posted during the summer Climate Camp in England -
With that song, these Climate Campers have affiliated themselves with previous attempts to share and maintain “a common treasury for all” — which some simply would describe as a “commons.”
Like the Diggers, the Climate Campers rally around common environments — protected or claimed through civil disobedience, and other activism. At a very basic level, their goals and tactics are similar.
But the Climate Camps and the Diggers have approached these common environments from different angles. While the Climate Campers have been more inclined to approach fields as meeting places, and as launching-off points for nearby protests, the Diggers attempted to claim lands that could be farmed in common. They mainly were after agricultural lands which they might have used to sustain farming collectives. Food concerns have not been central at Climate Camps, but food issues are not completely off the ‘map’ at Climate Camps either — as this Climate Camp TV video about fruit smoothies indicates. Yet, as Climate Campers have focused on greenhouse gases, and on other fossil fuel pollution released into our common atmosphere, it seems that they haven’t devoted much attention to emissions from industrial agriculture, and other mainstream food systems. (Here is a post that addresses interconnections between food systems and greenhouse gas emissions — approached through generalized statistical estimates.)
I’m raising those points about distinct focuses and limitations to compare the two approaches to common environments.
A New Urbanism video -
“Rooftop farming”
(… “Annie Novak and Ben Flanner have been farming the rooftop of a Brooklyn warehouse since May 2009 and the 6,000 square-foot farm has over 30 different varieties of vegetables.” …)
Since at least a few of those write-ups mention or promote commercial approaches to distributing local food, I briefly will say that -
We also can barter with food products; or we just give them away. And there are alternative economic models that our food products could be worked into.
(An alternative economic model is part of Inclusive Democracy proposals, for example.)
Basically, permablitzes are community landscaping events, during which land is re-worked based on permaculture principles. Permablitzers generally have been re-working others’ private property (e.g. their backyards) during these events
(so far, at least).
“For those who haven’t been to one, a permablitz is a kind of one day permaculture-styled backyard (or frontyard) makeover, with free workshops, fun and food — all based on volunteerism and a model of reciprocity. Anyone can come, and for many it’s their first experience with permaculture design or food gardening. If you come to three or so, we can help organise one at your house.”
“They can be fantastically good days helping people on the road to some serious food production, and some beautiful gardens can result.
“The permablitz concept started here in Melbourne in 2006 through a collaboration between permaculture student/teacher Dan Palmer and a South American community group in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs. I was lucky enough to be involved in the first one thanks to my friendship with Dan. Since, we’ve blitzed all around the city, with renters, in housing estates, on big properties, on tiny ones, in community gardens and schools”
“Nobody funds us — so far our efforts organising and administering blitzes (except working with the Dandenong Development Board, and running courses) have been entirely voluntary. There’s an evolving loose knit crew of people who chip in. We’re looking at incorporating as a non-profit soon though so some of this will be a bit more formalised soon.”
“We’d like to see more local blitz groups form, so the concept can spread nodally. The command and control alternative sounds like too much work anyway”
“We’ve got a short manual for people wanting to organise blitzes elsewhere. Email us permablitz@gmail.com if you’d like a copy.”
On Saturday, May 23rd, this documentary will be streamed online -
This documentary will be shown here — between 9:45am and 10:45am EST.
(Here’s when it will be shown in other time zones. In the UK, people will be watching the documentary in the afternoon, rather than the morning. That time block is part of the schedule for a Transition Towns conference in London, England on that day.)
The documentary is about the Transition Towns movement, which (much like the former Relocalization Network) basically is a collective effort to make localities (e.g. portions of larger cities) more autonomous and sustainable. This Transition network has been expanding out from its current base in the UK.
James K. Bashkin at Chemistry for a Sustainable World -
“Poisoning the Poor with eWaste in Ghana”
… “[Third 'World'] countries are becoming a dumping ground for much toxic waste and proper environmental health and safety is being ignored, both by local opportunists and suppliers of e-Waste from developed nations.” …
Deborah Rich at the Land Institute’s Prairie Writers Circle -
“Hay belly nation”
… “[pesticide-free] organic farming can increase, sometimes dramatically, the nutrient density of what we put in our mouths” …
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Asking whether it still is food that we’re eating might be just as valid.
Anyway, there still is breathable air and nutritious food out there, of course –
for the time being, anyway
“For a hundred years, a handful of corporations were given a gorgeous fruit, set free from regulation, and allowed to do what they wanted with it. What happened? They had one good entrepreneurial idea – and to squeeze every tiny drop of profit from it, they destroyed democracies, burned down rainforests, and ended up killing the fruit itself.
But have we learned? Across the world, politicians like George Bush and David Cameron are telling us the regulation of corporations is ‘a menace’ to be ‘rolled back’; they even say we should leave the planet’s climate in their hands. Now that’s bananas.”
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That’s just the conclusion of the article. I recommend the rest of it.
“Almost all of our food problems have to do with access, not absolute quantities of food. But then again … that’s always the case - since the end of the last century, famine has virtually always been a result of access issues. Even the famous 1980s Sahel famine occurred while Ethiopia and Eritrea were exporting substantial quantities of food. Saying that this is ‘just’ bad policy doesn’t get us very far - because the bad policies we’re talking about - rationing food by price, globalization of agriculture, over-reliance on fossil inputs, growing inequity, powerful corporate interests whose profits come ahead of feeding people, heavy consumption of meat and oil or food-based oil substitutes by the rich - are very powerful forces, heavily institutionalized and hard to counteract. They aren’t so much policies, as expressions of our deepest social inequities. ”
“Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation.” “And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.”
