Oil, blood and poverty in Nigeria - Amnesty International

The Amnesty video originally used here has been taken off the internet source site. However, FOE Netherlands also recorded evidence of pollution.

Amnesty International today released a new report, Petroleum, pollution and poverty in the Niger Delta. They point out how Shell and other oil companies have consistently denied responsibility for “pollution, administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict.” Amnesty calls it one of the world’s worst examples of the “resource curse” and a "human rights tragedy".

Oil companies, through biased "production agreements" have taken the lion's share of US$600 billion in oil profits since the 1960s. Nigerian politicians and military take what remains, leaving nothing for locals -- the resulting protests and civil war by ethnic groups, with frequent revenge atrocities by national security forces, have continued for 40 years, from the Biafran war to the current hostage-taking by MEND. Food sources of the majority of the 31 million people living in the delta are threatened: oil leaks pollute drinking water, kill fish, and damage the whole ecosystem. The companies are guilty of oil spills, waste dumping, and toxic gas flaring that would not be tolerated in their home countries -- to which must be added impacts from civil war, sabotage and theft. Though Nigerian law sets environmental standards, its enforcement has always been ineffective, biased and corrupt.

See the Amnesty site, and our previous post about the Ogoni. Eyewitnesses now report Nigerian security force attacks in Ijaw territory. Shell has finally paid $15.5 million out of court to families of executed Ogoni leaders after 14 years -- $5 million to "Kiisi" educational and community projects -- but continues to deny responsibility: see the Greenpeace archive. 2008 data put Shell, Exxon, Chevron and BP among the world's leading carbon polluters: p. 7, in Shell's Big Dirty Secret, just released by FOE and Greenpeace, which also uses secret Shell memos to document its Nigerian pollution and retreat from renewables. Wikipedia explains production agreements but fails to note that by "cooking the books" companies use them to capture economic rent for years to the detriment of the host country. See also our post on Blood and oil in Peru and bolivia.

Victoria Tauli-Corpus, an indigenous Filipino and chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues, says, "An aggressive drive is taking place to extract the last remaining resources from indigenous territories. There is a [worldwide] crisis of human rights. There are more and more arrests, killings and abuses. This is happening in Russia, Canada, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Amazon, all over Latin America, Papua New Guinea and Africa. It is global. We are seeing a human rights emergency. A battle is taking place for natural resources everywhere."

Islam and the environment

Muslims do not look for a divine presence in Nature. God transcends both nature and humanity. It is by right action, rather than mystical vision, that Muslims fulfil their duty “to keep the equilibrium of use and protect the earth”. In recent times they have felt powerless against the pollution of the earth, particularly because it is usually the result of Western encroachment. Recent fundamentalism, though claiming to defend the tradition, is “in opposition to core teachings of the Qur'an that view all humanity as the creation of God, that call for the avoidance of excess, and that mandate respect for women.... A retrieval of the action-oriented ethic...would contribute toward protecting the earth as a trust, ammanah, for the next generation...” – summary of Nawal Ammar, “Islam and Deep Ecology” ch. 9 in Deep Ecology and World Religions (SUNY, 2001)

Sayings of the prophet (Hadith) and the Holy Qur'an

Jihad (holy war): On his return from a battle, the Prophet said: "We are finished with the lesser jihad; now we are starting the greater jihad." He explained... that fighting against an outer enemy is the lesser jihad; fighting against one's self is the greater jihad.

“Work in this world as if you are living forever, and work for the hereafter as if you are dying tomorrow.” Hadith.

“If the Day of Judgement comes while you are planting a new tree, carry on and plant it.” Hadith.

The commons: “People are partners in water, pasture land and fire.” Hadith . “The water is to be divided amongst them” Qur'an 54:86.

God has created every animal from water; of them there are some that creep on their bellies, some that walk on two legs, and some that walk on four.” Qur'an 24:25 “There is not an animal on earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, [that is ] not part of a community like you.” Qur'an 6:38.

“A good deed done to a beast is as good as doing good to a human being; while an act of cruelty to a beast is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.” Hadith.

“All creatures are God's dependents and the most beloved to God among them is the one that does good to God's dependents.” Hadith.

“If anyone plants a tree, or sows a field, and humans, beasts or birds eat from it, he should consider it a charity on his part.” Hadith.

“To Him belongs what is in the heavens and earth, and all that is in between, and all that is beneath the soil.” Qur'an 20:6

[On fasting, vigils and celibacy] “Allah does not tolerate the extremes of abstentions and moderation is the best path to piety.” Hadith.

*****
We thank for these quotations: Nawal Ammar, “Islam and Deep Ecology”; BBC, The internal jihad; Last Prophet's Info, The prophet's approach to environmentalism; Khaled Hamid, “If the day of Judgment is coming go ahead and plant that tree; IFEES Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environment Services, UK and its newsletter EcoIslam.

The view from Rivière-au-Tonnerre, North Shore, Gulf of St Lawrence - by Ann Jarnet

Most people who hear about La Romaine know that Hydro-Québec has undertaken an immense hydro-electric construction project on a lovely river near Havre-Saint-Pierre on Québec's North Shore, along highway 138, the only road connecting a string of small villages to what the media call the "real world".

Those who talk about the project can be easily divided into two camps: those, usually "from away", who are against the project for environmental and other reasons; and, those who stand to benefit from royalties that will come from the sale of electricity, that is, the small communities which have suffered from the collapse of the fishing industry.

I live in Rivière-au-Tonnerre, 100 km west of Havre-Saint-Pierre, right on the highway. I have a lovely little house with an immense porch on which I can sit and stare at the sea from any angle as I have an uninterrupted view of the water from the extreme east to the extreme west. My little community of 325 people will benefit from the royalties, and some of the younger people (yes, there are a few left here) are hoping to find jobs on the Romaine project; others will be employed as a result of related economic activity. There's a new energy in the village, especially since we are hoping to join the Villages-Relais network which will encourage tourists to stop here and to linger before carrying on with their journey.

Environmental concerns? Yes. Hope for the future? Yes, I see a way and a pace of life here which pleases me as I move into "retirement mode" and I really don't want to lose that.

What really concerns me right now is the traffic on highway 138, that single artery which connects us to Sept-Iles, to Québec City, to Montreal. That single well-worn artery is being challenged as its rickety bridges, eroded curbs are being battered by immense trucks
carrying buildings, machinery and unusual and large objects for which I have no vocabulary. Meeting them on the highway means that even the small car must stop and hug the curb or even hit the gravel. I think the highway itself was an expansion of moose trails which curve and go up and down -- there are few places where one can safely pass another vehicle.

Dealing with these trucks in the village is quite another matter. Truck drivers do not slow down. The speed limit in my village is 50 km/hour; the trucks go by at 70 or 80 km/hour in my part of the village. Aside from the obvious safety issue, there is the noise level which offends me as the trucks drive by day and night. The damage to the road itself can't be forgotten as well.

A spirited neighbour who spends his days listening to his CB radio told me of a conversation he heard between two truck drivers who made comments about the decorations on a rather unique house in our village. The conversation focused on speculation that the decorations had been made by "some guy on welfare". My spirited friend was so insulted that he blasted those two drivers to smithereens even though the house was not his. Although he was laughing when he told me the story, I left with feelings of disappointment at the lack of respect that can result from such projects:

1. the Québec government seems to have no interest in investing in our highway which often is shut down because of floods, landslides, etc. Trucks in such numbers will only make our precious road more vulnerable. Some preparatory work by Transport Québec would have gone a long way; repairs will be far more expensive...

2. companies under contract to Hydro Québec (the driving force of Quebec Inc) need to "hurry" to extract as much profit from the work they do transporting goods to the construction site The concerns of citizens who live along the highway are not even part of the equation. I won't let my neigbours call it as "sustainable development" -- sustainable development has a social aspect that is often forgotten or, even worse, misunderstood. I'd have a bit to say about that.

3. our local politicians see hope for prosperity (attracting young families so that our school can stay open, for example) and may often "hold their noses" instead of insisting that our villages be treated with respect.

.... and this is just the beginning. Over the next ten years, there will be tens of thousands of such trucks coming and going 20 meters from my porch.

Climate justice now! vs the carbon casino

Larry Lohmann -- his book Carbon Trading (2006) for the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and Durban Group cites case studies by reputable NGOs.

Many environmental groups do not yet realize the dangers of cap-and-trade, free emission allowances, "offsets" which allow big polluters to continue business as usual, REDD, CCS and other carbon trade proposals.

See this 2 page summary by Michelle Chan, author of Friends of the Earth report, "Subprime Carbon? Re-thinking the World's Largest New Derivatives Market" (April 2009). The carbon casino has already begun. Last November a big Swiss bank was already offering "slice-and-dice" carbon futures, an identical gambit to the subprime mortgages that caused a world meltdown. The finance pirates want to play, for their profit, with your children's future.

Laurie Williams & Allan Zabel's expert criticism of US cap-and-trade: Why Waxman-Markey won't work (June 2009). See their blog.

CJN's Poznan statement 12 December 2008 raises even larger questions of ecojustice. World churches in the Jubilee movement of the 1990s developed a very similar analysis. Here is the full CJN text:

"Members of Climate Justice Now! – a worldwide alliance of more than 160 organisations — have been in Poznan for the past two weeks closely following developments in the UN climate negotiations. This statement is our assessment of the Conference of Parties (COP) 14, and articulates our principles for achieving climate justice.

THE URGENCY OF CLIMATE JUSTICE
We will not be able to stop climate change if we don’t change the neo-liberal and corporate-based economy which stops us from achieving sustainable societies. Corporate globalisation must be stopped.

The historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialised countries of the North. Even though the primary responsibility of the North to reduce emissions has been recognised in the Convention, their production and consumption habits continue to threaten the survival of humanity and biodiversity. It is imperative that the North urgently shifts to a low carbon economy. At the same time in order to avoid the damaging carbon intensive model of industrialisation, the South is entitled to resources and technology to make this transition.

We believe that any ´shared vision´ on addressing the climate crisis must start with climate justice and with a radical re-thinking of the dominant development model.

Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities, fisherfolk, and especially women in these communities, have been living harmoniously and sustainably with the Earth for millennia. They are not only the most affected by climate change, but also its false solutions, such as agrofuels, mega-dams, genetic modification, tree plantations and carbon offset schemes. Instead of market led schemes, their sustainable practices should be seen as offering the real solutions to climate change.

UNFCCC IN CRISIS
Governments and international institutions have to recognise that the Kyoto mechanisms have failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – common but differentiated responsibilities, inter-generational equity, and polluter pays — have been undermined in favour of market mechanisms. The three main pillars of the Kyoto agreement –the clean development mechanism, joint implementation and emissions trading schemes — have been completely ineffective in reducing emissions, yet they continue to be at the center of the negotiations.

Kyoto is based on carbon-trading mechanisms which allow Northern countries to continue business as usual by paying for “clean development” projects in developing and transition countries. This is a scheme designed deliberately to allow polluters to avoid reducing emissions domestically. Clean development mechanism projects, which are supposed to support “sustainable development”, include infrastructure projects such as big dams and coal-fired power plants, and monoculture tree plantations. Not only do these projects fail to reduce carbon emissions, they accelerate the privatisation and corporate take-over of the natural world, at the expense of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.

Proposals on the table in Poznan are heading in the same direction.

In the current negotiations, industrialised countries continue to act on the basis of self-interest, using all their negotiating tactics to avoid their obligations to reduce carbon emissions, to finance adaptation and mitigation and transfer technology to the South.
In their pursuit of growth at any cost, many Southern governments at the talks are trading away the rights of their peoples and resources. We remind them that a climate agreement is not a trade agreement.

The main protagonists for climate stability – Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk, forest dependent communities, youth, and marginalised and affected communities in the global South and North, are systematically excluded. Despite repeated demands, Indigenous Peoples are not recognised as an official party to the negotiations. Neither are women’s voices and gender considerations recognised and included in the process.

At the same time, private investors are circling the talks like vultures, swooping in on every opportunity for creating new profits. Business and corporate lobbyists expanded their influence and monopolized conference space at Poznan. At least 1500 industry lobbyists were present either as NGOs or as members of government delegations.

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme could create the climate regime’s largest ever loophole, giving Northern polluters yet another opportunity to buy their way out of emissions reductions. With no mention of biodiversity or Indigenous Peoples’ rights, this scheme might give a huge incentive for countries to sell off their forests, expel Indigenous and peasant communities, and transform forests into tree plantations under corporate-control. Plantations are not forests. Privatisation and dispossession through REDD or any other mechanisms must be stopped.

The World Bank is attempting to carve a niche in the international climate change regime. This is unacceptable as the Bank continues to fund polluting industries and drive deforestation by promoting industrial logging and agrofuels. The Bank’s recently launched Climate Investment Funds goes against government initiatives at the UN and promotes dirty industries such as coal, while forcing developing countries into the fundamentally unequal aid framework of donor and recipient. The World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility aiming to finance REDD through a forest carbon mechanism serves the interest of private companies and opens the path for commodification of forests.

These developments are to be expected. Market ideology has totally infiltrated the climate talks, and the UNFCCC negotiations are now like trade fairs hawking investment opportunities.

THE REAL SOLUTIONS
Solutions to the climate crisis will not come from industrialised countries and big business. Effective and enduring solutions will come from those who have protected the environment – Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family farmers, fisherfolk, forest dependent communities, youth and marginalised and affected communities in the global South and North. These include:

• Achieving low carbon economies, without resorting to offsetting and false solutions such as nuclear energy and “clean coal”, while protecting the rights of those affected by the transition, especially workers.

• Keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

• Implementing people’s food and energy sovereignty.

• Guaranteeing community control of natural resources.

• Re-localisation of production and consumption, prioritising local markets

• Full recognition of Indigenous Peoples, peasant and local community rights,

• Democratically controlled clean renewable energy.

• Rights based resource conservation that enforces indigenous land rights and promotes peoples sovereignty and public ownership over energy, forests, seeds, land and water

• Ending deforestation and its underlying causes.

• Ending excessive consumption by elites in the North and in the South.

• Massive investment in public transport

• Ensuring gender justice by recognising existing gender injustices and involving women in decision making.

• Cancelling illegitimate debts claimed by northern governments and IFIs. The illegitimacy of these debts is underscored by the much greater historical, social and ecological debts owed to people of the South.

We stand at the crossroads. We call for a radical change in direction to put climate justice and people’s rights at the centre of these negotiations."

In the lead-up to the 2009 COP 15 at Copenhagen and beyond, the Climate Justice Now! alliance will continue to monitor governments and to mobilise social forces from the south and the north to achieve climate justice."

Paix et amour sur terre - trois chants

Voici quelques vidéos sur le thème:
Mantra hindou pour faire face à la mort

The Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra (see complete text with commentary) by Australian musicians Ron Ragel and Vicki Hansen, visuals by Fred Aw. Hymne au Créateur et Sauveur, dit celui au trois yeux (Shiva). Son troisième oeil indique la vision mystique. Le chant Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra est tiré de l'album Universal Mother. Montage visuel par Fred Aw. Tous de l'Australie. Explication de Shiva en français. À noter: sa forme Ardhanârî est unisexe, le dieu Shiva du côté droit et la déesse Pârvatî du côté gauche, fusion de l'esprit immortel et de l'énergie-matière.

Aimons-nous d'Yvon Deschamps.

Voir le texte complet de la chanson.

Gayatri mantra, prière bouddhiste

Mixage sonore de Rara Avis à partir du chant tibétain, montage visuel par le brésilien almirCCR. Voir le texte et traduction in English, en français.

RIP Thomas Berry, geologian: 1914-2009

Thomas Berry: courtesy earth-community.org

He called himself a geologian: “a historian of the Earth and its evolutionary processes”. The only way to fulfil our role as individuals and as species is to understand it within the history and functioning of our planet in the universe, like sailors learning about their ship and the vast ocean on which it sails. "It takes a universe to make a child," he said, adding that he was "trying to establish a functional cosmology, not a theology."

Summary of Berry's The New Story (1978) - by Dover

Berry first published the "New Story" in 1978 as the initial booklet of the Teilhard Studies series in 1978. It was published nearly a decade later by Cross Currents. It was revised slightly for its publication in the Dream of the Earth in 1988. Berry originally subtitled the work "Comments on the Origin, Identification and Transmission of Values." The story, then, is intended to be a new orientation and perspective which would provide a moral basis for action. In other words, it is seen as a comprehensive basis for nurturing reciprocity between humans and for fostering reverence between humans and the earth.

Berry opens his essay by observing: "We are in between stories." He notes how the old story was functional because: "It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purpose, energized action. It consecrated suffering, integrated knowledge, guided education." This context of meaning provided by the old story is no longer operative. People are turning to new age novelties or to religious fundamentalism for orientation and direction. However, neither of these directions will ultimately be satisfying. We are confronted with dysfunctionalism in both religious communities and in secular societies. Berry proposes a new story of how things came to be, where we are now, and how the our human future can be given some meaningful direction. In losing our direction we have lost our values and orientation for human action. This is what the New Story can provide.

Secondly, as this reality of developmental time begins to dawn on the human community (although still fiercely resisted by creationists) a realization of the subjective communion of the human with the earth likewise begins to be felt. As Berry expresses it: "The human emerges not only as an earthling, but also as a worldling. We bear the universe in our beings as the universe bears us in its being. The two have a total presence to each other and to that deeper mystery out of which both the universe and ourselves have emerged." This subjective presence of things to one another is one of the most distinctive features of Berry's thought. In The Divine Milieu Teilhard writes of this interior attraction of things in the following passage: "In the Divine Milieu all the elements of the universe touch each other by that which is most inward and ultimate in them." Berry has suggested that the importance of the awareness of the subjective dimension of the universe story cannot be underestimated. Indeed, he writes: "...the reality and value of the interior subjective numinous aspect of the entire cosmic order is being appreciated as the basic condition in which the story makes any sense at all."

Berry states, then, that to communicate values within this new frame of reference of the earth story we need to identify the basic principles of the universe process itself. These are the primordial intentions of the universe towards differentiation, subjectivity, and communion. Differentiation refers to the extraordinary variety and distinctiveness of everything in the universe. No two things are completely alike. Subjectivity is the interior numinous component present in all reality also called consciousness. Communion is the ability to relate to other people and things due to the presence of subjectivity and difference. Together these create the grounds for the inner attraction of to the presence of subjectivity and difference. Together these create the grounds for the inner attraction of things for one another. These are principles which can become the basis of a more comprehensive ecological and social ethics that sees the human community as dependent upon and interactive with the earth community. only such a perspective can result in the survival of both humans and the earth. As Berry has stated humans and the earth will go into the future as one single multiform event or we will not go into the future at all.

Berry closes his essay on "The New Story" with a powerful passage evoking a confidence in the future despite the tragedies of the present. He writes:

"If the dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun and formed the earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture."(28)

This then is Berry's New Story, born out of his own intellectual formation as a cultural historian of the West, turning toward Asian religions, examining indigenous traditions, and finally culminating in the study of the scientific story of the universe itself. It is a story of personal evolution against the background of cosmic evolution. It is the story of one person's intellectual history in relation to earth history. It is the story of all of our histories in conjunction with planetary history. It is a story awaiting new tellings, new chapters, and ever deeper confidence in the beauty and mystery of its unfolding.

*****

See biographies of Berry by Wikipedia and by Mary Evelyn Tucker; autobiographical notes by Berry himself; Rich Heffern, Four key ideas from the work of Fr. Thomas Berry. He died 1 June 09, at the age of 94 and returns to earth in the meadow at Green Mountain Monastery in Vermont (report by Angela Manno).

Podcasts: Thomas Berry reads excerpts from The Great Work (2000). "Awakening people to something inside them", interviews with Thomas Berry by NCR editor Tom Fox (2006); Youtube videos by and about Berry; new film Journey of the Universe about his thought.

Criticism of Berry by traditional Catholics and Protestant fundamentalists. It is regrettable that such critics do not see how Berry's insights can deepen and broaden our concept of the Divine presence and human purpose. One example is the multifaith exploration of eco-theology in Yale University's Forum of Religion and Ecology

*****
Seedsong: An Elegy for Thomas Berry, 1914-2009 - by Elizabeth Ayres

The day we said goodbye to you, a loon sang on a blue lake as clouds separated into white islands dotting a blue lake of sky. Shovels bristled in the mound of black earth heaped beside your open grave, and mountains leaned into each other like sorrowing friends. In the garden, seedlings bristled in their own black earth. Then a long line of friends filed past a fragrant stand of balsam pines into the meadow. Then it was done, and we all went home.

It takes time to hear the voice of a place. I think you might have said that, although they could be my words, or this woodsy fringe of the Chesapeake Bay swelling into thought – sometimes the connections blur the distinctions, and I can’t tell the difference. This place speaks in the creaking wings of an unseen gull, its gray body blending into the gray mist as a dream blends into sleep. As Earth’s dream winged its way into your sleep and, waking, you woke us all. There are no words on the boulder that is your headstone, but it’s been calling to you since you were a child, that meadow, in its mother tongue of lilies and crickets, its alphabet of white clouds dotting a blue sky.

White mushrooms dot the wet green grass here. I stand on a sodden carpet of pine needles. A network of exposed roots meanders, like the ropey veins on an old man’s hands. That one time I met you, we read to each other. From your work, from my work, from the work of a host of friends, all those words, thoughts, visions, dreams, all falling like droplets of rain, mingling, overflowing, seeping into the ground, absorbed, transformed, and look, Thomas, look! How the pine trees have flung their seed-laden cones with such reckless generosity.

Look, Thomas. In the sweet salt wind, storm clouds roil and boil, seethe and churn. White as lilies, black as crickets, every shade of gray in between. The bright light and the dim light, the shine and the shade, borne in each other’s arms, waltzing across the sky. I do not know what happens after we die, but I do know there is some mysterious exchange between creation and annihilation, between possibility and the extinction thereof. I know this mystery is choreographed into the structure of galaxies and grains of wheat, and that we are all partners in the dance, and that the single yellow dandelion blooming near my foot will soon become a gossamer white globe. Then the gust of wind, and a thousand seeds flying on a thousand gossamer wings.

It takes time to hear the voice of a place. From north and south and east and west, a thousand gossamer stories, borne on the wind like seeds. Sun and moon, mountains and meadows, lilies and crickets and stars – you taught us to listen, Thomas, and to speak the truth of our own story in the vocabulary of our mother tongue. A language with no word for ‘goodbye.’

Elizabeth Ayres is the author of Know the Way (poetry, Infinity, 2005) and Writing the Wave (how-to, Perigee, 2000), and is completing Land of Our Belonging: Encounters with the Wonder of Earth, Sea and Sky, a collection which includes this reflection. She runs Creative Writing Center retreats in Chesapeake Bay country. She performs her essays on Internet radio Monday evenings at 8:30 p.m. eastern time, and you can catch more of her reflections at Encounters with Wonder.

The Angel of History

Angelus Novus by Paul Klee 1932

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history.

His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them.

The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

-- Walter Benjamin, 9th thesis on history. It is said that Hannah Arendt smuggled the manuscript of his ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ across the Spanish-French border at Portbou a few months after his death.

Human history: see Carolyn Forché poems The Angel of History (1995) and the anthology she edited, Against Forgetting: 20th Century Poetry of Witness (1993); Doron Altaratz' video; Wikipedia on the lives of Klee, Benjamin and Arendt; Bruno Arpaia's novel, The Angel of History (2006) about Arendt and Benjamin and their circle. TBA: A video of Chad Markey's Kairos presentation 18 Jun 09.

Human pollution: Tyee 19 Jun 09 and Wikipedia on the Great Pacific Garbage Swirl: an estimated 100 million tons of plastic debris, which is 7 times the amount of living plankton in the area, and is a highly efficient killer of sea life.

Blood & Oil – Peru and Bolivia natives protest

Police attack unarmed native blockade at Bagua, Peru: ENS
Under bilateral Free Trade Agreements signed with Canada and the United States, President Alan Garcia recently pushed through 99 laws, some later declared unconstitutional, to support multinational oil, mining, logging, and land “development” in Peru's Amazon region, the largest outside of Brazil. Peru wants to become an oil exporter. Billions of dollars are at stake.

For years, over 200,000 native peoples living in the region have demanded consultation. After peaceful protesters shut down oil and gas pipelines, and blockaded roads and rivers in April, Prime Minister Yehude Simon finally agreed to talks with Alberto Pizango, leader of the AIDESEP native coalition.

President Garcia has now broken the government's promise, sending navy, army and police to attack protesters on the Napo River, and on the Devil's Curve road near Bagua. At least 66 (most of them native) are reported dead. Official responses: at televised police funerals Garcia likens the protesters to Shining Path terrorists; police sweeps, snipers, disappearances and vengeance killings have continued for the last 3 days. AIDESEP's Pizango calls Bagua a “massacre” and has gone into hiding. See eyewitness reports and photos by Ben Powless, a Six Nations Mohawk; Mongabay, Amazon Watch news and videos; Council of Canadians; history of the movement in Rootforce posts; NativeWeb / Abya Yala Net information from First Peoples in English & español.

17 June update: While blockades continued, Alberto Pizango was given asylum by Nicaragua. After weeks of talks with native leaders, Prime Minister Simon (who had been pushed aside by Garcia) promises to end the state of emergency and repeal the laws enabling land grabs in the Amazon -- but not the free trade treaty. Then he will resign.

Click map for details of Peru oil concessions: courtesy Amazon Watch

Oil plays include Conoco-Phillips, Occidental Oil, the Canadian Petroleum Institute, Brazil's Petrobras, and Argentina's Pluspetrol. For 35 years Occidental has poisoned local populations by dumping toxic wastes into local rivers, practices illegal in North America; similar practices are reported in Ecuador* by Chevron. Natives fled disease and disruption by retreating into the rainforest. But that is no longer possible.

In neighbouring Bolivia, gas conflict blockades by the aboriginal movement brought Evo Morales to power in 2005. He insisted on a national share of oil and gas revenue. Bolivia continues as one of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) but can now afford to pay. With the poorest population in Latin America, for decades Bolivia suffered from “Washington Consensus” policies that enforced privatization of water, mining, transport and utilities – frequently aided by military dictators. Conservative parties in provinces east of the Andes, supported by oil interests, threatened secession last year, leading riots and massacres of local natives.

*Ecuador's Bill of Natural Rights now permits class lawsuits on behalf of the environment.

*****

Día histórico para los pueblos indígenas

AIDESEP, 18 de junio de 2009 -- A nombre de los pueblos indígenas, la vicepresidenta de la Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana, Daysi Zapata, expresó hoy su satisfacción por la decisión del Congreso de la República de derogar los cuestionados decretos legislativos 1090 y 1064 y exhortó al gobierno iniciar un diálogo sincero y transparente para el bien del país.

“Hoy es un día histórico, estamos agradecidos porque la voluntad de los pueblos indígenas ha sido escuchada y solo esperamos que en el futuro, los gobiernos atiendan y escuchen a los pueblos, que no legislen a espaldas de ellos”, enfatizó.

Acompañada de decenas de dirigentes nacionales y regionales con quienes acudió al recinto legislativo, Zapata saludó la actitud del presidente Alan García por darles la razón al dar marcha atrás con sus decretos que las comunidades indígenas consideraron atentatorio contra la amazonía, aunque expresó –nuevamente- que si esta decisión hubiera sido antes, se habría evitado lamentables muertes y enfrentamientos entre peruanos.

“Hoy mismo desde AIDESEP estaremos llamando a nuestras bases para que levanten sus medidas de lucha”, señaló. “Mis hermanos de Yurimaguas –agregó- afirmaron que volverán a sus comunidades, apenas los congresistas deroguen los decretos legislativos”.

La representante de Aidesep pidió, asimismo, que se deroguen los siete decretos legislativos restantes. Demandó además al Ejecutivo levantar cuanto antes el estado de emergencia y toque de queda instaurados en la ciudad de Bagua, la persecución política y hostigamiento a seis dirigentes de Aidesep, incluyendo al líder indígena Alberto Pizango.

Sobre el presidente de Aidesep, Zapata expresó sus deseos de que retorne pronto de Nicaragua al Perú, por lo que pidió a las autoridades cesar todo tipo de persecución.

“Quiero agradecer a los hermanos peruanos de la costa, sierra y selva por todo el apoyo que nos han dado”, dijo. Zapata aclaró que ni la dirigencia ni los hermanos indígenas han sido manipulados por organismos no gubernamentales. “Trabajamos con las bases regionales que son las que llevan la voz de los pueblos indígenas. Nosotros no estamos manipulados ni por las ONG ni por los grupos políticos, defendemos los justos derechos de los pueblos indígenas”, precisó.

Invocó a la mesa directiva y a la representación nacional levantar la suspensión aplicada a los siete congresistas que fueron – dijo – injustamente sancionados por defender los derechos de los indígenas.

Climate negotiations -- an overview

Bonn negotiations leading up to Copenhagen UNFCCC

Click here for a table comparing the negotiating positions. It will be updated as positions change.

"The negotiations on the design of the international climate policy regime after 2012 are currently in full swing” at Bonn, announce Climate Strategies (Oxford and Cambridge U experts).

Kathleen Modegaard of Population Action criticizes “Powerful injustice at the Bonn climate talks” in Grist 5 June 09 – the poor nations of Africa and SIDS are excluded by complex English-only texts and travel costs.

Environmentalists raise many questions about the impending deal:

• market-based mechanisms (i.e. carbon trading) to create climate mitigation & adaptation funds: are supported by John Kilani, assistant to UNFCCC chief Yves de Boer, proposals for a reformed UNFCCC GEF fund, UNEP executive director Achim Steiner, and UNDP Carbon Facility fund. Donations and funding are still in doubt. G77/China want a say in these funds. The GEF is currently "inadequate, inefficient, and unresponsive". A worse alternative is the World Bank whose carbon funds are 100 times larger, are controlled by rich countries and would impose conditions similar to the notorious SAPs.

• This funds problem goes back to the deliberate underfunding of the UN, leading to Kofi Annan's Faustian pact with the multinationals in 2000: the Global Compact.

• sectoral targets (this was the “windfall profits” loophole that weakened the EU ETS) have been sought by WBCSD, confirmed by Yves de Boer, and carbon market reporters. Oxfam says WBCSD’s voluntary sectoral agreements could undermine the principles of a fair and safe deal. Jonas Meckling, Global Sectoral Industry Approaches to Climate Change: Helping or Harming? (Oxfam 2009), calls for strict conditions relating to intellectual property rights, governance with poor-country participation, and reform of the Clean Development mechanism.

• Climate Strategies says CDM will expire, but could be converted into JI. Both systems can be, and have been, scammed. The Guardian 2 Jun 07 reported “abuse and incompetence” in CDM verification but chairman Hans-Jürgen Stehr imposed a gag. See also Scientific American (June 2009) on CDM.
  

• JI additionality can be scammed by poor countries in order to secure Adaptation funds

• past carbon offsets have proven to be bogus, carbon-intense, and/or harmful to civil rights of locals and aborigines: Larry Lohmann, Carbon Trading (2006), FOE REDD Myths(Dec 2008)
  

• a “carbon casino” has already begun with a Swiss bank's “slice and dice” packaging of good and bad offsets in Nov 2008. See Michelle Chan's Subprime Carbon study for FOE.

US Council on Foreign Relations posted an excellent primer (19 May 09) on cap-and-trade schemes. Jake Schmidt in Grist 3 June 09 analyzes schemes in the current Copenhagen draft text, pointing out some loopholes. He suggests that carbon fees on air travel, sea transport, and offset markets could generate technology funds for poor countries -- but such taxes are fiercely opposed by powerful lobbies. For developing country views see the 19 Mar 09 International Policy Dialogue.

147 environmental groups have protested against biochar megaprojects which the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) lobby wants to include in REDD carbon offsets. IBI has secured major conservation groups' support with corporate donations of land or money. Similar buyoffs seem to have occurred in USCAP.

China's Environment Ministry is considering a carbon tax on industrial polluters, and intensity targets of a 50% cut in emissions relative to GDP,and that total CO2 emissions should peak between 2030 and 2040. These are not enough to stabilize world CO2 between 350-450ppm, says Joseph Romm's Climate Progress 5 Jun 09; see also Grist 1 Jun 09.

India so far refuses to set targets; adaptation funding might change its mind: EurActiv 6 May 09. Brazil stated 19 Mar 09 that adaptation funds fell 80% short of developing countries' needs, a position other Latin American states describe as ecological debt.

John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Todd Stern are negotiating a US side deal with China. This must include technology transfer, probably financed by cap-and-trade -- with big payoffs to US corporate patent-holders. Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations started the dialogue some years ago. Major behind-the-scenes negotiators are now NDRC's China Program and China's Global Environmental Institute (GEI). Like India, China's shopping list at Bali Dec 07 included "energy efficiency, renewable and nuclear" technology. At the Major Economies Forum 29 May 09 China specified "mechanisms dealing with technology transfer, its adaptation and funding." In July 2008 the G8 decided to build 20 CCS demo plants. China will be the first location, but other major emitters Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa are likely recipients.

We need more info about China Sustainable Energy Program (CSEP), a renewables partnership managed by the Energy Foundation of San Francisco.

Quite different and more sinister is the ClimateWorks partnership with China and India, apparently involving corporate tech transfer on energy efficiency, and perhaps CCS. Funded by REDD offsets, it could be an end-run around emissions control.

US Congress

See Gar Lipow's critique of Waxman-Markey in Grist 21 May 09. He says:

• sectoral allowances (aka downstream permits) are a “disaster”

• offsets (CDM, REDD,“additionality” scams) are another disaster. We need cap-and-no-trade

• prefer auction of permits, to giveaway allocations to big polluters

• some say it is better than doing nothing. Its cap-and-trade section is "worse than doing nothing" -- delaying real emission reduction for at least a decade

Lipow in Grist 27 Oct 06: "Global warming is a political problem more than a technical one. It is bad strategy to frame the problem as 'energy independence'. Then coal (which is cheap and plentiful in the U.S.) becomes an obvious solution -- in spite of the fact that it is far worse for global warming than oil, and a major water polluter besides." His e-book Cooling It! (ca 2006) shows how the USA could make the necessary emissions cuts in each sector. It is the American equivalent of Monbiot's Heat.

Washington lobbyists boast of creating the myth of “clean coal” for ACCCE, Peabody Energy, Duke Energy, and National Mining Association, etc. Bogus grassroots support fooled Dem and Rep politicians: Desmogblog 1 Jun 09. In reply CleanCoalUSA.org listed its current clients. See also adbuster sites Coal is Dirty and Coal is Clean by The DeSmog Project, Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace USA; and their CCS myth. See also the Sourcewatch expose of “clean coal” front groups, and Isiria's blog summarizing current US coal issues.

USCAP Climate Action Partnership, which claims credit for Markey-Waxman, includes many of the same companies: fossil fuels, energy-intensives, along with Pew Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, and The Nature Conservancy.

Congress is failing to set realistic renewable electricity standards (RES) for utilities. Target should be 12% renewables by 2012, 25% by 2025 . Waxman-Markey's ACES aim falls short, its loophole allows further watering-down by states, and Senate targets are even lower. Fossil lobbies outspent renewables $79 to 1.2 million in the first three months of 2009. Grist 6 Jun 09

Economist Jeffrey Sachs says CCS and nukes are “necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change”. There is “no choice”. Grist 1 Jun 09. Implicitly supports US corporate projects in China, to be bankrolled by carbon funds. Similar arguments are made by Clean Coal USA, James Lovelock and the nuke lobby. EU CCS projects in China. Environmental NGOs IUCN, WWF-Australia support "clean coal": one wonders what they expect in return.

Scientific American is publishing a series on clean coal, confusing the issue by lumping unproven CCS (sequestration) together with oil recovery, scrubbing, oxyfuel, coal gasification, etc., quoting mostly corporate sources such as Linde, Vattenfall, Pew Climate Center, Duke's Edwardsport, Dow, Dupont, DOE, Norway's Statoil, China's GreenGen, and the coal lobby's Clean Air Task Force (CATF).

Gore, Pew Climate Center and Krugman support Waxman-Markey as better than nothing.

Clinton's ex-climate strategist, physicist Joseph Romm approves of Waxman-Markey RES and energy efficiency allowances. A middle-of-the-roader among scientists, Romm argued in a Jan 2009 paper that:

• Hansen's “aggressive” 350ppm is a safer target, leaving some choices open

• BAU emissions are rising even faster than the IPCC predicted

• tipping points (feedbacks) are earlier than IPCC predicted, raising needed reductions by 25%

• the longer the inaction, the worse the cuts must be

• a clean grid like California's could cut emissions 25% without new technology and without raising American electric bills.

• cap-and-no-trade is essential: he quotes a Nov 2008 GAO study that “the use of carbon offsets in a cap-and-trade system can undermine the system’s integrity”

• US reduction targets should be 20-30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050

But A. Siegel in Grist 1 Jun 09 says Waxman-Markey fails to meet Romm's own target of 450 ppm and 2ºC warming. 450ppm is a simplification: the IPCC best-scenario prediction, known to be underestimated, is 2º to 2.4ºC at 445-495 ppm CO2 equivalent; even this includes a <20%>