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Political Platform for Klimaforum10 by Mexico's Grassroots PDF Print E-mail
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by Miguel Valencia   
04 August 2010
Preparations made for Klimaforum10, parallel to the United Nations COP-16 climate conference in Cancún, Nov. 25 - Dec. 10:
Press release # 8
México D. F., July 9, 2010

After several meetings, we, the Mexican Promotion Committee for Klimaforum 2010, have adopted the following Political Platform of Klimaforum10:

1. THERE IS A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE

The weather patterns of the world are undergoing a rapid and disturbing disruption, which is increasing in both force and catastrophic impact. This change could end up being life-threatening for many human communities in coming years, for the large majority of people in this century. Describing this process as “climate change,” amounts to distorting reality.

2. THERE IS NO TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CATASTROPHE

There will be no technological solution to climate disaster as long as certain economic values continue to predominate in the world, including mercantilism, utilitarianism, “development-ism,” and militarism. In this framework, “productivity,” competition, and manipulation reign supreme. As long as the system which generates these values (and therefore also shapes the dominant social imagination) remains in force, there will be no real solution. Neither nuclear energy, nor geoengineering, nanotechnology, GMOs, or biofuels (among other technologies) will offer us real solutions to the climatic disaster; they are false solutions. The only appropriate solutions to this predicament will come from a world-wide expansion of solidarity, cooperation, and friendship, valuing the pleasure of free time and playfulness, social life, autonomy, wisdom, the techniques and beauty produced by craftsmen and artists, practical and adaptive approaches, approaches based on relationships and co-existence, a spiritual approach, and mainly, respect for the sacredness of mountains, rivers, the seas, forests, the forests, the animals: Mother Earth, whose gifts have no price. This change in values must be systematic – meaning, we must change the system, not the climate - beginning with a different personal ethics, like voluntary simplicity. We must learn to live better with fewer objects, and to act in defense of the global commons.

3. THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CATASTROPHE

Because of its violent nature and concentration of power, which removes it from local and cultural diversity, and because of its pyramidal, authoritarian character, governments are incapable of providing authentic solutions to climate catastrophe; they are capable only of false solutions. False solutions are costing us precious time as we face this threat, experiencing greater calamities such as long heat waves, stronger hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, a drop in global food production, the rise and spread of diseases, the melting of glaciers, ocean acidification and sea-level rise, changes in ocean currents, the death of coral reefs, and species extinction, among others. State-sponsored false solutions include “market-based” solutions (such as carbon markets), offsets, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), REDD, and perverse finance schemes. Only a great diversity of small-scale, locally appropriate solutions, involving a great social mobilization, can mitigate the catastrophic effects of this modern disaster.

4. RADICAL REDUCTION IN CONSUMPTION AND INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION BY THE POWERFUL IS REQUIRED

In order to face the climatic disaster, we must urgently reduce consumption in the powerful countries, especially the United States, England, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, due to their historical responsibility in the generation of the climatic disaster. Further, we must reduce consumption by the rising middle-classes of the emerging economies, including China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico and South Africa. As soon as possible, the present “American way of life,” which has grown into a cancer on the world, and which is the main cause of this catastrophe, must disappear. In particular, it is indispensable to vastly reduce the consumption of bottled water, red meat, paper, and mobile phones, among other things. Of course, this means vastly and rapidly reducing the global industrial over-production which gives rise to this untenable wastefulness. Centralized industrial agriculture and factory farming must be rapidly abandoned in favor of a return to local, small-scale food production.

5. WE MUST LEAVE OIL, GAS, COAL AND OTHER GIFTS OF NATURE UNDERGROUND

The consumption of fossil fuels is not only the main cause of climatic disaster. Their extraction also generates enormous ecological damage; Peak Oil (which is already creating world-wide tensions and causing great misery) forces industry to riskier extractions every day, creating spills like the Gulf of Mexico gusher, and disasters like those in Maracaibo, Nigeria, and the Alberta tar sands. Mining, whose environmental damage is excessive, is in the same category. Without a rapid and radical reduction of energy consumption in the United States, the European Union, Japan, China, and India, it will not be possible to achieve real solutions to the climatic disaster which is causing the destruction of the modern world. It is urgent to establish severe restrictions to the use of the automobile, airplanes and high speed trains; to discourage “free markets;” to eliminate privatization; and to prohibit mega-projects. We must re-conceptualize and reconstruct governments with the purpose of substantially increasing civic collaboration, relocalize both production and consumption, and intensively reuse materials. It is essential to abandon the era of oil now, to move beyond the economy of “growth without limit” and to enter a stable era of low energy consumption and shared frugality.

6. WE MUST DE-NUCLEARIZE THE WORLD

Nuclear energy is a fundamental pillar of the dominant system – an unjust system responsible for creating climatic disaster, growing global injustice, and the predominance of values that reign today. We live under the tyranny of nuclear-armed states which initiate the wars and extreme violence that destroys modern societies. These states impose dominant modes of consumption and production, which foment the construction and operation of very dangerous nuclear plants in support of nuclear weapons, and which are leading to the world towards its rapid destruction. In order to face the climatic disaster, it is essential that the United States, Russia, France, England, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan eliminate their nuclear weapons. In addition, all the existing nuclear plants in the world must be dismantled, because their risks are excessive and their waste products leave an unacceptable burden to future generations. Only social awareness of the nature of nuclear energy and the continuous opposition of movements along with independent organizations can curb this insane activity by ministers, industrialists and the scientists loyal to them. There is no nuclear solution to climate change.

7. WE SUPPORT THE BLOSSOMING OF SMALL SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATIC CATASROPHE WHICH:

A. Give top priority to very low energy consumption.
B. Contain high percentages of reused materials and support traditional production methods and craftsmanship.
C. Guarantee food, clothing, housing, education, happiness and the spiritual needs of the most vulnerable.
D. Strengthen the local and regional communities where they take place.
E. Remain critical of industry and modern-day consumption.

MEXICAN PROMOTION COMMITTEE FOR KLIMAFORUM 2010:

Adriana Matalonga; Eugenio Cabrera; Gabriela de la Vega; Jorge López; Mauricio Villegas; Miguel Valencia; Miguel Ángel Rosas; Raquel Rodríguez.
contacto @ klimaforum10.org.mx / nacional @ klimaforum10.org.mx internacional @ klimaforum10.org.mx
Web page: www.klimaforum10.org.mx Telephones: 52 (55) / 5553-2340; 5212-1886; 5540-7866

ORGANIZATIONAL ENDORSERS OF THIS PLATFORM

CAMBIOS, (Cooperative for a Biodiverse and Sustainable Environment or “Cooperativa por un Ambiente Biodiverso y Sustentable”)
Ecoactivists from the Civil Association of the community of Magdalena Mixhuca (“Ecoactivistas de la Magdalena Mixhuca AC”)
ECOMUNITIES Autonomous Ecologists Network from the region “Cuenca de Mexico” in the Mexican Basin (“ECOMUNIDADES, Red Ecologista Autónoma de la Cuenca de México”)
EDENAT (Network In Defense of Mother Nature) (“EDENAT, Red en Defensa de la Naturaleza”
Reduction or Cruelty! Network for the Reduction (“¡DESCRECIMIENTO O BARBARIE! Red por el descrecimiento”)
Front of the Peoples of Anáhuac (“Frente de los Pueblos de Anáhuac”)
Front of the Left (“Frente Izquierda”)
Front for Human Rights, Baja California (“Frente de Derechos Humanos, Baja California”)
Civil Society for Environmental Action Network (“Red Acción Ambiente SC”)
Theater Popular Association PC- CLETA
Timbers of the People of the Southeast, Civil Association (“Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, AC)
Network for the Defense of the City of Mexico (“Red en Defensa de la Ciudad de México”)
Civil Association For a Change with Dignity (“Por el Cambio con Dignidad AC”)
Pitahaya Growers’ Society, community of Chan Tza Can, Kinchil, Yucatán (“Sociedad de Productores de Pithaya Chan Tza Can de Kinchil”)
Civil Association of the Tecolote Theater Workshop (“Teatro Taller Tecolote, AC”)

INDIVIDUAL ENDORSERS OF THIS PLATFORM

Aina Barag, tree guardian, Herradura, State of México
Alejandro García Núñez, Social Change Movement
Alejandro Aceves Jiménez, environment consultant and adviser
Alejandro Velarde, eco-techician
Alfredo Rojas Díaz Duran, Social Change Movement
Antonio Vital, Aliance for Health and Public Workers
Antonio Figueroa, Proyect Alternative of the Nation
Araceli Flores, The Other Campaign
Carlos Zaragoza Cibrián, Rayo Zaragoza
Carmen Ventura Quintal, of EIS 2012, Yucatán
Denise Alamillo, campaign Vote Nullification
Dr. Álvaro de la Chica, coordinator for the Civic Alliance, Ensenada, BC
Dr. Luis Tamayo, coordinator, Research Group in Ecosofia UEF/CIDHEM
Dr. José Ignacio Félix Díaz, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Cuajimalpa
Dr. Rafael Huacuz, College of Mexico
Dulce Karina Fierros Barquera, the De-Growth Department, Political and Social Sciences, UNAM
Edith González, the Civil Association Echoes, Voices and Actions
Edgardo Mota, Political Ecology Workshop, UAM, Xochimilco
Eduardo Rincón Mejía, Energy Program, UACM
Enrique Cisneros, del grupo de teatro popular PC-CLETA
Eugenio del Valle, coordinator of enviromental issues, CROC
Flor de Mayo Rouko, EIS2012, Yucatán
Gabriel Eduardo Gallegos Labastida, De-Growth Group, Department of Political and Social Sciences UNAM Gerardo Martínez of the Left Front
Gerardo Montes de Oca Sierra, of the Civil Society for the Environmental Action Network
Guillermo Samaniego Martínez, Faculty Higher Studies, Iztacala, UNAM
Gustavo Romero from the Civil Association Fomentosol
Hugo David Uriarte Bonilla, Social Transformation Movement
Iván Azuara Montes, UCCS (Union of Scientists Committed to Society or Unión de Científicos Comprometidos con la Sociedad)
Jan Lundberg, Culture Change, U.S.
Jesús Solís Alpuche, Pitahaya Growers’ Society, community of Chan Tza Can, Kinchil, Yucatán
José Enrique González Ruíz, coordinator for the graduates in Human Rights at UACM
José Enrique Tec Poot del EIS2012, Yucatán
José Ignacio Gutiérrez de Velazco, Cooperative Self-Management Program UACM
José Luís Hernández Jiménez, Civil Association For a Change with Dignity
Liliana Zavala Nieto of the Alternative Project of the Nation
Lucy Torres of the Klimaforum10 initiative, Puebla
Luisa Ortiz Garduza, Social Transformation Movement Luis Cisneros Lujan, general director of the Civil Association Theater Workshop Tecolote
Luis Gabriel Urquieta, Political Science, UNAM
Lucrecia Noemí, environmental trainer
Marco Antonio Tafolla Soriano of the Xoxocotla Movement, Morelos
Marisol Valverde Yáñez, Social Transformation Movement
Miguel Ángel García of the Civil Association Timbers of the People of the Southeast
Oscar Montaño of the Front for Human Rights, Baja California
Oralia Silvia Rocha de la Organización Mundial Ambientalista Educativa AC
Pedro Echeverría, columnist, México
Pedro Pliego from the Civil Society Enviromental Action Network
René Molteni, Social Transformation Movement
Ricardo Guzmán, Political Ecology Workshop, Metropolitan Autonomous University, Xochimilco
Sebastian Silva, activist from colonia Condesa
Silverio de la Mora, from the civic Movement in defense of the Parque Central Benito Juárez en Tijuana, Baja California
Víctor Ariel Bárcenas Delgado, environmental issues adviser

* * * * *

Contact: Miguel Valencia
ECOMUNIDADES
Red Ecologista Autónoma de la Cuenca de México
¡DESCRECIMIENTO O BARBARIE!
Acción inmediata frente al Pico del Petróleo y al Cambio Climático
Textos recientes en red-ecomunidades.blogspot.com
Email: contacto "at" klimaforum10.org.mx

Note: Miguel Valencia informs Culture Change that our suggestion on population issues, not addressed in the above document as yet, could be adopted into the Platform for future publication:

Number 7, F.: "We encourage restraint in having children, limiting their number to one or two per couple. This will reduce pressure on the environment and be more humane for existing children than if there are twice as many in a despoiled, scarce-resource world where excess petroleum has fed the burgeoning population."
A translation of the above into Spanish is in Culture Change's Mundo en Español section

Klimaforum background: klimaforum.org

Comments (4)Add Comment
Great discussion about a problem that does not exist -- because there is no "CLIMATE CATASTROPHE".

Do read the following -AND - other well reasoned arguments on Dr. Akasofu's web page: http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/

Peter Salonius

email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++
THE IPCC'S FAILURE OF PREDICTING THE TEMPERATURE CHANGE DURING THE FIRST DECADE

Syun-Ichi Akasofu
Founding Director
International Arctic Research Center
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7340
USA
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/


The global average temperature stopped increasing after 2000 against the IPCC's prediction of continued rapid increase. It is a plain fact and does not require any pretext. Their failure stems from the fact that the IPCC emphasized the greenhouse effect of CO2 by slighting the natural causes of temperature changes.

The changes of the global average temperature during the last century and the first decade of the present century can mostly be explained by two natural causes, a linear increase which began in about 1800 and the multi-decadal oscillation superposed on the linear increase. There is not much need for introducing the CO2 effect in the temperature changes. The linear increase is the recovery (warming) from the Little Ice Age (LIA), which the earth experienced from about 1400 to 1800.

The halting of the temperature rise during the first decade of the present century can naturally be explained by the fact that the linear increase has been overwhelmed by the superposed multi-decadal oscillation which peaked in about 2000.*

This situation is very similar to the multi-decadal temperature decrease from 1940 to 1975 after the rise from 1910 to 1940 (in spite of the fact that CO2 increased rapidly after 1946); it was predicted at that time that a new Big Ice Age was on its way.

The IPCC seems to imply that the halting is a temporary one. However, they cannot give the reason. Several recent trends, including the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the halting of sea level increase, and the cooling of the Arctic Ocean, indicate that the halting is likely to be due to the multi-decadal change.

The high temperatures predicted by the IPCC in 2100 (+2~6°C) are simply an extension of the observed increase from 1975 to 2000, which was caused mainly by the multi-decadal oscillation. The Global Climate Models (GCMs) are programmed to reproduce the observed increase from 1975 to 2000 in terms of the CO2 effect and to extend the reproduced curve to 2100.

It is advised that the IPCC recognize at least the failure of their prediction even during the first decade of the present century; a prediction is supposed to become less accurate for the longer future.

For details, see http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu

* The linear increase has a rate of ~ +0.5°C/100 years, while the multi-decadal oscillation has an amplitude of ~0.2°C and period of ~ 50-60 years, thus the change in 10 years is about ~ -0.07°C from the peak, while the linear change is about ~ +0.05°C.
Peter Salonius
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Currently we are having abnormal heat (over 40 degrees Centigrade during daytime). It's 10.30 in the evening, my thermometer indicates 37.5 degrees. It's very hard to sleep at night, my bed is like a frying pan. I don't remember any heat like this in Kiev (Ukraine). With the climate change we have noticed the change of habitat and the invasion of foreign species typical for southern regions. The deserts are coming. In addition, Russia is having the same abnormal heat and forest fires which IS a catastrophe.

V.Postnikov
PhD, 61
Victor Postnikov
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You can't have a discussion about slimate change without the denialists posting on it. What gets me about the argument that observed warming must be due to natural causes is that scientists predicted that we would see these temperature changes due to greenhouse gases, and for awhile the change was not apparent--now that it is, the deniers look around in fake wonder for the cause, pointing at anything but the obvious--anything to allow business as usual to continue until it can't, and our descendents are left with a ruined world.
I have been trying to figure out whether the meeting in Mexico is December is one that it would be worth thousands of miles of travel to participate in.
Mary Wildfire
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If Mary Wildfire thinks that I am a denier "looking around in fake wonder for the cause, pointing at anything but the obvious--anything to allow business as usual to continue until it can't, and our descendents are left with a ruined world." ------------------ then I invite her to read my treatise on the overshoot of carrying capacity that has been developing for 10,000 years as humans have mined and diminished the very resources upon which they are dependent for their sustenance. I wish I had known about "the quinacrine pellet method of nonsurgical permanent female contraception - QS" when I wrote the article ----------------------- see: www.isafonline.org ----- that appears to offer a very efficacious method of fertility control by individuals who are convinced that this is the right thing to do.

I have been interested in the relationship between agriculture and population growth since about 1969, and I started writing about the necessity to curb population growth BEFORE the new 'green revolution' crop varieties were released by Norman Borlaug and his compatriots. Borlaug himself opined that the new crop wheat and rice varieties ,being produced by CYMITT in Mexico and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines in the early 1970s, were only stop gap measures - and that the necessity to constantly increase food production would never end if global population growth was not halted.

I believe that we are now seeing the ramifications of a global 10,000 year old debt crisis (PONZI SCHEME) characterized by the creation of money that supposedly represented actual wealth = the ability to produce food and fibre for the needs of the Earth's human population. This 10,000 year old 'PONZI SCHEME' has incorrectly assumed that environmental services such as soil fertility and other supposedly renewable natural resources were externalities with infinite capacity that need not be accounted for.

I have proposed that humanity "overstepped" the long-term sustainable productive capacity of the soils upon which it relies for its sustenance as soon as cultivation agriculture was adopted.

My thesis suggests the first and most important resource humans have used non renewably (long before fossil fuel depletion/peak oil) is the arable soil on the planet; soil mining by cultivation agriculture began ~ 10,000 years ago. This is the culmination of my ~ 44 year investigation into the relationship between humans and their supporting ecosystems. If my thesis is correct -- then the 'population bomb', that continues to make natural resource management problematic, exploded a long, long time ago, see:

'Long term agricultural overshoot' at:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6048

My 'guesstimate' for sustainable human numbers in the 100s of millions, if correct, suggests that the present global population has so far overshot the carrying capacity of its supporting ecosystems that most analyses of the relationship of excessive human numbers to SPECIFIC ASPECTS of environmental damage are simply indulgent academic exercises.

There are more people on the planet (and have been for millennia) than it can sustainably support.

Many of us have concluded that even TWO CHILD FAMILIES -- that would only slowly stabilize the human population -- are not an adequate response to this problem; we require the VOLUNTARY adoption of NO or ONE CHILD PER FAMILY behaviour to orchestrate the Population DECLINE that is necessary now, so that ultimately our numbers will be small enough to live OFF RESTORED INTACT ECOSYSTEMS ON THE LAND as opposed to supporting ourselves by DESTROYING THE LAND BY IMPOSING SIMPLIFIED MANUFACTURED ECOSYSTEMS ON THE LAND.

Comments, constructive criticisms and suggestions are welcome

Peter Salonius






Peter Salonius
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