31 December, 2010
Dear Friends of Global Justice Ecology Project,
Happy New Year! In celebration of the New Year that is just around the corner, I am sending this one last appeal to ask for your support for the programs of Global Justice Ecology Project.
You’ve heard a lot about what we’ve accomplished in the past year, so here is summary of some of the things we have planned for 2011.
Chiapas, Mexico—California—Acre, Brazil Climate Deal
While we were in Cancun, Mexico for the UN Climate Conference earlier this month, a deal was announced between California; Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil for agrofuel (biofuel) production and forest carbon offsets.
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, shortly after the Zapatista uprising. Photo: Langelle/GJEP
GJEP Co-Director has worked in support of the Zapatistas since 1994; and our new Media Coordinator, Jeff Conant, who works out of our Oakland, California office, has a long history with Chiapas as well—making this a perfect campaign for us. In fact, he just released a new book titled, “A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency.”
We will be sending a delegation to Chiapas, Mexico in March to investigate the impacts of this deal—which is designed to allow polluting companies in California to continue polluting at the expense of forests and communities in Chiapas, Brazil and California.
Chiapas is home to the Zapatistas—the Indigenous people that rose up against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. They are still active, and we will investigate whether this California-Chiapas deal is designed to displace Zapatista communities to make room for plantations of African Palm or Jatropha for agrofuel production.
Strategic Media Program
We created this program with the goal of supporting the efforts of communities that are resisting/suffering the impacts of climate change, fossil fuels or false solutions to climate change like forest offsets.
Our Strategic Media Partners include the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, EcoViva (which supports community efforts to protect the environment in El Salvador), and we have also supported the media efforts of the global Climate Justice Now! network, ETC Group (which identifies and exposes dangerous new technologies like synthetic biology), and Global Forest Coalition.
Fiu Elisara of Samoa speaks during an Indigenous protest at the UN Climate COP in Bali in 2007. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC
Addressing climate change in a just and effective way is one of the goals of this program. We believe that highlighting the voices of people deeply involved in either finding real and just solutions to climate change, or stopping the causes of or false solutions to climate change is one of the most effective ways we can be involved.
STOP GE Trees Campaign
GJEP was part of a lawsuit filed against the USDA over their approval of a series of “test plots” involving 260,000 GE eucalyptus trees planted across the US South.
We anticipate the lawsuit will go to court this spring, which will mean a major media campaign and a lot of organizing with groups based in the regions threatened by the GE trees.
In July we head to Brazil. We will meet with groups around Brazil to advance the campaign against GE trees there and will organize an action against a major industry conference on GE trees that is being held there.
The Future of Forests
Regrown forest in Vermont near Camel's Hump. Vermont forests are threatened by plans to turn them into electricity. Photo: Petermann/GJEP
All of our work to protect forests and the peoples that depend on them will culminate in a project called “The Future of Forests.” 2011 is the International Year of Forests and we will be using that occasion to collaborate with our allies on a series of papers about the current and emerging threats to forests. This includes:
• Genetically engineered tree plantations—still stoppable, with your help.
• Wood-based energy—using trees to produce everything from diesel fuel to electricity is becoming a major threat to forests globally. We are exposing the dirty lie of this supposedly “green” way to make fuel.
• Forest offsets—Using standing forests or industrial tree plantations to supposedly offset the emissions of industries in industrialized countries like the US is worsening climate change, which is in turn threatening the survival of forests.
In addition, using forests for offsets requires the removal of communities living there. These displaced people—many of them Indigenous—then have nowhere to go. We are working with our Indigenous allies to stop this false climate solution.
Photography Book
One thing that makes Global Justice Ecology Project unique is the fact that we have a highly talented professional photographer as one of our Directors. GJEP Co-Director Orin Langelle has been a concerned photographer since the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.
Vietnam Veterans protest the war at the Republican National Convention in 1972. Photo: Langelle
He is taking this year to put together his four decades of photography into a book that can tell the story of the movements—from forest protection, to Indigenous Rights, to the anti-Vietnam War, to climate justice—and how they can weave together to make one powerful transformative international movement that can successfully tackle the global crises we face today.
Please support all of these plans with a year-end donation today. We need your support to succeed.
Thank you and have a wonderful New Year.
Sincerely,
Anne Petermann
Executive Director
I think that we are in the grip of the biggest and most insane hoax in history, and unless the public get wise to it soon, we will all be parted from what wealth we have.
Lets take a simple economic view of what is likely to happen.
In the absence of sufficient alternative solutions/technologies, the only way western countries can ever attain the IPCC demands of CO2 emissions reduced to 40% below 1990 levels, (thats about 60% below todays) is to machine restrictions on the use of fossil fuels. Emission Trading schemes are an example.
As the use of fossil fuels is roughly linear with anthropogenic CO2 emissions, to attain a 60% reduction of emissions , means about the same proportion of reduction of fossil fuel usage, including petrol, diesel, heating oil, not to mention coal and other types including propane etc.
No matter how a restriction on the use of these is implemented even a 10% decrease will make the price of petrol go sky high. In otherwords, (and petrol is just one example) we can expect, if the IPCC has its way, a price rise on petrol of greater than 500%.
First of all, for all normal people, this will make the family car impossible to use. Worse than that though, the transport industry will also have to deal with this as well and they will need to pass the cost on to the consumer. Simple things like food will get prohibitively expensive. Manufacturers who need fossil energy to produce will either pass the cost on to the consumer or go out of business. If you live further than walking distance from work, you will be in trouble.
All this leads to an economic crash of terrible proportions as unemployment rises and poverty spreads.
I believe that this will be the effect of bowing to the IPCC and the AGW lobby. AND as AGW is a hoax it will be all in vain. The world will continue to do what it has always done while normal people starve and others at the top (including energy/oil companies and emission traders) will enjoy the high prices.
Neither this scenario nor any analysis of the cost of CO2 emission reductions is included in IPCC literature, and the Stern report which claims economic expansion is simply not obeying economic logic as it is known in todays academic world.
The fact that the emission reduction cost issue is not discussed, leads me to believe that there is a deliberate cover up of this issue. Fairly obviously the possibility of starvation will hardly appeal to the masses.
AGW is baloney anyway!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com