Category Archives: environment

Rio+20

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“Rio+20” is the short name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012.  Twenty years have passed since the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. The first Rio conference gave rise to Agenda 21, the document which has guided our countries in our efforts to make our world more sustainable but, as we all know, it has not been sufficient.

Rio+20 is an unprecedented opportunity to look ahead to the world we want in 20 years. At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet.

Civil society is invited to take part in the preparation for the Conference. The UN has actually repeated the invitation on eight occasions.  That means that all of us -  adults, youth and children –  can learn about the issues involved and even give our opinion on-line. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of the Global Community creating a really sustainable future for the coming generations.

There are web pages for all.  Just “google” Rio+20 and you will find lots of information.

www.futurewewant.org  This page has a section where you can  write your contribution.

www.roadtorioplus20.org  is for young people.

www.un.org/es/sustainablefuture/conversation.asp is for Spanish contributions

Ban Ki- moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, has said that “Rio+20 will be one of the most important global meetings on sustainable development in our time.”

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Do we have a Future?

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The number of people in the United States who deny that human behaviour has any effect on climate change has grown alarmingly in the past two years. It shows what money, vested interests and false advertising can do! Awareness of climate change keeps on growing in the rest of the world.

“We’re facing a planetary emergency” says Owen Gaffney of International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme

The frequent news reports with pictures of people whose lives are torn apart make it hard to avoid the reality. Deadly and violent weather – floods, earthquakes, mudslides, forest fires, hurricanes  and the sinister rising of sea levels  force us to take the warnings seriously, rather than dismiss or play them down as in the recent past.

Elimar Pinheiro do Nascimento, director of the University of Brasilia Sustainable Development Centre, states: “Democratic regimes don’t appear to be capable of adequately addressing the issue of climate change, because of the short-term political dynamic, since environmental problems take decades to solve. Democracy is about freedom, and protecting the environment is about survival.”

Our democratically elected governments cannot see beyond their own noses, or not beyond the next time they must face their electors. So where does that leave us?

In financial crises, specialist economists shape the decisions that governments make.  Central banks can adopt often unpopular monetary measures, even despite pressure from national governments. But in this deeper crisis which threatens the future of our entire planet, we don’t see environmentalists and climate experts called in to advise on what action should be taken.

If we are to have a future we will need statespersons, not bureaucrats. But dare we hope for leaders to emerge who are able to withstand the pressure from corporate driven political decisions, to ensure our survival?

We must find new mechanisms to create policies with a long-term focus to solve our environmental problems.

Prior to Rio+20, the world’s scientific community will give a comprehensive “state of the planet” assessment at the “Planet Under Pressure” conference in London Mar. 26-29. Nearly 3,000 experts from around the world will provide a report card on the health and threats to the Earth and make recommendations on what must be done to avoid disaster.

One of the first things a maturing human community must do is solve its international governance problems. Thirty leading experts on international governance are unanimous regarding the failure of the current United Nations approach of one country, one vote and the requirement of consensus before taking action or making significant decisions.  ”One country can hold the entire world hostage.”

The Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer is considered the world’s most successful environmental treaty. It doesn’t use the traditional U.N. system. Decisions are made only when the majority of both the industrialised and developing nations agree. The U.N. climate negotiations need such a decision making process.

Maurice Strong who led the Rio 1992 Earth Summit had this to say: “We must rise above the lesser concerns that preempt our attention and respond to the reality that the future of human life on Earth depends on what we do, or fail to do in this generation. What we have come to accept as normal is not normal…

We must deal with this as the most dangerous security issue humanity has ever faced, with the very conditions necessary to life on Earth at risk.

Rio+20 will require a degree of cooperation beyond anything we have yet experienced at a time when competition and conflict over scare resources is escalating….The decisions and policies which determine our impacts on sustainability are primarily motivated by economic and financial considerations. The importance of the actions to be taken at Rio + 20 requires that they be firmly rooted in our deepest moral and ethical principles. – UN General Assembly Rio +20 Event, New York, October 25th, 2011.

The world has seen major changes since 1992. Today more and more people think of themselves as ‘global or planetary citizens’. With knowledge comes responsibility. Remember, there is a voice that is stronger than the power of money or the force of corporations! That is the voice of truth and moral decency.
Rio + 20 will need all the prayer and our best efforts if it is to succeed in avoiding disaster for the earth and all who call the Earth “home”.  

It’s time to speak up and let our governments know what we expect of them to prevent the threat of global disaster.  Tell them not to play politics in Rio. Tell them to remember that we have only one planet and we are all involved! It’s time for us to speak up!

Passionists International hopes to have a significant presence in Rio.

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Kevin Dance, C.P. 

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Wangari Maathai: Planting Seeds of Peace…

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Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2011 as the International Year of Forests. Through this it is hoped that everyone will become more aware of the need to strengthen the care, management and development of all types of forests for the benefit of our own and future generations.

So it is significant that the world has just said goodbye to Wangari Maathai, a true champion of the forests! She died late September in Kenya.

Wangari Maathai Planting Seeds of Peace …for the Integrity of Creation

“As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed the world. I am especially mindful of women and the girl child. I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership…This prize comes to me, but it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across the globe. They work quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between women and men. By so doing, they plants seeds of peace….

Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. Our work over the past 30 years has always appreciated and engaged these linkages. My inspiration partly comes from my childhood experiences and observations of Nature in rural Kenya. It has been nurtured by the formal education I was privileged to receive in Kenya, the United States and Germany. As I was growing up, I witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations, which destroyed local biodiversity and the capacity of the forests to conserve water.

In 1977, when we started the Green Belt Movement, I was partly responding to needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income. Throughout Africa, women are the primary caretakers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families….

Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial basic needs identified by women. Also, tree planting is simple, attainable and guarantees quick, successful results within a reasonable amount of time. This sustains interest and commitment.

So, together, we have planted over 30 million trees that provide fuel, food, shelter, and income to support their children’s education and household needs. The activity also creates employment and improves soils and watersheds. Through their involvement, women gain some degree of power over their lives, especially their social and economic position and relevance in the family. This work continues….

It is 30 years since we started this work. Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated. Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own–indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process. There comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground; a time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now….

As I conclude, I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot leaves, I tried to pick up the strands of frogs’ eggs, believing they were beads. But every time I put my little fingers under them they would break. Later, I saw thousands of tadpoles: black, energetic and wriggling through the clear water against the background of the brown earth. This is the world I inherited from my parents.

Today, over 50 years later, the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost. The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder”.

Wangari Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. The Green Belt Movement sees sustainable development, democracy and peace as indivisible parts of a whole. These words from her Nobel address remind us to keep planting our own seeds of justice and peace.

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Shout Out for the Forest

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Nine-time Olympic gold medallist and UN advocate Carl Lewis will embark tomorrow, June 10th, on a visit to the Dominican Republic and Haiti to meet national leaders and visit forestry and agricultural projects. He will highlight the International Year of Forests as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) “http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/ambassadors/ambassadors/ambassadors-carllewis/en/”

In February the UN kicked off a year-long celebration to raise awareness of the role of forests, on which at least 1.6 billion people depend for their daily needs for work and survival.

Mr. Lewis will also spotlight a global campaign by FAO to end hunger known as “The 1billionhungry project.” People can voice their outrage about world hunger by adding their names to a petition online  1billionhungry.org The campaign uses a yellow whistle as an icon encouraging people to “blow the whistle” on this global scourge.

Mr. Lewis will see an FAO project aimed at stabilizing the soil and forests in the mountains near the epicentre of the devastating January 2010 earthquake. Haiti is one of the most deforested countries in the world with only 2 per cent of forest cover left. This makes it extremely vulnerable to flash floods and landslides.

To mark World Environment Day on June 5th,  UN agencies UNIDO (Industrial Development) and UNEP (Environment), presented a most informative panel on Green Economy: Ecosystem Services and Resource Efficiency with Special Focus on Forests and Forest Industries. It stressed the need for all countries to make the changes so as to shift to a green industry.

Forest industries play a special role in this shift. We must protect and preserve our forests. They hold 50% of the global species and cover 1/3 of the Earth’s landmass. Forests reduce the negative effects of carbon emissions and natural disasters. The panel stressed the importance of resource efficiency. They defined resource efficiency as sustainable management of resources throughout the resources lifecycle. It means getting more value from fewer materials – doing more with less!

Each speaker’s message called for responsible use of the forests. If we manage forests responsibly, both our environment and our people will be winners. Currently, trade in timber and non-timber forest products generates billions of dollars in revenue. With better conservation, we can create new industries and generate revenues. Targeted investments in forests could generate about 10 million jobs. The international community, governments, and businesses can create incentives to maintain and invest in forests.

Janardhan Plywood Limited, an Indian company, has shown resource efficiency in processing wood. Janardhan worked with local farmers to grow sustainable plantation timber and to leave old-growth forests intact. The company further optimized resource efficiency by minimizing waste, innovating costs, and saving energy. This process benefited farmers, conserved large quantities of forest, and influenced other Indian companies to follow its successful model.

The nation of Costa Rica has adopted creative measures to reverse the degradation of its forests. In 1940, forests covered over 75% of Costa Rica. By 1987, this had dropped to only 25%. Action by the government has enabled Costa Rica to restore forest coverage to 51%. It also imposed a 3.5% fuel tax, and promotes ecotourism and environmental services. It is surely no coincidence that Costa Rica’s concern to protect the environment follows an earlier decision to abolish its military and to enshrine this abolition in the Costa Rican Constitution. The government plans to make the country carbon neutral by 2021. The rest of the world would do well to learn from this small nation.

Harmony with Nature: Respect for Mother Earth

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On April 20, the UN General Assembly held an interactive dialogue on the theme “Harmony with Nature”. April 22 is now celebrated as International Mother Earth Day, following a resolution adopted by the UN in 2009. The celebration invites us to intentionally focus on respect for the earth, our mother, who sustains us.

Ambassador Pablo Solon of Bolivia opened the debate by quoting Victor Hugo: “It is a huge sadness that nature speaks and humans do not listen.” He asked three basic questions:

  1. What is nature? Is it a thing, a source of resources, a system, a home, a community of living and interdependent beings?
  2. Are there rules in nature, laws that govern its integrity, relationships, reproduction and transformation?
  3. Are we, as states and as a society, recognizing and respecting these rules of nature?

Mr. Solon said nature cannot be submitted to the wills of the laboratory; science and technology are capable of everything, including destroying the world itself;  “all technologies should be evaluated on their environmental, social, and economic impacts.” The future lies not in scientific inventions but in our capacity to listen to nature which is ruthless when it is goes ignored.” He concluded with Albert Einstein’s words: “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” Solon’s response: “We have not come here to watch a funeral!”

The theme: ‘Ways of promoting a holistic approach to sustainable development in harmony with nature.” was developed by four excellent presentations. Here are a few thought from each.

Ms. Vandana Shiva, Quantum Physicist and Philosopher, India
Laws of the market are in direct collision with the laws of nature; harmony with nature is an  imperative not a luxury; earth rights are human rights—protecting the earth also protects the rights of people to food and water and all that is necessary for our survival; limitless resource exploitation leads to resources grab; around the world today, people are rising up to keep capitalism from grabbing resources; extreme consumption by humans leads to extreme response from nature. Recommended book: “The Death of Nature” by Carolyn Merchant.

Peter Brown, Professor, McGill University, Canada
We must take holism seriously; the current neo-classical framework is failing because (1) it is a-scientific, based in 17th century science and 18th-century theology; (2) it seeks more growth when growth is already too much (de-growth is essential); (3) it is grotesquely unfair to the poor, to future generations and other species; (4) it measures the wrong things; (5) it is unsustainable financially, socially and ecologically; we should act on the principles of the Earth Charter. He ended by quoting Thomas Berry on the interdependence of all beings within the community of life.

Cormac Cullinan, Environmental Lawyer, South Africa
We are living on borrowed time; humanity has reached the point where our modifications of earth’s resources mean our offspring are likely not to survive in the future; our change of thought and actions must be in terms of millions of years, not just a year or decade; the current transition we are experiencing is unparalleled in the history of our species; we need a major shift in world view—at present everything revolves around humans; humans need to see that the earth is the centre; global legal instruments are not supporting real change, only supporting political positioning; governance systems are not fit for the purpose any longer; Rights of Nature movement calls for respect of the rights of all people to live and participate with nature.

Ms. Riane Eisler, Author, USA
The earth is calling us to new thinking. “We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that created them” (Einstein); In this time of dislocation we must challenge the economics of domination/exploitation of people and nature which cannot be sustained and will lead to an evolutionary dead end; ‘trickle down’ does not work—akin to paupers eating crumbs from the plate of the rich and being told to be content; old ways of thinking and current paradigms—especially economic policies, are ‘Weapons of Mass Distraction’!

Kevin Dance

Watch Video:

(Part 1/2) Interactive Dialogue of the General Assembly on Harmony with Nature

(Part 2/2) Interactive Dialogue of the General Assembly on Harmony with Nature

Feed Them Yourselves!

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Lester Brown is expert in understanding the stresses placed on the earth and human life because of climate change: more mouths to feed and damage to the land and water resources of the world. His new book is World on the Edge: How to Prevent an Environmental and Economic Collapse

Some sobering facts:

  • The U.N. FAO food price index for December 2010 reached an all-time high.
  • The United States harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009. 119 million tons went to ethanol distilleries to produce fuel for cars. This could feed 350 million people for a year.
  • The world loses one third of its topsoil faster than new soil is forming through natural processes. This seriously affects food production. Two huge dust bowls are forming, one across northwest China, west Mongolia and central Asia; the other in central Africa. Each of these dwarfs the U.S. ‘dust bowl’ of the 1930s.

World population peaked at 2 percent per year around 1970 and has now fallen below 1.2 percent per year in 2010. But we still add 80 million people each year. So tonight, there will be 219,000 extra mouths to feed at the dinner table, and the same tomorrow. Many of them will be greeted with empty plates. This will tax the skills of farmers and test the limits of the earth’s land and water resources.

Today it is not wars between superpowers that threaten our future. Now food shortages, speculation in grain commodities by greedy people eager to make a profit, rising food prices, and the political turmoil that hunger brings. Our governments must quickly shift priorities from investing in military to invest in climate change mitigation, water efficiency, soil conservation. Or our future looks bleak.

Our governments must quickly hear and act on US President Dwight Eisenhower’s words in 1961:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies—in the final sense—a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

Crop ecologists give us this formula: For each 1 degree Celsius temperature rise above the optimum during the growing season, we can expect 10 percent less in grain yields. As temperatures soared far above the norm in Russia during the summer of 2010, their harvest was decimated.

As people become more affluent they eat more meat; they drive cars that need fuel; grain is diverted to fuel cars and not people. It’s time to push for earth-care to turn back the damage done by soil erosion, depletion of water sources, croplands taken over for non-farm uses; crop-withering heat waves, melting mountain glaciers and ice  sheets.

How will our governments hear? What does all this ask of us? It calls us to inform ourselves, to notice, to speak up and call the decision makers in our countries to account. To the disciples, Jesus said “Feed them yourselves” when they reported a food shortage to feed the multitude.

Kevin Dance, C.P.

The Ayuí Dam Project

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[vodpod id=Video.4446187&w=425&h=350&fv=]

There is a business deal to build a dam across the Ayuí stream which flows into the River Uruguay at the town of Mercedes in the State of Corrientes in Argentina.

The dam project is a purely commercial one to provide an artificial lake. This will enable the business partners to take sufficient water from the Ayuí stream to irrigate 17,000 hectares of rice.

People opposed to it say that it will flood 8000 hectares of land, that it will destroy stands of forest and many native species of trees and shrubs.

This is the first time that a water course in the public domain will be alienated for private usage.