U.S. President lectures nations, is muted on greatest urgency facing planet ─ Naidoo

Climate change:  endless scarcity, endless conflict

Excerpt, minor edit by 

Carolyn Bennett

Greenpeace’s International Executive Director, South African-born Kumi Naidoo describes himself as an activist who is “passionately involved in liberation struggles,” who continues “to speak truth to power across the range of Greenpeace campaign activities around the globe,” and who is “dedicated to engagement, dialogue and change”, and the quest for “a green and peaceful planet for all the world’s inhabitants.” He appraises the United States world affairs model.

DO AS WE SAY DO

 “The approach of the United States [is], ‘do as we tell you to do … do as we say, not as we do’.

On torture, they (The United States) are signatories to the anti-torture conventions, but we’ve got waterboarding, we’ve got Guantanamo, we’ve got extraordinary rendition.

Kumi Naidoo 

On respecting human rights and not violating people’s privacy without their knowledge ─ people around the world are saying …, ‘we had so much optimism in Obama.’

“President Obama was saying, ‘yes we can, yes we can’; but, with all of this NSA spying, maybe he was saying, yes we scan, yes we scan, yes we scan.”

UNCONSCIONABLY IRRESPONSIBLE

Mute on climate change

Among the speeches in the 68th session debate of the UN General Assembly this week, the powerful U.S. President “hardly mentioned climate change,” Kumi Naidoo observed in interview today with Democracy Now.

“Even the CIA and Pentagon in a 2003 report … suggested that in the coming decades the biggest threat to peace, security, and stability would not come from conventional threats of terrorism …; but from the impact of climate change. 

UN General Assembly

“So if any heads of state, any political leaders are concerned about peace, security, and stability; then they should be using the platforms at the United Nations to talk about the biggest urgency this planet has ever faced.

“We are talking already of serious impact ─ particularly in the developing world.

“We are seeing lives being lost. The UN Secretary-General has pointed out that “the genocide in Darfur was certainly intensified and exacerbated because of conditions resulting from climate change.

Neighboring Lake Chad, one of the largest inland seas in the world ─ again, according to the Secretary-General ─ has largely shrunk to the size of a pond.

The Sahara Desert is marching from Senegal to the Sudan southwards at the rate of one mile a year. 

Triggering conflict was water scarcity, land scarcity together food scarcity.

“All this is happening as heads of state talk about interventions around chemical weapons ─ all of which are important ─ but the biggest threat to peace and security is already upon us: climate change and its growing intensity.”

 

It is therefore deeply disappointing that U.S. President Barack Obama “did not make this connection.”

Sources and notes

“As IPCC Warns of Climate Disaster, Will Scientific Consensus Spark Action on Global Warming?” September 26, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/26/as_ipcc_warns_of_climate_disaster

Kumi Naidoo

South African human rights activist Kumi Naidoo is Greenpeace’s International Executive Director (November 2009- ). Born in Durban, South Africa (1965), Naidoo became involved in anti-apartheid activities when he was 15 years old, resulting in his expulsion from high school. He was involved in neighborhood organizing, youth work in his community, and mass mobilizations against the apartheid regime. During the apartheid government, Naidoo was arrested several times and was charged for violating provisions against mass mobilization, civil disobedience and for violating the state of emergency. As a result of this he went underground before finally deciding to live in exile in England. During his exile he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University and earned a doctorate (D.Phil.) in political sociology.

He returned to South Africa in 1990 after the release of Nelson Mandela and led the adult literacy campaigns and voter education efforts; and was the founding executive director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO). From 1998 to 2008, Kumi Naidoo was Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer of Johannesburg-based Civicus: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. He was the founding chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

He describes himself as an activist who is “passionately involved in liberation struggles,” who continues “to speak truth to power across the range of Greenpeace campaign activities around the globe,” and who is “dedicated to engagement, dialogue and change”; and in pursuit of “a green and peaceful planet for all the world’s inhabitants.”

Currently he leads the Global Call for Climate Action (Tcktcktck.org), which brings together environmental, aid, religious and human rights groups, labor unions, scientists and others; and organizes mass demonstrations around climate negotiations.

Kumi Naidoo at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumi_Naidoo

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Kumi-Naidoo/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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“Get It Done” — Youth rep. Appadurai at COP17

Protests at COP 17 

Global climate movement on course of real solutions — Michael Dorsey

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

Representing youth delegates, Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, spoke today [Democracy Now rebroadcast] at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban.

“I speak for more than half the world’s population,” she said. “We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall but our interests are not on the table.

Anjali Appadurai
Democracy Now image

“What does it take to get a stake in this game — Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money? You’ve been negotiating all my life. In that time, you have failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises. But you’ve heard this all before.

“We are in Africa, home to communities on the front line of climate change. The world’s poorest countries need funding for adaptation now. The Horn of Africa and those nearby in KwaMashu needed it yesterday.

“But as 2012 dawns, our Green Climate Fund remains empty. The International Energy Agency tells us we have five years until the window to avoid irreversible climate change closes. The science tells us that we have five years maximum. You are saying, ‘Give us 10.’”

Youth protest at Durban

Betrayal

The starkest betrayal of your generation’s responsibility to ours is that you call this ‘ambition.’

Where is the courage in these rooms? Now is not the time for incremental action. In the long run, these moments will be seen as the defining moments of an era in which narrow self-interest prevailed over science, reason and common compassion.

There is real ambition in this room, but it has been dismissed as radical, deemed not politically possible.

Stand with Africa. Long-term thinking is not radical. What is radical is to completely alter the planet’s climate, to betray the future of my generation, and to condemn millions to death by climate change. What is radical is to write off the fact that change is within our reach.”

Movement Now

“Two thousand eleven [is] the year in which the silent majority found their voice, the year when the bottom shook the top.

“Two thousand eleven [is] the year when the radical became reality.

Common but differentiated and historical responsibilities are not up for debate.

Respect the foundational principles of this convention.

Respect the integral values of humanity.

Respect the future of your descendants.

 “‘It always seems impossible,’ Mandela said, “until it’s done.’

Protests at Durban

Distinguished delegates and governments around the world, governments of the developed world — deep cuts now. Get it done!

Mic check!

ANJALI APPADURAI: Mic check!

ANJALI APPADURAI: Equity now!

HUMAN MICROPHONE: Equity now!

ANJALI APPADURAI: Equity now!

HUMAN MICROPHONE: Equity now!

ANJALI APPADURAI: You’ve run out of excuses!

HUMAN MICROPHONE: You’ve run out of excuses!

ANJALI APPADURAI: We’re running out of time!

Protests at Durban

HUMAN MICROPHONE: We’re running out of time!

ANJALI APPADURAI: Get it done!

HUMAN MICROPHONE: Get it done!

ANJALI APPADURAI: Get it done!

HUMAN MICROPHONE: Get it done!

ANJALI APPADURAI: Get it done!

HUMAN MICROPHONE: Get it done!

Kumi Naidoo

Published at Common Dreams, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo writes about super powered obstruction of binding agreements at UNFCCC

“Here in Durban, the U.S. is once again trying to kill off the global climate talks by eviscerating the mid-summit draft agreement. On Saturday, the U.S. axed a whole section of the draft agreement that would have offered real protection to those who are being hardest and fastest hit by global warming.

“During the talks, the U.S. is fond of insisting that they want to be involved [and] at the same time makes derailing demands and announces commitments that barely survive the plane trip home.

“All of this wastes valuable time we can ill afford to waste as the most vulnerable citizens, economies, and habitats reel under the increasing impact of global warming.”

Before

“It has not always been so. 

“With the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the first Earth Summit in 1992, the world agreed that human-caused climate change was an important enough global issue that it deserved its own international law, like issues such as trade, war crimes, and human rights. 

“The U.S. signed and ratified that treaty, which also included a plan for later Protocols and legally-binding targets to reduce climate pollution. 

“Over the next several years, the U.S. delegation pushed aggressively for a treaty that included a pollution-reduction regime on greenhouse gases and a compliance mechanism ... and then it hit them — if the U.S. ratified Kyoto Protocol, they would have to deal with being the largest climate polluter!”

Bush to Obama governments trend backward

“It is deeply depressing that signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 was the beginning of U.S. climate treaty obstructionism, although U.S. neglect of treaties is par for the course. It’s been downhill ever since. The next step in bludgeoning any progress was when the U.S. ‘unsigned’ the Kyoto Protocol.“

U.S. President George W. Bush

“President George W. Bush made history by being the first to un-sign a treaty, which is possibly unprecedented in international law. Before Bush left office, his delegation at the Bali climate talks agreed to negotiate on the main issues that needed global cooperation, culminating in a controversial outcome two years later, in 2009, in Copenhagen. But, in Copenhagen they went on to play a huge part in making that conference possibly the most disappointing and controversial out of all 15 up to that point.“

Protests at Durban

U.S. President Barack Obama

“Team Obama picked up where Bush left off, introducing words and concepts into the negotiations in an attempt to mask that the U.S. was not prioritizing the climate. One of the first bombs was announcing that 2005 would be the new base year for a U.S. pollution target, and to speak as if any increase in emissions since 1990 was irrelevant. At the time, 2005 was the year of highest recorded U.S. climate pollution.

“The U.S. implied that EU efforts to reduce emissions between 1990 and 2005 were no longer a factor of the negotiations. This allowed the U.S. to argue that ‘comparability’ demonstrated the U.S. was as tough on climate pollution as the EU. The nearly business-as-usual U.S. target was 17 percent under 2005 levels by 2020. It would be 32 percent by  2020 if they were in compliance with the U.S. Kyoto commitment.

“Obama’s team was now disparaging Kyoto as a method of shirking fair and equitable commitments.

“Anyone can have an ambitious goal for 2050, forty years away. In Copenhagen the U.S. delegation did everything they could to undermine the importance of a legally binding agreement. They rolled out phrases such as ‘politically binding’ (meaning not legally binding) and ‘pledge and review’ (meaning not legally binding).

“We also know, because of Wikileaks, that the U.S. was strong-arming countries behind the scenes, with undiplomatic threats and tactics to bolster their bargaining power in the climate talks.“

COP17 protests

Now obstruction, COP 17 Durban

“Durban is not seeing any change in the carnage caused by the U.S.’s participation in these talks.

The negotiating position of the largest historical polluter has reached a new low in refuting that scientific consensus demands urgent and rapid pollution reduction. Leading up to Cancun, a year later, the U.S. was already backing away from weak commitments made in the Copenhagen Accord. It contained an agreement by the U.S. to contribute long-term finance, some portion of $100 billion per year by 2020.

The U.S. had also agreed to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the entity with intended responsibility for this long-term finance — No longer for the U.S. Some of their contribution would go to GCF — maybe; some of it would be public finance.

The U.S. raves about ‘leveraging private finance’ and includes loan guarantees and funding to U.S. companies as part of their contribution. 

Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation together are the largest sources of its ‘fast-start finance,’ or $1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Export-Import provided over $4 billion to fossil fuel projects last year alone.

“While it is true that the personalities, egos, and IDs of individual delegates affect overall progress, for the United States, it is the basic negotiating position that is tarnishing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] process now and for the last thirteen years.“

Therefore, Naidoo concludes —

“The time has come for the U.S. to stand aside. If it is not willing to save lives, save jobs and save whole ecosystems then it should get out of the way and let those who are willing move on. Any failure to move beyond U.S. obstructionism will be measured in lives.“

Politics, U.S.-led Regression

Friends of the Earth policy analyst Kate Horner today with Democracy Now spoke about the U.S. killing the only legally binding instrument that we have to address climate change: the Kyoto Protocol.

Horner and Dorsey
Durban DN discussion

The United States, she said, “has a long history in multilateral affairs of weakening and delaying international deals where they don’t have domestic legislation in place.” The U.S. position at COP 17 is shaped substantially by polarized politics and its failure to secure legislation at home. “First they refused to commit to the Kyoto Protocol; then they led [and continue to lead] an exit strategy from the Kyoto Protocol.

“They are proposing a far weaker system called a pledge and review wherein pledges countries submit are determined merely by their domestic action — not by the global community’s determination of what will keep the world safe.”

Solutions rising not from State but from Global Justice Movement

Michael Dorsey, a professor in environmental studies at Dartmouth College,  hears the loud-mouthed climate change-denying politicians and focuses on the real movement. He suggests voting out the irrational climate change deniers.

 “The American people,” Dorsey said in that Democracy Now interview, “are sick and tired of sinister, mindless [denial of climate change] talk. The fact is that what is going on is a global climate movement, now grown beyond itself into a movement about climate justice.”

It is a “global outreach — putting people together to collaborate around the world on tackling this problem. Unlike the delayed diplomacy that we see coming out of the State, it is a global climate movement taking us on the course of real solutions.”

Sources and notes

“‘Get it done’: Urging Climate Justice, Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai Mic Checks U.N. Summit,” Democracy Now, November 9, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/get_it_done_urging_climate_justice

“U.S. Obstructionism Is Hurting Climate Talks” [Kumi Naidoo, published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by The Huffington Post]; also at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/08-6

Kumi Naidoo is Executive Director of Greenpeace International,

“Obama Admin Denounced for ‘Startling Level of Obstructionism and Defeatism’ on U.N. Climate Deal,” December 9, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/obama_admin_denounced_for_startling_level

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Can't believe G8 Cabal either

Reporting, editing, commentary by Carolyn Bennett 

Dismal picture of the world —
Hunger, disease, and pollution
Climate change leading to floods, droughts and famines
Food, financial, economic, energy crises
Increased communal conflict, violence against women
Child labor and other forms of modern slavery and trafficking
Labor force (majority) in developing countries imprisoned in informal, unprotected work
Crime and corruption increase
Human rights atrocities, many other types of injustices rise daily 

Cheerful picture of the world —
We know how to solve these problems.

We know that investment in education, health, local agriculture and local trade releases huge potential and local wealth.

We know that, particularly women, when given half a chance, will work hard for the future of their children, creating economic and social progress and stability.

We know that increased economic activity in an inclusive green economy is possible and is the best recipe for progress and peace anywhere.

We have enough food, but one in six people in the world suffer hunger due to inequitable distribution and speculation. Half a million women die each year of preventable pregnancy-related causes. With education, girls can negotiate, better control their lives; choose to have fewer and healthier children.…

Domestic and communal violence against women is both an indicator of a culture of impunity and a cause of tremendous loss of women's active participation in economic and political processes. Why don't we change this?

Where is Education for All? We can eradicate poverty; why don’t we? Why do the world leaders break their promises?  The writer is co-chair of the Worldconnectors and of the Global Call to Action against Poverty, Sylvia Borren

We are faced with the same ole players, crooks and fixers — U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia (the Group of Eight) — of a game the majority of the world’s citizens can’t win because the fixers are the makers and breakers of the rules. The lay the posts and capriciously change them so that a whole lot of people and nations can never catch up let alone get ahead of the game.

Danger when few hold, concentrate, entrench power perpetually

The minority powers rape children and housekeeping staffs;  like a mob boss, compound debt with threat; destabilize countries and fail nations. They then take photo ops declaring themselves saviors, saving “the poor from themselves and from their dictators — the very same dictators whom, the day before, these power elites had embraced and armed with killer weaponry to train on “their own people.”

Coming out of the G8 conference (photo op) this week at Deauville, France, European officials announced their countries’ pledge of “$20 billion in aid to post-autocratic Arab countries that have toppled heads of state and moved towards democracy.”

Al Jazeera reports the conference draft statement saying, “Multilateral development banks could provide over $20 billion (including 3.5 billion Euros from the European Investment Bank) for Egypt and Tunisia for 2011-2013 in support of suitable reform efforts.” The statement also affirms the G8’s “readiness ‘to mobilize substantial bilateral support to scale-up this [suitable reform] effort” and welcomes “support from other bilateral partners, including from the region.”

The statement characteristically shows unconcern for sovereign needs, aspirations, motivations and interrelationships among peoples either regionally or internally. It shows a lack of interest in the sensible imperative that G8 nations take a respectful, cooperative approach with peoples of the Middle East and Mediterranean region(s). Without specifying the parameters of their “pledges,” these old imperialists persisted in the usual condescension, paternalistically lecturing nations on what “is expected” of them while the powers carry on bilateral arrangements that, perpetually, play these nations against themselves: nations against nations, peoples against peoples, sects and tribes against other sects and tribes.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent said this year’s conferees, though again pledging billions, also “admit that there has been a shortfall [between] the aid that was promised... and the aid that was actually delivered.”

Meaningless pledges without intent of fulfillment are less than useless. Entrenched Power takes a holiday for another photo opportunity and lies become known to the world long before the final gavel in a fraudulent exercise.

Reported in today’s Democracy Now headlines, Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo characterizes entrenched power and its abuse. “The G8 is basically a cartel, a self-appointed cartel of eight dominant nations, which carry actually the biggest responsibility collectively for climate change and a whole range of other issues” and looking at the draft communiqués — what you find is “regurgitation every year of the same commitments, repackaged and restated.

“This is not leadership. This is fraudulence, and it needs to be addressed.”

Sylvia Borren of the Global Call to Action against Poverty, a worldwide alliance that challenges the structures and institutions that perpetuate poverty, said, “The G8’s credibility rests on its accountability to past promises. It needs to take actions that are clear, honest and fair if we are to build the World We Want, a just world where no one is poor.”

However, in its press release, Global Action reports the G8 Accountability Report saying the eight countries, before the latest promises, have fallen “$1 billion short [excluding inflationary costs] of its aid commitments.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) whose published mission is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world has released figures showing “the G8 has fallen $19 billion short of its $50 billion target.”

Although the G8 uses “creative financing to give the appearance of meeting its commitments to impoverished countries,” says Global Call to Action, “many G8 countries have been freezing or cutting aid.” The G8’s credibility depends on ensuring that commitments translate into effective implementation on the ground, honoring citizens’ right to information, and particularly ensuring participation of women and socially excluded groups.  

Can an incestuously entrenched cabal change its stripes?

“Freedom and democracy can never be served if the G8 continues to be underwritten by a fossil fuel-based economy,” says Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo. “G8 leaders came to Deauville in search of identity and purpose but were blinded by their fossil fuel addictions and failed to take us towards a safe and secure energy future free from oil wars, climate chaos, and nuclear disasters.”

Next year, the G8 leaders should meet “at a rehab clinic instead of a French gambling resort.”

Sources and notes

“We can eradicate poverty - So why don’t we?” (Sylvia Borren), September 22, 2010,

http://www.worldconnectors.nl/index.php?id=21&c=7&n=161

Sylvia Borren is co-chair of the Worldconnectors and, among other functions, co-chair of GCAP (the Global Call to Action against Poverty) and its Dutch chapter EEN, member of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) for the Dutch government and former Executive Director of Oxfam Novib, http://www.worldconnectors.nl/index.php?id=44&n=7;

Democracy Now Headlines, May 27, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/27/headlines

http://www.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_36734052_36734103_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

“Place Human Rights, Peace and Human Security at the centre of your policies,” May 26, 2011,

http://www.whiteband.org/en/release/Global-Civil-Society-Leaders-G8%20

“G8 commits $20bn to ‘Arab Spring’ — Western economies to mobilize ‘substantial bilateral support,’ both economic and political, for post-autocratic nations,” May 27, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/05/201152784050139238.html

“G8 leaders need to quit gambling with our future,” May 27, 2011,

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/G8-leaders-need-to-quit-gambling-with-our-future--/

Kumi Naidoo (b. 1965) is a South African campaigner. He affiliates with Global Call to Action against Poverty and, since 1998, has been Secretary General and CEO of CIVICUS: world alliance for citizen participation. Naidoo also affiliates with the Eminent Persons Group on United Nations Civil Society Relations (a UN appointment) and, since 2009, has been Executive Director of Greenpeace International. He is recognized internationally as a vocal opponent of gender violence and an advocate for gender equity.

Deauville, France (Population 1999: 4,364; 2008 prelim. 3,973), is a fashionable resort in northern France. First developed as a seaside resort, Deauville is renowned for its horse-racing tracks and related activities. The town (founded in 1860) is home to a casino, a marina, and a major conference center designed in part to diversify the tourism economy. Britannica note

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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World’s two billion people lack energy

We can and must do better — Greenpeace proposes

“Energy (R)evolution”

“Bringing energy to these parts of the developing world would not only help us address the ongoing issue of poverty but, if done in the right way, we would also be a big step closer to a fairer and more sustainable future. Such a move would also help curb global warming and create millions of new jobs along the way.” Kumi Naidoo

Excerpting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

Under the current system of energy production, distribution and consumption, the world produces “large amounts of energy at a few centralized locations and sends that energy over very long distances to where it is consumed,” Kumi Naidoo writes. “This system is inflexible, often wasteful, and leaves large swathes of the world’s population un-served and without access to any energy.…

“In addition to being centralized geographically, energy production is also centralized in terms of influence with control lying in the hands of a few very powerful energy companies. All too often, these companies operate as monopolies, dictating availability, prices and access.

“Because energy corporations do not cater to the poor, about a third of the world’s population (over 2 billion people) lives with little or no access to reliable energy services.

“… People and organizations have realized that it is in our collective interest as citizens of the world to pursue a green industrial policy. This should start with a re-evaluation of the way we produce and distribute energy.

The Energy (R)evolution calls for decentralized energy, which comes wherever possible from renewable sources such as wind or solar energy and is connected to a local distribution network system. This local “micro-grid” supplies homes and offices, rather than the high voltage transmission system. The scenario would see a huge proportion of global energy produced by such decentralized energy sources – supplemented, as needed, by large offshore wind farms, concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in the sunbelt regions of the world, and other renewable sources of energy by 2050. Creating a closer proximity of electricity-generating plants to consumers will allow any waste heat from combustion processes to be piped to nearby buildings, a system known as cogeneration or combined heat and power. This means that nearly all the input energy is finally put to use.

The Energy [R]evolution is a win not just for the environment, but also for local people. Towns, villages and local communities will be empowered to produce, monitor and profit from their own energy thus bypassing major monopolies.

Properly implemented, the Energy (R)evolution would also create millions of new jobs starting with the global power supply sector which could create up to 12.5 million jobs by 2015 (4.5 million more than the current projection). A significantly increased uptake of renewable energy would create over 8 million jobs by 2020 in that sector alone, four times more than today.

“For developing countries this presents a great opportunity to catch up both financially and technologically with the more developed world. By implementing new forms of energy, these countries could leapfrog the era of dirty energy that the world’s developed countries are just emerging from – and move straight to clean and sustainable energy thereby avoiding rising oil prices, dwindling fossil fuel reserves and the ongoing dangers that come with these types of energy.

“The Energy [R]evolution won’t happen by itself. We need governments and industry around the world to implement the right policies to make substantial structural changes in the energy and power sector.…

“We need an international movement of honest men and women that encompasses environmental organizations, trade unions, development organizations and many others who have not actively thought about how the environment touches all of our lives.”

“History teaches us that real change only comes when good men and women are prepared to put their lives and personal safety on the line to advance the cause of justice, equity and peace.”

Sources and notes
“Talking About an Energy and Jobs Revolution” (Kumi Naidoo), December 13, 2010,

http://www.social-europe.eu/2010/12/talking-about-an-energy-and-jobs-revolution/?pfstyle=wp

http://www.social-europe.eu/2010/12/talking-about-an-energy-and-jobs-revolution/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SEJColumns+%28Social+Europe+Journal+%C2%BB+Columns%29

Greenpeace’s proposal for an Energy (R)evolution at www.greenpeace.org/energyrevolution

The column was first published by the Global Labor University

Greenpeace is present in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific; and has been campaigning against environmental degradation since 1971 when a small boat of volunteers and journalists sailed into Amchitka, an area north of Alaska where the U.S. Government was conducting underground nuclear tests. This tradition of ‘bearing witness’ in a non-violent manner continues today Greenpeace’s and ships are an important part of all our campaign work.

“Greenpeace exists because this fragile earth deserves a voice. It needs solutions. It needs change. It needs action.” Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organization that acts to change attitudes and behavior, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by—

Catalyzing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change

Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves
Protecting the world's ancient forests and the animals, plants and people that depend on them
Working for disarmament and peace by tackling the causes of conflict and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons
Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today's products and manufacturing
Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by rejecting genetically engineered organisms, protecting biodiversity and encouraging socially responsible farming
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/

Kumi Naidoo (b. 1965) became the Executive Director of Greenpeace International in November 2009 and is recognized internationally as a forceful advocate for gender equity and against gender violence. In 1997, he organized South Africa’s first National Men's March Against Violence on Women and Children. Kumi Naidoo is an active board member of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.

He has said, “In any platform I am given, whether environmental, NGO law, voluntary organizations, whatever it is, at least 25 percent of my time is directed toward the issue of gender equity…I think it is very important that if you support the notion of democracy, then you must also support gender equity.…

“History teaches us that real change only comes when good men and women are prepared to put their lives and personal safety on the line to advance the cause of justice, equity and peace. I believe today that Greenpeace is the leading organization in embracing that approach.”  http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?id=441&lang=en

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]


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