tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35833677463105158232024-02-20T18:15:13.797-08:00Sprouting conceptual changes for a better worldJustine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-73249331898626179802015-10-27T07:00:00.003-07:002015-10-27T08:03:25.357-07:00Have we really decided that progress is profit over people?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Waking up another day during summer drought and a heat wave in Namibia and I watch as our factories spew waste and we all drive singly into the city with our cars sputtering smoke in the air.<br />
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We are all complaining. Desperate, for rain. But most of us don't realise that we are the cause of all this, and are continuously making our situation worse. Our development plan is meant to be sustainable but it continues to be a copy-and-paste approach from western paradigms of development. Our air conditioning causes the climate to become hotter, and in turn we put the air conditioning on higher.<br />
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We, as humanity have come to a point where our destruction has caused suffering onto ourselves.<br />
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Naomi Klein, in her book "This Changes Everything", puts it like this "And we tell ourselves all kinds of similarly implausible no-consequences stories all the time, about how we can ravage the world and suffer no adverse effects. Indeed we are always surprised when it works out otherwise. We extract and do not replenish and wonder why the fish have disappeared and the soil needs even more inputs (like phosphate) to stay fertile. We occupy countries and arm their militas and then wonder why they hate us. We drive down wages, ship jobs oversees, destroy worker protections, hollow out local economies, then wonder why people can't afford to shop as much as they used to. We offer those failed shoppers subprime mortgages instead of steady jobs and then wonder why noone foresaw that a system built on bad debts would collapse."<br />
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And so the vicious cycle continues, into the Global South.Yet, what about so many other ways we could be living. What about the better life we could be living, without ruining the conditions we live in.<br />
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Why do we live in a world where we choose profit over people? How can we say Namibia is progressing when I see more and more men on the side of the street desperate for work, and more and more fancy Land Cruisers and Prados on the street electronically closing their windows as they come to a stop sign, not wanting to face the sadness of the desperately unemployed and hungry. Off the Prados go home to their high walls and big screen TVs where they don't know their neighbours and spend their time in a virtual world that is causing them depression, anxiety and loneliness. A world where the connection they have is with their smart phones. Smart phones that were built off the bloody backs of desperate people waging war in countries like Congo. What progress is this? Why are we choosing this path - and why are we choosing this path when we know that it will probably kill us in our lifetimes, or at best, our children's lifetimes?<br />
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And to think of the rapidly developing nations who are following the god of economic growth, while paying lip service at the major climate conferences. Like Klein says, the victims of this are real people - the workers who lose their factory jobs in Juarez and Windsor; the workers who get the factory jobs in Shenzen and Dhaka, jobs that are by this point so degraded that some employers install nets along the perimeters of roofs to catch employees when they jump. Toddlers mouthing lead-laden toys, the Walmart employee expected to work over the American holiday just to be trampled by a stampede of frenzied customers, while not earning a living wage. And the Chinese villagers whos' water is contaminated by one of those coal plants we all use as our excuse of inaction.<br />
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Venezuelan political scientist Edgargo Lander said quite aptly "The total failure of climate negotiation serves to highlight the extent to which we now live in a post-democratic society. The interests of financial capital and the oil industry are much more important than the democratic will of people around the world. In the global neoliberal society profit is more important than life."<br />
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Klein in her book says that to avoid carnage there needs to be radical and immediate de-growth strategies. Now, especially to us still trying to "develop", this sounds unfair and apocalyptic - as if reducing emissions requires massive economic crises and human suffering. But that seems so only because we have an economic system that fetishizes GDP growth above all else, regardless of the human and ecological consequences, while failing to place value on those that most of us cherish above all - a decent standard of living, a measure of future security, and our relationships with one another. We are permanently faced with advertisements giving us fantasies displayed as attainable realities, but at the cost of hyper consumption and worse problems in the nations where people live this charade of a Fake Empire than in those where we are considered poor.<br />
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Lets look at some of our sectors:<br />
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Generally, those sectors that are not governed by the drive for increased yearly profit - the public sector, co-ops, local businesses, non profits should expand their share of the overall economic activity. Prosperity without Growth, by Tim Jackson says that "in the first place, the time spent by these professions directly improves the quality of our lives. Making them more efficient is not, after a certain point, actually desirable. What sense does it make to ask teachers to teach bigger classes? Our doctors to treat more and more patients per hour?" <br />
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When we start delving into the depths of the fossil fuel industry excusing the boiling of the climate because the alternatives are just not feasible. So instead we dig deeper and dirtier, conducting the business of mountain top coal, fracking, tar sands, and horizon drilling. All the while renewable energy isn't only in our reach, it is, quite frankly, desirable. Plenty of reports and publications that show various countries in the world being capable of going 60% by 2030 in US, 100% in Australia in next ten years, why still the dependence on oil, fracking, mountain top coal? And for those of us pushing for nuclear power and advocating that it is carbon free - vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium!<br />
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Lets look at food - its often claimed that the Green Revolution saved the world from hunger. But the problem is, that even with the Green Revolution, starvation continues, particularly in India where it was the most intense. Climate-smart, conservation agriculture or agroecelogical projects can work because they are characterised not by expensive fertilizer from Yara and proprietary seeds from Monsanto, but knowledge developed and shared by subsistence farmers freely and equitably. When we take our fish, for instance in Africa and compare artisanal to industrial fisheries. Every part of the equation, whether its capital investment, employment creation along the value chain, and social positives, come out better with artisanal - yet we still push for export-led large scale industrial fisheries in our economic development in coastal countries of Africa.<br />
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The emergence of positive, practical and concrete alternatives to dirty development that do not ask people to choose between higher living standards and toxic extraction do exist. And there are alternative models of development that do not require massive wealth stratification, tragic cultural losses, or ecological devastation. Movements in our Global South are fighting hard for these alternative development models - policies that would bring power to a larger amount of people through decentralised renewable energy and revolutionized urban transport so that public transit is much more desirable than private cars. We just need to ask the right questions - what is important to us? What is important to me? What do I want Namibia, and Africa, and indeed the world, to really look like? And I am sure most of us, probably 99% of us would say, not like this.<br />
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So how do we stop and reroute the powerful economic wheel from turning, especially when a number of very powerful individuals, and indeed many of us, think we depend on GDP growth and dirty energy only for our wellbeing. Well, lets look at an example of a large scale social change that happened because a number of people were being treated in a grotesque manner, even though it brought economic returns that were unmeasureable to those in power. The slave trade. Chris Hayes wrote an essay comparing climate change to the abolition of slavery. At the time when the slave trade was being abolished slave labour was worth, in today's terms, 10 trillion USD. This is roughly the same value of the amount of carbon reserves still in the ground. If we have chosen society over profit before for a socially just cause, then there should be no reason why we shouldn't do this again. Especially when the entire human race is now at stake.<br />
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[Watch this space for some work on For Progress Namibia - a project some of us are embarking on to look at this very different alternative development model for Namibia.] </div>
Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-66449499585472888242015-04-05T02:25:00.000-07:002015-04-05T02:30:10.741-07:00Resources are running out and so is the time! A (very late) response to a Wall Street Journal Article. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In April 2014, Himanshu Shekhar, Roy Cohen and I wrote a response to the
article written by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal. The response was
sent to and fro across continents, but then life happened (to all of us) and
unfortunately the response was never shaped, finalised, and sent off. In the
spirit that late is better than never, I have decided to at least publish our
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">This article is a direct response to the article “The World’s Resources
are not running out” by Mr. Matt Ridley and published online on the Wall Street
Journal (dated April 25,
2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304279904579517862612287156).
The first half of this response aims to highlight the conceptual flaws in
arguments presented by Mr. Ridley while the second half responds more
empirically (to various points raised by Mr. Ridley).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Overall, Mr. Ridley’s arguments focus on the notion of technological
advancement as</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">solution</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><i> </i></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">for resource scarcity, without
discussing the merits and demerits of these “solutions”. This is a very partial
and exclusive point of view, which can only be assumed by privileged
individuals. According to advocates like Mr. Ridley, advancement in technology
will provide alternatives before we run out of present resources. However, this
approach ignores the greater processes that inform technological development.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">The way our system currently runs, technological development meets the needs of
the market. These are dictated solely by profit: investors put their money in
technologies that, in their opinion, could scale up and have great returns on
investment. Investments in eco-friendly technologies exist but--in the current
system--no “green” technology can hope to have the same success as e.g.
WhatsApp, a texting app for mobile phones that was purchased for 16 billion USD
by Facebook.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Another systemic problem is that the initial cost of investment rises with the
increasing sophistication of technology. A self-proclaimed rational optimist,
Mr. Ridley fails to see how corporate-patented technologies are used to
centralize production. In the agricultural sector, for instance, four firms
control more than 85% of beef production in the USA. Small farmers are
marginalized and systematically exploited by these corporations (one only has
to go to various case studies in Africa to see how this has corroded small
scale farming). Many poor countries are forced to be the food basket of the
world while the western world keeps more lucrative and remunerative areas such
as the service sector for itself. Imbalances in trade and in access to
technology further deepen the gap between rich and poor. Technology itself is
not “good” or “bad”: it is oblivious when it is being used to aggravate social
inequality as well as the climate crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Like many people who share his point of view, Mr. Ridley cites rising
efficiency in production as an example for the promise of technology. But it is
a biased perspective, which leaves out two other important factors: (1) imports
that increase the global footprint (pollution); and (2) the rise in affluence,
which increases per capita consumption.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Mr. Ridley further talks about failure of predictions made in the renowned book
“Limits to Growth” by the Club of Rome, which — according to Ridley — failed
when it predicted that resources will run out by now. But in fact, what the
book failed to predict is the widening gap in resource consumption between rich
and poor. This gap has been a blessing in disguise, to some extent, in
ecological terms, but it indicates that more than half of the people in the
world cannot meet their basic needs. In countries such as China, which
witnessed the arrival of a strong middle class, the overall consumption has
observed multi-fold increase putting extreme pressure on resources. The writers
of Limits of Growth foresaw a trend in many of their projections. Their book
sparked a revolution in how we value progress, and an awareness of the climate
crisis, which Mr. Ridley wants to peg as a purely technological question. But
the reality is much more complicated: the</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">values</i><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">that inform technological development
determine what kind of world we are creating with the tools of progress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Indeed we are hitting resource limits and planetary boundaries as we speak.
Ecosystems are collapsing. The global water cycle is disrupted due to massive
deforestation in the Amazon forest, which now releases more carbon than it
soaks up. The acidifying oceans risk ending life as we know it. At what cost is
our system currently operating? Developing economies are aiming for the same
unsustainable goal as the developed world – industrializing by logging huge
forests for timber, rather than using them for ecotourism or protecting them
for the communities who depend on them for their livelihood. Two billion people
are starving, with another billion people on the verge of starving – and one
billion people are obese. Mr. Ridley’s so-called rational optimism does not
account for these statistics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Furthermore, the British member of the House of Lords talks about pessimists
and optimists of climate change. Optimists hope for technological change that
would result in the use of lower-carbon energy. However, climate negotiations
show us that we are nowhere near. Climate activists and other
sustainability actors are pushing for renewable energy, but oil giants still
yield more power than governments. The 2008 financial crisis had Exxon, Shell,
Chevron reduce their US workforce by 11,400 workers, but — on the backend —
pocketed 4 billion a year in tax subsidies. Globally, subsidies to the fossil
fuel industry top 550 billion USD every year and are at least 12 times any
subsidies given to energy efficiency and renewable energy. In 2011 Exxon made 5
million USD profit every hour but paid lower taxes than the average American
worker. This is not exactly a conducive enabling environment for more
informed technologies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Ecologists in this sense are not pessimists. They are realists who are pushing
for redefining our approach to the entire system so that we do not chase
endless growth at our own peril – but instead reduce inequality and work
towards the well-being of humans, as well as the ecological health of our
planet on which we rely for our own survival.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">We have no doubt that innovation is part of the solution. Technology is part of
the solution. But where Mr. Ridley fails is in seeing what innovation and
technology</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">serve</i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">. His
narrative for progress is imbued with old fashioned ideas about increased
productivity — the same ideas that have brought about the ecological</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">crisis</i><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">that we are experiencing. But
innovation and technology can only help us get out of this crisis if we use
them to solve our real, urgent problems — finite resources, unequal
distribution and - yes - the climate crisis. It will not magically dissolve.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Resources are running out despite advancement in technology. Access and
affordability to technology are as important as the tools we develop. Unless
every single human being has sufficient access to basic resources, the pressure
on the resources will keep on mounting. Any discussion on resource exploitation
without considering the time needed for their replenishment and their impacts
on the environment is nothing short of suicidal for the sustenance of the human
race. Indeed, present accounting systems and the financial systems are not
supportive of a sustainable human society. Our system, by design, erodes into
our resources. A redefinition of our value system would help steer innovation
towards a more just and equal society, one that lives in harmony within the
larger system. We hope that the leaders, policy makers and people in
general will pay heed to Mahatma Gandhi’s words: “There is enough for everyone’s
need but not for anyone’s greed”.</span></div>
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Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-88987854418802202202013-02-16T23:29:00.003-08:002013-02-16T23:29:17.199-08:00The world is as you dream it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This post is a call to critical thinking in Namibia on how we roll out our development plan - a road towards the well-being of our people.<br />
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Sequence of events. </div>
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Oil (potential) found off shore. </div>
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The Father of our Nation found celebrating with corporate oil companies. </div>
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US Marine Troops visit our shores and perform humanitarian work as part of their trip along the African coastline. </div>
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A four star US general visits Namibia. </div>
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[Then he visits Malawi and Mozambique. Two other nations who recently found oil/gas.] </div>
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Now I am not saying that I know that there are linkages. Just saying that we all need to think about what we want for our country and our true development plan. Do we follow the trail of other countries (a trail of desolation left behind, high GDP growth and increased poverty going hand in hand) or do we blaze a trail towards the common good of (all!) our citizens. </div>
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And I use the example of Ecuador. I steal an excerpt from John Perkins' "Confessions of and Economic Hitman". </div>
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"In the years since I first went there, in 1968, this tiny country had evolved into the quintessential victim of the corporatocracy. My con-temporaries and I, and our modern equivalents, had managed to bring it to virtual bankruptcy. We loaned it billions of dollars so it could hire our engineering and construction firms to build projects that would help its richest families. As a result, in those three decades, the official poverty level grew from 50 to 70 percent, under- unemployment increased from 15 to 70 percent, public debit increased from US$240 million to $16 billion, and the share of national resources allocated to the poorest citizens declined from 20 percent to 6 percent. Today, Ecuador must devote nearly 50 percent of its national budget simply to paying off its debts - instead of to helping the millions of citizens who are officially classified as dangerously impoverished. </div>
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The situation in Ecuador clearly demonstrates that this was not the result of a conspiracy; it was a process that had occurred during both Democratic and Republican administrations, a process that had involved all the multinational banks, many corporations, and foreign aid missions from a multitude of countries. The United States played the lead role, but we had not acted alone. </div>
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During the three decades, thousands of men and women participated in bringing Ecuador to the tenuous position it found itself at the beginning of the millennium. Some of them, like me, had been aware of what they were doing, but the vast majority had merely performed the tasks they had been taught in business, engineering, and law schools, or had followed the lead of bosses in my mold, who demonstrated the system by their own greedy example and through rewards and punishments calculated to perpetuate it. Such participants saw the parts they played as benign, at worst; in the most optimistic view, they were helping an impoverished nation. </div>
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Although unconscious, deceived - and in many cases - self-deluded, these players were not members of any clandestine conspiracy; rather, they were the product of a system that promotes the most subtle and effective form of imperialism that world has ever witnessed. No one had to go out and seek men and women who could be bribed or threatened - they had already been recruited by companies, banks and government agencies.The bribes consisted of salaries, bonuses, pension and insurance policies; the threats were based on social mores, peer pressure, and unspoken questions about the future of their children's education. </div>
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The system had succeeded spectacularly. By the time the new millennium had rolled in, Ecuador was thoroughly entrapped. We had her, as a Mafia don has the man whose daughter's wedding and small business he financed and then refinanced. We could afford to be patient, knowing that beneath Ecuador's rain forests lies a sea of oil, knowing that the proper day would come.</div>
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That day had already arrived when, in early 2003, I wound my way from Quito to the jungle town of Shell in my Subaru Outback. Chavez had reestablished himself in Venezuela. He had defied George W. Bush and had won. Saddam was standing his ground and was preparing to be invaded. Oil supplies were depleted to their lowest level in nearly three decades, and the prospects of taking more from our prime sources looked bleak - and therefore, so did the health of the corporatocracy's balance sheets. We needed an ace in the hole. It was time to cut away our Ecuadorian pound of flesh.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As I drove past the monster dam on the Pastaza River, I realised that here in Ecuador the battle was not simply the classic struggle between the rich of the world and the impoverished, between those who exploit and those who are exploited. These battle lines would ultimately define who were are as a civilization. We were poised to force this tiny country to open its Amazon rain forests to our oil companies. The devastation that would result was immeasurable. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If we insisted on collecting debt, the repercussions would far beyond our abilities to quantify them. It was not just about the destruction of indigenous cultures, human lives and hundreds of thousands of species of mammals, reptiles, fish, insects, and plants, some of which might contain the undiscovered cures to any number of diseases. It was not just that rain forests absorb the deadly greenhouse gases produced by our industries, give off oxygen that is essential to our lives, and seed the clouds that ultimately create a large percentage of the world's fresh water. It went beyond all the standard arguments made by ecologists for saving such places, and reached deep into our souls. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If we pursued this strategy, we would continue an imperialist pattern that had begun long before the Roman Empire. We decry slavery, but our global empire enslaves more people than the Romans and all the other colonial powers before us. I wondered how we could execute such a shortsighted policy in Ecuador and still live with our collective conscience.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Peering through the window of the Subaru at the deforested slopes of the Andes, an area that during my Peace Corps days had been lush with tropical growth, I was suddenly surprised by another realisation. It dawned on me that this view of Ecuador as a significant battle line was purely personal, that in fact every country where I had worked, every country with resources coveted by the empire, was equally significant. I had my own attachment to this one, which stemmed from the days back in the late 1960s when I lost my innocence here. However, it was subjective, my personal bias.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Though the Ecuadorian rain forests are precious, as are the indigenous people and all the other life forms that inhabit them, they are no more precious than the deserts of Iran and the Bedouins of Yamin's heritage. No more precious than the mountains of Java, the areas of the coast of Philippines, the steppes of Asia, the savannas of Africa, the forests of North America, the icecaps of the Arctic, or hundreds of other threatened places. Every one of these represents the battle line, and every one of them forces us to search the depths of our individual and collective souls.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
I was reminded of a statistic that sums it all up: The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth of the poorest countries went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. And the World Bank, the USAID, the IMF, and the rest of the banks, corporations, and governments involved in international "aid" continue to tell us that they are doing their jobs, that progress has been made. </div>
<div>
So here I was in Ecuador again, in the country that was just one of many battle lines that holds a special place in my heart. It was 2003, thirty-five years after I had first arrived as a member of a U.S. organisation that bears the word <i>peace</i> in its name. This time, I had come in order to try and prevent a war that for three decades I had helped to provoke.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
It would seem that events in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Venezuela might be enough to deter us from yet another conflict; yet, in Ecuador the situation was very different. This war would not require the U.S. Army, for it would be fought by a few indigenous warrior equipped only with spears, machetes, and single-shot, muzzle-loaded rifles. They would face off against a modern Ecuadorian army, a handful of U.S. Special Forces advisers, and jackal-trained mercenaries hired by the oil companies. This would be a war, like 1995 conflict between Ecuador and Peru, that most people in the United States would never hear about, and recent events had escalated the probability of such a war.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
In December 2002, oil company representatives accused an indigenous community of taking a team of its workers hostage; they suggested that the warriors involved were members of a terrorist group, with implications of possible ties to al-Qaeda. It was an issue made especially complicated because oil companies had received government permission to begin drilling. However, the company claimed its workers had the right to perform preliminary, non-drilling investigations - a claim vehemently disputed by the indigenous groups a few days later, when they shared their side of the story.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The oil workers, tribal representatives insisted, had trespassed on lands they were not allowed; the warriors had carried no weapons, nor had they threatened the oil workers to their village with violence of any sort. In fact, they had escorted the workers to their village, where they offered them food and local beer. While their visitors feasted, the warriors persuaded the workers' guides to paddle away. However, the tribe claimed, the workers were never held against their will; they were free to go whenever they pleased.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Driving down that road, I remembered what the Shuars had told me in 1990 when, after selling IPS, I returned to offer to help them save their forests. "The world is as you dream it", they had said, and then pointed out that we in the North had dreamed of huge industries, lots of cars, and gigantic skyscrapers. Now we had discovered that our vision had in fact been a nightmare that would ultimately destroy us all. </b><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
"Change the dream", the Shuars had advised me. Yet here it was, more than a decade later, and despite the work of many people and nonprofit organisations, including the ones I had worked with, the nightmare had reached new and horrifying proportions.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
When my Outback finally pulled into the jungle town of Shell, I was hustled off to a meeting. The men and women who attended represented many tribes: Kichwa, Shuar, Achuar, Shiwiar, and Zaparo. Some had walked for days through the jungle, others had flown in on small planes, funded by nonprofits. A few wore their traditional kilts, face paint, and feathered headbands, though most attempted to emulate the townspeople, wearing slacks, T-shirts and shoes.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Representatives from the community accused of taking hostages spoke first. They told us that shortly after the workers returned to their oil company, over a hundred Ecuadorian soldiers arrived in their small community. They reminded us that this was at the beginning of a special season in the rain forests, the fruiting of the <i>chonta</i>. A tree sacred to the indigenous cultures, its fruit comes but once a year and signals the start of the mating season for many of the region's birds, including rare and endangered species. AS they flock to it, the birds are extremely vulnerable. The tribes enforce strict policies forbidding the hunting of these birds during the chonta season.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
"The timing of the soldiers couldn't have been worse", ad woman explained. I felt her pain and that of her companions as they told their tragic stories about how the soldiers ignored the prohibitions. They shot down the birds or sport and for food. In addition, they raided family gardens, banana groves, and manioc fields, often irreparably destroying the sparse topsoil. They used explosives in the rivers for fishing, and they ate family pets. They confiscated the local hunters' guns and blowguns, dug improper latrines, polluted the rivers with fuel oil and solvents, sexually molested women, and neglected to properly dispose of garbage, which attracted insects and vermin.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
"We had two choices", the man said, "We could fight, or we could swallow our pride and do our best to repair the damage. We decided it was not time yet to fight." He described how they attempted to compensate for the military's abuses by encouraging their own people to go without food. He called it a fast, in fact it sounded closer to a voluntary starvation. Old people and children became malnourished and and grew sick.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The spoke about threats and bribes. "My son", a woman said, "speaks English as well as Spanish and several indigenous dialects. He worked as a guide and translator for an ecotourist company. He earned a decent salary. The oil company offered him ten times as much. What could he do? Now he writes letters denouncing the old company and all the others who come to help us, and in his letters calls the oil companies our friends." She shook her body, like a dog shaking off water. "He is no longer one of us. My son..."<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
An elderly man wearing the traditional toucan-feather headdress of a shaman stood up. "You know about those three we elected to represent us against the oil companies, who died in that plane crash? Well, I am not going to stand here and tell you what so many say, that the oil companies caused the crash. But I can tell you that those three deaths dug a big hole in our organisation. The oil companies lost no time in filling that hole with their people."<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Another man produced a contract and read it. In exchange for three hundred thousand dollars, it ceded a vast territory over to a lumber company. It was signed by three tribal officials. </div>
<div>
"These aren't their real signatures", he said. "I ought to know, once is my brother. It's another type of assassination.To discredit our leaders."<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
It seemed ironic and strangely appropriate that this was taking place in a region of Ecuador where the oil companies had not yet been given permission to drill. They had drilled in many areas around this one, and the indigenous people had seen the results, had witnessed the destruction of their neighbours. As I sat there listening, I asked myself how the citizens of my country would react if gatherings like this featured on CNN or the evening news.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The meetings were fascinating and the revelations deeply disturbing. But something else also happened, outside the formal setting of those sessions. During breaks, at lunch and in the evening, when I talked with people privately, I frequently was asked why the United States was threatening Iraq. The impending war was discussed on the front pages of Ecuadorian newspapers that made their way into this jungle town, and the coverage was very different from coverage in the States. It included references to Bush's family ownership of oil companies, and to Vice President Cheney's role as former CEO of Halliburton.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
These newspapers were read to men and women who had never attended school. Everyone seemed to take an interest int his issue. Here I was, in the Amazon rain forest, among illiterate people many in North America consider "backward", even "savages", and yet probing questions were being asked that struck at the heart of the global empire.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Driving out of Shell, back past the hydroelectric dam and high into the Andes, I kept thinking about the difference between what I had seen and heard during this visit to Ecuador and what I had to become accustomed to in the United States. It seemed that Amazonian tribes had a great deal to teach us, that despite all our schooling and our many hours reading magazines and watching television news, we lacked awareness they had somehow found. "The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle", which I have heard many times throughout Latin America, and of similar prophecies I have encountered around the world.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Nearly every culture I know prophecies that in the late 1990s we entered a period of remarkable transiiton. At monasteries in Himalayas, ceremonial visits in Indonesia, and indigenous reservations in North America, from the depths of the Amazonian to the peaks of the Andes and into the ancient Mayan cities of Central America, I have heard that ours is a special moment in human history, and that each of us was born at this time because we have a mission to accomplish.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The titles and words of the prophecies differ slightly. They tell variously of a New Age, the Third Millenium, the Age of Aquarius, the Beginning of the Fifth Sun, or the end of old calenders and the commencement of new ones. Despite various terminologies, however, they have a great deal in common, and "The Prophecy of the Condor and the Eagle" is typical. It states that back in the mists of history, human society took two different paths: that of the condor (representing the heart, intuitive and mystical) and that of the eagle (representing the brain, rational and material). In the 1490s, the prophecy said, the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years later, in the 1990s, a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and eagle will have the opportunity to reunite and fly together in the same sky, along the same path. If the condor and eagle accept this opportunity, they will create the most remarkable offspring, unlike any ever seen before.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
"The Prophecy of the Condor and the Eagle", can be taken at many levels - the standard interpretation is that it foretells the sharing of indigenous with the knowledge of science, the balancing of yin and yang, and the bridging of northern and southern cultures. However, most powerful is the message it offers about consciousness; it says that we have entered a time when we can benefit that we can use these as a springboard to higher levels of awareness. As human beings, we can truly wake up and evolve into a more conscious species.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The condor people of the Amazon make it seem so obvious that if we are able to address questions about the nature of what it is to be a human in this new millennium, and about our commitment to evaluating our intentions for the next several decades, then we need to open our eyes and see the consequences of our actions - the actions of the eagle - in places like Iraq and Ecuador. We must shake ourselves awake. We who live in the most powerful nations history has ever known must stop worrying so much about the outcome of soap operas, football games, quarterly balance sheets, and the daily Dow Jones averages, and must instead reevaluate who we are and where we want our children to end up. The alternative to stopping to ask ourselves the important questions is simply too dangerous.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Shortly after I returned from Ecuador in 2003, The United States invaded Iraq for the second time in little over a decade."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-47453706593052977402012-12-17T02:09:00.002-08:002013-02-08T01:22:55.554-08:00The Weed of Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
So here we are. Thirteen of us sitting in a warm room in a very
cold Switzerland discussing the world we want and what needs to be done to get
there. What is wrong with the world you say? Or do you? We discuss this also.
What are the biggest problems? We decide problems is not a good word. Lets call
them challenges.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Climate Change<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Poverty<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
These two stand out in a list of things that take up two flipchart
sheets of paper. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Who are we and where do we come from? We are a group split up from
60 young people chosen by the Club of Rome to come to Switzerland to meet,
discuss and find solutions for the world and humanity's role in it.We are part of a growing population the next generation of
change agents. This is the hope anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
So we get split up into groups to spit ball a vision of the world
we would want and possible avenues to get there. In our group, we represent
virtually every continent: Africa, South America, Middle East, North America,
Australia, Asia, Europe. We represent a diversity of backgrounds in terms of
"career": Politican, Social Justice Activist, Biologist, Global
Change Ecologist, Communications Person, Mechanical Engineer, Energy Person,
Anthropologist. Would have been nice to have an economist. But never the less
here we are. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Surprisingly, we all come to an agreement that the root of all of
our problems is our current value system, and more specifically the economic
system. This is the reason why we are in this mess. But we also realise that this
is something we cannot change very quickly and that it would take too much
time to prevent the looming tipping points to which we are heading. Some of you
may or may not know that we have reached seven out of the nine planetary
boundaries right now (see a previous post where I allude to this information
published in Nature and Science recently). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Okay. So one of the group members comes up with an amazing analogy
in terms of what we can do. No, what we must do. To change. Let’s say the world
is under attack by a “weed”. Unfortunately, we do not have the means right now
to pull the entire plant out – and by the time we figure out how, it will have
been too late. We have the possible means of at least cutting the weed to
prevent some catastrophic problems our world will face. And this needs to
happen now. If the root (the root cause) of our problems is our value system,
then the stem is the result of this root. The stem, we discussed, represents
things like climate change, poverty, inequality, among others. And to cut the
stem would mean fast-tracking some solutions, like renewable energy and
agricultural production. We will have to get to the root eventually. If we
don’t, we will always only be fixing the symptoms. But never-the-less we need
to cut the stem for now. This brings some gentle disagreement within the group.
“What’s the point of cutting the stem, and wasting our time, when we need to
pull out the entire plant”, one of us says. Others in the group acknowledge
this and try and argue that, well, the bottom <i>is</i> that we do need to pull the entire plant. But we really do not
have the means right now, or in the near future, to push for an entire global
paradigm shift when current value systems are heavily dominated by greed and
consumerism. The weed of change we call it. I don’t entirely agree with the
name, but its catchy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn38RyZgDvZoUejY3RPUqFEGUaWjAw5Juh5zZH-CrB0CXDMxioyG2mghmdBCdDKU2yejC8PIJIHII7nSjOHtrHy-pDvkoVbQOCuVru8-iDItuZFdD9Nf2BwDRlIRaWsxn_fdNqNAr2PWU/s640/edit_weedofchange.jpg" width="456" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.change-the-course.org/">http://www.c</a><a href="http://www.change-the-course.org/">hange-the-course.org/</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
So the rest of the week we sit in a room and discuss endlessly how
we, as a group, can be part of this change. Both in terms of cutting the weed
at the stem, as well as mobilise this value shift. And its hard. And its
argumentative. And its passionate. And we come out with a simple plan.
Communication. How do we become the communicators…or the connectors…to the Club
of Rome. They have this information. How do we go home, use our channels of
influence, and become the messengers of this information. How do we package it
in a way that incites a critical global human mass to change? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
Unfortunately I missed our final presentation because I had to
jump on a plane to Equatorial Guinea to assess the country’s vulnerability
to climate change and how to come up with interventions which will lead to
resilience. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
So more reflections on this "change of course" after I have changed gear back to the
global picture. <span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-44364205544020877132012-09-20T06:46:00.000-07:002013-02-17T01:59:31.663-08:00Human Development within Planetary Boundaries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">Back home
after a very long trip all the way from Jeju, South Korea and I am still trying
to put together all the experiences, interesting people I met, and information
absorbed during the IUCN World Congress. One of these experiences I just have
to share – because it is shocking that this has not gone viral. It was a
presentation by Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre followed
by him being joined by a panel of some of the most forward-thinking people you
will ever meet: Cyrie Sendashonga, Anders Wijkman, Matthias Klum, James
Griffiths and Ashok Khosla. Google these people. You will be amazed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway,
let me give you a gist of what was discussed. And before I do that – this information
is published, I give the publications list at the end of this post for those
who want to go check them out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">So.
Basically, we have been very lucky for a very long time. Or should I say, since
the industrial revolution. “They” say this because Earth has been our friend during
our very destructive path - it has been absorbing a lot of our crap. But
apparently the year 2012 will be a monumental year to remember for future
generations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">Because the end of the year will mark the arctic spiral event for
the first time in millions of years. The Earth will become our Foe. The Arctic
polar cap will be completely ice-free. Let me explain: all that ice up there
will not be there anymore....that means that what was white will now be black.
And as we know, white reflects sun’s rays. Black absorbs. That white cap at the
top is our cooling system. You can figure out the rest. If and when you do –
you will realise the enormity of the situation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">So, that it
just a teaser. Feedback from the current system we have created. We have moved,
quite a while ago, into the Anthropocene. That means that this geological
timeframe we are in now is named after our species’ actions and influence on Earth. We are having such
an impact on our Earth that we are in the 6<sup>th</sup> Mass Extinction as a
result. Due to one species. Us. Humanity is reaching Planetary Saturation Point.
A great transformation to global sustainability at this point is not only necessary,
but it is possible and desirable. We need to be resilient and transform in the
face of crisis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">This is not
news. The book “Limits of Growth”, written yonks ago, warned us that growth is
limited in a closed system. And many of the things they predicted are
happening. Unfortunately, the book was heavily criticized because it made
assumptions about human innovations – they underestimated them – as a result some
of the predictions did not come true. Which of course Economists used to jump
on the entire nay-say bandwagon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">But, Johan
Rockström and his friends have developed a new concept. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">Planetary
Boundaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">It does not
make assumptions about human innovation. It does not make assumptions on
growth. All it does is say: Here is the playing field. This is the safe
operating space for humanity. It encompasses three strands of science:
resilience theory, scale of human action, Earth system and sustainability. The
boundaries are made up of 9 processes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">1. Climate Change<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">2. Ozone Depletion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">3. Ocean Acidification<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">4. Global Freshwater Use<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">5. Chemical Pollution<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">6. Land System Change<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">7. Rate of Biodiversity Loss<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">8. Bio-geochemical loading: Global Nitrogen and
Phosphorous Cycles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA">9. Atmospheric Aerosol Loading<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now. Imagine the catastrophic event, i.e. when Earth’s
system has reached tipping point with all of the above boundaries, as an
analogy of the human fever. At 42°C you die. But before that, at around
38°C,
you take something to prevent your fever from rising. You take action. The
Earth, at the moment, is at that point. 38°C. We have reached the tipping
point of seven out of the nine boundaries. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay. So now we have the context in which we realize that
the global transformation needed is not only massive, but fiercely urgent. What
do I mean by this transformation? Read two or three of my posts which came
before this one. Johan puts it into good perspective by saying…So…what do we
need to do?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. We need a new type of Science – one which integrates
social, natural (etc) science, looking at innovation, solutions, and so on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. We need a mindshift in Economics. (Value systems)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But then, he says, that these things will take too long and
we cannot, a this point, wait for these – it will take too long. We need to
fast-track some things,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. (a) Agriculture and (b) Energy. These two things can help
us drastically within Planetary Boundaries. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So we know the “who” (Government, Business, Consumers) must
act, we know the “what” needs to be acted on. Everything moving forward now is
HOW. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
Now you have this information. Are you going to be a
by-stander? Or are you going to make the changes that YOU can? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(List of publications – apologies, they are not exactly in a
standardized citation system…but then again this is my blog….so I don’t need to
be formal about it: Steffen et al. 2007; Hansen and Sato 2011; “A safe operating
space for humanity, Nature, 461:472-475; Rockström et al. 2011, Ecology and
Society; Science, 2010:329; Gerst et al. 2012, etc.)</span></div>
</div>
Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-76721152025533482682012-09-08T01:56:00.000-07:002012-09-08T02:13:16.465-07:00Causing controversy on the Future World Leaders Panel in the Think Tank of Business<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So this afternoon I found myself sitting on a panel with three others, defined as "Future Leaders", with the President of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, Peter Bakker, as our Chair. This was part of a kick-off panel - to an afternoon session of experts and prominent business leaders as part of the Business and Ecosystems Think Tank at the IUCN World Congress in Jeju, South Korea. So each of us had two minutes to give our statements, followed by a panel discussion. I had to start. This is a gist of what I said:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
I believe that, while great efforts have been initiated over the years, we are still
on an extremely destructive path for all of biodiversity on Earth, and this includes our own species. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
And this doom and gloom picture is the product of our entire
system, especially in terms of economy, which has been based on valuing
commodities which actually have no value, like Gold, and putting absolutely no
value on things that are intrinsic to our own survival – such as clean air, fresh water. This “undervalue”, or “no value”, as a
result, has completely disconnected us from nature and our dependency on it! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">
For instance, we
add the price of a bushel of wheat harvested, but we forget to subtract the
topsoil lost forever in its mass production. And we are changing too
slowly to come back from the MAJOR global losses of ecosystem services and
biodiversity as a result of this system. </div>
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We are already getting feedback
telling us that our current system is not working, peak oil, peak metal - and
the end of the golden age! This seems like we are moving toward a dooms day
picture if we carry on the same path. </div>
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However, there is also hope and
excitement in this picture – one with many opportunities combined with the challenges.
If a critical mass can realise, understand and want to change, we can use these
opportunities to move towards a very bright future in which we value human
well-being over material wealth – where a successful person is not a rich
person, but a happy, healthy person. </div>
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Poverty is eradicated, nature is
harmonized with development, and we connect again with our roots. I don’t have
the answers to get there – but I know that with like-minded people we can come
up with new, brilliant, innovative ways towards this paradigm shift in our
society – for the betterment of all living beings in Earth, and especially our
human society. </div>
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Business, in this sense, can play a key role toward finding
these innovations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My fellow panelists had their say. And then Peter Bakker, eternally pushing the edge of controversy, pushed us deeper. I decided to speak my mind and screw the diplomacy. So here I spoke about how we really need to make major changes in our own thinking - we should think about the system that we have created - I used the Niger Delta and what oil has done to it as an example - ruining lives and ecosystem services and at the cost of making just a few people rich. Among other things. Anyway - I had my platform; I said my piece. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWGsee-ZPmGPSCt19vkvu5obQm4KfgCSY1qX3b-yz1VeAAenBgxdftXnbPi6t4F8mHkPUTT-6RnBkDUb8XMuPcAxjI_M43KGrfPaHa46yUedNx9aqwd4JLXb2RmrOA5cyILZ0jiUS_OqI/s1600/la+foto+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWGsee-ZPmGPSCt19vkvu5obQm4KfgCSY1qX3b-yz1VeAAenBgxdftXnbPi6t4F8mHkPUTT-6RnBkDUb8XMuPcAxjI_M43KGrfPaHa46yUedNx9aqwd4JLXb2RmrOA5cyILZ0jiUS_OqI/s400/la+foto+4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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I only realised later, when the business leaders panel came up to speak, that the Shell President was one of the panelists (oops). He had obviously taken on some of my oil statements and made some of his own - basically backtracking and talking about that "we cannot go back to scratch and redefine our value systems" - we must instead do things such duplicating best practices. Great. No complaints. But this coming from a corporation which has not made any attempts at research and development for renewables. This coming from a corporation still looking for more fossil fuels when we all know that we have reached peak. This coming from a corporation which has been put in front of the International Court of Justice for human rights violations - a company that has made strides in ruining vital ecosystem services. And for what? A resource which we really don't need anymore - we have the capacity to create energy without it If we could just spend as much time and energy researching for alternatives as we do drilling for oil offshore<span style="line-height: 115%;">. In a much more innovative, off-the-grid manner. Why do we insist on continuing to destroy the Earth and its livingbeings, and of course our own human society, for a resource that we quite happily and easily can live without? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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I can tell you why. Because of rich powerful people who have been brainwashed to think that power and money is the be-all and end-all. </div>
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<br /></div>
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So I question those people: What are you fighting humanity for? Richdom? Why? Why can't you instead enjoy life for what it is - and let everyone else enjoy life too? </div>
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<br /></div>
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I do not want to delve into detail of these questions. Instead I leave it at that - with you to ponder and think about these a little longer. </div>
</div>
Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-23527490281157014602012-07-27T08:42:00.000-07:002012-07-27T08:42:29.873-07:00Bunny-huggers versus industrialisers is a misconception!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA">I have just attended two workshops over the
space of three days and have come up with the sad realisation that integral
people to decision-making processes in my country, and even those sitting in
the realm of biodiversity, are still stuck in that old-fashioned mindset that
development and “saving the environment” are antagonistic. This has set up the
context for the separation of two types of people in our society – on the one side
are the perceived “bunny-huggers”, and the other side the perceived “industrialisers”.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">The industrialisers think the bunny-huggers
don’t care about the progress of the nation, and don’t care about the nation’s
people who strive for a better life in terms of employment and quality of life.
And in a nutshell, care more about “animals” than they do humans. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">The bunny-huggers think the industrialisers
just want to destroy everything no matter at what cost. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">All the while this old-school antagonistic
way of thinking is just separating humanity from sustainability and instead disconnecting
us further from each other, our own goals, and a positive and prosperous way
forward. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">Have we forgotten that we are actually
interconnected with the environment? Have we forgotten that we form part of
nature and have evolved in a very complicated system where EVERYTHING has a
cause and effect? We live on a planet that is a closed system. Everything links
to one another in one way or another. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">One big example of how we have forgotten this
concept: climate change!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We are still intensely naïve in terms of
what effect we have on our surroundings, and what effect our surroundings have
on us. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">I heard someone say the other day that “some
people just want the entire Namibia under “conservation” but the truth is “we
need to sacrifice some areas for high rate production for the greater good of
our country”….i.e. land for high production agriculture. Okay. Good example. So
lets say we put aside land for this. So we take the land, do some heavy
fast-paced production in the “name of food security”. Woah! Suddenly we have a
large amount of food and income from this! Cool. But wait! We have not been clever enough to subtract
the amount of top soil lost in the production of this food from the income
generated. That topsoil is now gone and the land is useless. Shocker! Now what?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">This is a reflection of the massive problem
in our current accounting system. Which is why we are in this massive gaping hole
of a problem to begin with! We have valued things that have absolutely no
value. And we have put no value on things that we intrinsically need for our
own survival, such as productive land, clean air, fresh water and the ecosystem
services that provide for these things. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">So it is no wonder that we are destroying
these very things that we really need. We add to our accounting system the
amount of income we have gained from rice paddies, but forget to subtract the
loss in storm buffers we will have from destroying the mangroves. And then
comes along a massive hurricane and everyone suffers. Well. At least one
company made millions for a few years; and one or two percent went to the GDP
for a few years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We have based our entire economic system on
extraction. We have not included the sustainability concept, and we have not
included the fact that every time we destroy something….it has an intrinsic
effect on the economy. Something we have forgotten! This is the very reason why
we are having economic meltdowns in the Northern hemisphere. We have forgotten
the limits of growth in a closed system. We are now reaching peak oil, peak
metals, the end of the golden age. And our civilisation is crashing and
burning. Bottom line. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">So now we need to think of the way forward.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We need to stop acting stupid. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We need to realise that we are
intrinsically connected to the natural world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We need to take a step back and make a very
important paradigm shift in our way of thinking. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">And I mean this in the context of our value
systems. We have been conditioned all our lives that we need to have lots of
money to be successful or happy. And we have based our entire system on this
concept. The American dream. We forget that we would physically need four planets
if every person would live like the average American. Nevermind the fact that
the average American is deeply depressed – probably works three jobs so that he
can have three cars and five tvs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We need to start realising, for instance,
where exactly our food comes from and how it is made. We need to become
grounded again and start valuing our own well-being instead of what type of car
we drive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">How did we get to this point of “I need
more and more of stuff that I don’t need to make me happy”? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">And the fact that this system is supposedly
helping the poor out of poverty?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We have been on this fast-track economic
growth lane at what cost for more than a hundred years. We have lost vital
ecosystem services. We have one BILLION people who are starving right now. We have
millions of people who have died unnecessarily at the cost of losses of ecosystem
services (e.g. flooding, hurricanes, water wars, resource wars). I use Nigeria
as an example, or more specifically the Niger Delta. Good old oil. 42 million
people here are still living in abject poverty. 600 BILLION USD has been pumped
out of here. Not one of those little notes has made it to any of the 42 million
people here. But don’t worry, five percent of the world is getting enormously
rich at the cost of 95% of the human population, every other species on this
planet, and the services that we require for our future survival. WHY? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">Why don’t we instead start thinking of new
and innovative ways? Why haven’t we started thinking of what really matters:
human well-being! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">We are realising that we need ecosystem
services for our survival and prosperity. Yet we are still destroying it bit by
bit. We are still heavily depending on a destructive system, and depending on
resources which are exhaustive and are very quickly running out. But wait…we
found a little more oil….lets destroy that land and drill the oil out. Thank
goodness, it will buy us another five years – and we can put up the price while
we are at it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">But we don’t need oil anymore! We have a
million other ways to get energy. We have a million other ways to gain, in
monetary terms, value from renewable resources and sustainable activities. For
instance in Namibia, eco-tourism together with biotrade could far exceed the percentage
GDP of mining. Yet mining is the strongest component of the National
Development Plan 4.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"> What
are we doing? Are we going to destroy the possibility for other economic gains
because we can make a quick buck for the next five years?<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3583367746310515823" name="_GoBack"></a>
And after that we will be pretty much screwed. But hey, that’s the next politician’s
problem. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">How can we have gotten so far in terms of
human progress, but are still so stupid? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-ZA">Lets start shifting our paradigm now! </span></div>
</div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-3813424169164988202012-07-16T09:24:00.001-07:002012-07-16T09:24:53.094-07:00Our education: has it made us successful .... or even more ignorant?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Have you ever noticed that everything humanity depends on is in jeopardy due not to so-called "ignorant" people? It is actually the result of work by people with MDs, MBAs, and PhDs. I was reminded the other day of a brilliant essay written by David Orr called "What is Education for?". And it inspired me to summarise it in my own words (uh...to an extent). <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You know, think about how we have been educated. Our education has conditioned us to think success is equivalent to financial gain and that more "knowledge" pulls us out of naivety. But...interestingly..the only people who have lived sustainably on the planet for any amount of time could not read. </div>
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<div>
What is wrong with our education? Well, for one we learn seperate disciplines and have no fathom of connections and linkages - we live in a closed system where everything is interlinked - but we produce economists who lack basic ecology. As a result, in Orr's words, our accounting systems do not subtract the costs of biotic impoverishment, soil erosion, the destruction of vital ecosystem services, poisons in the air and water, and resource depletion from gross national product. We add the price of the sale of a bushel of wheat to the GNP but forget to subtract three bushels of topsoil lost in its production. And ironically we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we are so much richer than we actually are (and...slowly....getting information feedback from our current economic system that this very fact has screwed us!). Universities cough out experts in narrow fields who have no integrated sense of the unity of things. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatc5qwBKLLZr2vCp5I4Lw0L28c3jj18S5HCWDXE8rbKngkGbnw4bAVR5e34E0TZKtjVUAOUhMNNKVaI6HtN0H70I7_xE9Rw6j9SCQo1M_m_iuMRKRAd-u100-HdSxZ_I2MAr8w_it7j8/s1600/pink-floyd-another-brick-in-the-wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatc5qwBKLLZr2vCp5I4Lw0L28c3jj18S5HCWDXE8rbKngkGbnw4bAVR5e34E0TZKtjVUAOUhMNNKVaI6HtN0H70I7_xE9Rw6j9SCQo1M_m_iuMRKRAd-u100-HdSxZ_I2MAr8w_it7j8/s320/pink-floyd-another-brick-in-the-wall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
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<div>
Orr gives us six myths which I find very eye-opening. I am not going to mention all of them, only the ones which were particularly interesting to me:</div>
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<div>
<b>"Ignorance is a solvable problem"</b>. I thought so. Apparently, though, it is instead an inescapable part of the human condition. He states that the advance of knowledge always carries with it an advance of some form of ignorance. Makes sense. He uses the example of Thomas Midgely Jr., who discovered CFCs (oops...) - what had previously just been a piece of trivial ignorance suddenly became a critical and urgent, even life-threatening gap in our understanding of the biosphere. Noone actually thought to ask....what does this thing do? until 1990, when CFCs had created a thinning of the ozone layer worldwide. Makes you wonder how much we create and process which we ourselves don't fully understand. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another one I find neat, because we try and do this in our daily lives. The myth that we can <b>"manage the planet...with the right technology and knowledge"</b>. However, the complexity of Earth and its life can never be safely managed. As Orr puts it, the ecology of the top inch of topsoil is still largely unknown. What might be much more realistic to manage, is us - like our desires, economies, politics and so forth. Orr states that it makes far better sense to reshape our ourselves to fit our planet than attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He then goes onto another myth, which (I smile ironically while typing this) states that <b>"our culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement"</b>. One word: arrogant. Lets have a look at capitalism and communism as his example. Communism apparently failed because it produced too little at too high a cost (much like renewable energy versus oil). But then again, as Orr rightfully puts it, capitalism has also failed us, because it produces too much, shares too little, also at too high a cost to our children and grandchildren (and quite quite frankly, current generations - look at the impacts already as a result of climate change). Capitalism is failing because it destroys morality altogether. We live in a disintegrating culture. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I absolutely love the words of Ron Miller, which Orr uses in his essay that </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>"our culture does not nourish that which is best or noblest in the human spirit. It does not cultivate vision, imagination, or aesthetic or spiritual sensitivity. It does not encourage gentleness, generosity, caring, or compassion. Increasingly in the late 20th century, the economic-technocratic-statist worldview has become a monstrous destroyer of what is loving and life-affirming in the human soul". </i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Our education is a reflection of our culture in a sense. We spurt out people with aspirations and visions that we can all have a piece of an infinite pie. People who have become ignorant of the things we must know to live (well) and sustainably as a species on Earth. In the words of Thomas Merton "mass production of people literally unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade". </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well...so what are we going to do about it? I suppose its easy. because everyone is capable of change - and we are all responsible for our own learning in the end. After all - we are "only cogs in an ecological mechanism such that, if they work with that mechanism, their mental and material wealth can expand indefinitely but if they refuse to work with it, it will ultimately grind them to dust". Leopold - "if education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?" Mmmmm....lets all have a big think about the changes we can make...</div>
</div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-51090300164129223122012-06-25T08:59:00.003-07:002012-06-26T06:35:08.331-07:00Wake up Call!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So I was listening to my music this morning while I was getting ready for work; a band called 'Rebelution', and the lyrics of this song struck me. They say it like it is! Check it out: </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's a shame when somebody shows, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Diamonds and pearls to those you don't, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This goes out to the wealthy homes, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That under the moonlight there's a road, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To a place for the struggling, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Where people treat you like a human being, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Free of racism and other things, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Free from money and the imagery, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why oh why has it come to be? </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
People look up to celebrities, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They do nothing for you and me, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They should be giving it up to the community, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And this ain't just domestic man, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This is a world wide problem and, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Still people kill for the oil ya, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why you ask? Well cause there's demand,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
But stay on top says the businessman, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And let the world be left to strand, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hey next month I'll make twice the grand, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Things they are going just as planned, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And he'll spend most of it on what he sees, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Maybe buy something he may never need, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
See now this is the mentality, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Wake up call this is reality </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You see now this is the mentality, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Wake up call this is reality </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yesterday I saw a man explain, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why he bought his seventh car to date, </div>
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How does it feel to live the life you like, </div>
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With millions of us left without a ride?</div>
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And yet we look up to the stars and dream, </div>
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What's it's like to live among elite, </div>
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I see the future in a rut, </div>
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With the poorest of the people in the mud </div>
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Well here's a message Mr. Business man, </div>
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The more you make the more the gap expands, </div>
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The more you give the more the love you land, </div>
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The more you take the more we suffer man,</div>
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But he'll spend most of it on what he sees, </div>
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Maybe buy something he may never need, </div>
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See now this is the mentality, </div>
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Wake up call this is reality </div>
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You see now this is the mentality, </div>
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Wake up call this is reality</div>
</div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-41001973241245375912012-05-24T08:54:00.001-07:002012-05-24T08:54:29.422-07:00A few thoughts on the mis-use of the new and sexy word "sustainability"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I received an email from one of my "sustainability" mailing lists the other day. It read:<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Coal – Energy for Sustainable Development<o:p></o:p></span></h4>
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No kidding. I suppose there is not something <em>that shockingly</em> controversial in the title. Its not like it says "Coal: A sustainable energy supply". But never-the-less....this was an email notification a report released on coal and its role in clean energy. Mmmm. Interesting. Yar, you can look it up yourself...http://www.worldcoal.org/coal-energy-access/. <br />
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Anyway. Coming back from a three-week holiday visiting my sister in Australia, and I come back with a few new experiences and thoughts with this kind of thing in mind. How big corporations, and, for that matter, anyone who has profit in mind, have suddenly jumped on the bandwagon of using the words "sustainable" and "sustainable development" in such a way that I am not sure they actually know what it means. <br />
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Two of my friends in the Balaton group, a network of sustainability actors I am part of, recently wrote an extremely good paper entitled "Peak metals, minerals, energy, wealth, food and people towards the end of the golden age; considerations for a sustainable society". Here, they give beautiful definitions of what "sustainability" and "sustainable development" is supposed to mean. They say that "sustainability" is about making an activity take such shape that it can go on virtually forever, without ruining its own conditions. They say that this is fundamentally different from "sustainable development", which in itself needs careful thought on what exactly is meant by "development", or "sustainable growth", which in itself, they say, does not actually exist as a reasonable concept. They go on to say<br />
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"<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Hard thermodynamic limits are set by mass balances for use resources in finite supply (energy, metals, structural materials, fibre, and food through phosphorus and nitrogen). Only resources that have inbuilt regeneration function may be made to last for ever. Limits are also set by social systems in terms of personal integrity and security, interpersonal trust, transparency and degree of democracy. These are different from sustainable development which sometimes include perpetual economic or mass volume growth, which is not possible on a limited <span style="font-size: x-small;">Earth and therefore greatly unsustainable."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;"></span></span><br />
Anyway, back to my trip to Australia. So there I sat on the "cheapest possible flight" my travel agent friend was able to procure for me. This meant me flying from Windhoek, Namibia, via Johannesburg, RSA to Abu Dhabi, UAE, to Sydney, AUS and then finally to Brisbane, AUS - my final destination. Interesting. In the in-flight magazines, there were mutliple articles on how the airlines are trying to mitigate their emissions, reduce their environmental impacts, and so on. Yet....it is cheaper to fly halfway around the world in several airplanes...than to actually fly a straight, minimum-mile usage, flight path...which would greatly reduce emissions. Now can you imagine how many cheapo people there are out there who are accumulating ridiculous amounts of unnesseray carbon emissions because they are flying via Dubai, when all they need to do is fly from London to Johannesburg, or whatever. <br />
<br />
And then...mining. I absolutely LOVE how mining is trying to get in on their "sustainability" slogans. Not that I want to bash them totally...but it seems like such a contradiction to say that "we will mine sustainably". Because within the lines of the definition of sustainability I happen to agree with, mining is not sustainable. It has a short lifespan, contributes much money (often to a tiny amount of people at the <span style="font-family: inherit;">cost of many) and then suddenly comes to a halt, leaving behind low qualty, often dangerous and environmentally degraded areas. But wait! There is another deposit....that will buy us another 20 years.
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It all just seems so ridiculous. How we can be so intelligent, and so stupid at the same time. We have the ability to live sustainably, and we actually need to do it this way. And yet, for decades, we are brainwashed by the five percent who are forcing the system into what it is, making themselves immensely rich (on value-less items), with the rest of us blindly lapping up the idea that this is what we all want to be: immensely rich. In the meantime the world is slowly becoming a sad and poor place (by poor I mean in terms of things that have value); while at the same time we go around pretending to care about sustainability and superficially doing our part by "using a spoon twice for our coffees". </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thoughts that are neither here nor there. But something to think about.</span> </span></div>
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</div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-59274915440457342242012-03-30T08:01:00.001-07:002012-04-02T01:20:31.730-07:00Passion for the well-being of our people vs corrosion of democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have been following with interest a dear friend of mine's plight in Malawi recently. It seems that his beautiful country, with its beautiful people, are facing some serious challenges. The challenge: the painful process of corrosion of democracy. Sound familiar?<br />
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So many of our nations here in Africa have made amazing progress with democracy and good governance. However, all to often we hear of stories of incredible corruption and absolute abuse of power and country funds. And even more often, these stories stem from the highest stage...the presidency. Presidents come into power with the most beautiful and inspiring passion for their people. And somewhere along the way, this passion is replaced with greed, and, dare I say it, insanity. Ring a bell yet? I am sure we all know of one very prominent leader in power right now in a country very close to home who fits this bill. But I won't elaborate on his story; I am sure we have all heard it many times before. <br />
<br />
In honour of my dear friend and his country, I will use President Mutharika of Malawi as an example to illustrate my point. What a wonderful man he was. He had to flee Malawi in the 1960s for fear of being persecuted because he spoke against the autocratic rule of then President Banda. When he returned, he, and his pals, formed the United Democratc Front (UDF) and promptly ran for election. Mutharika stood for democratic reform and the protection of human rights. He promised to fight the hard fight of corruption (yip, you read right!). He came into power in 2004, with an exemplary record....working experience with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the World Bank. He was re-elected in 2009. And then things started to go pear-shaped. <br />
<br />
He has become intolerant of criticism, he has randomly and arbitrarily dismissed government officials and has been implicated in the harassment of civil society activists who oppose his policies. And...surprise...more and more members of his government are being implicated in major corruption scandals! Something more shocking: in 2011 President Mutharika dissolved cabinet! Then, later, appointed a new one, which included his brother and wife...And there is more: despite Malawi's heavy dependence on external support, he has managed to get onto a warpath with development partners, denying the country all sorts of resources.<br />
<br />
I ask myself: How does this happen? How does someone come into power with so much heart, and then, while in power, the heart slowly turns into a cold dollar bill. How can you sleep restfully at night knowing that the 1000-count cotton sheets keeping you warm means that there are five children out there who will die of a malnutrition-related disease? I will have to leave it at that and let you ponder...maybe you can come up with a solution to this problem we have faced in too many countries. </div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-75453488558905709202012-03-04T22:18:00.005-08:002013-02-17T01:18:10.752-08:00The biggest mistake: undervaluation of biodiversity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sitting in Nairobi airport with four hours to kill after Ethiopian Airlines greedily overbooked the flight I was supposed to be on from Addis Ababa to Johannesburg and subsequently had to divert me via Nairobi, followed by a painful overnighter in Johannesburg before I can finally make my way back home tomorrow morning to Windhoek. Bleh. But anyway – it gives me time for this. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">My last five days were spent in Addis Ababa at a workshop organised by the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity on updating the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans for the countries of Africa. Can I hear you snoring already? Let me see if I can lose the terrible acronym-filled UN language....basically this was a gathering of African countries and “international experts” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>focusing on how to mainstream the importance of biodiversity, and indeed the natural system into our countries’ development. I was sent as “resource person” (whatever that means) on effective communication – which, as we are slowly realising, is integrally important to get messages across to various facets of society, whether it be to policy-makers or the little guy on the street. As I write this I see on CNN a story on turtles in Gabon...mmmm...maybe things aren’t as bleak as I seem to think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But yar. It seems that, even though we (unknowingly) depend on biodiversity and environmental services for our daily function, we still, in this day and age, manage to completely undervalue it in our decision-making. Perhaps because we get it for free....and take it for granted...so much so that we don’t seem to care if we degrade it. It reminds me of the Millenium Assessment’s results from 2005 (a global survey on the state of our natural system) – a very stark reminder of what we are doing to our Earth...and to ourselves. One of the most humbling statements “Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protections is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continues to be degraded”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So now we sit at this unnecessarily formal conference venue discussing, in oh-so-typical UN delegate fashion, how to go about mainstreaming biodiversity into our national development plans. Very interesting and passionate people. But we are environmental people. And yet we are trying to find ways to communicate the value of ecosystem services across sectors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>How much would you be willing to pay for clean air? For a view that takes your breath away? For a mangrove swamp that will save your life when a massive hurricane comes along? How much are you willing to pay to protect a dune system that has evolved over millions of years, in which a complex network of wind and sand dynamics shifts integral nutrients to your agricultural production system? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">For centuries we have not put any value on these things. What we have valued however, are things which have no value (gold!?). We undervalue the basic underlying roots for life on Earth. And we are paying for it. Unfortunately not enough of us know about this. And those of us who do struggle to communicate this to the people in power. Well, so there I sat at this conference and pondered my fellow Africans. Somehow, we in Africa, with “our problems”, have managed to maintain most of the valued ecosystem services and biodiversity (although a lot of it lies on the edge). Do we need to keep copying pasting systems deemed as “successful” (and what are these systems looking like now) from the west? Systems that are showing major failures and are destructive...Or shall we look at what has worked well in Africa and how to showcase our amazing stories? We are so much closer still to nature (although this is changing as we aspire to this so-called “American dream” – people moving from their rural areas to urban slums in the vain naive hope that it will bring them this “aspiration”), and if so, can’t we still find our own ways to become successful and wealthy (defined in different ways) than our western counterparts who are now facing the consequences of their destructive actions? I think we can. But we need to start valuing our own systems of success, stop being spoon-fed, and taking charge for our own continent. This starts with our own confidence. And the hope for a new system of success...where the well-being of our people is more important than the monetary wealth of the few people on the top. </span></div>
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Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-31560626144490497962012-02-24T07:21:00.000-08:002012-02-24T07:21:18.749-08:00Playing for change - a beautiful initiativeOkay I admit - I am being very lazy with this week's post - too many things to do. However, this initiative called "Playing for change" is such a wonderful one that it deserves some awareness. Its musicians all over the world coming together to play songs...for change. Wonderful stuff and I am sure it will inspire you...if not your money back guaranteed! <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtgofrafon0&list=FLsInUu06LcFm9BYeRdpTqSg&index=4&feature=plpp_video">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtgofrafon0&list=FLsInUu06LcFm9BYeRdpTqSg&index=4&feature=plpp_video</a>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-90064193479537985582012-02-09T08:19:00.000-08:002012-02-09T22:42:59.346-08:00In honour of the change maker Bob MarleyBob Marley the legend. You know it was his birthday on Monday, the 6th February? I actually went to a gig honouring his birthday here in Windhoek, Namibia over the weekend. I wonder how many other places in the world had a similar party in his honour. So with this thought in mind I decided to write a piece marking my appreciation of this remarkable person. The person who made music that, on some level, reaches every person in the world.I do not think I have ever met a person who does not like Bob Marley's music. His music transcends gender, race, age.<br />
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I read on his wiki page a statement that I have lazily copied and pasted:<br />
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"Bob Marley ranks among both the most popular and the most misunderstood figures in modern culture ... That the machine has utterly emasculated Marley is beyond doubt. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara" title="Che Guevara">Che Guevara</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party" title="Black Panther Party">Black Panthers</a>, and pinned their <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posters" title="Posters">posters</a> up in the Wailers Soul Shack record store; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated, and dressed the part on an early album sleeve; whose heroes were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brown" title="James Brown">James Brown</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali" title="Muhammad Ali">Muhammad Ali</a>; whose God was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I" title="Haile Selassie I">Ras Tafari</a> and whose sacrament was <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana" title="Marijuana">marijuana</a>. Instead, the Bob Marley who surveys his kingdom today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Of course it has assured his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality" title="Immortality">immortality</a>. But it has also demeaned him beyond recognition. Bob Marley was worth far more."<br />
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And yes, its true. Yes, his music does tumble out of radio like candy with people listening often not actually listening to the words echoed. But. So what!? <br />
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Bob Marley's music has touched people's hearts. His character induced change in mindsets and behaviour all over the world. His music is the closest we have ever gotten to feel truly connected to the world and nature and simple happiness. One love. One world. One heart. This message induces more change in the world than a war ever will. Lets give a personal, from the heart perspective: Even in the lowest moments in my life, Bob Marley manages to say to me, "Justine, get some perspective and stop your bullshit, life is amazing, look around, and spread the message". And even if his words in his songs say otherwise he seems to have this out-of-our-realms-of-understanding effect on us. <br />
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He has been part of so much liberation in the world. He sang at the Independence of Zimbabwe celebrations. I wish he would have been around during our Independence in Namibia, but Ziggy Marley did an equally good job. He has instilled so much hope in communities which have in the past been left hopeless. He voiced loudly the religion of Ras Tafari, honoured Haille Salassie and lifted the people of Jamaica, and in doing so breathed pride into Africa. The Aboriginal people of Australia continue to burn a sacred flame to honor his memory in Sidney's Victoria Park, members of the Native American Hopi and Havasupai tribe also honour him. There are also many tributes to Bob Marley throughout India, throughout many countries in Africa and South America, and indeed, the world. Nevermind those who worship him.<br />
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So it doesn't matter if the machine has poured hot pink plastic over the memory of him to the plastic world. We all will have our own memory of what he was and is to us. And we all love him. And with this I leave him to finish off with his magic words<br />
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Why's this fussing and a-fighting? <br />
I wanna know, Lord, I wanna know <br />
Why's this bumping and a-boring? <br />
I wanna know, Lord, I wanna know now <br />
<br />
We should really love each other (love each other) <br />
In peace and harmony (peace and harmony), ooh <br />
Instead, we're fussing and fighting (fussing and fighting) <br />
And them workin' iniquity (... iniquity) <br />
<br />
Why's this fussing and a-fighting? <br />
I wanna know, Lord, I wanna know (... know), I wanna know now <br />
Why's this cheating and backbiting? <br />
(I wanna know ...) I wanna know, oh, Lord, I wanna know now<br />
<br />
We should really love each other (love each other) <br />
In peace and harmony (peace and harmony) <br />
Instead, instead, we're fussing and fighting (fussing and fighting) <br />
Like we ain't supposed to be (... supposed to be), tell me why.</div>
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<br /></div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-47926009028083539452012-01-24T08:03:00.000-08:002012-01-25T09:20:25.682-08:00Wanna stop being brainwashed? Step 1: Take the blindfold off when you read the news.I think I mentioned this in passing in a previous post. But a story I have been exposed to today made me think about it again and I promptly decided that this story needs its own limelight. So. Lets start. <br />
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The Niger Delta. Home to 31 million people. Also home to one of the top 10 most important wetlands and coastal marine ecosystems in the world. <br />
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Also home to one of the largest oil deposits in the world. It is estimated that mining oil here has pushed 600 BILLION USD since the 1960s (but lets be honest - most of this money has gone where!?). <br />
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A UN Environmental Assessment Report released in August 2011 said Shell's operations were responsible for heavy contamination of farmlands and rivers in Ogoni area. This isn't the first time I have heard of such wrong-doing by Shell in this part of the world. During my environmental law studies I came accross a human rights case in which Shell was at the centre: people were killed, forcably moved from their homes by "mercenaries", working, in one way or another, for Shell. I remember this clearly because when I read this I was shocked that this was the first time I heard of this behaviour by such a massive corporation (ignorant much?). <br />
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Yet this blatant evil has never made the news headlines. Interesting...mmm? Anyway, I digress. Back to the UN Environmental Report released last year. This report estimated that it would cost 1 BILLION to clean the mess up. And even if the oil companies pay up, it will take 25 to 30 YEARS (thats a third of a life!) to restore the environment. And...surprise surprise.....the majority of the 31 million people live here in poverty. Obviously none of the 600 billion little green notes made it towards the betterment of their livelihood. Surprised? Hardly! <br />
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Now, this isn't even the news. The actual news is: (queue major headline) <br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;"> "2.4 million gallons of crude oil spilt off the coast of Nigeria" </span></strong><br />
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We don't even know when exactly this happened. On 22 December 2011, fishermen were apparently put on alert after Shell admitted to spilling oil (but they did not admit to nearly as much as they had actually spilt). And now more than a month later, noone knows exaclty what happened.<br />
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Shell began drilling the Bonga field (off the Nigerian coastline near the Niger Delta) in 2002. Since then they have had devastating oil spills (heard of any of them on international headline news?). <br />
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The amount of destruction that has been caused, <br />
the human lives destroyed, <br />
the beauty and serenity of the Niger Delta that can never be regained. <br />
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600 Billion pieces of paper. <br />
A handful of people now have a bunch of things they don't need. <br />
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And yet all we hear on the news is that the Niger Delta is dangerous because of evil scary kidnappers who will kill expats. What about what a corporation like Shell has done in the Niger Delta in the past decades?<br />
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Apologies to you, innocent people who were unfortunate enough to be born in the Niger Delta, many of whom have either died or who lived in the gutter of hell. <br />
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And apologies to you from the rest of us in the world who are ignorant and brainwashed, filling our tanks with your blood at a Shell service station, and were thus unable to help you. <br />
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Let this be a lesson. When you watch your CNN or Sky news, think about the stories that are not being told. And start making yourself more aware. You wanna know how? Simple. Take the blindfold off.Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-79310563384862723812012-01-15T03:16:00.000-08:002012-01-15T03:42:27.033-08:00Can humanity change in time to prevent global catastrophe?Sunday. Sitting in the office working on presenting to my colleagues tomorrow the indicators of the UNCCD 10 year-strategic plan. I stare down at the document....Strategic objective 1: To improve the living conditions of affected populations. As I stare at this I keep getting flashbacks of a heated discussion I had with two very good friends at a restaurant last night. It was one of those discussions which gets heads on other tables peaking over to see what the commotion is about. Arms flailing, face blushing and talking passionately in circles without actually listening to eachother. The discussion was very much around the concept that is linked to my work every day. Lets put it simply: <strong>humanity is heading on a fast and deadly path towards global catastrophe. We have been populating exponentially, the system we have created is destructive to the planet we depend on for our survival. </strong><br />
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Now our argument isn't about this fact. For it is now true for too many people to ignore. I mean, forty years ago a controversial study (published in a book called 'limits of growth') warned that we had to curb growth or risk global meltdown. Back then it was criticised and bashed down heavily. Now slowly people are starting to realise that there is absolute truth in this (or are they?). So, as I said, our argument was not about this. We all agreed that the system we have created is doomed for failure. What we argued about, ultimately, was about whether the global community would realise this in time to make enough changes that would prevent a global catastrophe. <br />
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<strong>Their argument:</strong> No! It will take a global catastrophe, or tipping point, for humans to change (i.e. even as far as a huge cataclysmic event that would destroy more than half the human population, leaving only those left who realise that they need to make a change.). Humanity is too far in the system of greed and capitalism, mass media brainwashing and the like for us to change; there is too little time, and there are too little people who know or care enough to change. <br />
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<strong>My argument:</strong> endlessly hopeful (bordering on naive, as my friend would like to put it). <br />
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And so the heated debate went on. I used arguments like "if we have the ability to change the world in just two hundred years for the worse, we have the ability to turn things around just as fast", and "what if Martin Luther King had such a defeatist opinion of humanity". And they used arguments like "global population is the biggest problem" and "small changes will not be enough, what is needed is one massive change in mindset which is not the reality in a world in which mass media is controlled by corporations and the like". And how are change agents of sustainability reaching the masses and the "world controllers" (which are, ultimately, massive corporations only out to get global profit - who cares about the future generations, humanity is selfish, and so on). <br />
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In the end no one was able to convince anyone of changing their opinion on this topic, and everyone left it at deadlock. But no one went away without having learnt something. I learnt of my own weaknesses in communication and properly listening (instead of just trying to be heard). And I was left with a slightly bad taste in my mouth. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;">I am of course still hopeful in ability for humanity to change. Yes, we have reached carrying capacity. Yes, we are destroying Earth at an alarming rate. Yes, humans are greedy. Humans have done some immeasurably bad things for a quick buck. And we are all conditioned in certain ways that hinder us from making a positive change. My friend made a valid point. If the people who know and care are too "scared" or "conditioned by their own convenience" to do anything then what hope do we have ("like you, Justine, could only preach if you were to cycle to work, grow your own, live without electricity....but you drive to work, you buy at big supermarkets, you work on your laptop everyday"). And its true. I myself am the first to admit that I am part of this system. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;">But. But. But. And I actually need the words of someone much wiser than I am to try and push some inspiration into a seemingly doomed future. I am reading this book currently by Alan Atkisson called "The ISIS Agreement". I am intending to write a short and personal summary of it once I am done. But I feel it imperative to add some of his thoughts into my argument here. In a chapter he calls "The Hope Graph", he jots down a job description for those trying to "save the world". One of them strikes me because it came up in our argument last night:</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>Meanwhile, the momentum of change in the wrong direction will be immeasurably huge, and will continue to accelerate, in ways that seem unstoppable.</em></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is hope behind the Tom Atlee quote he uses "Things are getting better and better, and worse and worse, faster and faster". And Alan goes on to say something that I must just quote:</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><em><span style="font-size: small;">But oddly, there is also hope in this picture (of despair). For if the world can be transformed in troubling or dangerous ways, at speeds that beggar belief, it can also change in positive ways, and at similarly incredible speeds. Do you remember the Berlin Wall? Apartheid? The British Empire's Rule in India? Hardly anyone, living at the time when these artifacts of history were a reality, would have been able to predict with confidence how quickly they would be overturned and replaced by new and highly democratic systems. This is the reality of transformation. </span></em></span></span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk5EYgrJZXXHcjNrKreLXItRMJlcI9KqYPRx5zZNLRKmivPBfKaMqhBUjXatLAfw5yeVS7JtpifPV4Rbi3QcVGL39M1zejlcN2j0Hlk4Sr-WgiLT0EXntsIuxUf3qJ0K3oYOTt8e-rMKI/s1600/IMG-20120115-00032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk5EYgrJZXXHcjNrKreLXItRMJlcI9KqYPRx5zZNLRKmivPBfKaMqhBUjXatLAfw5yeVS7JtpifPV4Rbi3QcVGL39M1zejlcN2j0Hlk4Sr-WgiLT0EXntsIuxUf3qJ0K3oYOTt8e-rMKI/s400/IMG-20120115-00032.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hope Graph (taken from Atkisson, A. 2008. The Isis Agreement. Earthscan, UK)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;">I actually remember reading the last section of this chapter in this great book that struck a personal chord. He mentions somewhere in the chapter that when one becomes aware that the world is genuinely headed for big trouble, and that changing couurse requires tremendous efforts, it is impossible to pretend that one does not have this rather important piece of information. For most people, once they begin to grasp the gravity of the situation, not caring is not an option. For those for whom the struggle to maintain hope is a real one, and whom the feeling of being called to a duty greater than one's capacities feels like a burden, Alan makes the following recommendations: read the Earth Charter, as a common, global reference point, a statement that has touched and united people of all faiths and backgrounds. Then write your own manifesto, your own statement or what you believe to be the case in these times, what you stand for, what you are working for in life. He guarantees that you will find the exercise enormously gratifying - and very likely enormously inspiring too. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;">I am sure that the debate can go on and on and on. And in the end it boils down to two main things. Hope. And faith in humanity. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><span style="font-size: small;">Lets watch this space to see what the outcome will be. </span></span></span></span></div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-90446116870635459552012-01-10T06:31:00.000-08:002012-01-11T04:56:13.589-08:00Mozambique: A case study on how travelling enriches the soulWe all need to decrease consumption and individual emissions and I am aware of this on a daily basis. I have, however, one guilty pleasure. Travelling. I just spent my new year's holiday road tripping with two good friends from Windhoek (Namibia) to Inhambane (Mozambique), a journey that took us a surprising 3200kms, three full days of driving and two nights overnighting (scrolling desperately at 22h00 on an ipad in the car in the dark looking for accommodation on route) to get there. Rumours and paranoia gave us a few hiccups on the way ("what? you forgot your passport photos? but we need them for our visas!!!"....cue two hours in random town looking for a photo place and then discovering at the border of Moz we needed nothing we were told we needed....only our perfectly good and functioning Namibian passports). We made it up as we went along and happily found ourselves bumping around in our seats looking at elephants and chameleons and tortoises in the Kruger National Park as we entered the leisurely northern border of RSA/Mozambique. Anyway, despite the annoyances, the drive was spectacular. We did a country a day, from Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and into Mozambique. Travelling from the west coast of Africa to the east coast. <br />
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We arrived in Inhambane at 22h00 at night, tired, annoyed and totally lost. Once we found our camp site at Barra, we set up and passed out. The next morning (heat and sun at five in the morning) we awoke to palm trees and mangrove swamps. And (almost) immediately we packed up some stuff (my surfboard, snorkelling equipment, a cooler with beers and snacks) and off we went on our missions. First mission: find surf. Which we did. Well, which I did. The boys spent their time snorkelling, chilling, and playing their games on the beach and I would surf endlessly. And so it went on. Every day we would get up, have breakfast, get our stuff together and go mission. Every day was different, yet every day was the same. We would be active, but activities would always include surfing, snorkelling, swimming and chilling (is that an activity?). We would then, for dinner, either grab a beer and some food at some bar on the beach, or we would braai some prawns or meat at our camping spot and have a sundowner. We just could not leave that place. We had initially booked camping accommodation at another town further down south for the second part of our 10 day holiday....yet we just stayed in Inhambane as if we would never leave. <br />
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Everywhere we went we marvelled at the beauty of the place. I felt a deep connection with the country. And it made me think about love in a different way. I have travelled to quite a few places in my relatively short life. From South Africa to Nigeria, Hungary to Canary Islands, Brazil to Chile, every place has had something special and beautiful. But like with some people, some places you have chemistry with. And the notion makes sense. If you think about it, a country is a system, a living entity if you will. It is made up of its people, its landscapes, its biological diversity and its climate. And with some systems you find absolute love. I had a love affair with Mozambique. Granted it is not the perfect system. Most wildlife is gone, it has been war struck and, like many African countries, has come accross some difficult times. And it can strike harshly at you when it feels like it (I had my absolute naive trust ripped off me: the ocean reefs ate my body and my surfboard, i had all my electronic posessions stolen - and these I will not be able to afford to replace in many years, and because of this we had none of the beautful pictures of our trip). Yet when you find yourself on the beach on a balmy evening after a three hour right point surf session, with the slight breeze on your sunkissed face, drinking your R&R, you will see what I mean when I say "I love you Mozambique". <br />
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I was sad to leave. I think we all were. This particular trip, despite also having been on brief trips to beautiful Zambia, Hungary and South Africa last year, made me all the more itchy to spread my wings and fly. The people you meet and the places you see when you are out of your comfort zone, the experiences you have, is worth more than any physical possession you could ever buy yourself. For experiencing the world enriches your soul and breathes endless depth into your life.Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-44431289949983181152011-12-06T04:46:00.001-08:002012-09-20T03:14:59.929-07:00The Climate Change: Greed and Convenience versus a Better Society<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I break this essay into two parts out of neccessity. First, the political situation regarding climate change. And secondly, public perception and its need to change drastically if we want any spec of global human dignity to prevail through generations. So, first comes first.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">1. What have the world leaders committed to?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">With my return from the COP-17 going on in Durban right now, I feel obligated to throw in my snippet of thought. I am reminded of this eye-opening documentary I got sent last year from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) which, in a nutshell, displays the lack of solidarity, transparency and commitment global leaders showed towards climate change at the UNFCCC's COP-15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. This is SEVENTEEN years after the UNFCCC was first drafted in 1992, along with many other neccessary conventions trying to mitigate and/or prevent the negligent way humanity has treated the world environment. Now we are almost 20 years on and while we have made progress, we still are sitting with the same deadlock arguments. The UNFCCC was signed in 1992 by 155 states and the EC and comprises a package which contains elements for almost all negotiating states but left none entirely satisfied. Oil producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia, strongly opposed any substantive obligations in the Convention. Countries like Germany and Japan viewed the Convention as an instrument for gaining a longer term competitive edge through innovative technologies. Large industrialized developing natons like China and India were concerned to ensure that their economic development, including use of coal reserves, should not in any way be limited. Developing countries with extensive forests, like Malaysia and Brazil, were concerned to ensure that primary emphasis of the Convention should be on limiting developed country emissions and not on protecting or enhancing countries' sinks (like rainforests). And developing nations particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change sought a Convention with strong and enforceable commitments and an emphasis on the adverse effects of climate change. So already then it seems there was a lack of ownership of responsibilities but instead countries trying to protect their own selfish interests at the cost of the global community. Almost twenty years, a failed Protocol which one third of global producing GHGs giant USA never signed (well...lets see what happens in Durban now), a ridiculous "take note" accord later, and the global political community have made but baby steps. Lack of consensus has resulted in no real binding commitments for governments. This was especially reflected at Copenhagen in 2009 where states failed to come to a consensus about the real problems and solutions, and even in Cancun in 2010 there were loose ends which had to be trailed into Durban this year. Now it looks like negotiations are going on with intensity, and perhaps another phase of Kyoto will shed some positive light. But we can all agree that negotiations have complicated themselves immensely. I myself think that it is very simple, and if every country does their bit, then there should really be no complaints. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The bottom line is that developed countries are rich because they have raped and pillaged the lands and polluted the atmosphere; developing countries feel animosity towards being restricted before they have the chance to acquire the same wealth. But quite honestly if developing nations go the same way as the developed nations the world may as well be a rubbish dump, and we will all crash and burn. So, countries that are still developing need to realise that previous acquisitions of wealth were incorrect and should rather move into alternative routes for this acquisition. Now, climate change can only be effectively tackled by governments, if the following first steps are made: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Developed nations should take full responsibility for the anthropogenic causes of climate change. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Industrialized developing nations should realize that they are re-living the same mistakes made by developed nations which have gotten us in this mess in the first place.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Developing nations, especially those with such wonderful resources, should realize the potential of their natural heritage and not follow in the same drastic footsteps as developed nations.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So. In a nutshell, developed nations should pay for their mistakes, and all the rest should find new innovative routes to become financially sound, or at least find other measures of success....GNH comes to mind!!! But thats a whole other blog. The payment from the developed nations should go towards these initiatives in developing countries. Developed nations should take responsibility for the detrimental causes of climate change in developing countries, and help them to adapt. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">2. We ALL need to make a change!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">So. We have come to a place now where some of us are comfortably comsuming, working our five to six days a week, and so goes the daily grind - most of the rest of the world seems to aspire to this. Lets have more and more, and spend more and more! Lets all live the bling lifestyle that the USA seems to advertise is the "dream". But what they don't tell you is that if we all consume at the rate of the United States, we would need four planets. The Earth is a closed system. We have and are further isolating ourselves from the ecosystem...but yet we cannot live without it, even if we seem to think so. We cannot all consume finite resources (yes, they will run out...and then what?), push waste and expect that it won't end up on our doorstep. And whats this all for? Why have we moved to a place where we work our asses off, spend most of our time indoors watching televison (in essence, watching other people live their lives instead of living our own), and spending money on things that we don't need and falsely think make us happy. I saw this sticker on a friend's fridge the other day. It read: A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. Then really, what are we doing? I am not saying that lets all bunk today, go live on a farm somewhere like hippies and grow veggies (although...doesn't that sound pretty nice?). I am merely saying that we don't need all the crap that we think we do...and the simpler we live, the happier we are. We can support our local producers, farmers, etc. We CAN eat less meat, or not at all! Did you know that a vegan diet reduces 80% of carbon emissions? We CAN make an effort to recycle, and re-use (laziness stops us until its too late). We CAN walk two blocks instead of drive. I walked everywhere now in Durban during the COP - and you get to see places you were never exposed to before. We CAN advocate and create awareness wherever possible. One small example: why don't we get dispensers at shopping markets? We all can bring tupperwares and fill what ever it is we want in them...instead of endless unusable buckets and containers we buy and throw away. Every little bit counts. We have based our "measure of success" on financial growth...everyone wants money money money...and what for in the end? So we can buy stuff we don't need or even really want in the end. Money and endless "haves" doesn't buy you happiness...you know what does? Your mindset and perspective does. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">So, lets all stand together and make that difficult change for the better. Because what we are doing at the moment is as selfish as can be, and detrimental to all other living beings sharing this Earth with us, ourselves, and most importantly, the future of human society. </span></div>
Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-74834525315032735102011-02-03T02:55:00.000-08:002011-02-03T02:55:52.088-08:00COP16 in 2 Minutes<iframe height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/76BgKe1naFc?fs=1" frameborder="0" width="480" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583367746310515823.post-10234057989198325582010-11-09T07:10:00.000-08:002012-04-04T08:24:37.909-07:00Our music: Shoveling through the candyfloss and depth will be found<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. Bob Marley wrote this. And bands like Sublime and Jack Johnson went on to cover those words. When I hear what spews out of the bubble-gum machine that is our generation’s music industry I feel the exact opposite of Marley’s lyrics. To put it bluntly I feel like I’ve been smacked over my soul with a shovel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Popular music or “pop” reflects endless sets of generic platinum untalented barbies and ridiculous gel-haired she-men filling our ears with the musical equivalent of dog shit. Gone are the days of the pure blues influence of legends like Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Johnny Lee Hooker and BB King that led into the magical rock ‘n roll generation of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Cream , the Jimi Hendrix Experience and equals of their caliber. What happened to the lyrical genius of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Roger Waters and Neil Young? Our generation’s music taste as far as <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>large- scale society is concerned died with Kurt Cobain. After blues came rock ‘n roll and then punk and grunge. And for most of the nineties and the 2000s pop has dominated. I ask myself, How did this happen? How have we been engulfed in this embarrassing sorry state of music? Is it a mirror to the fundamentals in our society? A throw-away culture where superficiality rules, from plastic on our faces to plastic in our hands, money is what money makes. Don’t get me wrong. The amazing music from the 1960s and 1970s did not disappear. There are bands today that can still make your soul ache in joy. There are still bands who are true to their beliefs and musical desires. Punk bands still reflect the deep political messages and hypocrisies of our society in their chaotic yet insightful music . Pennywise, NOFX, Propagandhi to name a few. Chilled out tunes of Ben Harper, Xavier Rudd and Jack Johnson still make us feel like dipping our sandy toes in the ocean and smiling. Lyrics by bands like Jack Savoretti on one end of the spectrum all the way to Raconteurs on the other still are beautifully poetic and thought-provoking. Asa from <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Nigeria</place></country-region> is another example of hidden magic and can easily be compared with talented female singers like Tracy Chapman. The thing is, I only mention a select few that just happen to randomly pop in my head as I write. In my feeble collection alone there are hundreds of bands that are comparable to the legends of the 1960s and 70s. And I wouldn’t want to even think of the seemingly endless bands that manage to escape my awareness. That notion could depress me endlessly. Yet, somehow, when I switch on MTV the same music reflects off the shiny screen, lyrics that always echo some teenage boy or girls childish feelings, or even worse, ramblings about physical possessions and money. Are these so-called role-models really chosen by the people, or do some society head-twisters force this music onto us and the vast ignorant human population is in turn spoon-fed this chosen music. I say that we need to make a choice, and this can be used as an analogy within any aspect of society (like, for instance, we are fed news that is important to whomever broadcasts it, we are ignorant to so many important actions in the world that affect us because we don’t actively broaden our perspective). I call it an “international awakening”. Wake up! Instead of only watching music channels, go and find out what music there is out there, listen to random live bands, go on youtube and search different genres. Music that is put in international media should be chosen by US based on OUR preferences. Gone should be the day when a music video that is terrible is put on by some hotshot producer and played and re-played until we have it engrained into our minds to the point that we think this is the music to listen too…let me go and waste my money on this shitty mp3. No. We need to take back our generations music so that our decades can also be remembered for the music, and not for the tits and ass it represented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
</div>Justine Brabyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12775966183484481249noreply@blogger.com0