June, 21 2012, 02:13pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Earth Summit: Questioning the "Green Economy"
The Miami Herald reports: "More than 50,000 people and representatives of more than 120 countries gather in Rio de Janeiro for the opening of the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. Topics include the destruction of the rain forest, vanishing coral reefs, land grabs, the need for food security, clean water, the role of women in food production, safe drinking water, energy access, clogged transit systems, jobs and sustainable development as a way of fighting poverty.
WASHINGTON
The Miami Herald reports: "More than 50,000 people and representatives of more than 120 countries gather in Rio de Janeiro for the opening of the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. Topics include the destruction of the rain forest, vanishing coral reefs, land grabs, the need for food security, clean water, the role of women in food production, safe drinking water, energy access, clogged transit systems, jobs and sustainable development as a way of fighting poverty. The conference marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio."
Many environmental and indigenous groups and social movements attending the conference and the adjacent "People's Summit" are questioning and criticizing the "green economy" approach as offering "false solutions." -- also see: Rio 20, Gears of Change
WINNIE OVERBEEK, winnie at wrm.org.uy
Overbeek is the executive secretary of World Rainforest Movement (Brazil/Uruguay). She wrote the piece "The Great Lie: Monoculture Trees as Forests," which states: "Tree plantation companies were 'pioneers' in the green economy when, in the early 1990s, they started to influence public opinion with claims about the 'sustainable production cycle', promoting the positive idea that they were planting carbon-absorbing 'forests'. However, the negative impacts of large-scale monoculture plantations on local communities and increasing unsustainable paper consumption, especially in the North, were left unmentioned.
"Monoculture oil palm, eucalyptus, rubber and jatropha plantations are also expanding, validated by their alleged 'green' benefits such as agrofuel production and carbon sequestration. Locating such plantations in the South allows polluting projects in the North to continue business as usual, due to the idea of the carbon tradeoff.
"Under the United Nations collaborative program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (known as REDD), carbon -- not wood or pulp -- has become the 'product' that offers the best market value and profits from trees. Those who pollute most can continue to evade their responsibility to reduce carbon emission levels by opting for the often cheaper alternative of 'compensating' their emissions by buying credits from carbon stored in forests. 'REDD+' goes further, including conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
"By commodifying forests, initiatives like REDD and REDD+ may weaken the struggles of forest peoples to guarantee rights to their historic lands and livelihoods. Carbon trading is likely to be distant from local communities' needs and can impact severely on the lives and opportunities of local people."
PATRICK BOND, pbond at mail.ngo.za
Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, Bond is author and editor of the recently-released books Politics of Climate Justice and Durban's Climate Gamble. He wrote the piece "The Green Economy is the Environmentalism of the Rich," which states: "Perhaps a few environmentally decent projects may get needed subsidies as a result of the G20 and Rio talkshops, and we'll hear of 'sustainable development goals' to replace the fatuous UN Millennium Development Goals in 2015. But the overarching danger is renewed official faith in market mechanisms. No surprise, following the logic of two South African precedents: the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (Rio+10) and last December's Durban COP17 climate summit. There, the chance to begin urgent environmental planning to reverse ecosystem destruction was lost, sabotaged by big- and medium-governments' negotiators acting on behalf of their countries' polluting and privatizing corporations."
Bond also recently wrote "Inclusive Green Growth or Extractive Greenwashed Decay?"
PABLO SALON, solon at focusweb.org
Salon is the executive director of Focus on the Global South (Bolivia) and was the former ambassador from Bolivia to the United Nations. In his recent piece "At the Crossroads Between Green Economy and Rights of Nature," he stated: "Nature cannot be submitted to the wills of markets or a laboratory. The answer for the future lies not in scientific inventions that try to cheat nature but in our capacity to listen to nature. Science and technology are capable of everything including destroying the world itself. It is time to stop geo-engineering and all artificial manipulation of the climate, biodiversity and seeds. Humans are not gods."
LUCIA ORTIZ, lucia at natbrasil.org.br
Ortiz is a coordinator for Friends of the Earth, Brazil. She stated: "World leaders meeting at the Rio+20 Summit should listen to the demands of the alternative Peoples' Summit in Rio to prove that the UN's decision-making process and our governments take into account the greater public interest before profit. ... The Rio+20 Summit should not promote the 'green economy' agenda, which is selling out nature and people, and greenwashing an unjust and unsustainable economic system."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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As President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday, dozens of American healthcare workers who recently volunteered in the Gaza Strip urged the U.S. leaders to do everything in their power to end Israel's assault on the enclave, citing the horrors they witnessed firsthand.
In an open letter addressed to Biden, Harris, and First Lady Jill Biden, 45 physicians, surgeons, and nurses wrote that "we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them."
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The healthcare workers called on the Biden administration to "withhold military, economic, and diplomatic support from the state of Israel and to participate in an international arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups until a permanent cease-fire is established, and until good-faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict."
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This is an open letter addressed to @POTUS, @VP , and @FLOTUS signed by 45 American physicians and nurses, about what we saw while working in Gaza. Please feel free to distribute. A PDF can be downloaded from the link and/or QR code on page 1. pic.twitter.com/LHVvmeAFad
— Feroze Sidhwa (@FerozeSidhwa) July 25, 2024
The letter was released as Netanyahu, fresh off his widely condemned address to the U.S. Congress, met separately on Thursday with Biden and Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
In remarks following her meeting with Netanyahu, Harris said that "what has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating," pointing to "the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time."
"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," the vice president added. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."
Harris said she told Netanyahu directly to "get this deal done"—referring to a cease-fire agreement with Hamas—but, as expected, she did not break with the administration on supplying arms to the Israeli military.
While there has been no obvious policy change from the administration now that Harris has taken over for Biden at the top of the Democratic Party's presidential ticket, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft argued that the vice president "clearly broke with Biden on Israel in terms of rhetoric and tone."
Parsi also contended that there was "a substance shift."
"Biden has disingenuously claimed that Hamas blocked a cease-fire deal," Parsi wrote on social media. "By saying that she urged Netanyahu 'to clinch the deal,' Kamala pointed to the real obstacle."
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Harris calling for an immediate cease-fire deal to free the hostages.
The VP saying she “will not be silent" about the suffering in Gaza, the "devastating" loss of life and the "dire" humanitarian crisis. pic.twitter.com/Fe5QPoOuFh
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 25, 2024
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The healthcare workers expressed the view that—based on available evidence and their experiences—"the death toll from this conflictis many times higher than what is reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health," which currently stands at over 39,100.
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Labor advocates on Thursday decried a ruling by the California Supreme Court upholding a lower court's affirmation of a state ballot measure allowing app-based ride and delivery companies to classify their drivers as independent contractors, limiting their worker rights.
The court's seven justices ruled unanimously in Castellanos v. State of California that Proposition 22, which was approved by 58% of California voters in 2020, complies with the state constitution. Prop 22—which was overturned in 2021 by an Alameda County Superior Court judge in 2021—was upheld in March 2023 by the state's 1st District Court of Appeals.
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"Democrats are at a critical crossroads with young people," the coalition wrote to Harris on Thursday. "Polls showed Biden and Trump neck-and-neck among young voters."
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