black and green anarchist forum (philippines)

Black & Green Forum

Am 7. und 8. März 2013 organisieren Kameraden aus Philippinien ein "black and green anarchist forum" in der "Universität der Philippinien". Die Freunde und Freundinnen brauchen noch finanzielle Unterstützung für dieses "Forum" (Flyer/Poster/Broschüren drucken, Logistik,...). Organisiert Spendenboxen, Soli-Veranstaltungen,... Wenn ihr Geld schicken möchtet und andere Informationen findet ihr auf ebinfoshop.surestepintegral.com

 

ANARCHISM: ECOLOGICAL CRISES; CLIMATE CHANGE

& DIRECT-ACTION [Black And Green Forum]

 

Rationale 

 

Massive extraction of fossil fuel for power; clearing out of forest areas due to logging and mining; harvesting marine and fresh water resources beyond sustainable level and polluting the entire global ecosystem.  It is common knowledge that the driving force of massive productions of commodities is the interests of the corporations to gain more profit.  

 

Climate change is one if not the greatest threat caused by these ecological crises. The huge volume of greenhouse gases  deposited in our atmosphere trapped heat from the sun, global temperature increases that affected weather pattern,  sea level increases and oceans get warmer.  These changes induced life threatening phenomena such as occurrence of extreme tropical cyclones and torrential rains with very huge amount of water.

 

Peter Gelderloos noted in his essay “Before the Big Change” that already 300,000 people die every year due to the results of climate change such as desertification, droughts, more violent storms, greater spread of tropical diseases and crop failure. Majority of the victims were from the global south.  

 

Initiatives with regard to this issue is varied, different sectors and institution work, discuss, argue and collaborate.  Billions of funds transferred and circulated to finance projects that are related to climate proofing initiatives. Some advocates are working at the top level and set to engage international institutions like UN-IPCC. Some are at the national level and there are groups who are very active at the grassroots level.

 

Based on many discussions organized by NGOs working in this issue, increasing capacities of communities involve huge resources and the process of popularizing this to encourage people to participate is another thing.          

 

Since the Kyoto protocol took effect, there is no significant reduction of carbon emission done by nations and corporations who has huge contribution of greenhouse gases. REDD on the other hand is another  clever attempt to protect the operations of corporations, "Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation" is also known as “offset” scheme of the carbon markets and in effect will produced carbon credits. With this scheme, the corporation do not actually reduced emission; they just buying out carbon credits.           

 

At the community level, the families remained vulnerable to unpredictable results of changes in our climate and it seems that the advocacy of on climate change is became an industry that works based on fossil fuel and reinforces privilege to few who control resources and decision-making instruments.

 

Based on tested climate models and various simulations exercises; the issue on climate change is urgent. The said climate models suggest that within ten years if the trend of emission will not be reduced, warming will be at 20 degrees Celsius.  Enough to melt polar ice caps which reflects large amount of solar radiation. The melting of Siberian permafrost will release methane, this element is said to be potent than CO2. Water vapor will increase in the atmosphere that could trap more heat from the sun. The cumulative effect of these will culminate at the end of the century which will raise global temperature by five to six degrees. 

 

Looking for a long term solution is the best interest for all of us. Despite of concrete effects and unequivocal reality of climate change, it is still a great challenge to us to find common actions and alternatives. Ecological crises and its immediate and long term effects are just mere manifestations of the core problems which is the control and domination of corporations and states. 

 

The mainstream economy is working not to provide diverse needs of the people. It is not built to promote equality and sharing, The capitalist system is designed to realized profit by controlling ecological systems and subjugating people and community in order to control benefit streams. Economists are working on hard facts to monitor, study and analyze [P1] the economy but its general direction is basically abstract because growth has infinite combination of figures while natural resources and people are limited and has physical limits. 

 

The economic system and the natural systems of the earth which human is organically tied-up  is intrinsically not compatible. The over-all direction of capitalism is to consume the earth to its last living organism to realized profit.

 

OBJECTIVES

 

Given this context, we designed a Green Forum to achieve [P2] the following:

 

·         Sharing of local action which deals on environmental issues.

·         Sharing of experience and information to increase knowledge and awareness on climate change issue

·         To explore possible solidarity actions/projects that will compliment international and local campaigns.

·         To explore and develop our calls which will promote long term solutions and practical/doable actions applicable to localities and marginalized communities.  


 [P1]analyze

 [P2]achieve