The Switch is a monthly newsletter distributed by the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) on initiatives that are making the switch to a sustainable society. The Switch covers various campaigns, new book releases, academic papers, policy processes and more. It takes a holistic and progressive approach to the sustainability debate and does not shy away from addressing controversial topics. The Switch also keeps you updated on upcoming conferences and events. The Switch is open for your news, events and articles. For this or for for any other comments, don’t hesitate to contact the editor of The Switch, Nick Meynen, nick[at]anped.org

EDITORIAL: [The Future We Want] Brackets intended

During the last two sessions on the road to Rio+20 (first an ‘informal-informal’ and then the 3rd Intersessional Meeting), the ANPED team in New York was witness of an attempt to attack the most basic human rights. Countries trying to reverse agreements already made in the original Rio 1992 earth summit. Most of our time therefore goes to damage control. We have seen countries trying to eliminate the already agreed right to food and proper nutrition, the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation and the right to development. Even some basic common sense principles the world has agreed on before – such as the Polluter Pays Principle, Precautionary Principle and Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) – are being questioned by some influential countries. The US tried to replace the word ‘equity’ with the word ‘inclusive’ in every part of the text.

Compared to the Rio summit of 1992, ambitions are a lot lower this time around. Some people blame the financial crisis, others the limited number of negotiation days or the emergence of new powerful players, making compromise even more difficult. Whatever the reason, the lower ambitions are out of sync with the increased emergence and scale of our common problems. Fortunately, it is not just the NGOs who are terrified by the prospect of setting a step back in Rio. Most major groups, from women to trade unions, express their worries by endorsing an online petition, launched by IBON-Philippines. The petition raises the alarm on the attack on human rights now being discussed at UN level. It is not too late yet. The Rio+20 conference comes in June this year, and other negotiation rounds are planned. But a global outcry of citizens is needed to prevent the scenario that doesn’t bring us closer to the future we want but to a darker part of the past where global cooperation around universal values to protect humanity from the worst was non-existent. Please read the full text of the petition, sign it and spread the word. 

 

Achieving Global Justice in the Green Economy

“Reversed Development Aid”, “MDGs, SDGs: Towards a future international sustainable development framework?”, “Millennium Consumption Goals”, “Global management of Resource use”, “Quotas for resource use” plus two lively debates and two eye-opening introductions. Our European Conference on Rio+20, held on 15 March in Brussels, surely filled a gap in the debates surrounding the Rio+20 summit. Many of the 100 participants from EU and UN institutions, media, political parties, universities and NGOs also took the opportunity to raise questions to the panel of experts. In case you missed this great event: we’ll soon put a short compilation film of the event online and you can already check out some of the powerpoints here.

REPORT: principles for a fair and green economy

ANPED, in close co-operation with the World Future Council and Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le Progrès de l’Homme, produced a discussion paper outlining seven global principles for a fair and green economy. Ordered in three categories (planet – societies and human rights – ethics in governance), these principles range from The Mother Earth principle as discussed in the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba to the Responsibility Principle, which upholds that all social institutions, including corporations, banks and markets, need to match power with personal reliability. This discussion paper is a joint work of several “thinkers” of the world, who came together in January 2011 in New York for a 2-day-workshop, to define principles for a fair and green economy. Main goal was to put clearly the baseline for the discussions on a “Green Economy in the context of Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication”. This is a short version of a larger document that will be published in May 2012. See our homepage for downloading the doc.

CONFERENCE: Green Economy: Rethinking Growth: Rio+20

From 19 to 21 July, at the University of Oxford, some topical recent and current issues will be featured and debated. Share and discuss green ideas and methodologies with international experts in the field, with academics and green business leaders, MPs, Economics professors, engineers and business directors, campaigners and many others. The call for papers and bookings is now open! Important: all participants can submit their papers, until the 5th of May. More details on www.greeneconomics.org.uk

 

VIDEO: a coffee to stay

As part of the PERL network (Partnership for Education and research about Responsible Living) we participated and spoke in the last PERL conference on pathways to responsible living. Among the many things that PERL produces (courses, websites, teaching guidelines, learning methodologies, curricula, seminars, research and so on) – there is one output that requires just 60 seconds to get a quick idea of what this project is all about: envisaging sustainable lifestyles and ways how to get there. Here’s the winning video of an interesting Student Video Competition organized by PERL.

 

 

REPORT: Life Beyond Growth

On 1 March 2012 - the 40th anniversary of the release of “the Limits to Growth”  the ISIS Academy published a recommended report with as subtitle:  Alternatives and Complements to GDP-Measured Growth as a Framing Concept for Social Progress". The report proposes combining Green Economy and National Happiness Concepts. The aim of the report is to provide an update and analysis of the various alternatives to gross domestic product (GDP) being used to

define and measure overall national progress. It summarizes the frameworks, concepts and methodologies used to promote "new economic" thinking, such as green growth, green economy, sustainable development, genuine progress, genuine savings, green GDP, gross national happiness, and de-growth. The report ends by concluding that combining the green economy and national happiness concepts has the potential to provide a clear and actionable vision for sustainability at the global scale, as well as some sense of how to get there. Want to learn more? Then please do check it out.

EJOLT: reporting on conflicts in Ecuador, India, Greece, …

In 2012, the EJOLT project is gathering steam. While many reports are getting at the end of the pipeline, we already have a very active twitter feed and at least two articles a week on the EJOLT homepage. We reported on community activism and struggles for environmental justice (both peaceful and violent) in Italy, Ecuador (twice), India (twice), Malawi and Greece. What emerges from these articles is a global fight of ordinary people against the unsustainable practices associated with for example large-scale open-pit mining and nuclear energy production. You’ll also find some success stories and video’s from Kenia to Bulgaria and India to Ethiopia. Here’s an example of a blog post on a local civil war in the North of Greece, unreported elsewhere:

Gold in Greece: corporations create civil war

A battle centered on gold mines in the north of Greece is turning violent. Because of the economical crisis, corporations are ‘buying’ at almost no cost the previously public forests and water in order to collect gold. “Greek Gold S.A.”, a subsidiary of Canadian company “European Goldfields” is paying 1600 euros per citizen to people without a real job to work for them. First job: chase the protestors who want to protect their pristine forest and water resources. Just a few days ago, hundreds of employees from European Goldfield – aided by about 30 policemen – attacked their fellow neighbors citizens who tried to protect the pristine forest of Chalkidiki and water peacefully. Fifteen people were badly injured and eight had to go to hospital. One of the defenders is right now in the hospital struggling for his life. They totally destroyed an outpost that was build to protect the forest. This comes only days after Bernardo Vasquez, an activist against the construction of a mine in San José del Progreso in Oaxaca, was murdered by what appears to be a group of thugs hired by the Canadian company Fortuna Silver Mines.

The fault lines of this open conflict often run straight through families, with a son working for the mine and a mother protesting against it. The EU and IMF are pushing the Greek government to sell even the most valuable forests of Greece to private companies at dumping prices. Back in February 2011, a Greek MEP already asked a question on gold mining in Halkidiki, more specifically on the  ‘public consultation’ and the destruction of the environment. But Europe only responds with asking Greece to speed up privatization of the common good. In Greece, the crisis is not used as an opportunity to build a new society based on justice and sustainability. It is used by corporations to speed up their grabbing of resources, with ever less concerns about the citizens and the long-term future of Greece. It is a situation of quickly taking away what is left with profits flowing out of Greece but long term costs being left behind for the Greec people. When on Sunday a big rally went to the site of the conflict, the police dispersed them with tear gas and arrested several demonstrators, who were only released when masses of people kept surrounding the local police station. Local societies have now formed the “Coordinating Committee to Combat Mining Activities” and are prepared for a long period of mobilization. On Friday 30 March, a large group of enraged citizens sieged the town hall while the mayor and 12 policemen were holding a meeting inside. They cut the electricity and water and were only dispersed when a large police force from another town arrived. 

For more in depth reporting on environmental justice conflicts, do read our next article!

EJOLT report: Waste disposal conflicts around the world

One year after the start of the EJOLT project, we’re proud to announce the first in a series of EJOLT reports. Through case studies from India and Bulgaria on shipbreaking and incineration, this report shows how struggles for environmental justice contribute to the environmental sustainability of the economy. Rich societies generate large quantities of all kinds of waste, facing rising management costs and awakening opposition to waste treatment and disposal sites, such as incinerators and landfills. This is also the background of a rapidly changing and lucrative trade, global in nature, in which waste flows towards developing countries or poorer areas of developed countries. This report, through in-depth case studies from India and Bulgaria, aims to link the increased social metabolism (energy and material flows) of the economy to waste disposal conflicts. The first case study is about shipbreaking (the dismantling of obsolete ocean-going ships) in Alang-Sosiya (India), an example of how the North dumps toxic waste in the South. The second case study is about a failed attempt to build an hazardous waste incinerator in Radnevo (Bulgaria). Waste disposal conflicts often arise not because of externalities but due to successful cases of cost shifting, or else, capital accumulation by contamination. As a consequence, ecological distribution conflicts emerge as valuation conflict where actors deploy different valuation languages to affirm their right to use a safe environment, from which their health and livelihood often depends upon. Key lessons and mutual learning from both cases is then discussed paying particular attention to the political strategies which can be adopted in environmental conflicts, including grass roots mobilization, cases in the Courts, popular epidemiology, national and international alliances. Soon on the EJOLT website: the full report!

BOOK: Homework. Handbuilt Shelter

 With five-star customer ratings at both Amazon and Goodreads, this bestseller from Lloyd Kahn, published in 2004 by Shelter Publications, sure does deserve a late book review in The Switch. The warning that comes with the review comes from this editors own experience: this book might just change the course of your life. We assume you are already aware of the basic fact that housing is one of the three big pillars (next to food and mobility) of carbon emissions in any person’s life. But as Tim Jackson explained so eloquently at the PERL conference: there’s a huge value-action gap even among us, people concerned about sustainability. You will surely archive any idea you might have had in a previous life that you first need money to live green. But the book goes yet another step further: it fills the gap between your values and housing dreams on the one side and a plan of action at the other side – at price tags that any of us can afford. It contains thousands of pictures to identify your sustainable dream house, building plans, inspiring stories, sketches, contact details: this book has it all. Admittedly, a hiatus exists for those who are really attached to a dense urban setting to live in and you won’t find plans for upscale (expensive) zero-energy houses but if these are not the limits to your housing options then this book will sure inspire you!