Watch the COP15 Behind the Scenes video about Klimaforum09, the people’s global climate summit, which will be held during the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) in December, 2009 in Copenhagen.
Programme
The Klimaforum09 programme offers you 150 climate workshops, 40 exhibitions, 30 climate films and documentaries, global music, theater, invited guest speakers and much more.
A preliminary programme is now available and can be downloaded as a pdf-file here. Please note that changes will be made to programme. More debates, guest speakers, exhibitions and events will be added in the following week.
Klimaforum09_Programme_Draft_2810
PDF file made for on-screen view!
A final programme will be made public around mid November.
About Klimaforum09
While the UN conference will be a platform for political decision making, Klimaforum09 gathers citizens from all corners of the world to create a socially just and sustainable future.
The idea behind Klimaforum09 is to create an open space, where people, movements and organizations can develop constructive solutions to the climate crisis.
Klimaforum09 is based on the belief that meeting the climate challenge requires more than just new technologies fixes and ‘business as usual’ practices. New ways of thinking, new cultural values, and new ways of organizing society are called for.
Thousands of participants from all continents are expected to take part in Klimaforum09. Special efforts are being made to invite people from regions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania who will suffer most from climate change.
The klimaforum09 programme offers a wide variety of workshops, debates, exhibitions, and cultural events focusing on climate change from a global perspective.
Klimaforum09 opens 7 December and ends 18 December. The summit takes place in large, modern facilities at DGI-byen close to the Central Station.
Klimaforum09 is organized by a broad coalition of Danish and international environmental movements and civil society organizations.
Climate War: just as the Cold War subsumed and defined the peace after World War 2, the Climate War subsumes and defines the period after the Cold War. The Cold War ideology on the US side was anti-communism. The Climate War ideology (shared by most central governments) is anti-environmentalism, with communists being replaced with terrorists and increasingly eco-terrorists. Green is the new red, the FBI’s most wanted is an eco-terrorist. Insurgencies have always been embedded in a place, and so, in reality, all terrorists are fighting for rights to control an environment. The Climate War is the Cold War within the context of climate change, peak oil, peak debt, indeed peak everything. The US framework for managing the world, within the context of Climate War, is Sustainment.
Sustainment: sustainment is an extension of the military term describing the supply and operations of maintenance to military operations. Sustainment is military-industrial supplied sustainability. In the latest US Counter-Insurgency military doctrine, Sustainment leads all counter-insurgency operations. Within the Human Terrain System, hearts and minds are won by the the supply of infrastructure and utilities. Sustainment leads operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “civilian surge” is sustainment. With the increasing instability of the climate system, the global economic and geo-political system, sustainment will be supplied with the strongest aspect of US national power; the military industrial complex. Within the neo-liberal environment, the military-industrial compex is increasingly privatised and fragmented. As Noam Klein describes in Shock Doctrine, disaster capitalism profits greatly from crisis, real or imagined, and as the Climate War becomes the dominant organising principle for the planet, through real and imagined crisis, sustainment supplied by corporate-state military industrial system. This military industrial system will seek to profit and expand from both the crisis of conflict, of destruction of war and the maintenance of peace, and the rebuilding of damaged systems.
Rajendra K. Pachauri’s panic-inducing assertion: We have a window of seven years to stabilize CO2 at today’s levels if we are to limit our global mean temperature increase to around 2.40C. A world this hot would be a very unpleasant place to be. Pachauri lays out unequivocal” evidence of climate change, and describes how extreme precipitation events, heat waves and other natural catastrophes will become more frequent, endangering vast swaths of humanity. We stand to lose 20-30% of species if warming exceeds 1.5 to 2.5 0C. Pachauri also notes this “scary prospect”: the rapid loss of ice sheets on polar land, leading to sea level rises of several meters, and the flight of large populations in response.
Climate change could be the next great military threat
BY LEE GUNN | 20 OCTOBER 2009
Article Highlights
Although the United States has faced many threats over the last few decades, climate change may be the most ominous.
Specifically, it will contribute to resource scarcity, state failure, increasingly mobile populations, and regional instability.
The U.S. military may not be the best body to tackle climate change, but it still should be quick to reassess its global engagement strategy and be proactive in minimizing the effects of climate change on U.S. and international security.
The United States currently faces one of its greatest and most misunderstood threats: climate change. And as changing climate patterns affect the water supplies critical to human life and agriculture, as sea levels rise and threaten coastal communities, and as changes in the environment increasingly weaken marginal states, the implications for U.S. defense will only grow.
Specifically, instability and conflict abroad will affect three important dimensions of U.S. national security: how the United States chooses to use its power, how and where the U.S. military operates around the world, and with whom Washington will and will not ally itself.
How power is applied.As societies struggle to adapt to changing climate conditions, the U.S. military will be called on more frequently to provide assistance, support governments, fight extremism in weak states, and anticipate natural and human-made disasters. In short, Washington will have to consider carefully why U.S. defense forces fight.
Take Central and South Asia, for example. The region’s main water source–the Himalayan glaciers–continues to recede due to climate change. The trend will no doubt lead to a dramatic reduction in freshwater availability, particularly in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and parts of China. In fact, a 2007 U.S. Marine Corpsreportranks Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in the top 10 states at risk of instability and violent conflict over water.
A fight for resources among these states–which are already mired in violence and mutual suspicion–would be disastrous for U.S. security interests in the region, particularly since declining conditions among poor segments of the population would be a boon for terrorist and extremist groups’ recruitment. Climate-intensified conflict between mobile populations seeking fresh water amid wanton state instability may prompt future policy makers to deploy U.S. forces not only to combat extremism in the region, but also to provide aid to the hungry and displaced.
How and where the military operates.Climate change also will force a reevaluation of how the United States operates its forces around the world. Facilities, logistics, and strategic planning will need to be reassessed. The British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia, for example, is home to a critical staging facility for U.S. and British naval and air forces operating in the Middle East and Central Asia. But this atoll sits just a few feet above sea level. If sea levels rise asprojected, PDFthe facility could be lost, forcing the U.S. and British militaries to adapt and adjust their logistics and operations throughout the region.
Who will U.S. allies be?Changing climate conditions also will test traditional alliances and may even inspire unexpected new ones as states grapple with altered topographies, climate refugees, and changes in commercial and economic circumstances.
For instance, the U.S. Navy has been concerned about the loss of sea ice in the Arctic for nearly a decade. Specifically, it worries that as the fabled Northwest Passage opens, military and commercial activities there will increase. One need not look further than the 2007 Russianexpeditionthat planted its flag on the seabed at the North Pole. Not surprisingly, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and the United States–all bordering the Arctic–reacted critically to Russia’s perceived act of encroachment.
In addition, the effects of climate change could strain U.S. relations with Mexico. As Latin American water and arable land resources decline, poverty and internal unrest are likely to spread in the region, leading to increased human migration northward–both legal and illegal. Mexico’s perceived inability to staunch the flow north would likely raise tensions with Washington, hampering U.S. collaboration in the fight against Mexico-based drug cartels.
Given all of this, the decision, therefore, isn’twhetherU.S. planners and strategists should adapt and prepare, buthowthey should adapt and prepare. Looking ahead, China ispredictingthe loss of 5-10 percent of its wheat harvest by 2030 due to climate change. In southern Sudan and the Darfur region, existing conflicts will be severely exacerbated by increasingly scarce water, food, and arable land. Responding to these and myriad other climate-influenced changes presents great challenges for the United States and the international community–far beyond the specific capabilities of the U.S. military.
Thus, here’s how Washington should begin preparing for the consequences associated with climate change:
Invest in capabilities within the U.S. government (including the Defense Department) to manage the humanitarian crises–such as a new flow of “climate refugees”–that may accompany climate change and subsequently overwhelm local governments and threaten critical U.S. interests;
Prepare military officers and troops to address the security and humanitarian needs of resource-stressed populations and climate refugees;
Expand global public health programs (e.g., malarial eradication);
Negotiate an agreement with Canada and Mexico to govern the use of fresh water in North America;
Lead the world in developing conflict-resolution mechanisms to mediate between climate change’s winners and losers.
If it doesn’t take these steps, the United States will be ill-equipped to face climate-induced threats when they’re most acute, forcing future generations to deal with a world full of conflict, disease, hunger, displacement, and extremism.
If you want to become more self-reliant by growing your own food then this video set may be of great help to you. More details available at www.backyardfoodproduction.com
f you are interested in growing your own food in your backyard, or on a small farm, then welcome to our website. We offer a DVD tutorial that covers the basics of food production systems for a family or small group. Our emphasis is on sustainability, so our orientation is low-tech, with as little ‘store bought’ inputs as possible. We sometimes offer workshops that teach skills related to living sustainably. We are located in Central Texas – the climate and soils (er, lack of) make it very challenging to grow food here. Regardless of where you are, the principles are the same.
Klimaforum09 is your climate summit, the global civil society counterpart of the official UN conference in the Bella Center.
While the UN conference will be a platform for political decision making, Klimaforum09 gathers citizens from all corners of the world to create a socially just and sustainable future.
The idea behind Klimaforum09 is to create an open space, where people, movements and organizations can develop constructive solutions to the climate crisis.
Klimaforum09 is based on the belief that meeting the climate challenge requires more than just new technologies fixes and ‘business as usual’ practices. New ways of thinking, new cultural values, and new ways of organizing society are called for.
Thousands of participants from all continents are expected to take part in Klimaforum09. Special efforts are being made to invite people from regions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania who will suffer most from climate change.
The klimaforum09 programme offers a wide variety of workshops, debates, exhibitions, and cultural events focusing on climate change from a global perspective.
Klimaforum09 opens 7 December and ends 18 December. The summit takes place in large, modern facilities at DGI-byen close to the Central Station.
Klimaforum09 is organized by a broad coalition of Danish and international environmental movements and civil society organizations.
At Climate Camp UK, in London, we kept getting asked “where we going to Copenhagen (for COP15 and to get involved in the network of Climate Justice Action ?”. The answer eventually was “we would like to, if we could afford it and had something serious to do!”. We developed a couple of ideas, one was a Climate Social Forum, in the World Social Forum principles and process.
After a little enquiry was informed there is government funded civil-society forum: Klimaforum09, which sounds rather like the European Social Forum, Malmo 2008 in its left-establishment (vertical-left) support. On the surface its structured like a World Social Forum, but under-the-hood, its a government funded conference for NGO’s, an extension of Nordic soft-power public-diplomacy.
However the Kilmaforum2009’s 9 themes and the attending organisations are right-on and would love to work-out how to go and work on Gaia Permaculture and the Permaculture Worker Cooperative Movement projects. The Klimaforum2009 creator is a Danish permaculturalist: Tony Anderson. So, its an amazing opportunity, will try to reconnect with Malmo solidarity accommodation types and contact the Nordic permaculture contingent, and the Klimaforum online forum.
Glocalisation of climate
My major unresolved question with solutions, revolves on this reflexive obsession with localisation. It’s a kind of allergic reaction to the Washington Consensus modality of globalisation. Pure localisation just wont work. Globalisation is real; climate, weather, migration of organisms including people, trade etc. We live on a planet with a global climate.
Are we going to localise climate? It's a nonsense.
The mindless business mantra of “Think Globally, Act Locally” is largely to blame. Corporations and the rich don’t limit themselves to this, they Think Globally and Act Globally. They Think Locally and Act Locally. Everyone knows the edge between the global and local is the most corrupt level of government, its the place where organised crime operates, dodgy planning occurs, corporations do things, see The Power Elite. Indeed there is a term; Glocalisation
Organisation needs to come from below but continue to the global level. We saw very large worker cooperative industrial democracy at Mondragon: from team to very large groups of 100 000s. It is possible to organise modern, industrial society with democratic decision-making and ownership. We need more highly organised social and economic arrangements. The anarcho-syndicalists also did it in Spain before betrayal by the liberal democracies, Socialists and Communists.
Democracy is a fractal. It can work on all scales and all systems.
One very promising discovery, which could be a lead-in to Gaia Permaculture is the plan developed by Tony Anderson and the Scandanavian Permaculture network for the Øresund Bioregion and the global plan for 10 000 trees.
Animals migrate yearly, organisms move. So do people. We need technology, transport, communications etc. While COP15 progresses inside, Kilmaforum09 runs outside. COP15 is top-down, and Kilmaforum09 is bottom-up. But where do they meet ? The place where globalisation meets localisation is where corporations, the rich and the powerful control the present and the future. One of the reasons localisation is so popular is that its is so harmless and diffuses energies away from real political economic change into gardening. As Mollison said, ad nauseum, permaculture is more than a gardening system. Again, keep coming back to Gaia Permaculture wiki project. Me thinks the Rose Room will be good for developing the wiki.
Thucydides (ca. 460 B.C.-ca. 395 B.C.) stated: “[T]hey devote a very small fraction of time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.”[10]Aristotle (384 B.C.-322 B.C.) similarly argued against common goods of the polis of Athens: “That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few.”[11]
Another obstacle, free-riding, creates the second order social dilemma concerning who will bear the cost of policing the rules once they are agreed upon. So although the overall formula is simple – social dilemmas can be solved through institutions for collective action that are built by overcoming known obstacles – in practice, each group that struggles to build an institution works under the handicap of being largely unaware of knowledge about how such institutions succeed and fail.
In comparing the communities, Ostrom found that groups that are able to organize and govern their behavior successfully are marked by the some basic design principles:
Group boundaries are clearly defined.
Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and conditions.
Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules.
The rights of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities.
A system for monitoring member’s behavior exists; the community members themselves undertake this monitoring.
A graduated system of sanctions is used.
Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.
For CPRs that are parts of larger systems: appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.
Definitions The commons is a general term for shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest. Studies on the commons include the information commons with issues about public knowledge, the public domain, open science, and the free exchange of ideas — all issues at the core of a direct democracy.
Common-pool resources (CPRs) are natural or human-made resources where one person’s use subtracts from another’s use and where it is often necessary, but difficult and costly, to exclude other users outside the group from using the resource..
The majority of the CPR research to date has been in the areas of fisheries, forests, grazing systems, wildlife, water resources, irrigation systems, agriculture, land tenure and use, social organization, theory (social dilemmas, game theory, experimental economics, etc.), and global commons (climate change, air pollution, transboundary disputes, etc.), but CPR’s can also include the broadcast spectrum.
The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems.
After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions.
She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways–both successful and unsuccessful–of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.
Products are the fruit of complex interrelationships between people, places and the environment. Until recently it was almost impossible to understand the impact of modern manufacturing on our society. We are building Sourcemap as a tool for sharing, research and invention around supply chains.
Thanks to extensive research on the part of many people and the vast resources of web2.0, we are bringing Sourcemap to the public in the hope of promoting a culture of transparency, sustainability and invention. This blog will serve as a forum for discussing the development process, including our goals, our methods and the findings from our field studies.
Sourcemap is the product of a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory and the Creative Synthesis Collaborative, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). We welcome solicitations and feedback on this blog.
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