Hollywood stars join politicians at Bolivia's 'cool' global warming summit

[Judi Lynn]

Hollywood stars join politicians at Bolivia's 'cool' global warming summit
Evo Morales says talks will give a voice to world's poorest and encourage governments to be ambitious after Copenhagen
John Vidal, environment editor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 April 2010 17.03 BST

In what is becoming the hippest environment meeting of the year, presidents, politicians, intellectuals, scientists and Hollywood stars will join more than 15,000 indigenous people and thousands of grass roots groups from more than 100 countries to debate climate change in one of the world's poorest nations.

The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which opens next week in the small Bolivian town of Cochabamba, will have no direct bearing on the UN climate talks being conducted by 192 governments. But Bolivian President Evo Morales says it will give a voice to the poorest people of the world and encourage governments to be far more ambitious following the failure of the Copenhagen summit.

Morales will use the meeting to announce the world's largest referendum, with up to 2 billion people being asked to vote on ways out of the climate crisis. Bolivia also wants to create a UN charter of rights and to draft an action plan to set up an international climate justice tribunal.

"The only way to get climate negotiations back on track not just for Bolivia or other countries, but for all of life, biodiversity, our Mother Earth is to put civil society back into the process. The only thing that can save mankind from a tragedy is the exercise of global democracy," said Bolivia's United Nations Ambassador Pablo Solon in Bonn, at the end of the latest UN talks.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/13/bolivia-climate-summit

[EFerrari]

1. This is brilliant. And we have to do everything we can to get it out.

Go, Evo!

[Peace Patriot]

2. "...and the Rights of Mother Earth..." Wow!

"The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which opens next week in the small Bolivian town of Cochabamba..." --from the OP

Leave it to Evo Morales and the Bolivian leftist democracy movement TO DO THINGS RIGHT! --a world climate change summit that puts Mother Nature's RIGHTS at the center of the discussion in the title of the event.

How I wish I could be there! Because, you know, I have a deep feeling about this, that the Indigenous farmers of Latin America--and most especially the ORGANIZED Indigenous farmers of Bolivia (--Evo Morales himself is a small coca leaf farmer and still head of the coca leaf farmers union, which successfully fought against U.S. "war on drugs" toxic pesticide spraying and ultimately threw the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" out of the country)--are going to save the planet.

But I can do my part as I put my garden in this week. Been working on it for months. All organic. Not one iota of chemicals; no "frankenseeds." Green, green, green. Tomatoes, lettuce, arugula, spinach, chard, kale, radish, onion, leek, corn, squash, bean, artichoke, carrot, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprout, potato, strawberry, raspberry, and lemon, apple & plum trees, arranged as companion plants and laced with the natural "pesticide" plants (i.e., nasturtium, marigold, rosemary, sage, thyme). And what a delight it is! It's actually not a new garden--but a renovated one. Great soil, and near perfect weather. It's been producing food for several decades. But I've given it new attention precisely because we all need to be planting GREEN things--whether vegies or trees or shrubs or flowers--as well as eating as much organic and local food as we can arrange, and providing it for others. This is quite literally a "grass roots" movement and it has to do with the primacy of Mother Nature. Give her a chance and she will repair our planet. But we all need to do it--in whatever little ways that we are able to. You don't have to be in Cochabamba. Just slip a geranium, and put it in a pot in your kitchen window, and water it (but not too much)--if that's all you can do. Plant a tree in a vacant lot. Buy your produce at a local farmer's market. These actions ADD UP. Green your desk. Green your balcony. Green something in your neighborhood. Think Green. Think about the Mother of Us All. What does she like? GREEN!

For reading, I would recommend Michael Pollan's book, "The Botany of Desire." What a great book! He takes four plants--apple, tulip, potato and marijuana--and examines the history of their relationship with PEOPLE. A fascinating book! And one of the things he reveals is that the cause of the "potato famine" in Ireland is that the poor farmers in Ireland--who had been relegated to the worst farm lands by the English lords, and who grew potatoes because they are an easy-to-grow staple food--grew only ONE variety of potato. The potato was an import, and, unknown to the poor Irish farmers, how it was grown by the INDIGENOUS farmers in its country of origin--Peru--was in MANY varieties. The Peruvian Indigenous planted 20, 30 varieties of potato, as a hedge against crop disease and crop failure--based on ancient agricultural wisdom. By unknowingly practicing monoculture--like Monsanto and Big Ag now--the Irish farmers wrote their doom. When crop disease struck, it struck everywhere--in every potato patch, on every small farm. Tens of thousands of Irish people starved to death as a result.

The Indigenous farmers of Latin America KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. And they have the answers. The world needs to listen to them--on the causes and cures of climate change and on its relationship to the food chain. We think of them as poor. But they are rich in knowledge and wisdom, and in meticulous attunement to Mother Nature. They have riches we know not of. Our culture, driven by the corporate rulers, merely exploits--and has done great harm to the culture of the Indigenous, millions of whom have been displaced from their farms, for the benefit of corporations and the uber-wealthy. But they have fought back with the greatest peoples' movement we have ever seen--the worldwide campesino movement--centered in Bolivia.

This week, the U.S. government PUNISHED Bolivia for holding this people's climate change summit. They canceled several million dollars in climate change aid to Bolivia. A pittance, for sure, but still. That is what we and the world are up against. Our government serves the corporate rulers and the war profiteers, no matter who is president. The Bushwhacks punished Bolivia for objecting to the U.S. "war on drugs" (and use of the U.S. "war on drugs" to support violent, insurrectionist, rightwing groups in Bolivia). Then the Obama team punished them for objecting to U.S. corporate domination of the climate change summit in Copenhagen. That is another problem we have to solve--we here in the U.S.: loss of our democracy to the corporate rulers. But if it seems too big, too insoluble, start by GREENING something, in the here and now. Your yard, your house, your business, your community. We can solve global warming collectively, as the Indigenous know--by the cumulative effect of our individual actions, in tune with Mother Nature and with other people--and, by our collective, communal strength, change the world.