Time will tell that good has come from Rio+20

Those who would tell you that nothing good could come of Rio+20 are the same people who are hoping you won’t notice while they lock up the remaining natural resources for themselves and their friends.  They don’t believe people can work together to create quality of life for all, but would rather let the market and military dictate what token animals and resources to save.  They don’t stop to learn from the stories of their grandmothers, nor do they break bread with their neighbors in times of famine.  They are the ones who dump cyanide in your river because they believe the gold they will find is more valuable than your life.  And they don’t mind genetically modified food because they can afford name brand pharmaceuticals that will mask the effects of their malnutrition.  Too bad all the money in the world can’t buy them a new heart.

It could, however, buy them a plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro, and if they are lucky and end up on the south side of the coast in Flamenco Park, they could meet tens of thousands of other souls who have gathered here to problem solve together.  They might eavesdrop awhile on a working group that is striving for consensus around strategies to achieve food sovereignty, transition to non-fossil fuel powered transportation, restore ecosystems or set a new standard for society—el Vivir Bien—Quality of Life.  Is it too much to ask?

If they brought their kids, they could take them to the Centro Infantil, where they could make art from plants and leaves, celebrating the creativity of life.  Or stop by the Cooperative Movement booth, where books are hanging from the branches advertising cooperative values and a vision for a collaborative new economy.  Or get a snack at the Solidarity Market, where locals and visitors have set up organic treats for sale, celebrating the ripple effect of buying products directly from the source, cultivated without poisoning the earth.

Maybe they will get tired of the multi-lingual, multi-generational, multi-objective dialogue and decide to take a break, kick off their shoes, and let the sand massage between their toes as they wander out to the shoreline.  It is Rio de Janeiro, after all!  The gentle pulse of the waves of energy as they push up from the depths of the ocean onto the shore might reveal to them why we are all here in the first place, if they are paying attention.

But if they are unlucky, they might end up instead on a two hour shuttle bus that takes them beyond steep walls guarded by machine-gun wielding teenagers and helicopters swirling overhead, where they can read the bureaucratic language detailing how corporations and the military are aligned to co-opt the UN along with the rest of humankind’s institutions; a global imperial checkmate.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, it is there that our political leaders have gathered to pay homage, sacrificing our resources and future at the false solution altar of “sustainable development.”   

The ultimate judgment of if anything good comes of Rio+20 will come from the next generation.  Yesterday the youth delegates dressed up as corporate CEOs to ironically thank the UN for giving them the “future we want,” one dictated by the fossil fuel and giant agro-industries, even while Oxfam, the World Wildlife Foundation , Greenpeace and other NGOs  tore up their participation accreditations in rejection of the formal accord. 

Meanwhile throughout Rio, in and outside the People’s Summit, tens of thousands of us continue to share stories and ideas for a different kind of future we want.   I met architects and permaculture experts who envision green roofs and rain water capture in Sao Paulo, just as we do in the Bronx.  Africans explained “Ubuntu,” the concept that I am because you are; that sharing doesn’t come from surplus, but rather intertwined destiny. We shared ideas for a legal structure based on defending our right to water, and daily practices that heal each other through harmony with our food and bodies.  We challenged ourselves to learn from marginalized communities how to “live well” outside of the dominant paradigm, so we can open new space for creative solutions to climate challenges.  

But even as we create this space, we must defend it.  After the Indigenous people from across Brazil shared their ancient wisdom and culture with the visitors from across the planet that made this pilgrimage, they gathered on the beach to reject the 60 giant dams the government plans to destroy the rivers of the Amazon, the lungs of the world.  

Make no mistake: this is a battle, in our minds, our lifestyles and our territories.  If we remain isolated, struggling to survive against the plague of bulldozers and poisons that quench the capitalist obsession with growth, we will fail.    

But when we come together, in our own communities just as in Rio, we are stronger than them. Time will tell that good has come from Rio+20.

Rio+20 in NYC  

Update from the UN Negotiations 
from the Global Justice Ecology Project

Note: Rio+20 is the major UN summit coming up in June in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  Rio+20 is the 20 year follow up to the first Rio Earth summit in 1992, which gave birth to the UN Climate Convention, the UN Biodiversity Convention, the Convention to Combat Desertification and of course the Convention on Sustainable Development.  All of these conventions have utterly failed to accomplish their missions.  

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But rather than wring its hands over its failures, the UN is pushing a “new approach” this time around in Rio–the so-called “Green Economy.”  Yes, Capitalism in a Green wig.  Green like the color of US dollars.  Green as in Greenwash.  Many of the organizations GJEP has partnered with at the UN  Climate Conventions and Biodiversity Conventions are mobilizing for Rio+20–but not just on the inside.  A major Peoples’ Assembly is being planned on the outside.  A follow up from the Cochabamba

April 2010 World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

 Peoples’ Summit that followed the disastrous UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen–the Rio Peoples’ Assembly is being organized to bring people together from around the world to talk about real solutions to the global crises we face.  To get an idea of what we as so-called “civil society” are up against regarding the official negotiations in Rio, check out the post below.

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–The GJEP Team

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This Monday and Tuesday, March 26-27th, Gears of Change Youth Media correspondents Will Bennington and Keith Brunner will be reporting from the 3rd Intercessional meeting of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in New York, NY.  Member nations to the UNCSD have been meeting in “informal-informal” sessions since March 19th, in the lead-up to this June’s Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development Summit, which will be held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

Orin Langelle, GJEP’s board chair is on the advisory board of GEAR

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Cross-Posted from Gears of Change

26 March 2012

The first fifteen minutes of the Major Groups meeting this morning were a clue as to the state of the negotiations on the Rio+20 Zero Draft, here at the UN headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

First to speak was the representative of the Business and Industry Major Group, who reported that global business “welcomed the Zero Draft” and the fact that they’d been given greater access in the negotiations, but noted that they were still “feeling sidelined” by the process and would like to participate more actively in the process.  The private sector, she noted, sees the green economy as a linking of “economic growth with environmental sustainability,” and is pushing for an agreed-upon definition of “green economy” in the text.

Directly afterwards was the report from the Farmers Major Group representative, who affirmed that according to fisherfolk and small farmers, food sovereignty and the rights of rural women must play central roles in sustainable development strategy, with food sovereignty defined as a “comprehensive and cross-cutting framework” connecting rights, sustainability, and poverty eradication.  The delegate also pointed to the shortcomings of the Green Economy as it “diverts attention away from sustainable development.”

These reports illustrated the seemingly irreconcilable divide existing here at the negotiations, which the Brazilian negotiator (at the Major Groups meeting by invitation) characterized as “parallel worlds”- a simultaneous push by most nations and civil society to strengthen rights-based language and build off of the outcomes of the 1992 Rio summit, such as the Precautionary Principle, and the push by the most powerful nations to use the UN process to kickstart and support a major new investment frontier for global business.

The Workers and Trade Unions Major Group representative seemed to capture the mood of the room: “Our rights are being bracketed.”  Civil Society is losing, she pointed out, and needs to demand global outcomes based in democratic process at the international level.  This concern was echoed by one of the focal points for the major groups when he called on civil society to “organize” and present a unified front against the agendas of the most powerful nations and corporate interests.

We followed this divide into the first negotiating session, taking place in a cavernous room packed with delegates, all seated in beige leather chairs behind their respective member-state placard.  Hung on the walls and featured at the front of the room were large television screens displaying what could be described as the world’s most intense googledoc session- brackets within brackets, comments, additions, and clarifications.  In other words, a “cluster-doc”.

When we walked in, the process was essentially a back-and-forth between the US and the G77 (a negotiating bloc of mostly southern countries) with the US bracketing and deleting language upholding rights to food and development, and the G-77 trying to ensure social inclusion and address the shortcomings of market-based approaches to eradicate poverty.  The Zero Draft had become littered with paragraphs such as this one:

Protest Against UN Climate Strategy in Copenhagen 2009

[25 b alt: Encourage government-driven and market-oriented policies and actions to promote an integrated, action-oriented approach to sustainable development that is based on data, information, and evidence.  -US, Canada, EU, New Zealand; G77 delete]

Or, more likely, its inverse, such as a G77 proposal calling for the regulation of financial market speculation, and a wealthy nation response to refine the statement using a [positive tone].

So what will it be?  Will the “Road to Rio” further devolve into a North-South power struggle, preventing the coveted UN mandate for a green free-market investment bubble?   Or will the G77 eventually cave and sign on to this new Washington Consensus, agreeing to swap human rights language for intellectual property rights guarantees?  One way or another, the green economy ball is rolling, and its in all of our interests to follow it closely.

Raising Tilapia (and Hope) in the Bronx

Raising Tilapia in the Bronx

By C.J. Sinner

On an overcast September afternoon, Joseph Ferdinand took a walk with friends Juan Antigua and Miguel Hamond, to a community garden in the Mount Hope neighborhood of the Bronx. The trio walked slowly around the exterior of the half-acre vacant lot, peering between gaps in the fence and commenting on the garden’s state of disrepair: fading toys littered the space, a few raised planting beds with the remnants of tomato and pepper plants needed care, rusting garden tools sat propped against tree stumps.

Still, the group saw potential – plenty of space and sunlight for a greenhouse. Back at Ferdinand’s studio apartment, flipping through pages of research, they could see the progress of his project.  There, in two 55-gallon tanks along the wall opposite his bed, were 25 young tilapia that Ferdinand had begun raising in the summer. In September, each fish measured a few inches long.

Antigua and Hamond watched Ferdinand sprinkle food into the tanks. Then, questions started circulating. How much funding do we need? Whom do we need to meet with to take over the community garden? What about equipment? 

Ferdinand and his volunteer friends want to take over management of the city-owned 176th Street Community Garden they’d visited and transform it into an aquaponics hub. Aquaponics, a growing sector of sustainable farming, combines the principles of aquaculture and hydroponics – raising fish while growing plants.  Though operations vary in complexity, they generally use fish wastewater to irrigate and fertilize plants. The plant roots, along with naturally-occurring bacteria, filter the water, which is cycled back to the fish, so that the two become interdependent.

Ferdinand envisions a center where workers, maybe student interns, raise fresh fish and crisp garden produce, like tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, as neighbors learn about gardening. The produce and fish would be sold directly to community members or to local restaurants.

“I see myself trying to bring something that would benefit the community in the form of growing fish and herbs that I know would be healthy,” Ferdinand said. “All we get here is, like, the leftovers – that’s all we get. It’s fat and salt and whatever garbage it is.”

CONTINUE READING HERE

Concrete Green: In Our Back Yard

original members Elisabeth Ortega, Nethaly Soriano, Andre Rivera,
 Dahiana Laucer, Taleigh Smith & Jose Rodriguez

When Taleigh Smith, a worker-owner at Concrete Green, tells people about her business, she is often met with incredulity. “They think we’re peddling some sort of environmental concrete,” Smith told ioby last week. 

In reality, Concrete Green is a five-member worker co-op that is attempting to revolutionize green industry in the Bronx. 

Smith came to New York City in 2001 with a passion for finding global justice solutions. Through her work with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, she has come to understand that global problems can only be solved through local action.  Global solutions, she found, begins with a group of people trying something new in their neighborhood. So when an opportunity arose to start a green worker co-op in her neighborhood, Smith jumped at the opportunity. 

The idea for the organization was born from an environmental literacy class that Smith teaches through the Center for Sustainable Energy at Bronx Community College. In that class, Smith guides students through environmental problem solving and green job trainings. Only a few short months ago, in September of 2011, five of her most ambitious and entrepreneurial students approached her with the idea that would ultimately become Concrete Green.  

Now a joint project of the Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Concrete Green is still in the early stages of development. The organization’s short-term goal is to provide a steady income to its member-owners, the five Bronx youths between the ages of 19 and 22 who are trained to install green infrastructure, solar panels and rainwater harvesting systems on rooftops. While the group has not yet been contracted out for a job, Smith told ioby that they consider themselves pioneers in the neighborhood. 

Socioeconomic contexts in the Bronx present significant obstacles for a green start-up. The member-owners, all Bronx residents, deal regularly with the effects of unemployment, asthma and deteriorating health, school closures and a fundamental lack of economic opportunity in their home neighborhoods. 

“We can’t just spin our wheels without making money,” said Smith. All five member-owners work part-time in the area, but each hopes to turn Concrete Green into a career.  To do so will take some hard work, coupled with the formation of strong partnerships and the generosity of donors.

The member-owners recognize that, at least in their early stages of business development, they will not be able to win contracts for rooftop installation projects without a track record. They are currently engaging with green design consultants in the hope that they might be able to spark a collaboration. With the right training and an opportunity to accompany specialty firms on contracted jobs, the member-owners at Concrete Green are confident that they will begin to build expertise and a reputation for excellence in the field. Ultimately, Smith hopes that property owners looking to install a green roof on their buildings will approach Concrete Green with their projects.

While the organization will be working with paying clients, Smith is careful to point out that the member-owners’ hearts are with the community. As a non-profit organization largely aimed at generating income for the workers who run it, the organization will continue to fundraise as it grows. 

According to Smith, although their plan is to run a money-making enterprise, it is important to her team that they address the highest needs in the community, “whether or not they can pay for our services.”

In ten years, Concrete Green hopes to see a green roof on every building in the Bronx. “When we say green, we expect that to have different characteristics,” said Smith. Some buildings are ideal for typical green roofs and others, said Smith, are ideal for recreational or therapeutic uses. “We’ll measure our success,” Smith added, by looking at “business sustainability, projects we can point to and their environmental impacts, and seeing our work replicated.”

The organization will consider its mission at least partially fulfilled when organizations like it take root across the Bronx. The goal is not to monopolize, but to foster, the market for Bronx-grown green worker cooperatives. 

Smith is keenly attuned to the global implications of the work that she is doing with Concrete Green. “The Bronx is in a unique position, being a part of New York City,” she told ioby. The city is an economic hub for the world, “yet the Bronx as a community has been marginalized and over-polluted and has a relationship to New York City that is similar to the developing world.” Smith affirms that environmental solutions in the Bronx have global implications for communities that have been marginalized and exploited around the globe. 

With that said, the proximity of the Bronx to New York’s many international political and economic institutions affords the borough unique access to the world stage. In this way, Smith argued, “the Bronx has an advantage.” It is precisely for this allure that many organizations and companies come to the South Bronx to seed environmental projects. Sadly, these are often short-lived and provide few net benefits for the community. Smith firmly believes that environmental and economic sustainability in the Bronx begins with homegrown projects that both employ and benefit Bronx residents.

The future is looking bright for Concrete Green. With the right combination of donors and business partners, the organization might just be an exemplar model for community owned and operated green enterprises in the Bronx.

Concrete Green will be featured on-stage at the New York City Green Festival at the Javits Center on April 21. The event is open to the public but requires a small entry fee. For information on how to receive free tickets, courtesy Concrete Green, please contact Taleigh Smith at taleigh@northwestbronx.org.

 originally published here