[p2p-research] Fwd: The Commons: Only Fundamental Change Can Save Us, Maude Barlow, AlterNet, 20101016

Fri Nov 5 16:17:38 CET 2010

But destroying natural resources such as water supplies is *good* for the
economy because Scarcity increases Profit, and what could we ever possibly
pay Investors if not Profit?

We can't pay Investors with Product unless those Investors are also
Consumers - for who else would accept such a strange ROI?

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Thomas Greco <thg at mindspring.com>
> Date: Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:48 AM
> Subject: Fwd: The Commons: Only Fundamental Change Can Save Us, Maude
> Barlow, AlterNet, 20101016
> To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>
>
> Michel,
> The article below has some important things to say about the commons.
>
> regards,
> Tom
>
> -------- Original Message --------  Subject: The Commons: Only Fundamental
> Change Can Save Us, Maude Barlow, AlterNet, 20101016 Date: Sat, 16 Oct
> 2010 09:52:35 -0700 From: dennis bumstead <dennisbumstead at gmail.com><dennisbumstead at gmail.com> To:
> dennis bumstead <dennisbumstead at gmail.com> <dennisbumstead at gmail.com>
>
>
>
>   We are Facing the Greatest Threat to Humanity: Only Fundamental Change
> Can Save Us
> By Maude Barlow, On the Commons
> October 16, 2010
> http://www.alternet.org/story/148519/
>
> *Maude Barlow gave this stirring plenary speech, full of hope even in the
> face of ecological disasters, to the Environmental Grantmakers Association
> annual retreat in Pacific Grove, California. Barlow, a former UN Senior
> Water Advisor, is National Chairperson of the **Council of Canadians** and
> founder of the Blue Planet Project. Barlow is a contributor to AlterNet's
> forth-coming book* Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most
> Critical Resource.**
>
> *
> *
>
> We all know that the earth and all upon it face a growing crisis. Global
> climate change is rapidly advancing, melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing
> freak and increasingly wild storms, and displacing untold millions from
> rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban slums. Almost
> every human victim lives in the global South, in communities not responsible
> for greenhouse gas emissions. The atmosphere has already warmed up almost a
> full degree in the last several decades and a new Canadian study reports
> that we may be on course to add another 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees
> Fahrenheit) by 2100.
>
> Half the tropical forests in the world – the lungs of our ecosystems – are
> gone; by 2030, at the current rate of harvest, only 10% will be left
> standing. Ninety percent of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to
> wanton predatory fishing practices. Says a prominent scientist studying
> their demise “there is no blue frontier left.” Half the world’s wetlands –
> the kidneys of our ecosystems – were destroyed in the 20th century. Species
> extinction is taking place at a rate one thousand times greater than before
> humans existed. According to a Smithsonian scientist, we are headed toward a
> “biodiversity deficit” in which species and ecosystems will be destroyed at
> a rate faster than Nature can create new ones.
>
> We are polluting our lakes, rivers and streams to death. Every day, 2
> million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are discharged
> into the world’s water, the equivalent of the weight of the entire human
> population of 6.8 billion people. The amount of wastewater produced annually
> is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. A
> comprehensive new global study recently reported that 80% of the world’s
> rivers are now in peril, affecting 5 billion people on the planet. We are
> also mining our groundwater far faster than nature can replenish it, sucking
> it up to grow water-guzzling chemical-fed crops in deserts or to water
> thirsty cities that dump an astounding 200 trillion gallons of land-based
> water as waste in the oceans every year. The global mining industry sucks up
> another 200 trillion gallons, which it leaves behind as poison. Fully one
> third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce biofuels, enough
> water to feed the world. A recent global survey of groundwater found that
> the rate of depletion more than doubled in the last half century. If water
> was drained as rapidly from the Great Lakes, they would be bone dry in
> 80 years.
>
> The global water crisis is the greatest ecological and human threat
> humanity has ever faced. As vast areas of the planet are becoming desert as
> we suck the remaining waters out of living ecosystems and drain remaining
> aquifers in India, China, Australia, most of Africa, all of the Middle East,
> Mexico, Southern Europe, US Southwest and other places. Dirty water is the
> biggest killer of children; every day more children die of water borne
> disease than HIV/AIDS, malaria and war together. In the global South, dirty
> water kills a child every three and a half seconds. And it is getting worse,
> fast. By 2030, global demand for water will exceed supply by 40%— an
> astounding figure foretelling of terrible suffering.
>
> Knowing there will not be enough food and water for all in the near future,
> wealthy countries and global investment, pension and hedge funds are buying
> up land and water, fields and forests in the global South, creating a new
> wave of invasive colonialism that will have huge geo-political
> ramifications. Rich investors have already bought up an amount of land
> double the size of the United Kingdom in Africa alone.
>
>
> *We Simply Cannot Continue on the Present Path*
>
> I do not think it possible to exaggerate the threat to our earth and every
> living thing upon it. Quite simply we cannot continue on the path that
> brought us here. Einstein said that problems cannot be solved by the same
> level of thinking that created them. While mouthing platitudes about caring
> for the earth, most of our governments are deepening the crisis with new
> plans for expanded resource exploitation, unregulated free trade deals, more
> invasive investment, the privatization of absolutely everything and
> unlimited growth. This model of development is literally killing the planet.
>
> Unlimited growth assumes unlimited resources, and this is the genesis of
> the crisis. Quite simply, to feed the increasing demands of our consumer
> based system, humans have seen nature as a great resource for our personal
> convenience and profit, not as a living ecosystem from which all life
> springs. So we have built our economic and development policies based on a
> human-centric model and assumed either that nature would never fail to
> provide or that, where it does fail, technology will save the day.
>
>
> *Two Problems that Hinder the Environmental Movement*
>
> From the perspective of the environmental movement, I see two problems that
> hinder us in our work to stop this carnage. The first is that, with notable
> exceptions, most environmental groups either have bought into the dominant
> model of development or feel incapable of changing it. The main form of
> environmental protection in industrialized countries is based on the
> regulatory system, legalizing the discharge of large amounts of toxics into
> the environment. Environmentalists work to minimize the damage from these
> systems, essentially fighting for inadequate laws based on curbing the worst
> practices, but leaving intact the system of economic globalization at the
> heart of the problem. Trapped inside this paradigm, many environmentalists
> essentially prop up a deeply flawed system, not imagining they are capable
> of creating another.
>
> Hence, the support of false solutions such as carbon markets, which, in
> effect, privatize the atmosphere by creating a new form of property rights
> over natural resources. Carbon markets are predicated less on reducing
> emissions than on the desire to make carbon cuts as cheap as possible for
> large corporations.
>
> Another false solution is the move to turn water into private property,
> which can then be hoarded, bought and sold on the open market. The latest
> proposals are for a water pollution market, similar to carbon markets, where
> companies and countries will buy and sell the right to pollute water. With
> this kind of privatization comes a loss of public oversight to manage and
> protect watersheds. Commodifying water renders an earth-centred vision for
> watersheds and ecosystems unattainable.
>
> Then there is PES, or Payment for Ecological Services, which puts a price
> tag on ecological goods – clean air, water, soil etc, – and the services
> such as water purification, crop pollination and carbon sequestration that
> sustain them. A market model of PES is an agreement between the “holder” and
> the “consumer” of an ecosystem service, turning that service into an
> environmental property right. Clearly this system privatizes nature, be it a
> wetland, lake, forest plot or mountain, and sets the stage for private
> accumulation of nature by those wealthy enough to be able to buy, hoard sell
> and trade it. Already, northern hemisphere governments and private
> corporations are studying public/private/partnerships to set up lucrative
> PES projects in the global South. Says Friends of the Earth International,
> “Governments need to acknowledge that market-based mechanisms and the
> commodification of biodiversity have failed both biodiversity conservation
> and poverty alleviation.”
>
> The second problem with our movement is one of silos. For too long
> environmentalists have toiled in isolation from those communities and groups
> working for human and social justice and for fundamental change to the
> system. On one hand are the scientists, scholars, and environmentalists
> warning of a looming ecological crisis and monitoring the decline of the
> world’s freshwater stocks, energy sources and biodiversity. On the other are
> the development experts, anti-poverty advocates, and NGOs working to address
> the inequitable access to food, water and health care and campaigning for
> these services, particularly in the global South. The assumption is that
> these are two different sets of problems, one needing a scientific and
> ecological solution, the other needing a financial solution based on pulling
> money from wealthy countries, institutions and organizations to find new
> resources for the poor.
>
> The clearest example I have is in the area I know best, the freshwater
> crisis. It is finally becoming clear to even the most intransigent silo
> separatists that the ecological and human water crises are intricately
> linked, and that to deal effectively with either means dealing with both.
> The notion that inequitable access can be dealt with by finding more money
> to pump more groundwater is based on a misunderstanding that assumes
> unlimited supply, when in fact humans everywhere are overpumping groundwater
> supplies. Similarly, the hope that communities will cooperate in the
> restoration of their water systems when they are desperately poor and have
> no way of conserving or cleaning the limited sources they use is a cruel
> fantasy. The ecological health of the planet is intricately tied to the need
> for a just system of water distribution.
>
> The global water justice movement (of which I have the honour of being
> deeply involved) is, I believe, successfully incorporating concerns about
> the growing ecological water crisis with the promotion of just economic,
> food and trade policies to ensure water for all. We strongly believe that
> fighting for equitable water in a world running out means taking better care
> of the water we have, not just finding supposedly endless new sources.
> Through countless gatherings where we took the time to really hear one
> another – especially grassroots groups and tribal peoples closest to the
> struggle – we developed a set of guiding principles and a vision for an
> alternative future that are universally accepted in our movement and have
> served us well in times of stress. We are also deeply critical of the trade
> and development policies of the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and
> the World Water Council (whom I call the “Lords of water”), and we openly
> challenge their model and authority.
>
> Similarly, a fresh and exciting new movement exploded onto the scene in
> Copenhagen and set all the traditional players on their heads. The climate
> justice movement whose motto is Change the System, Not the Climate, arrived
> to challenge not only the stalemate of the government negotiators but the
> stale state of too cosy alliances between major environmental groups,
> international institutions and big business – the traditional “players” on
> the climate scene. Those climate justice warriors went on to gather at
> another meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, producing a powerful alternative
> declaration to the weak statement that came out of Copenhagen. The new
> document forged in Bolivia put the world on notice that business as usual is
> not on the climate agenda.
>
>
> *How the Commons Fits In*
>
> I deeply believe it is time for us to extend these powerful new movements,
> which fuse the analysis and hard work of the environmental community with
> the vision and commitment of the justice community, into a whole new form of
> governance that not only challenges the current model of unlimited growth
> and economic globalization but promotes an alternative that will allow us
> and the Earth to survive. Quite simply, human-centred governance systems are
> not working and we need new economic, development, and environmental
> policies as well as new laws that articulate an entirely different point of
> view from that which underpins most governance systems today. At the centre
> of this new paradigm is the need to protect natural ecosystems and to ensure
> the equitable and just sharing of their bounty. It also means the recovery
> of an old concept called the Commons.
>
> The Commons is based on the notion that just by being members of the human
> family, we all have rights to certain common heritages, be they the
> atmosphere and oceans, freshwater and genetic diversity, or culture,
> language and wisdom. In most traditional societies, it was assumed that what
> belonged to one belonged to all. Many indigenous societies to this day
> cannot conceive of denying a person or a family basic access to food, air,
> land, water and livelihood. Many modern societies extended the same concept
> of universal access to the notion of a social Commons, creating education,
> health care and social security for all members of the community. Since
> adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, governments are
> obliged to protect the human rights, cultural diversity and food security of
> their citizens.
>
> A central characteristic of the Commons is the need for careful
> collaborative management of shared resources by those who use them and
> allocation of access based on a set of priorities. A Commons is not a
> free-for-all. We are not talking about a return to the notion that nature’s
> capacity to sustain our ways is unlimited and anyone can use whatever they
> want, however they want, whenever they want. It is rooted rather in a sober
> and realistic assessment of the true damage that has already been unleashed
> on the world’s biological heritage as well as the knowledge that our
> ecosystems must be managed and shared in a way that protects them now and
> for all time.
>
> Also to be recovered and expanded is the notion of the Public Trust
> Doctrine, a longstanding legal principle which holds that certain natural
> resources, particularly air, water and the oceans, are central to our very
> existence and therefore must be protected for the common good and not
> allowed to be appropriated for private gain. Under the Public Trust
> Doctrine, governments exercise their fiduciary responsibilities to sustain
> the essence of these resources for the long-term use and enjoyment of the
> entire populace, not just the privileged who can buy inequitable access.
>
> The Public Trust Doctrine was first codified in 529 A.D. by Emperor
> Justinius who declared: “By the laws of nature, these things are common to
> all mankind: the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of
> the sea.” U.S. courts have referred to the Public Trust Doctrine as a “high,
> solemn and perpetual duty” and held that the states hold title to the lands
> under navigable waters “in trust for the people of the State.” Recently,
> Vermont used the Public Trust Doctrine to protect its groundwater from
> rampant exploitation, declaring that no one owns this resource but rather,
> it belongs to the people of Vermont and future generations. The new law also
> places a priority for this water in times of shortages: water for daily
> human use, sustainable food production and ecosystem protection takes
> precedence over water for industrial and commercial use.
>
> An exciting new network of Canadian, American and First Nations communities
> around the Great Lakes is determined to have these lakes names a Commons, a
> public trust and a protected bioregion.
>
> Equitable access to natural resources is another key character of the
> Commons. These resources are not there for the taking by private interests
> who can then deny them to anyone without means. The human right to land,
> food, water, health care and biodiversity are being codified as we speak
> from nation-state constitutions to the United Nations. Ellen Dorsey and
> colleagues have recently called for a human rights approach to development,
> where the most vulnerable and marginalized communities take priority in law
> and practice. They suggest renaming the United Nation’s Millennium
> Development Goals the Millennium Development Rights and putting the voices
> of the poor at the centre.
>
> This would require the meaningful involvement of those affected
> communities, especially Indigenous groups, in designing and implementing
> development strategies. Community-based governance is another basic tenet of
> the Commons.
>
> **
>
> *Inspiring Successes Around the Globe*
>
> Another crucial tenet of the new paradigm is the need to put the natural
> world back into the centre of our existence. If we listen, nature will teach
> us how to live. Again, using the issue I know best, we know exactly what to
> do to create a secure water future: protection and restoration of
> watersheds; conservation; source protection; rainwater and storm water
> harvesting; local, sustainable food production; and meaningful laws to halt
> pollution. Martin Luther King Jr. said legislation may not change the heart
> but it will restrain the heartless.
>
> Life and livelihoods have been returned to communities in Rajasthan, India,
> through a system of rainwater harvesting that has made desertified land
> bloom and rivers run again thanks to the collective action of villagers. The
> city of Salisbury South Australia, has become an international wonder for
> greening desertified land in the wake of historic low flows of the Murray
> River. It captures every drop of rain that falls from the sky and collects
> storm and wastewater and funnels it all through a series of wetlands, which
> clean it, to underground natural aquifers, which store it, until it
> is needed.
>
> In a “debt for nature” swap, Canada, the U.S. and The Netherlands cancelled
> the debt owed to them by Colombia in exchange for the money being used for
> watershed restoration. The most exciting project is the restoration of 16
> large wetland areas of the Bogotá River, which is badly contaminated, to
> pristine condition. Eventually the plan is to clean up the entire river.
> True to principles of the Commons, the indigenous peoples living on the
> sites were not removed, but rather, have become caretakers of these
> protected and sacred places.
>
> The natural world also needs its own legal framework, what South African
> environmental lawyer Cormac Culllinen calls “wild law.” The quest is a body
> of law that recognizes the inherent rights of the environment, other species
> and water itself outside of their usefulness to humans. A wild law is a law
> to regulate human behaviour in order to protect the integrity of the earth
> and all species on it. It requires a change in the human relationship with
> the natural world from one of exploitation to one of democracy with other
> beings. If we are members of the earth’s community, then our rights must be
> balanced against those of plants, animals, rivers and ecosystems. In a world
> governed by wild law, the destructive, human-centred exploitation of the
> natural world would be unlawful. Humans would be prohibited from
> deliberately destroying functioning ecosystems or driving other species
> to extinction.
>
> This kind of legal framework is already being established. The Indian
> Supreme Court has ruled that protection of natural lakes and ponds is akin
> to honouring the right to life – the most fundamental right of all according
> to the Court. Wild law was the inspiration behind an ordinance in Tamaqua
> Borough, Pennsylvania that recognized natural ecosystems and natural
> communities within the borough as “legal persons” for the purposes of
> stopping the dumping of sewage sludge on wild land. It has been used
> throughout New England in a series of local ordinances to prevent bottled
> water companies from setting up shop in the area. Residents of Mount Shasta
> California have put a wild law ordinance on the November 2010 ballot to
> prevent cloud seeding and bulk water extraction within city limits.
>
> In 2008, Ecuador’s citizens voted two thirds in support of a new
> constitution, which says, “Natural communities and ecosystems possess the
> unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador. Those rights
> shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all
> Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those
> rights.” Bolivia has recently amended its constitution to enshrine the
> philosophy of “living well” as a means of expressing concern with the
> current model of development and signifying affinity with nature and the
> need for humans to recognize inherent rights of the earth and other living
> beings. The government of Argentina recently moved to protect its glaciers
> by banning mining and oil drilling in ice zones. The law sets standards for
> protecting glaciers and surrounding ecosystems and creates penalties just
> for harming the country’s fresh water heritage.
>
> The most far-reaching proposal for the protection of nature itself is the
> Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth that was drafted at the
> April 2010 World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba,
> Bolivia and endorsed by the 35,000 participants there. We are writing a book
> setting out our case for this Declaration to the United Nations and the
> world. The intent is for it to become a companion document to the 1948
> Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Every now and then in history, the
> human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. Such a time is
> upon us now as we begin to understand the urgent need to protect the earth
> and its ecosystems from which all life comes. The Universal Declaration on
> the Rights of Mother Earth must become a history-altering covenant toward a
> just and sustainable future for all.
>
>
> *What Can We Do Right Now?*
>
> What might this mean for funders and other who share these values? Well,
> let me be clear: the hard work of those fighting environmental destruction
> and injustice must continue. I am not suggesting for one moment that his
> work is not important or that the funding for this work is not needed. I do
> think however, that there are ways to move the agenda I have outlined here
> forward if we put our minds to it.
>
> Anything that helps bridge the solitudes and silos is pure gold. Bringing
> together environmentalists and justice activists to understand one another’s
> work and perspective is crucial. Both sides have to dream into being –
> together – the world they know is possible and not settle for small
> improvements to the one we have. This means working for a whole different
> economic, trade and development model even while fighting the abuses
> existing in the current one. Given a choice between funding an environmental
> organization that basically supports the status quo with minor changes and
> one that promotes a justice agenda as well, I would argue for the latter.
>
> Support that increases capacity at the base is also very important, as is
> funding that connects domestic to international struggle, always related
> even when not apparent. Funding for those projects and groups fighting to
> abolish or fundamentally change global trade and banking institutions that
> maintain corporate dominance and promote unlimited and unregulated growth is
> still essential.
>
> **
>
> *How Clean Water Became a Human Right*
>
> We all, as well, have to find ways to thank and protect those groups and
> governments going out on a limb to promote an agenda for true change. A very
> good example is President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who brought the climate
> justice movement together in Cochabamba last April and is leading the
> campaign at the UN to promote the Rights of Mother Earth.
>
> It was this small, poor, largely indigenous landlocked country, and its
> former coca-farmer president, that introduced a resolution to recognize the
> human right to water and sanitation this past June to the UN General
> Assembly, taking the whole UN community by surprise. The Bolivian UN
> Ambassador, Pablo Solon, decided he was fed up with the “commissions” and
> “further studies” and “expert consultations” that have managed to put off
> the question of the right to water for at least a decade at the UN and that
> it was time to put an “up or down” question to every country: do you or do
> you not support the human right to drinking water and sanitation?
>
> A mad scramble ensued as a group of Anglo-Western countries, all promoting
> to some extent the notion of water as a private commodity, tried to derail
> the process and put off the vote. The U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia and
> New Zealand even cooked up a “consensus” resolution that was so bland
> everyone would likely have handily voted for it at an earlier date. But
> sitting beside the real thing, it looked like what it was – an attempt, yet
> again, to put off any meaningful commitment at the UN to the billions
> suffering from lack of clean water. When that didn’t work, they toiled
> behind the scenes to weaken the wording of the Bolivian resolution but to no
> avail. On July 28, 2010, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to
> adopt a resolution recognizing the human right to water and sanitation. One
> hundred and twenty two countries voted for the resolution; 41 abstained; not
> one had the courage to vote against.
>
> I share this story with you not only because my team and I were deeply
> involved in the lead up to this historic vote and there for it the day it
> was presented, but because it was the culmination of work done by a movement
> operating on the principles I have outlined above.
>
> We took the time to establish the common principles that water is a Commons
> that belongs to the earth, all species, and the future, and is a fundamental
> human right not to be appropriated for profit. We advocate for the Public
> Trust Doctrine in law at every level of government. We set out to build a
> movement that listens first and most to the poorest among us, especially
> indigenous and tribal voices. We work with communities and groups in other
> movements, especially those working on climate justice and trade justice. We
> understand the need for careful collaborative cooperation to restore the
> functioning of watersheds and we have come to revere the water that gives
> life to all things upon the Earth. While we clearly have much left to do,
> these water warriors inspire me and give me hope. They get me out of bed
> every morning to fight another day.
>
> I believe I am in a room full of stewards and want, then to leave you with
> these words from *Lord of the Rings*. This is Gandalf speaking the night
> before he faces a terrible force that threatens all living beings. His words
> are for you.
>
> “The rule of no realm is mine, but all worthy things that are in peril, as
> the world now stand, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly
> fail in my task if anything passes through this night that can still grow
> fair, or bear fruit, and flower again in the days to come.
>
> For I too am a steward, did you not know?” —J.R.R. Tolkien
>
> **
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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