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Cathy Aitchison |
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Blog The links we can't deny 18
July 2005 Add to that the ease in which our concerns, and our lifestyles, are beamed across the planet to those who not only can't afford to live like us but are also living in poverty helping us to do so. Would you be able to watch without feelings of humiliation and rage? To defeat terrorism, and the causes of terrorism, we should put at the top of the agenda not security measures but, yes, the need for us to change our lifestyle - to use only our fair share of resources - as well as the need for us to demonstrate that we value all peoples alike. There's a poster advert current in the UK encouraging those who know of someone with a gun to tell the police so as not to have blood on their hands. By living above our single-planet means, do we all have blood on our own? Postscript:
Why does the US want Haiti to privatise its
utilities? Not out of any altruistic love for the Haitians.
See the report
by Naomi Klein in today's Guardian. Klein
visited the exiled President Aristide in South Africa and asked him what
was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington. 'He offered an
explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics - actually, he
offered three: "Privatisation, privatisation and privatisation." Condemning the killers - all of them 15 July 2005 I also condemn the killing in Haiti of more
than 30 slum dwellers, including children, in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince,
on the 6th July, in a raid by around 350 UN peacekeepers. See: I can't remember hearing much about the second atrocity. If we want to prevent future atrocities in our affluent cities, we must put equal value on the lives and deaths of those who live in poverty or conflict - whether in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere - far from the instant reportage of cameras and mobile phones. The two events ARE interconnected - if we focus only on the first, we create rage and fury among those whose experiences are closer to the second. Email:
ca_july_reports@twiza.demon.co.uk To make poverty history we must change our own lifestyles and values 2
July 2005: It's obscene that under the Common Agricultural Policy each European cow attracts a subsidy of just over 2 dollars a day, greater than the daily income of half the world's population. It's also obscene that we would need two planets' worth of resources to sustain our current level of consumption across the globe. But it's not just about cutting back - it also involves changing attitudes and creating a different set of rewards, reassessing who we are and what we value. Of course it's hard to give up the affordable luxuries like cheap flights to far away places, or to resist the pressure to improve our surroundings - it will take time to wean ourselves off our consumer-led lifestyle, to see the benefit in staying in one place and buying less not more. But we urgently need to be rewarded for making the change - and that involves putting a higher value on a whole range of micro, grassroots and locally based activities which need fewer resources. Such as:
We need new measures of success and achievement which place high value on people and lifestyles using no more than their fair share of the planet's resources. As E. F. Schumacher said, "Small is beautiful". Small is also more sustainable and equitable. Make Poverty History and campaigning as equals 3
June 2005: The Make Poverty History campaign has much to recommend it, but at one level it reinforces the concept of poor countries needing a helping hand, and of us in the rich, developed world having all the answers, all the power to make the change. I want to hear about a global linking campaign, twinning rich and poor communities in an equal partnership: a campaign in which rich countries, who use more than their fair share of resources, are being helped to change their lifestyle to use less, and where the ordinary citizens of poor countries are sharing their skills in sustainable living, and receiving only what they want in the way of aid or support. If you're
are already doing this, or if you'd like to, please let me know:
email ca_equal@twiza.demon.co.uk The best thing about community radio 31 May 2005: Dear Phil and list Community radio for democracy 12
May 2005: Community radio lends itself particularly to a kind of democracy which doesn't depend on winners and losers, but instead takes more of a conflict-resolution approach. Many women prefer this style of problem solving. I hope to explore the use of community radio - especially using portable recording equipment - and how it can help give women a voice in the democratic process - also, can it help those in authority to recognise the value of consulting in this kind of way? Useful
link: the
Creative Radio Yahoo group - several hundred people using radio in
development around the world - excellent information source. When the oil runs out 12 May 2005: Oil production could peak next year, leading to a crisis in three years, according to experts such as Chris Skrebowski, of the Energy Institute in London, Colin Campbell, who helped to found the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London, and Matthew Simmons, an adviser to President George Bush and chairman of the Wall Street energy investment company Simmons. It's not so much that oil will run out soon, but that rising demand will quickly outstrip the falling supply. Vidal writes: "The precise arrival of peak oil is hotly debated by academics and geologists, but analysts increasingly say that official US Geological Survey estimates that it will not happen for 35 years are over-optimistic." Question: how can we adapt our
style of living now so that we can both conserve oil and be ready for an
'oil reduced' life style later? |
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