We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The Climate Change Revolution Will Not Be Funded

Click here to access article by Jared Sacks from The Indypendent.
After 17 years of meetings to address climate change, the lack of action from world leaders clearly shows that the biggest polluting nations not only lack the political will to address the issue, but also seem to be actively carrying out the anti-environmental agenda of the largest corporations on this planet.
The author suggests that the NGOs that organized the UN conference in Durban, South Africa, and who often support positive climate change measures got in the way of any real citizen involvement in the proceedings, and arrives at the conclusion that...
...NGOs have no structural accountability to their so-called beneficiaries. They are externally funded organizations that, like the World Bank, are accountable to outside forces through the power of the purse.
Clearly, the model of self-governance via direct democracy that is being created by the Occupy movements all over the world is a critical tool needed to repair the global social and environmental crises.