Surviving Capitalism (Not) : ‘Climate capitalism’ won at Cancun

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 18, 2010

‘Climate capitalism’ won at Cancun – everyone else loses

by Patrick Bond from International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Bribing those Third World governments which in 2009 were the most vocal critics of Northern climate posturing at Copenhagen became common knowledge thanks to Wikileaks disclosures of US State Department cables from February 2010. On February 11, for example, European Union climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard told Washington that the Alliance of Small Island States “‘could be our best allies’, given their need for financing”.