Back Issue - January 2003
On keeping your eye
on the ball
Few of us can be finding it easy to keep focussed on urgent
environmental issues with all the current talk of war. This
is one reason why there has not been a new Boiling Point issue
on this site since last September. Nothing has really caught
public attention in this area since the World Summit on Sustainable
Development that month, which shows how high is the pain threshold
that has to be breached for many people to take notice. Those
with environmental commitment can easily let that distraction
erode our faith and persistence in keeping doing what we really
believe to be most important. And yet we must.
The biggest threat to life on earth - uncontrollable
climate change - will continue to accelerate, if radical urgent
action is not taken to avert it. At least one of the basic
causes for war will also fuel it - literally - Oil ! It is
appalling that the most profligate nation that turned its
back on the Kyoto Protocol (for arresting global warming)
under pressure from its oil corporations - now quite patently
has its eye on Iraqi oil reserves, and the UK government seems
increasingly to be doing likewise. In the not so long term,
this pursuit is suicidal - and quite blatantly mad!
However, an increasingly broad spectrum of commentators is
drawing attention to this absurdity - enabling the likes of
us to re-engage with those around us about this matter. Just
two days ago (at the time of writing), on the day that the
UN weapons inspectors were reporting to the Security Council
in New York, the economics correspondent of The UK Guardian
advocated the very method which we have been supporting in
Boiling Point issues over the last year. This is to contract
and converge dangerous global greenhouse gases - so as to
reduce global demand for oil instead of going to war in order
to supply it.[1]
And in the same newspaper today (29 January) a range of
environmental organisations are reported as protesting against
"security plans to protect an oil pipeline from the Caspian
to the Mediterranean (that) have ignited fears of military
tensions and global warming".[2] On the same page, "a
leaked Deutsche Bank analysts' report, entitled Bagdad Bazaar:
Big Oil in Iraq" was reported to have been circulated
at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland - in case
anyone is in any doubt about this motive for attacking Iraq.[3]
Which ball?
This opening-up of interest produces its own question: on
what to focus attention? Just the environmental issue or its
social, political or economic context as well? Do you remember
the answer that the UK Environment Minister gave me at a conference
a year ago, when I asked him to get the Prime Minister to
issue our challenge to the World Summit. He said: "The
South Africans do not want the Summit to be dominated by climate
change!" Our first letter to him, supported by eventually
200 people (see Challenge page on the .org.uk version of our
site), began by acknowledging "that this Summit must
address the deep anxiety felt about the impact of economic
development on poverty as well as the environment" and
"that to succeed, our efforts to avert Climate Change,
eradicate poverty and make development sustainable must reinforce
one another".
Not only does every environmental issue have a social, political
and economic context, but responses to it increasingly require
a variety of associates and allies who are involved in different
aspects of that context. Often they regard the environmental
issue as peripheral to what they want to do. They may use
tactics which we have not used up till now, and so decisions
to be taken on whether we join in theirs or stick with our
own.
Our tactics to date
Our tactics on environmental issues to date have centred
on: contributing responses, ideas, proposals and challenges
at conferences, through working groups, letters for publication
and copied to relevant politicians and e-mail groups, policy
statements and leaflets distributed at our Save our World
Festivals, other festivals and demonstrations, gathering signatures
for petitions at such events, these Boiling Point issues,
and publicity given them through press-notices and more e-mail
group distributions.
We have run environmental awareness programmes, on a small
scale, at our Festivals and in local schools and are currently
seeking funding for further Climate Change Workshops to take
to similar audiences, with professional direction and actors
(which will, in future, be covered on the Local Projects page
of the .org.uk version of our web-site). Our efforts, for
some time, to establish joint campaigning with other organisations,
is now coming together with a small number of them, within
a looser but larger group that we hope to draw into our initiative
(soon to be covered on a new Campaigns page). More of that
later!
Some organisations are involved in direct action, that we
have not so far taken. Given the results and notice that a
number of them have gained, this looks well worth our considering
ourselves. Others provide advice on sustainable lifestyles
and recycling, on technological advances with renewable energy,
on scientific evidence about climate change, genetically modified
organisms, and many aspects of ecology and biodiversity under
threat. Rather than attempting to compete with any of these,
we are very ready to refer enquiries to the most relevant
of these organisations.
Some of the biggest environmental organisations operate almost
entirely through an extensive membership base in order to
fund their public operations. We too have a membership base,
a constitution and are managed by a committee, but we have
tried to engage people in their localities directly and collectively
so far, without placing so much emphasis on internal linkages.
We have been particularly concerned about values, motivations
and intentions - for ourselves and everyone else; so this
has drawn us towards other organisations with a spiritual
outlook, and has led us to question assumptions of impartiality
and objectivity - as well as their effectiveness in eliciting
the desired action from government.
Interest in values has naturally involved us in ideological
issues as far as choosing allies is concerned. Those involving
humanitarian causes produce little difficulty. Very recently,
we made much the same observations as other environmental
organisations on the Department of Foreign and International
Development's (DFID) report 'Poverty and Climate Change' -
that stabilising the climate is a precondition for the alleviation
of poverty in developing countries.
On globalisation of trade Save our World campaigned with
others against the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI),
which would have enabled trans-national corporations to exploit
the natural environment with impunity - as well as local and
national economies. Much the same issues apply to the immanent
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), making us natural
allies of the World Development Movement. In the debate on
'Sustainable Development' we had no qualms in submitting observations
to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
contesting that 'development', understood as the current government
ideology of indefinite economic growth, is irreconcilable
with the consumption of an average person in the UK that already
requires the resources of three planets, not one!
It is not so easy for Save our World, as an organisation,
to take a position on 'Drop the Debt' or the imminent danger
of war in the Middle East, although members as individuals
are of course perfectly at liberty to do so. The implications
for developing countries to support their indigenous farming
methods in environmentally sustainable ways, is one aspect
that we strongly support, but that may not justify our general
alignment with a campaign that is not specifically environmental
in nature. We have no specific view on the mixture of causes
espoused by the 'Countryside Alliance' in Britain.
Similarly, the waging of war against Iraq for gaining access
to its oil is totally unjustifiable from an environmental
point of view, but there are many other aspects upon which
Save our World, as such, has no natural say. Nevertheless,
this aspect of oil is one of the grounds on which people are
currently implored to oppose such a war. So do we create our
own banner on the issue of oil and take and wave our flags
in the demonstrations, or decide against associating Save
our World with the anti-war movement generally, since it is
not addressed in our objects and could offend some of our
members? This is a difficult one, which illustrates the problem
of deciding the range of our involvements.
So, the more we get involved with and welcome joint and reciprocal
campaigning, the more discerning we have to be in order to
maintain our focus, to 'keep our eye on the ball'. Having
identified some of the legitimate areas, as well as some of
the distractions and diversions, we have to ask: what do we
need to concentrate upon - and how are we doing so?
A new game
The case for making climate change our overriding concern
at the present time has been argued enough in previous issues
of Boiling Point not to need repeating again.
The joint campaigning which is mentioned above and anticipated
in the previous, now Back Issue of Boiling Point: 'So the
Summit is over - Now What?', has resulted in a specific proposal,
during the last week. This is to support a combination of
a UK-originating existing campaign, entitled Operation Noah,
with our own proposal to create a world-wide critical mass
of public awareness and pressure on governments to stabilise
the climate. More thought has to be given the specific targets
for reductions in greenhouse gases and time-scale, rather
than adopt the '60% in 50 years' challenge that we made for
the World Summit (see the May 2002 Back Issue of that title).
However, all of us who met this last week are agreed on the
Contraction and Convergence global framework for managing
those reductions, which is described in that Back Issue.
Operation Noah is a project of Christian Ecology Link which,
through working with churches and community groups over the
next ten years, aims to bring all sectors of society together
to act against climate change. It already has the backing
of the World Council of Churches. It utilises the metaphor
of building Noah's Ark in order to stabilise the climate by
means of the targets and framework which will apply to both
of the above initiatives. It invites people to sign a 'Climate
Covenant' to get World leaders to act to avert dangerous climate
change, and give everyone fair access to energy in a sustainable
world economy.
The two initiatives are being proposed to work together by
attracting support and resources for Operation Noah and, in
the meantime, preparing the ground for a broader campaign
or coalition of organisations to share a new web-site and
other facilities, and reach out to organisations in other
countries and cultures, so as to develop the 'critical mass
and pressure' world-wide that has been mentioned.
So, in these uncertain times, an exciting
and uplifting vision is being pursued and being made the object
of concerted focus for resolving the mounting climate crisis.
Please use the Feedback facility below in order to express
your interest, ideas, support and suggestions of organisations
for us to contact, anywhere in the world.
In the meantime, may peace and goodwill prevail !
(C) Jim Scott 29/01/2003
[
Feedback
Please
feel free to leave your comments and air your views,first
mentioning the title of the Feature or Boiling Point issue
to which you are referring.
If you prefer, you can email
your comments directly to Jim Scott, Chairperson of Save
Our World.
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