On a beautiful sunny morning, marching down the Avenida Tulúm,
our five thousand strong brigade of climate change activists,
armed with colorful flags, hats, signs, and banners,
supercharged with lively music and drummers, are making our
voices heard: "Cambie el sistema, no la clima" (Change the
System, not the climate), "El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido"
(The people united will never be defeated) and "Obama, Obama
respete Cochabamba" (Obama, Obama, respect the Cochabamba
Declaration--on the Rights of Mother Earth). One of two
simultaneous street demonstrations this morning, we are heading
toward the Moon Palace, 15 miles away, where hundreds of heavily
armed riot police are lined up behind enormous steel barricades
to prevent us from getting within earshot of the Palace, the
official headquarters for the United Nation's COP 16 (Congress
of the Parties 16) global climate summit.
With black military helicopters (courtesy of the USA) circling
overhead, our message to the "business as usual" elite in the
Palace is simple: get off your bureaucratic asses and do
something. Stop allowing large corporations to use our common
atmosphere as an open sewer. Stop cutting down our forests,
spraying poisonous pesticides, killing our oceans, and
destroying our living soils. Stand aside and let the world's 1.5
billion small farmers, ranchers, and indigenous communities cool
off the planet with organic soil management and sustainable
grazing and forestry practices. Tax the rich, nationalize the
banks, and do whatever is necessary to pay for millions of Green
Jobs and public works programs to rebuild our soils and our
economic infrastructure. Stop the delaying tactics. Join hands
with the global grassroots to retrofit our buildings, our
utilities, and our transportation sectors and move away from
fossil fuels, or get the hell out of our way.
In our dancing, chanting corps, a veritable rainbow of
nationalities and constituencies, I recognize some of the
climate warriors I've seen over the last few days at the
alternative forums and workshops: Bolivian, Mexican, Ecuadorian,
Guatemalan, and Native American indigenous people; Mexican
campesinos and campesinas (small farmers); Via Campesina members
from Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa; Korean
peace advocates; Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Code Pink,
and Global Exchange campaigners; the National Family Farm
Coalition; anti-globalization militants, Klimaforum delegates;
trade union leaders from Canada, the U.S., and Argentina;
Council of Canadian activists; student organizers; and comrades
from the Organic Consumers Association and Via Organica.
The bitter consensus in workshops and plenary sessions over the
past week is that we can't wait for Obama or the industrialized
nations to take decisive action. Along with the growing list of
governments ready to move forward to reverse global warming
(Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua,
Bangladesh, South Africa, several EU nations, and the Island
nations of the Pacific) we've got to take matters into our own
hands, in our local communities and regions, and build a mass
movement larger than any the world has ever seen. As Bill
McKibben of 350.org said today on Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/7/bill_mckibben_clima...
"[The COP 16 Climate Summit meeting here in Cancun is] just like
a family reunion aboard the Titanic We can't keep doing this.
Until we can build some power outside of these arenas to
actually push these guys it's not about how well people are
communicating or how great the policy papers are. It's on who
has the power. And at the moment, that power rests in the hands
of the fossil fuel industry and their allies in governments
around the world. And until we build some independent outside
movement power to push back, then we're going to get scraps
from the table, at the very best."
So how do we take down the climate criminals, Big Oil, Big Coal,
Big Agribusiness, Monsanto, and the Military-Industrial Complex?
How do we build a fierce and formidable climate conservation
corps that can radically alter the dynamics of the marketplace
and our suicide economy? How can we mobilize grassroots forces,
alternative technology, and progressive public officials to
fundamentally change the laws and public policies that are
driving us to the brink of disaster? How do we scale up our
organic, sustainable, equitable, climate-friendly projects and
communities past the "tipping point" so that we become the norm,
not just the alternative?
A full battle plan to Save Mother Earth and our climate and
life-support systems requires more space than we have today. But
here are several steps we need to take as we start our Long
March.
Step One: Expand Our Analysis and Broaden Our
Coalition
We need to educate a critical mass of the public about the real
causes and consequences of global warming so as to inspire and
mobilize a grassroots army of hundreds of millions of people
armed with practical ideas and confidence. We need to connect
the dots and supercharge the synergy between all of our burning
issues and Movements (urban and rural Green Jobs for all;
retrofitting the economy; stopping the wars for oil and
strategic resources in Iraq and Afghanistan; healthy,
climate-friendly organic food and farms; drastically reducing
fossil fuel use; and environmental and economic justice). We
need to break down the walls of the "my issue is more important
than your issue" silos.
We need to more clearly identify our adversaries and pinpoint
their most vulnerable weaknesses: Big Oil; Big Coal; chemical,
genetically modified (GM), and energy-intensive agribusiness and
factory farms; transnational timber companies; the
Military-Industrial Complex; as well as the financial
institutions that fund this Earth and climate-raping Behemoth.
At the same time we need to clearly and comprehensively identify
our allies: workers and apprentices who can retrofit our fossil
fuel economy; organic and green-minded consumers and backyard
gardeners; green businesses; environmental, justice, and peace
activists; educators; students; churches and religious
organizations; and a global army of 1.5 billion small farmers,
ranchers, pastoralists, forest dwellers, and indigenous people.
As a banner on the march says today "Campesinos y Campesinas
Enfrian La Planeta." (Small farmers are cooling off the planet).
We need to educate (and shout when necessary) that there is
already 435 ppm (parts per million) of three major greenhouse
gases polluting the atmosphere, heating up the earth, killing
the oceans, melting the glaciers and polar icecaps, and
destabilizing the climate. We need to name these gases over and
over again-Carbon dioxide (CO2); Methane (CH4); and Nitrous
oxide (N2O); explain exactly where they come from; and then
point out how we can drastically curtail and organically
sequester these emissions utilizing organic farm and land
management and rotational grazing.
Carbon Dioxide Pollution: 800 Gigaton Carbon
Gorilla in the Atmosphere
CO2 pollution (76% of all greenhouse gas pollution) comes from
burning fossil fuels (in buildings, cars, industry, and most of
all in our industrial food system) cutting down forests,
draining wetlands, and destroying the soil and ocean's natural
capacities to sequester billions of tons of excess greenhouse
gases. How do we reduce CO2 emissions as rapidly as possible?
Stop building coal plants, stop tar sands and gas shale
production, stop deepwater oil exploration, increase energy
efficiency, retrofit buildings, ban factory farms, and slap a
carbon tax on fossil fuel use that makes the polluters pay.
For a more in-depth discussion see:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20200.cfm
How can a global alliance of food (and fiber) consumers and food
and fiber producers literally suck down a significant proportion
(50 ppm) of the excess CO2 that's already up in the atmosphere?
Through organic and sustainable farming, grazing, and forest
practices. Organic soil management on a significant proportion
of the world's 12 billion acres of farm land and pasture/grazing
land can sequester up to 7,000 pounds of CO2 per acre per year
and lock this excess carbon naturally in the soil, where it
belongs. This Great Transition to organic farming and rotational
grazing, coupled with the defense and restoration of the world's
10 billion acres of forests and wetlands, can buy us the
precious time we need to retrofit our economies and make the
Great Transition to alternative solar, wind, and geothermal
energy.
Methane: Food Inc. and Waste Management's
Climate Killer
Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that makes up approximately
14% of human-induced global warming. Per ton, released into the
atmosphere, methane is 72 times more destructive than CO2. The
good news about methane is that if we stop releasing it into the
atmosphere, the 65 ppm already up there will quickly dissipate,
unlike carbon dioxide (which is more long-lasting) or nitrous
oxide (which for all practical purposes is permanent). Where
does methane pollution come from, and how can we get rid of it?
Methane pollution mainly comes from factory farms and the
overproduction and over consumption of non-organic,
non-grass-fed, non-grass-finished meat and animal products; from
throwing hundreds of millions of tons of rotting food, paper,
and lawn wastes into our garbage cans and landfills, instead of
composting them for use on farms, ranches, and gardens;
destruction of wetlands for shrimp and fish farms, industrial
agriculture, urban development or sprawl; and industrial,
chemical-intensive rice farming.
How do we get rid of excess methane? We must build massive
consumer awareness that it is a "climate crime" to buy or
consume meat, animal products, or any food whatsoever that comes
from a factory farm or feedlot. At the same time we must educate
consumers that organically managed small farms and ranches are
actually greenhouse gas sequestration centers, arguably our most
important allies in cooling off the planet.
In addition to boycotting any and all of the products of Food
Inc. we must create "Zero Waste" households, businesses, and
municipalities, not just through voluntary action, but more
importantly by passing laws requiring mandatory separation and
composting of all food and yard wastes. One major city in the
U.S. that has already done this is San Francisco. Mandatory
separation and composting of food wastes not only drastically
reduces methane emissions from garbage dumps or landfills; but
also creates an enormous amount of compost which farmers,
ranchers, gardeners, and landscapers can then use (along with
the organic concentrated liquid form of compost called "compost
tea"). This will create the preconditions to replace the 12
billion pounds of deadly nitrate fertilizers that are dumped on
the U.S.'s already ravaged and eroded soils every year.
Nitrous Oxide: Taking Down the Global
Chemical Fertilizer Corporations Before They Kill Us All
Human-induced releases of nitrous oxide (N2O) make up 10% of all
the greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. Excess
nitrous oxide per ton in the atmosphere is 300 times more
destructive than CO2 and unfortunately, for the present and
future generations, will remain there almost permanently.
Two-thirds of all N2O emissions arise from the use of nitrate
fertilizers on Genetically Modified (GM) and chemical-intensive
industrial farms. And of course the main crops of these fossil
fuel-guzzling industrial farms are billions of tons of
(pesticide and GMO-tainted) animal feed for use on factory farms
or feedlots.
Nitrous oxide is extremely hazardous. It depletes the ozone
layer in the upper atmosphere (thereby increasing skin cancer
for humans). It increases ozone pollution levels at the ground
level (fueling the current epidemic of asthma and respiratory
diseases.) Poisonous nitrate fertilizers leaching into our rural
wells and municipal drinking water supplies (where it combines
into a super-toxic brew with pesticides) are a biological time
bomb, a major cause of cancer, infertility, hormone disruption,
and birth defects. Nitrate fertilizer runoff into our rivers and
streams kills fish and marine life and is directly responsible
for the hundreds of dead zones in our oceans, the most famous of
which is the enormous dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
Perhaps most deadly of all, nitrate fertilizer kills our living
soils and microorganisms, decreasing their ability to sequester
(through plant photosynthesis) excess CO2 in the soil. Even
after six decades of industrial agriculture dumping hundreds of
billions of pounds of chemical fertilizers on farmlands, our
living soils still contain two to three times as much carbon as
the atmosphere, with the practical capacity to clean and safely
sequester at least 50 ppm of greenhouse gases over the next 40
years. In other works, our living soils can save us-but only if
we can stop the widespread use of nitrate fertilizers, GMO
crops, and pesticides and replace these deadly chemicals and
mutant organisms with organic compost and compost tea, and cover
crops--augmented by the biological power and fertility generated
by carefully planned, high-density rotational grazing of
animals.
The energy-intensive manufacturing of nitrate fertilizers
requires the use of massive amounts of natural gas, a resource
in short supply, that will increasingly be needed to take us
through the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy.
We can no longer afford to waste natural gas in order to uphold
the profits of Cargill, Monsanto, and Food Inc.
So how do we get rid of nitrous oxide pollution? Similar to our
phasing- out of methane emissions, we need a global boycott of
factory farms, foods, and fibers derived from chemical
pesticides, GMOs, and nitrate fertilizers. We need a million new
organic, carbon-sequestering farms and ranches that feed the
soil with organic compost, organic tea, animal manure, and cover
crops instead of nitrate fertilizer. We need ten million more
backyard and community gardens to feed ourselves locally and
organically. We need mandatory composting laws so that all of
our 100 billion plus tons of food and yard waste every year are
transformed into organic compost and compost tea. We need to
spread the word that corporate agribusiness, factory farms, and
the chemical fertilizer industry are climate criminals. We
either "sunset" them or they're going to sunset us.
Moving from Gloom and Doom to Green Solutions
and Green Jobs
People are desperate and hungry for hope. People are desperate
and hungry for jobs and a sense of meaning and mission. We in
the Movement must consciously change the tone of our gloom and
doom messages to emphasize the practical solutions and
socio-economic benefits that we have to offer: green jobs,
healthy food, climate stability, sustainability, peace, and a
revitalized democracy. For the most part we don't need to invent
new technologies. The tools and techniques and labor power we
need are already here, although in many cases they exist only in
embryonic form, in our local regions. Solar and wind technology,
super-efficient and deep-retrofitted homes and commercial
buildings. Organic farms, ranches, restored riparian zones and
wetlands and urban gardens. Urban mass transportation, ride
share and carpool systems, bike and walking paths, farmers
markets, urban greenhouses. Rooftop gardens. Organic gardening
and cooking classes. Financial mechanisms like Property Assessed
Clean Energy (PACE), community credit unions, and "Slow Money"
cooperatives. We can and must cool off the planet, but luckily
we have pilot projects and "best practices" and climate-friendly
laws and policies that we show people right now, from Main
Street and our local organic farms or ranches to green
buildings, composting toilets, and farmers markets in Manhattan.
We need in short, a Green New Deal, comparable in scope to the
New Deal of the 1930s that helped lift the U.S. out of economic
depression. Since we don't have the political power right now to
force Obama and the Congress to implement a massive Green Jobs
and Climate Conservation Corps program at the federal level,
let's go local instead. Let's build political power and a series
of mini-Green New Deals at the city, county and state levels.
And as we move to phase-out fossil fuels and the fossil fuels
industry, let's make sure that we take care of the workers and
the blue-collar communities where these industries are located.
For every job lost in the fossil fuel economy, in industrial
agriculture, and the military industrial complex, we must create
two jobs in the urban and rural organic and Green Jobs sector.
When China, Europe, and the rest of the world eventually slap a
carbon taxes on our exports, then maybe we'll see a carbon tax
on greenhouse gas emissions here in the U.S. If we do implement
a Carbon Tax that gradually but steadily raises the prices of
fossil fuel energy, let's make sure that poor people and the
middle class get reduced payroll taxes to make up the
difference. Let the polluter pay.
So let's roll up our sleeves and get to work in our local
communities. Roll out pilot projects and "structural reform"
campaigns that are (a) radical but winnable; (b) that have the
potential to educate and mobilize large numbers of people; (c)
that build new and broader coalitions; and (d) that slowly but
steadily begin to build and expand our political power. Let's
point out the problems, but also point out the organic and green
solutions that are already taking root.
Early in 2011, my organization, the Organic Consumers
Association, joined by our labor and climate action allies,
plans to launch a 20+ city campaign to take down the methane and
nitrous oxide climate criminals, to build a Movement for Zero
Waste and organic soil management that will hopefully mark the
beginning of the end for industrial agriculture, factory farms,
and the so-called Solid Waste Industry. Stay tuned for details,
but please send an email
information@organicconsumers.org if you're interesting in
helping organize such a campaign in your local community. In the
meantime I hope to see you in the streets and the suites raising
hell about Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Ag, Big Unemployment, and
Endless War. Power to the people!
Ronnie Cummins is a lifetime activist and populist hell-raiser.
He is the International Director of the
Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate,
Via Organica.