[IPSM] Musings from Cochabamba and Tiquipaya, Bolivia

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Musings from Cochabamba and Tiquipaya, Bolivia
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/macdonald/3272
April 21, 2010
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Macdonald Stainsby

The streets of Cochabama and Tiquipaya are alive. Alive with the right to
live. Alive with the right to see past the fog of lies coming from the
global North. Alive with the rights of mother earth. The gathering here,
called by the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and the government of South
America's first indigenous president Evo Morales, is titled “the world
peoples conference to combat climate change and for the rights of mother
earth” has many of the most pressing issues being discussed, and very
often with varying positions on where to go with these ideas. Some are
outright contradictory, such as the large number of local and regional
indigenous groups here who support REDD-- and those who do not, in
particular indigenous representatives from North America. We can return to
that. What I wish to press the most immediately is what is NOT a debate. A
debate I have never not encountered before. The freedom to move away from
such mind numbing nonsense and onto what to do about what capitalist and
imperialist-led climate change is doing to us all is an intoxication of
hope that would make Barack Obama's toes sweat.

There are no lies about so-called “green energy”-- whether that be
nuclear, whether that be hydro, or any of the other scams being
perpetrated on us all, in order to satiate the insatiable drive to
continue to consume, regardless of the cost, regardless of their own
children. Green energy is seen here, so it seems, as yet one more way that
North Americans and Europeans wish to continue to live their completely
arrogant, unsustainable and ultimately genocidal lives. Along with the
lies and diversions of Green Energy, those who already see their glaciers
disappearing (the glaciers here in Bolivia are the life-systems for
water), who already are suffering massive droughts (Trinidad and Tobago is
on fire from lack of even sparse rains and the water is intermittently
shut off, Venezuela is suffering a water shortage and-- via
hydroelectricity-- a lack of basic energy as well), who have lost most of
their arable lands (Africans have seen their country sacrificed to the
dustbin of history in Copenhagen) and who are about to completely
disappear underwater (The Maldives will likely be gone due to even a 1.5
degree change in climate) do not entertain silly notions about how the
exploiters of the first world need to “maintain their way of life”. There
is no such thing as green energy, and certainly no way to spend our way,
writing as a resident of North America, out of our problems.

Offsets around climate and the earth itself are seen as one more cruel
joke, another way to express utter contempt for the peoples of the rest of
the world-- the same peoples who gather here because they have not yet
renounced the right to survive. Offsets, in this country of Catholic
history, is seen like and indulgence-- for it is no more and no less than
that, except with the minor caveat that these indulegences exacerbate both
climate change-- that is, the continued death of all life-supporting
systems on earth-- and deepen colonialism through offsets via continued
land grabs that now place the most hypocrtical of all greenwash at the
helm of such devastating lies and disastrous schemes to create new
millionaires off the bounty of the death of life. When people speak of the
climate change solutions needed, it appears that the most dangerous
elements are that some countries, in fact, benefit from this tyranny of
irresponsible management of the worst situation in human kinds history.
The global exploiters wish to use this crisis to create better trade
routes for themselves, to decimate the countries in the global South ever
further through yet more forced debt in order to facilitate the
possibility of survival for only a few more years through infrastructure
developments to hold back the floodgates, as it were, from breaking
through the day after tomorrow.

In fact, these are not debtor but creditor nations. As an indigenous
speaker put it earlier, the global north forced the understanding of traps
like loans and debts. The earth is now merely cashing in on the loan she
extended to us in the North through both the exploitation of peoples and
the ravaging of the lands for ill gotten greed. We choose not to pay back
that 500 year old loan and instead look to play games, we will watch now
as she collects.

However, there are disturbing aspects to the near unanimity we are seeing
here. That can be seen in two ways. One is that, despite the Morales call
to the contrary on both counts, the most visible ENGO from the US that is
here is 350.org. On the North American scale, this is not a bad call. But
Morales had previously stated a need to get back to 300 parts per million,
to restore the already out of balance society collapse we are going
through (we are globally now at well over 385). What of these
declarations? Well, perhaps something even a little more sinister needs to
be dug into, the very role of the ENGO's both in Copenhagen recently and
in the need to fight back immediately now.

Very few ENGO's deny the climate science. They know what is going on with
the climate, more often better than the rest of the North American
population. They completely refuse to call for the various methods needed
to understand and actually tackle the problem. They will not call for
targets that save human life-- 300 parts per million is the only target
that does not make a sacrifice of any people or nation. 350 is survivable,
so long as people are relocated and real compensation is afforded to the
rest. But to speak of 450-550 parts per million is a crime against
humanity. It is-- when it comes from those who know the science-- to help
the capitalists and the imperialist system it serves protect a way of life
for 5% of humanity and let the rest simply die. For those who are received
as “environmentalists” to even entertain such a notion in public ought to
be enough to have them dragged off to the Hague for crimes that will have
higher body counts than both “Great” wars of the 20th Century and with no
possibility of reconstruction efforts. In short, it is not stupid, or
merely opportunistic, but criminal.

When North American governments speak about protecting their ill-gotten
privilege, that is sadly unsurprising. Yet, when North American
Environmental groups make policy demands that condemn human beings to
death-- and they know so-- they are the single greatest weapon that this
catastrophe in slow but speeding up motion has. How can a pathetic,
suicide pact like the agreement of Copenhagen be taken seriously if not
for groups that green it? How can people trust anyone when they are
already dying and those they think they can ask for help tell them “Sorry,
if we tell the truth, we will lose money.”

And that's the final point. North American NGO structures are built up as
an alliance of imperialism itself. They are the last defence in letting
the public of North America bury its head in the sands and ignore what is
happening. From cap and trade, to green energy, to calls for nothing at
all, to applauding enviro-butcher governments, to lies about the science--
that is, lies about the truth-- they protect themselves and their money.
And they are killing us off. They continue to believe that we can sit at a
table with the tar sands producers, the coal operators, the proponents of
all that is death-- and this they must never stop doing, for their very
pay cheques come from this same place. Yes, ENGO's in the North American
context are paid for, bought and partnered with the death bringers. Does
all of this make a little more sense now?

People in the world over have had it with lies as they know what is
happening. You don't need to have a science degree to see the glaciers
that feed the springs as they disappear. If you live with the land,
nothing but that will ever convince you otherwise. The facts of ENGO
complicity in acting as a block to real discussions of the climate
situation, with climate debt, with reparations and more is something North
America has to hear-- hear again and again-- and those who must tell them
are the real fighters. They are not environmentalists. They are
revolutionaries. Because revolution is the only way to save humanity now,
not carbon markets, plastic bag recycling and better light bulbs.

There is no WWF here in Cochabamba. There is no Pembina Institute, with
their back room dealings with tar sands operators. There is no NRDC, no
Environmental Defence, who should rightly be called “Environmental
sacrifice”. There are community leaders from around the world. There are
government representatives from 100 + countries. There are revolutionaries
who accept nothing less than survival for all of humanity. We have real
discussions about how to finally dance on the grave of imperialism itself,
rather than weep over the graves of its victims. There is no Obama hope
here, there is real hope, people uniting, and uncovering all the lies
while there is indeed an actual chance.

The earth will be fine. It is about the people. And the people have not
yet renounced their right to survive.


--
Macdonald Stainsby
Co-ordinator,
http://oilsandstruth.org
--
moderated radical discussion list:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
--
In the contradiction lies the hope.
-Bertholt Brecht.