Proposal to
NCC that CCDS supports the call to:
Prevent Climate Change Catastrophe
Si Se Puede!
Summary: I propose that
CCDS, as an organization consciously and intentionally promoting democracy and
socialism through corresponding our ideas and concerns with the public,
recognize that the potential for the existence and growth of these values and
goals requires the prevention of a Climate Change Catastrophe (CCC). Of all the
“tipping points” we face, the creation of a mass movement able to demand
prevention is primary. Since the imperative to prevent CCC is not yet a public
demand, CCDS has the opportunity to act now and provide leadership by putting
out a clear stance that CCC must be prevented. Our past position statements echoed much of what progressives agreed upon.
This time we have an opportunity and responsibility to lead. Prevention, once understood, can provide a
clear goal that people can demand of their leaders, organizations and
governments to act upon.
Background:
We in
CCDS are neither the primary researchers or planners for the recovery, but we
do have ability and possibility of collectively putting forward a vital idea
that is as yet missing from the public awareness and even the calls of the
environmental movement; that the coming CCC must be prevented! Not adjusted to,
accepted, ignored or put on others to solve, but consciously targeted as the
overriding threat to us all.
Current situation:
1. Science says
climate change is happening and a series of crises loom.
2. Climate
change tipping points and deadlines are being recognized and studied, but not
yet part of any plan sufficient to prevent CCC.
3. Most people
still think in terms of global warming, and are insufficiently involved,
dealing with personal matters or avoiding the issue.
4. Environmentalists
say we must do more, but are not clearly calling for prevention.
5. The press is
still equivocating and often misinforming the public.
6. Worldwide
concern with global warming is growing, but not in crisis mode.
7. The idea of
preventing CCC and consequence of failure is generally missing and often
avoided.
8. Concepts are
changing; global warming giving way to crisis and now including climate change,
catastrophe is still not addressed seriously.
9. Progress has
been made by bourgeois leaders such as Tony Blair and his Stern report, local
government actions and regional meetings, but not clearly warning and involving
the public.
10. Only Fidel
among world leaders has spoken out for preventing the "'catástrofe' for
humanity.” What other leader is saying we must prevent CCC, or the consequences
are fatal for humanity?9
CCC or
Prevention, Protection and Preservation
Why is it imperative to call for prevention
now?
$ It is no longer just a matter of some
warming, but a looming CCC.
$ It is not just that it will cost us more if
we don’t prevent the CCC, but a irreversible and unimaginable destruction of
life and environment.
$ It is not just a matter of adjusting our
life styles, but of preserving life and all that is important to us and our
cultures.
$ It is not just a matter of something
happening to people elsewhere, but a catastrophe that will affect the whole
world.
$ It is not something we can deal with later,
since we have less time than we thought and don’t know if we will have enough time
anyway.
$ It is not just a matter of more evidence,
the evidence is already here.
$ It is not a matter best left up to
governments, they have already shown they will do too little, too late, and
they are not being responsible to the people’s welfare in this most threatening
crisis.
$ It is not something the environmental
movement will do for us, the us has to be a mass movement involving all of us
and pressing environmentalists and leaders everywhere to act to prevent the
CCC.
$ It is not later, it is now, and maybe we are
already too late, but now is what we have.
$ It is time for us to act, to all agree
whether we want to try to prevent CCC or not.
$ It is not just another challenge we can
somehow survive, this threat is truly different and irreparable.
We dare not avoid
the idea of prevention if we are to have the choice to survive.
What concretely will prevent CCC?
1. Rapid creation of a
renewable energy infrastructure in the
2. Similarly, the
rapid conversion of fossil-fuel intensive industrial agriculture to
agro-ecological farming.
3. The required
resources must come from a radical demilitarization of the
CCDS, right now, can make a real contribution. Imagine if
Fidel’s bedside statement, little reported except in Latin American press, was
being echoed by governments, leaders, groups and public movements. We have the
moral obligation, the imperative and an opportunity to help prevent CCC.
We need to address what a CCC will do to the people and the
very things we most value personally and culturally, to socialism and
democracy, now and future. We can help provide an understanding of how the
catastrophe would affect people in ways that make it personal and break through
the avoidance and denial. CCDS could focus it’s talents on detailing the
neglected consequences of a failure to prevent this catastrophe, linking the
results to specific populations and providing a progressive perspectives on
both the consequences and prevention methods. We could provide examples of how
it will affect people’s personal lives, (all of us, but especially those most
vulnerable) such as Carl Bloice’s excellent “Global Warming People of Color are
at Risk.”
So CCDS along with others can help put this crucial and
necessary idea out where it can’t be ignored and has a chance to be addressed
as the primary question facing the world’s people. But will we and others be
able to act soon enough? If we agree that there needs to be a worldwide mass
movement o prevent CCC, then we can and should add our understanding of how a
CCC will impact socialism and democracy, the people, progressives, the flora
and fauna and yes, the gains, social and revolutionary we have and yet could
make.
So do we allow the tragedy that neglect and exploitation created be our legacy or do show that we can meet this challenge and save ourselves and our planet?
To prevent the CCC the people of the world require:
$ Leadership.
That honestly listens and informs the public and take on this
responsibility.
$ Deadlines. How much time we have realistically before the first and
subsequent tipping points?
$ Methodology.
What do we need to do to safely not reach these tipping point(s)?
$ Progress
reporting. How well are we doing, now and as we proceed?
$ Accountability.
How we can verify the progress and affect the outcome?
$ A
comprehensive and responsive plan. That is designed to succeed?
And to achieve these things, we need a world wide movement
aimed at preventing CCC. Building this movement faces massive denial,
avoidance, superstitions, institutional barriers, lousy leadership, futility
and ignorance and therefore the pressure for effective action must come from
masses of people which forces leaders and governments to act as needed.
Building an unprecedented mass movement to force this reconversion
will require a convergence of the peace, justice and environmental movements in
the
It is primarily a political question of what it will take
to make the danger as clear as the movie asteroids that mobilized the world to
act for survivals sake.
Therefore CCDS should:
1. Call for a worldwide recognition of the
necessity to prevent a Climate Change Catastrophe.
2. Call
for the quick development of best possible deadlines and what is needed to meet
them.
3. Based
on the best science available, call for the development of a worldwide plan
sufficient to prevent Climate Change Catastrophe.
4. Call
for all leaders to speak up, give direction and take all necessary actions to
prevent a Climate Change Catastrophe.
5. And
demand that we the people, be fully informed of the threats and progress in
preventing the catastrophe.
6. Call
for all other progressive organizations, leaders and movements to join in this
effort.
7. Call
on the
Proposal presented Walter Teague to the NCC of CCDS and
passed on 12/2/2006.
Additional
citations, links and resources can be added.:
Some major websites:
http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org
http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org
1. Global
Warming People of Color are at Risk, Carl Bloice, The Black Commentator.
2. Washington
Post, editorial 9/28/2006 and since. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092701745.html
3. Tony
Blair warned “that the world will reach ‘catastrophic tipping points’ on
climate change within 15 years, unless serious action is taken to tackle global
warming ”at the EU summit in Lahti, Finland 10/20/2006. Blair’s letter: http://www.pm.gov.uk/files/pdf/Vanhanen.pdf
Google
on Blair and catastrophic tipping points. http://makeashorterlink.com/?S49A2650E
4. The
full Stern Report detailed. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm
5. Stern
Review on the economics of climate change. Reported on HM Treasury Cabinet web
site. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Independent_Reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm
6. Rising
Tide:
7. Markets,
Myths and the Climate Change Muddle, Alan Simpson, Parliament. Pessimistic
assessment of Stern Report.10/26/06 http://www.alansimpsonmp.co.uk/pdf/Climate_change/change_muddle.pdf
8. The
End of the World As We Know It? By Jane Smiley, HuffingtonPost.com.10/28/2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/43544/
9. President
Fidel Castro calls for prevention of a "'catástrofe' for humanity” on
10/30/2006. President Fidel Castro, speaking from his hospital room and clearly
aware of the climate crisis, warned "I feel the obligation - as we all
should - to make a special effort to avert a fatal 'catástrofe' for humanity. "Reported
worldwide in Spanish.
Spanish:
http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2006/octubre/lun30/45fidel.html
English:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/octubre/lun30/45fidel.html
Photos
& Spanish: http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/2006/octubre/28egfidel.htm
10. Climate
change fight 'can't wait, analysis of Stern Review on BBC News. "The world
cannot afford to wait before tackling climate change, the
11. Mother
Jones, Nov/Dec 2006 “The Thirteenth Tipping Point, 12 global disasters and 1
powerful antidote,” By Julia Whitty” http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/11/13th_tipping_point.html
(She writes that leadership has inspired great change and says we know the
timeline. Unfortunately, we have neither as yet and can’t wait very long!)
12. It's
Hard to Explain Why We Did So Little to Stop Global Warming; Looking Back From
the Year 2046. Commentary by Madeleine Bunting, The
13. Renewable
energy technology exists now that will prevent CCC:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,1957908,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Mediterranean_Renewable_Energy_Cooperation
Reposted on 04-22-2014 from archives. This proposal was passed by the NCC of CCDS on 12-02-2006.
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