‘This Economic Model is Unsustainable & Will Collapse’
EmailBy Jody Boehnert, Climate Camp in the City Yesterday Climate Camp did exactly we said we would do – we arrived at the European Climate Exchange at 12:30 sharp. This busy street in the middle of the financial district was buzzing with its normal activity when over 1,000 of us swooped, sat down on the road, and then quickly popped up our tents simultaneously. Shortly there after came out bunting, kitchens, compost toilets, instruments, and little sound systems – all delivered by bicycles. We did what we said we would do (again) although people had told us it was impossible. The sun was shining and we started a busy day of activity at Climate Camp in the City. The camp was a means to demonstrate our extreme frustration with failure of our government, and the rest of the G20 governments to address the real cause of climate change – our economic system. This system is dependent on infinite growth, on the production and consumption of more and more stuff, forever and ever. As seductive as this economic system might be for those in a position of privilege, this system is unsustainable in the long term. We cannot have infinite growth while reliant on a planet with finite resources. This economic model is unsustainable and will collapse; and while financial collapse is painful, ecological collapse is terminal. And so the stakes could not be higher for activists setting up camp today at the European Climate Exchange, one of the global epicenters for ‘emissions trading’. Climate change is just one indicator of the multiple geo-physical limits that we are now hitting. These limits are now creating multiple ecological crises. And so while there was poetry and music at the camp, there was also a full days worth of workshops on everything from ‘Trading our way into Trouble’ on carbon trading, to ‘Techno fixes’ on the problems associated with some new ‘green’ technologies, and the history of direct action and social change in the UK and beyond. Around late afternoon word got around that the Royal Bank of Scotland’s windows had been smashed and there was trouble on nearby streets. Climate camp had our own way of expressing our disgust with the inexcusable actions perpetrated by the Royal Bank of Scotland, with a credit card flier showing the name of Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of RBS. When some of the so called ‘black block’ spilled over to our camp, the police used a tactic of ‘kettling’ the camp to keep us all from leaving the block we occupied. No one could leave the camp at all for several hours until just after eleven pm. Many people were devoted to spending the night, but I left at midnight to come home to write this blog. Shortly after I left, at about 1am police moved in on the camp and removed the 400 or so campers who had been determined to spend the night. We may not have been able to stay the full 24 hours, and but we are pleased to say that we made space for debate on the most important threat to life on this planet – climate change and the fact that carbon trading is not an effective solution. Read more blogs by protestors at the G20 Read more blogs by ABC News staff
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It’s not just me. The number of women and children being attacked and killed in their own homes IS increasing, a lot.
A 37% increase in Florida. In all of 2008, 14,000 women sought shelter from violence in Florida. Already, in the first three months of 2009, 8,000 women have fled their homes, usually with their children. If the rate continues, the one year increase will be from 14,000 to 32,000. Stunning.
In New York state local police are noting a “string of violent attacks on women in Niagra County.” Some local women and women politicians (Vote FOR Women!) are doing something about it.
In Chula Vista, California the calls to help lines from terrorized women and children have doubled over the 2008 rate. Elsewhere in Southern California police departments are bracing for increases in attacks and murders.
In Chicago, where men kill a woman in their family an average of once a week, in a state where the police recorded more than 95,000 wife-attacks in a single year, and where the city’s police officers arrested 13,000 men in one year for attacking their wives or girlfriends, the state’s domestic violence website hasn’t been updated in two years.
In Michigan, Genesee County (which includes Flint) has the highest per capita rate of woman-lynching of any county. The rate of felonious attacks increased 50% from 2006 to 2007 with another similar increase in 2008.
Nationwide, there has been an increase of at least 21% in attacks reported to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
RESOURCES
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Posted by: America may as wel be taliban | April 2, 2009, 2:27 am 2:27 am
My new political party: National Socialist Obama. Acronym, NSO.
Posted by: Colonel Rebel | April 2, 2009, 4:24 am 4:24 am
Want to do away with our economic system? ok – give us an alternative other than camping out in a tent for the foreseeable future.
Posted by: Bob | April 2, 2009, 4:39 am 4:39 am
Didn’t Ron Paul address this very topic years ago?
Posted by: Huh | April 2, 2009, 5:16 am 5:16 am
Speak for yourselves when you say “consumption of more and more.” There are some countries that can’t even consume. Be glad you live in a country that can.
Posted by: JOE | April 2, 2009, 6:17 am 6:17 am
Malthus, Erlich and today’s ilk seem to think that technology will not help solve the issue of growth and limited resources, as it has always done.
For those who think that man’s destiny is to stay here on earth alone, this kind of intellectual clap-trap works. For the rest of us, we’ll be taking the first space bus to new horizons, knowing that man’s destiny has a rich web in the universe.
Posted by: Tom Lewellen | April 2, 2009, 7:55 am 7:55 am
You arrived with your “bunting, kitchens, compost toilets, instruments, and little sound systems – all delivered by bicycles?” And that’s not consumption? What about the batteries for those sound systems? What about the wood used to make those instruments? What were those “pop-up” tents made of? And how did everyone get there? If there were Americans in the crowd, they certainly didn’t ride there on their bikes from the US. You want to impress me? Blog from home, and get rid of all that stuff and actually live on less.
Posted by: Lee | April 2, 2009, 9:49 am 9:49 am
Is this story for real? What a stupid string of tripe. ABC who?
Posted by: Timmeh | April 2, 2009, 1:33 pm 1:33 pm
Stop having babies, and you’ll stop needing more stuff forever and ever!!!
Posted by: dilbert | April 2, 2009, 1:56 pm 1:56 pm
Lee: Most people arriving at the demo came on bicycles and public transport. Pop up tents consume a lot less energy than a camper van or air conditioned hotel room. No-one is pretendng to live off thin air, but what we do use doesn’t have to be brand new – year in month out. If there were any Americans there, they would strongly agree.
Posted by: Orlagh | April 2, 2009, 1:58 pm 1:58 pm
… THEY SHOULD HAVE SWAM ACROSS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL, THE NOPRTH SEAS AND THE ATLANTIC, THEN HIKED TO THE SITE, NAKED.
BUT, THEY’RE USING CELL PHONES, LAPTOPS AND PLASTIC I-PODS, ALL PETROLEUM PRODUCTS PAID FOR BY EVIL MOM AND DAD AND DEVELOPED AT THE COST OF BILLIONS VIA… CAPITALISM..
LMAO.
Posted by: Chuck | April 2, 2009, 11:51 pm 11:51 pm
Orlagh: I can protest just as easily by staying home and writing to my elected officials. It’ll probably do about as much good as protesting (which is none), but at least I’m not wasting resources doing it (expect the recycled paper I write on). Protests never solved anything nor changed any outcome. The protests of the 60′s kinda proves that.
Posted by: Lee | April 3, 2009, 2:41 am 2:41 am
ATL is both a book & an organization promoting a traditional American value system through positive reversals in government & society. Stop the liberal Secular & Progressive movement, an ever-growing threat to God & our country. Hold accountable Congress, along with all our Federal & State representatives. Research ATL on-line. Buy the book & join. Promote God, family, personal responsibility & honest government.
Posted by: Leon Ives | April 3, 2009, 4:51 am 4:51 am
Visit and research www americantraditionandleadership dot org to learn how YOU can do more. Join ATL on-line and make your voice herad in Congress.
Posted by: Leon Ives | April 3, 2009, 4:52 am 4:52 am
Well let’s see the earth has been around for what 13 billion years or so if I remember correctly. Seems pretty sustainable to me.
Posted by: NoMoreMr.NiceGuy | April 3, 2009, 6:43 am 6:43 am
I for one am not going to willingly dump my standard of living for my remaining time on earth and relegate my children to a living standard worthy of the barrios of Venezuela.
For the first time in my life we have a group of environmental nutcases who are obtaining the power to actually force the rest of us to live in poverty.
This is not the American dream nor is it the dream of all those currently living in third world poverty. The human longs for an improved life, at least the ones who are mentally stable.
Posted by: conserve 56 | April 3, 2009, 7:34 am 7:34 am
If nothing else, the “protest” has started dialogue. Which, in and of itself, is a start. The environmentalists are not perpetrating poverty – the economy is. Considering that out of the hours worked, half of those wages earned during that time are to pay your share of taxes – who is putting who in poverty. Third world countries are impoverished by the rulers who control the majority of the wealth in those countries. Getting the same way here in the US. The planet has finite resources. Things are totally out of balance and we, as citizens of the PLANET, need to create the balance again or face the wrath of mother nature. Hopefully we are ALL listening.
Posted by: irish1 | April 3, 2009, 9:53 am 9:53 am
Colonel Rebel…you’re so funny.. I often wondered why people think so little of themself that they only promote themself to the rank of Colonel..kinda like that other nutbag in Libya. He had people in his army that out-ranked him. Thanks for the laugh..but it was Nazi Bush and gang that brought down our economy and ruined the lifes of millions of Americans!!
Posted by: Admiral John | April 3, 2009, 1:15 pm 1:15 pm
Nuts!
Posted by: LongT | April 3, 2009, 5:43 pm 5:43 pm
Dilbert, go tell the Pope.
Posted by: Gg51 | April 4, 2009, 7:38 am 7:38 am
Title of Article: ‘This Economic Model is Unsustainable & Will Collapse’. We already know the Republican Model collasped in October 2009. They tried to keep it going until January to put the blame on the Democrats, but God saw their evil plan, and intervened. Thank you God.
Posted by: Gg51 | April 4, 2009, 7:41 am 7:41 am
Rush Limbaugh, married 3 times, divorced 3 times, drug addict, no children, talk show host — talker, not a listener — tells you something about the guy — self centered. He didn’t develop properly in his human development. When he was 2 years old, he didn’t develop normally, therefore, he is still in the 2 year old mentality “I am the center of the universe”. Normal development promotes inclusiveness, not exclusiveness, which describes Limbaugh and his party of self centered Republicans who didn’t develop normal. They all think they are still the “center” of the universe. Their economic development crashed under their watch — and they can’t rebuild their “empire” all for themselves — “Too Late Baby Now, It’s Late”.
Posted by: Gg51 | April 4, 2009, 7:47 am 7:47 am
The marbled doors of Wall Street, and the mortgage
companies, and the insurance companies, and Congress,
and the marbled doors of the White House, and IBM,
and Microsoft, and Harpo Productions; and the marbled
doors of Kodak, and Corning, and Johnson and Johnson;
and the marbled doors of peanut factory headquarters,
and pharmaceuticals, and Arthur Andersen, and Chase Bank,
and Lawyers Coop, and the Pentagon, and network tv,
and the Republican National Committee, as well as the
marbled doors of the big three automakers, and the
Democratic National Committee and the national banks;
are all guarded by armed policemen, outside.
Tell me something, if those policemen are there to stop
crime and catch criminals, ain’t they on the wrong side
of the door?
Posted by: j | April 4, 2009, 8:17 am 8:17 am