Vandana Shiva is one of the greatest people on the planet today. Thanks Tony
On 10/29/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Link to photo version of article in Grist and Link to Food/Climate > Manifesto. Simple text article also pasted below > Jeanne > > > > > > > > http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/25/904/94558 > > > > http://www.arsia.toscana.it/petizione/documents/clima/CLIMA_ING.pdf > > > > > > Terra Madre notes: Vandana Shiva rocks the house > > > > A food/climate manifesto presents new visions for responding to climate > change > > Posted by Tom Philpott at 10:43 PM on 26 Oct 2008 > > > > Turin, Italy -- I've just come out of the most hopeful and interesting > discussions of climate change I've ever witnessed. Anchored by Indian > food-sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva, the panel discussion at Terra Madre > unveiled a new "Manifesto on Climate Change and the Future of Food > Security," drawn up by the International Commission on the Future of Food > and Agriculture. > > > > The room was packed beyond capacity with at least 400 people, and the > discussion was translated through headsets into eight languages. > > > > The document under discussion -- which can be found here -- is brisk, > lucid, and to the point. I will be publishing it soon on Gristmill as one of > those infamous multi-post series. > > > > > > .To me, Shiva and her multinational crew of colleagues (other commission > members include Wendell Berry, Jose Bové of Via Campesina, Frances Moore > Lappé, and Alice Waters) have articulated a powerful new vision for > confronting climate change -- one more potent even than Al Gore's famed > slides and push for trade-based solutions. > > > > Where Gore dreams of a "low-carbon" or even "carbon-free" world, Shiva > pines for a "carbon-rich" future -- one in which agriculture systematically > builds organic matter into the soil, capturing it from the atmosphere. > > > > Shiva -- a forceful and erudite off-the-cuff speaker -- opened by running > through the manifesto's main points: > > > > > > Industrial globalized agriculture contributes to and is vulnerable to > climate change > > Ecological and organic farming contributes to mitigation and adaptation to > climate change > > > > Transition to local, sustainable food systems benefits the environment and > public health > > Biodiversity reduces vulnerability and increases resilience > > > > Genetically modified seeds and breeds: a false solution and dangerous > diversion > > > > Industrial agrofuels: a false solution and new threat to food security > > > > Water conservation is central to sustainable agriculture > > > > Knowledge transition for climate adaptation > > > > Economic transition toward a sustainable and equitable food future > > > > After going down the list, Shiva gave a brief history of the global > sustainable-food movement's involvement with the climate-change debate. She > said that in the '90s, when discussions were going on around the Kyoto > Treaty, there were simultaneous talks going on around a Biodiversity Treaty. > Unfortunately, sustainable food activists, including herself, were content > to let climate talks go on without their input; they focused instead on the > biodiversity talks. As a result, she said, discourse around climate has > almost completely ignored agriculture -- even though industrial agriculture > emits something like a third of greenhouse gases. > > > > > > Shiva didn't say this, but I'll add it: Only by blithely ignoring > agriculture's role in climate change can people present abominable ideas > like government-mandated ethanol and biodiesel as "solutions" to the climate > crisis. > > > > Shiva made what I found to be a novel and powerful point about livestock's > contribution to greenhouse gases, recently documented by the U.N.'s Food and > Agriculture Organization: If you're going to take animals off of pastures, > deprive them of their native foods (i.e., grass for cows, bugs for chickens, > whatever the landscape offers for pigs), and feed them a diet heavy on beans > (i.e., soy), they're going to get gas -- literally, greenhouse gas > (methane). > > > > She said more great stuff than I could copy down. She said that in the > current economic system, we release 400 years worth of naturally stored > carbon every year. Even if we stop tomorrow, we're still going to get > extreme droughts, cyclones that wash saltwater into soils, floods that wash > away soil nutrients, etc. In that context, locally adapted agriculture is > the "only adaption strategy that gives us any hope." > > > > She said climate treaties and discussions take place in the stratosphere -- > in congressional committees, exclusive global confabs peopled by CEOs of > vast business empires, etc. She said these people operate under an > industrial paradigm, and the solutions they concoct to climate change -- > cap-and-trade mechanisms, GMO seeds, etc. -- mimic and don't challenge that > paradigm. While she was talking, I thought of the extraordinary set of > charts from New Scientist that David Roberts posted last week -- the ones > showing the titanic rise of resource consumption and industrial activity in > the last century. > > > > I realized why certain right-wingers so vigorously deny human-provoked > climate change, and why technocrats push "market-based solutions" to it: > because climate change amounts to a tremendous rebuke, from the very earth > we stand on and the air we breathe, to industrial-scale economies. The > initial answers are denial or desperate attempts to rejigger industrial > economies, to make them "carbon-free." > > > > But in the end, these attempts get nowhere. Real reform, Shiva insisted, > will happen when discussions move from the stratosphere to the soil, and > when we find new, non-industrial ways of thinking. > > > > Shiva responded well to questions from the audience. A Londoner who runs > two "sustainable" restaurants said that his clients ask him all the time if > the world isn't doomed, because China and India are rapidly developing into > Western-style economies, and using huge amounts of resources along the way. > Given that reality, why should Westerners even try to be "sustainable"? He > said he needed help with how to answer these questions -- all he does now is > stammer something about how "maybe we can show them [Indians and Chinese] a > more sustainable way ..." > > > > Before turning the floor over to Shiva, the moderator pointed out that the > average American uses the resources of something like 10 to 15 average > Indians. Then Shiva made some excellent points about how the explosion of > the Indian and Chinese economies pays tribute to the consumptive power of > Americans and Europeans -- we've gutted our own industrial bases and moved > them east, in search of cheap labor and lax environmental controls. > > > > She said that something like 5 percent of Indians have benefited from this > trend, and added that per capita food consumption for most Indians had > actually declined in the past 20 years. Food security, meanwhile, has been > threatened. She pointed out that peasant farmers in India's most fertile > area are fighting to save their land from being swallowed up by a car > factory. She might have added that China's most productive farmland is under > severe pressure from industrial pollution and expansion. > > > > Another Englishman, from The Independent, pointed out that the last time > "our preferred ways of agriculture" held sway, global population could be > counted in the hundreds of millions. Today we are 6.7 billion -- and > growing. What do you say to folks who insist that a return to > community-scale, low-input ag will cause millions to starve? > > > > The question was asked with the air of "all very nice indeed, but serious > people concern themselves with feeding the world, and you people are being > nostalgic." Shiva responded like Babe Ruth taking aim at a slowly gliding > softball. > > > > First, she pointed out that for all of industrial ag's vaunted > food-production power, 1 billion people -- and growing -- live with hunger. > Then she forcefully made the point that mixed-crop agriculture that relies > on compost is actually many times more productive on a per-acre basis than > industrial monoculture. She also noted that locally adapted agriculture is > not a fixed, static thing -- it evolves and responds to changes in the land > and climate. So which style of agriculture is it that threatens millions > with starvation? Case closed. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, > please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org > -- Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law. - Buddha _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
