A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

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Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com do it without citizens’ support. That support must include challenging our leaders. Disagreement, diverse and conflicting views are essential to avoid disastrous, wilful courses of action like those made by George Bush and Tony Blair. They acted without due diligence and integrity. When Greenpeace activists were arrested for painting a slogan on a chimney at Kingsnorth coal power plant, the High Court ruled it was warranted in order to prevent the much greater damage that would result from global warming. The World Development Movement (WDM) calculated that a new power station at Kingsnorth would create 30,000 climate refugees. WDM argued that this would be unjust to the developing world and should not be allowed to happen. Al Gore says we have reached the stage where civil disobedience is needed to prevent the construction of coal plants that do not have carbon capture. We know that effective carbon capture is a long way off being proven and commercially viable. Like nuclear power, it could merely store up severe problems for future generations. Isn’t it extraordinary that we have to do these things to prevent our own governments, which should be protecting us, from endangering the future of humanity? Pressure works. It is all very well to say, just get on with things and take individual action. That on its own is not enough. We have to bring about system change. That means campaigning, being an activist. It was public pressure, through Friends of the Earth and other campaigning groups, that changed the UK Climate Change Act, raising the 2050 CO2 reduction target from 60% to 80% and the inclusion of aviation and shipping. Constant pressure has forced companies to react. “Activism is my rent for living on the planet” Alice Walker Changing the global economic system requires us to transform democracy and rethink human rights. Protection from the consequences of an unsustainable economic system that results in climate change needs to be part of the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as Mary Robinson argues. Democracy has to be unlocked everywhere if the world is to be transformed. Democracies like ours need to lead the way (see Chapter 11). As Ecuador has done, we also need to acknowledge the rights of nature and our fellow species and not treat them as inferior and merely there to serve our needs. We need a new inspiration for our lives, beyond consumerism and greed - the possibility of a sustainable, just world and an end to violence as our way of dealing with conflict and difference. This is a book for people who, in their hearts, want to make this happen. That is almost all of us, if we knew how and believed we could make a difference. We can do this, as well as earn a living and bring up our families. We just have to prioritise the unique contributions we want to make. It means each of us knowing who we are, identifying what most matter s to us. We need to know our purpose in being on this earth. I aim to open eyes. The corporate and conventional view gets overwhelming exposure, through huge advertising budgets, infiltration of government and politics, enticements, increasing control of education and research, withholding information, punitive treatment of whistle blowers, wielding the law as a weapon, and media domination. Until recently, what amounts to corporate corruption or criminality, dressed in a blue suit, went almost unnoticed and unpunished, unlike working class criminality. Far from anti-business, I am 14
Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com against corporate abuse of power and an economic system that is both harmful to smaller and local businesses and endangers our lives and well-being on a massive scale. Human beings are inherently creative. We have survived by adapting. When we see the need for change, we begin to transform the system and create something new. This time we need to adapt faster. The vast majority care about their fellow human beings and want to make a difference. The most powerful influence in the world is love. You see this in families and in all the good, caring things good people do in their local communities. 15
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