12.07.2010

La Via Campesina's Global Day of Action for Climate Justice

With colorful flags, hats, signs, posters, and lots of music the protesters took to the streets of Cancun and other parts of the world today as part of La Via Campesina's Global Day of Action for Climate Justice which has as its main slogan "Peasants cool the planet". The protesters will announce their opposition to the mechanisms being imposed in COP 16 such as the false solutions of carbon markets, REDD, agrofuels and geoengineering being imposed on the peoples of the world.

This action is part of the thousands of activities to be performed worldwide as La Via Campesina's “thousands of Cancun's.” Actions will happen in Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa and in the United States and Canada. The actions include public meetings, forums and sit-in's in Korea, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Brazil, Nepal, Turkey, and mass actions in India, Argentina, Indonesia, El Salvador, the Philippines and Mexico. It is estimated that these actions and events will bring together more than 1 million people.

Up here in Canada our Conservative government is totally behind the REDD program, it's the best thing since white bread to a buncha tar sands lackeys. See, if REDD gets adopted Canada gets huge carbon credits for all the forests they aren't currently mowing down. Then when they plant rows of GMO cloned hemlocks and feed 'em with petrochemicals they get more credits. All these groovy free carbon credits will be applied to Canada's carbon account and more than balance out the tar sands disaster. The three countries with the largest still intact forests, Russia-Brazil-Canada, are REDD's biggest boosters.

Every part of the globe has what seems like local issues, local problems with the whole COP process. The COP process is a front for the capitalists to slither into and out of private ownership of what was up until now part of the commons. Each of the schemes, the banker's solutions of carbon markets, REDD, agrofuels and geoengineering, all designed to sound good while allowing Business As Usual-no actual CO2 reductions and produce huge profits for the corporations and the banks that finance the schemes.

Viva La Via Campesina!