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  • From: Brent McMillan <brent@gp.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Huh!
  • Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:58:00 -0500

On Monday I attended a special presentation entitled, "The Global Implications of Climate Migration" hosted by the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC.

Panelists included:
Cynthia Brady (sitting in for Neil Levine, Director, Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, USAID),
Susan Martin , Herzberg Professor if International Migration, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
David Waskow , Climate Change Program Director, Oxfam America

They focused on human migration as the result of:
1) Increased drought and desertification
2) Rising Sea Levels
3) Intensification of Natural Disasters
4) (and most problematic) Increased competition for Resources

These forms of migration tend to follow traditional migration routes. Here migration is seen as a result of failed adaptation.

Typical types of solutions that they discussed included:

Build climate resilience and adaptation strategies in vulnerable communities
Managing risk, promote insurance (and other tools)
Resettling populations when absolutely necessary (Resettlement as a last recourse)

To get to my point, there was a representative in the audience from the Embassy of China. To his credit He damn near laughed in their faces when they talked about selling insurance to the most disadvantaged people on the planet to mitigate the impact of climate change. As he put it diplomatically, after struggling to not laugh at loud, "I doubt the ability of climate insurance to effectively mitigate this. Insurance companies are after money."

At that moment it sure it home the bankruptcy of capitalism to deal with this effectively, especially considering that it's western economic activity that is responsible for climate change in the first place. We now see the military industrial complex moving to disaster management as yet another profit center.

(And I not saying that I'm any fan of China, I'm not, but their presence in Washington DC is definitely increasing. I'm concerned about what kind of deals were cut behind the scenes on 'our behalf' for China to have picked up so much of our debt. I have some indication of what that is and it's not good, but I would like to have more evidence before I put anything in writing.)

Sincerely:

Brent McMillan, Steward of Woodhaven
Avilla, IN USA





Lee Flier wrote:
Just to play devil's advocate for a moment... there are those who believe (and I think this is quite a legitimate point) that if we hadn't made the deals we did with China for example, we'd be in far more danger of an actual war with them, and many other countries' borders would also be in danger. If they don't find more civilized ways to develop their economy, given their huge population, their only recourse is to try to take over more land and resources, which of course they've already shown that they don't shy away from doing.

As it is, having China as economically dependent on us as they are has worked out pretty well in maintaining the peace. And I agree with Clinton's basic sentiment that as people become more prosperous and less desperate, they're not so likely to take up arms. If China is allowed to develop for awhile they may well end up having a peaceful revolution from within, and this could only be good for the world.

The problem is that this process is frustratingly slow, and there are too many people who reap illicit profits along the way. How to avoid that, I couldn't tell you. Progress always seems to come at a high price. And of course, there's the whole question of how much the world can really "develop" using an unsustainable model. I think we need to confront that problem, but meanwhile, there are lots of other countries who don't really care about the answer - they just want their refrigerators and their cars, and if that means going to war to get them because we won't trade them for cheap labor, well that's what they'll do.

On 3/3/2010 10:00 PM, Stephen Sherman wrote:
Nice happy talk from the old Pres; maybe he even believes it. However
history has proven this sales pitch to be nothing more than a load of
rubbish.

The end results of NAFTA, free trade with China, and all the other scams
which were sold on lines and promises like these, have ended up quite
differently. The US and the West has given up their manufacturing jobs
and expertise so that large corporations can pocket the wage differences
between home and third world work forces. Workers on both sides have
seen increased unemployment and declining standards of living. The West
when the manufacturing jobs first left. And more recently those workers
who first got the jobs as manufacturing moves yet again to cheaper labor
markets.

These policies have been a disaster for all. It will take decades to
repair the damage done.


On 3/3/2010 6:33 PM, Keith Johnson wrote:
/"The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of
interdependence within and beyond community and national borders get,
the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum
solutions. That is, win--win solutions instead of win--lose
solutions.... Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on
the whole, we do better when other people do better as well --- so we
have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each
other...."

found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum
quoting.....Bill Clinton
...........................................................................................................
/"The best defense against hard times is a well-fed neighbor."
<http://www.wellfedneighbor.com/>
462 members


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