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 As this historic Cochabamba Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, attended by over 35,000 participants, comes to a close on this Earth Day there is a great deal of hope and possibility in the air. President Evo Morales welcomed representatives of 90 governments including several heads of state to present the findings from the 17 groups working on issues such as Mother Earth Rights, Creating a Climate Tribunal, Climate Debt, Just Finance, Agricultural Reform and other related topics. Four representatives, from Australia, USA, Malaysia, and Bolivia gathered the findings and presented them to this auspicious gathering.
While the Copenhagen accord set a non-binding agreement to hold climate temperature rise to 2 degrees C the finding of these working groups felt the target should be 1-1.5 degrees and holding CO2 emissions to 300ppm to save the island states and many others already heavily impacted by climate change. Another major issue was Eco Debt which people felt very strongly needed to be addressed in the upcoming COP 16 UN conference on climate change. There was strong agreement that the development model offered by Western (capitalist) society was severely flawed and that a new global model that was based in honoring the rights of Mother Nature had to be created. How can a system built on continuous growth (hyper-consumerism) continue with finite resources?
It was suggested that at it’s heart this is a spiritual issue. How can we stand by and protect our privileged way of life, while so many of our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering. The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed and one-third is starving. Perhaps we think this doesn’t impact us, but in reality it makes the world less safe, more unstable, leads to hording, greater separation, denial and spiritual disharmony. The working groups put Mother Earth rights first, because human rights and all the other issues are a subset of it.
 Another critical issue that was addressed was agricultural reform, food is a primary example of our lack of honoring the rights of Mother Nature. Factory farms, fast food, Genetically modified crops, privatization, pesticides and toxic chemicals, the patenting of seeds and our disregard for the preciousness of our water were examples of being out of touch with nature. Indigenous wisdom was called on to find solutions to help us return to balance with the needs of our Mother. It was felt that the capitalist system has used nature as a slave instead of a live being that supports all life on this planet. They suggested that this is why the rights of nature must come first and it is the duty of all people to fight for her rights.
Climate Justice and debt were big topics of this conference. It was decided that a new organization needed to be formed to regulate abuses to Mother Earth with a Tribunal to enforce the standards of living in harmony with the natural world. Many of the developed nations are calling for the cancellation of the Kyoto Accord, but this group will be calling for a commitment to adopting the protocol for the years from 2013-2017. They are looking for a 50% reduction from 1990 emission levels with no offsets or voluntary compliance. The consensus is that there must be legally binding commitments that can punish polluters and be upheld in a court of law.
The working groups also rejected REDD, the United Nations Collaborative Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, considered by the many in the group to be simply a way of making money from pollution through carbon trading. Twenty percent of the planet’s yearly greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation, more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector. The group feels that this proposal takes the attention away from the real issue of respecting nature. The suggested solution is education and a global tree planting campaign. Of course that needs to be part of a larger plan that includes getting away from our dependency on oil. As my friend Nnimmo Bassey, president of Friends of the Earth, says “Leave the oil in the soil, leave the coal in the hole, and leave the tar sand in the land.”
 After a gruelingly long and bombastic speech by Hugo Chavez, that put most of the people asleep, Evo Morales gave his closing remarks. He said that the corporate mass media turns things around to make people working for true democracy into the enemy and that it was up to us to get the word out and raise awareness of these important issues. In the end the future of the planet is in the hands of the people!
All in all it was a very inspiring day. More tomorrow.
michael
 The Day Started with an early press conference with Bolivian president Evo Morales. In contrast to yesterday’s rock concert atmosphere, today was much more focused on what needs to be done and how we can bring about change. Evo, as everyone here calls him, spoke without any notes and his comments were very heart-felt.
He began his talk by saying that social movements need to organize to produce concrete results in defending the rights of Mother Earth and that we need to focus on the real causes and not the effects. If we look beyond the the pollution, destruction and disharmony we see that our social and political systems are broken. You cannot have continuous growth and exploitation with finite resources. It is not about capitalism, communism or socialism, it is about protecting Mother Earth!
Morales said that we need to create a new grass roots global organization that represents Mother Earth. This organization must have a tribunal that is responsible for enforcing the agreements. If there is no punitive action, he asserted, there will be no compliance. Who will obey? This is the problem with the Copenhagen Accord, it has no teeth. An international Tribunal must deal with countries that do not obey or don’t want to participate. This can be done with peaceful sanctions and restricting trade…
Evo also talked about Human rights vs. Earth rights. The focus he said needed to be on the rights of the earth, if we focus on that we will have to deal with human rights. It made me think about the whole issue of human rights and how it is an outgrowth of our holding ourselves above and separate from nature. But, in reality we are a subset and if we respect natures rights then all life will be respected. Perhaps it sounds overly idealistic to some that we could actually give rights to nature, but it has already been done. Ecuador was the first country to grant rights to trees, rivers and mountains in their new constitution, which has been a huge inspiration to activists around the world. Other countries are looking at how to follow in their footsteps.
Here in Bolivia most of us feel strongly that something is emerging — a global revolution of epic proportion is taking place — a new story of our human earth relationship is being defined and people around the planet are waking up to a new possibility…
 Hot, loud and colorful! That was the order of the day at the Tiquipaya Stadium and the opening ceremony for the People’s Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights in Bolivia. Quite a contrast to the UN conference in Copenhagen last December. It was more like attending a rock concert than a group gathering to ignite a global people’s revolution to save the planet…
We arrived at 8am on a hot fall day and managed to find seats close to the front. I guess most people knew that there would be several hours of painfully loud music and people yelling slogans like “Fatherland or Death” and chants to stimulate and activate the crowd. I won’t forget my earplugs next time. But, with all the hype and noise it was also refreshing to be with people from all over the world — regular people, indigenous people, concerned people — gone were the somber suits and oh so perfect structures of Denmark. This was pure South American chaos at its best…
 About a third of the roughly 20,000 attendees were from indigenous tribes and fully decked out in their traditional clothing. This was not a hype, as they always wear them. However the opening itself seemed short of content and long on typical political rhetoric! There were speakers from indigenous people’s of Alaska, Bolivia, New Zealand, Spain, Africa and India that shared their invitation to connect with mother earth and learn from their culture, experience and tradition. They burned incense, danced and blessed Pachamama (the earth, the sky and all time) in thanksgiving. While the smoke was pungent and choking, their sincerity and warmth was touching and a highlight of the morning.
Just before President Morales came on stage a representative from the United Nations was booed (actually whistled) off the stage. While what she was saying was really about working together and partnership, this crowd was clearly not interested in what the UN or Capitalist Governments had to offer. The people here do not think that the 20% of the world that produces 80% of the pollution and damage to the earth have much to offer them. Their is also a great deal of anger over the issue of what they consider the environmental debt that the rich colonial empires own the poorer developing countries. They just wanted to hear Evo!
By the time we finally got to hear Evo Morales’ speech we were all fairly well fried by the high mountain  sun and deaf from the loud music and shouting, but that in no way dampened the crowd’s enthusiasm. When Evo came in the crowd rose and screamed as if Elvis had just come on stage.
Evo as most people call him, has a very soft, folksy, down home style. He said that he called this conference because the UN had not figured it out — if they had respected the Kyoto Accord, we would not be here — that the people, all people, need to be heard. He talked about what we could expect if we did not take action on reducing greenhouse gases immediately. He said that from 1997 and 2007 CO2 in our atmosphere had increased by 11% and that Capitalism was the enemy of the earth and needed to be stopped. In his folksy style he gave examples of our food and how it is big, bright and beautiful, but lacked the nutrition for good health. His examples were often humorous like the perils of Coca Cola and how you could unstop drains with it. He suggested that the reason men “Turned” was because of the hormones in our food and that even baldness was a product of industrialized agriculture. He offered himself, with his very full head of hair as an example of good living.
While his speech was short on solutions, he proposed that the papers the working groups were preparing would be presented to the UN climate change conference being held in Cancun, Mexico this coming December. He has managed to make a ripple in the fabric of global complacency and perhaps his charm, charisma and commitment will be the beginning of a new revolution as we meet increasing challenges brought on by our separation from Pachamama? Stay tuned!
 I arrived in La Paz this morning at 6 am, just in time to catch a most luminous and hopeful sunrise on this 14,000ft high mountain plateau surrounded by sun lit peaks and thin air. From there I flew to Cochabamba where the First People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth is being held.
As I flew over these dry and barren mountain peaks I wondered if the nearly 20,000 participants from 129 countries would be able to find common ground and construct an agreement that might be proposed as an alternative to the non-binding agreement from Copenhagen at this December’s UN conference on climate change being held in Mexico.
I am hopeful that something substantial will come out of this gathering — that the little voices of the multitude will swell into a unified front that stands united, not against something, but for the rights of mother earth and the commons — knowing that we are strong as an aligned force, but powerless divided. The Machine is too big, the issues too pressing and time too short to come away with anything less than a document that addresses all life on this planet. We need to get beyond blame and finger pointing and find out how we can provide clean air, water, enough food to eat, education, shelter, health care so that everyone can live a life of dignity and self respect. It is time to recognize that we are all connected and that the future of life on this planet depends on our coming together in common unity.
From my vantage point the success of this conference will be dependent on our willingness to listen compassionately, to drop our personal agendas, our anger and opposition and focus on our common needs holding a vision of a world that works for all life with no one and nothing left out. This could be the start of a peaceful global revolution where the 2 million organizations that Paul Hawkin has called Blessed Unrest stand together as a unified force for good.
So we have gathered here to bring our light, our listening and our prayers to this conference which starts tomorrow morning when President Evo Morales gives the opening address. Robin Milam, our team and I will be bringing you up to the minute reports through our blog and the evening news on KVMR (to listen go to KVMR.org) Stay tuned…
Bless us all,
michael
 Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a gathering of the Avoided Deforestation Partners. It was a most diverse and unlikely group of supporters of the bill including Sir Richard Branson, Robert Zoellick president of the World Bank, Hon. Jens Stoltenberg Prime Minister of Norway, Jane Goodall, several heads of state and representatives from Duke Energy, American Electric Power, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and NRD. Strange bedfellows all in support of REDD.
As I said in my last blog post I have major concerns with this bill, but after yesterday I saw that it may be the only thing that comes out of COP 15. After all 17% of the CO2 could be eliminated from the atmosphere by keeping the roughly 47 trillion acres a year that is currently being destroyed. The idea is making the value of the carbon capture of the trees in the ground worth more than cutting the trees down for farming and timber harvest. Many poor farmers in tropical rainforest zones could benefit from an agreement due to the low income they currently receive from ‘slash and burn’ agricultural practices. REDD payments to keep the forests standing would therefore represent an improvement in their income.
But, many of the safeguards intended to protect indigenous people and the world from greed and mischief have been removed for the current bill in an effort to get it through. I know in the states it is being touted as the best thing since sliced bread, but I still have concerns. When you tie in something like this to the carbon trade market you open the door to the kind of phantom wealth creation that led to the downfall of Wall Street. One of the key issues is the loss of diversity in these areas and the bill is open to supporting the planting of moncultures and biofuel production that could be used for carbon credits. The monitoring system by Google earth could be used to monitor people (of course Big Brother can already do this), and it deepens the possibility of invasion of privacy or halting public dissention. It also makes no consideration about the planting of GMO crops, which continue to have many unresolved and potentially catastrophic consequences. These are just a few of my concerns and yet, it may well be the only outcome that makes a real difference at this conference. Hopefully the people’s movement will be able to put the safeguards back into the process.
 This Sunday I attended a most beautiful ceremony at The Church of our Lady in Copenhagen. This church, which was originally built in the 12th C., has been burned down or destroyed 5 times in its history. But, the Danes continue to rebuild it as a testament to faith it self. When the English ships blew the bell tower off the church with their mighty cannons in 1807, they opened the doors again in 1821. And as the Queen of Denmark walked proudly by me singing with the congregation, I felt proud of my Danish heritage.
The capacity crowd was treated to music from 3 choirs; Church on the Rock, Aavaat, Greenlandic Choir and the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir. The procession of global leaders from around the world including Archbishop Desmond Tutu were followed by citizens from the far ends of the globe carrying three symbols of Climate Change: Glacier stones from Greenland, dried up maize from Africa, and bleached chorals from the Pacific Ocean. It was a grand opening that highlighted the growing concern for the reality of Climate Change…
What most moved me was the sermon of Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I would like to share some of the highlights of his talk. His talk was entitled “Love casts out fear”, and he said that our “confidence and fearlessness is built by seeing love at work through us.” He went on to say,” “We cannot show the proper kind of love for our fellow humans unless we also work at keeping the earth as a place that is a secure home for all people and for future generations… At the present moment we are faced with the consequences of generations of failure to love the earth as we should. We are also faced with the choices that might make those consequences less destructive than they would otherwise be.”
“Each of us as an individual, each international business concern, each national government, all of us have choices. We are not doomed to carry on in a downward spiral of the greedy, addictive, loveless behavior that has helped to bring us to this point. Yet, it seems that fear still rules our heats and imaginations. We have not yet been able to embrace the cost of the decisions we know we must make. We are afraid because we don’t know how we can survive without the comforts of our existing life style. We are afraid that new policies will be unpopular with the national electorate. We are afraid that younger and more vigorous economies will take advantage of us. Or we are afraid that older historically dominant economies will use the excuse of ecological responsible to deny us our right to proper and just development. There is in a word no shortage of excellent excuses for turning away from decisions that will mean real change. But, at least let us be honest about where they come from — not necessarily irrational fear, not even necessarily purely selfish fear, but fear all the same. So long as that dominates our calculations we are stepping back from love. Love for the Creation itself… Love for one another and for the generations still unborn who need us to do whatever we can to guarantee a stable, productive and balanced world to live in.”
“Love casts out fear. The truth is that what is most likely to get us to take the right decisions for our global future is love. The temptation is to underline fear so as to dissuade one another of the urgency of the situation. Things are so bad, so threatening, that we have to do something and indeed there are moments when we might think, rather bitterly, that the human race is not frightened enough by the prospect of what it has served up for itself, but this is to drive out one sickness by another. That kind of fear can simply paralyze us as we all know. It can make us feel that the problem is too great and we may as well pull up the bed covers and wait for disaster. What’s more it can tempt us into simply blaming one another or waiting for someone else to make the first move, because we don’t trust them. We need more than that to make life-giving change to happen. And that is what we are here to say today…”
The Archbishop completed his sermon by asking us two questions: first, “how do we show we love God’s creation and secondly how can we learn to trust one another within a world with limited resources. There can be no trust without justice, knowing that my neighbor is there for me when I face insecurity or risk. How can we build international institutions that make sure the resources get to where they are needed? That for example green taxes will deliver more security for the disadvantaged and transitions and economic patterns will not weigh most heavily on those least equipped to cope. Love casts out fear. He concluded by saying, “Don’t be afraid. Act for the sake of love.”
In the end we followed the Queen and procession out of the church, lit candles in hand, hope in our hearts and urgency to act in our minds.
 Most people in the US don’t really think about where their food comes. The average distance the food in our super markets travels is 1,500 miles and the stores maintain an inventory of 2-3 days for normal times. During the past decade our food system has grown increasingly fragile due primarily to the affects of climate change and peak oil. During the latter part of the 20th century world hunger and malnutrition had been decreasing, but since the mid nineties it is on the rise again. Currently it is estimated that a billion children go to bed hungry every night.
Between 2006-08 food prices soared with wheat, rice and soybean prices tripling. The current recession has temporally brought prices down, but here in Copenhagen you can really feel the impact of the falling value of the dollar. Food price increases in the past have been caused by isolated events with production returning to previous levels or increasing. The current situation is the product of long-term trends, which will continue to limit food and increase demand. These trends include loss of topsoil, desertification, water depletion, soil nutrient depletion and erosion. The miracle of GMO seeds is also proving to be a threat to the future of food by reducing biodiversity, creating super weeds and bugs, decreasing soil capacity, and presenting yet unknown threats to animal and human health. Lab tests on rats have shown serious damage to digestive systems and cancers.
While this has been happening the global demand for food has been increasing. World population is increasing by 79 million annually. The profitable bio fuel market is taking land away from food production. While the US is experiencing an explosion of obesity, a large percentage of global populations are facing starvation and malnutrition. The growing demand for meat is also threatening food availability as it takes about 10 pounds of grain and enormous amounts of water to produce 1 pound of meat. Also, factory farming of livestock produces about 40% of the greenhouse gases.
Another disturbing trend of the many countries that can no longer feed their people is the acquisition of farmland in other countries. According to World Watch Institute:
• Libya plans to farm wheat on 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) in Ukraine
• South Korea signed deals to grow wheat on 690,000 hectares in Sudan
• Chinese firm secured 2.8 million hectares in Democratic Republic of the Congo for palm oil
• In all, some 50 large agreements worth $20-30 billion are being pursued
These land shopping trends portend a major threat to global security and international cooperation, especially since the acquisitions are often made in already impoverished countries. Further exasperating the situation is the idea that some of the countries plan to bring in foreign farm laborers.
Historically food scarcity has led to the collapse of civilizations like the Mayan, Sumerian, and numerous other early civilizations. What can we do to avert a collapse of our earth systems and protect life on this planet? Of course there are not guarantees, but there are a few things that would help.
- Eat and grow locally produced organic food.
- Ask yourself what are the food dollars I am spending supporting?
- Reduce your intake of meat.
- Write your political leaders and support small farmers instead of large agribusiness. Ask them to stop farm subsidies that are mono-crops and petro chemical intensive.
- Compost
- Spend time in nature and reconnect with the natural system of mother earth. She is talking – we are not listening.
- Make a list for yourself of how you can support food security.
Food and water security is one of our biggest threats to civilization. We can turn things around. All it really takes in a shift in consciousness. It all starts with you and I communicating, educating ourselves and acting on behalf of future generations…
 Ecological Debt is a huge topic here in Copenhagen. One that may end up derailing the entire process of finding common ground for a comprehensive, global and legally binding agreement. It is a cruel fact that 20% of the world’s population in the industrialized world is responsible for 75% of the pollution, which unfortunately is mostly impacting people from the poorer countries. For instance Africa, with a billion people only puts out 4% of the CO2, but the impact of climate change on the region has been devastating.
The people in the developing countries are making their voices heard here at the UN conference. What is most annoying to them is watching the Western capitalist system trying to make this into another profit making scheme where money can be made from polluting. The concept of Carbon trading is that you grant property rights to polluters for polluting the air. In other words you put making money before saving the planet. This is what is called a market-based solution. The World Bank estimates that it would take approximately 100 billion dollars a year to clean up the problem and 200-600 billion to go beyond maintenance and leapfrog the process. What are the industrialized countries bringing to the table? 10 billion!
Another interesting thing to consider about these so called developing countries is that they are some of the most resource rich parts of the planet with an abundance of oil, diamonds, metals, hard woods and all the things we use in our consumer products. Ever wonder how our stuff got on their land and yet they owe the industrial nations enormous debt, on which most can’t even afford to pay the interest.
They think that it is pretty arrogant of us in the West to tell them what needs to be done to save the planet since we are the people who trashed it in the first place. Their position is that the Global North owes the South for using their resources and damaging their land. This is what they refer to when they talk about ecological debt. It is where climate change becoming a new ideology with its own economy. If you add in years of colonization, slavery, sweat-shops, sex trade and many other forms of oppression you begin to understand how they might come to that conclusion. As Percy Makombe, from the NGO Economic Justice in South Africa said today, “how can you take out people’s eyes and then assault them for their blindness.”
As I have said before these people are not looking for charity, although most of us would be hard pressed to live a day in their shoes. They want reparation for the damage that we have done, they want a fair process that respects localized economies and they want us to share the technology we have developed to help them reduce their own carbon footprint. Is that really too much to ask? The market is not going to solve the new crisis. It is what has been behind the consumption machine that is threatening our very survival. Look at what it did for Wall Street and the US economy.
The gloves are off! After several days of very cordial and positive talks things began to break down here in Copenhagen. The poor countries and island states in the Pacific are expressing their displeasure with a document leaked to the press that appears to be an affront to the openness and transparency that is supposed to be part of the protocol of COP15, the UN Climate Conference.
The report in question was a memo from Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, which states that the intention of Great Britain, Denmark and the US is to go for a political agreement rather than a legally binding one. It further suggested targets that would allow the three countries to pollute twice as much as the poorer emerging countries. The parties to the agreement are trying to put a positive spin on it. Obama spoksperson, Todd Stern said this afternoon, that the US agrees with the Danish Prime Minister, that a few months ago it was clear that it would be impossible to obtain a judicial binding agreement in Copenhagen. “ The last thing we want is that this political agreement, will replace a Judicial agreement. That’s not what this is about. I cannot say what our deadline is, but it has to be soon.” Stern said.
 But, people have begun to loose patience as the climate change toll increases. A new German report states that more than 600,000 people have died because of extreme weather since 1990, as a result of tropical storms, floods, hurricanes, massive rainfall and drought. No less than 11,000 extreme weather conditions are the cause of the loss of these lives according to the German climate organization Germanwatch. The cost is estimated at 1,600 billion US Dollars. Hardest hit are Bangladesh, Burma and Honduras.
A big question here is, have we in the western world an economic debt to the poor countries because of the climate changes? The poorer countries feel that our continued consumer lifestyle is the cause of the devastation that they are experiencing. Do we have a moral debt to support these people who are not asking for charity, but for support in reducing their own pollution and upgrading to advanced technologies that will benefit the whole process? The amounts they are asking for seem paltry when compared to the Wall Street bailout…
Great powers flow into us as we empty ourselves of our false concepts and attachments and these powers could help is in every way to
heal and transform our degraded inner and outer worlds.
Andrew Harvey
 Today I attended an interfaith gathering of Spiritual Leaders from around the world, organized by the Global Peace Initiative of Women. To look around the room and see leading edge Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, TM, and Sufi leaders was a most hopeful experience. So many of our wars, conflicts and misunderstandings become embedded in religious ideology, and watching these ideologically diverse leaders quest for a common ground gave me hope.
Sr. Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Nun, renowned author and prominent voice in the interfaith movement believes that, spiritual leaders need to lead the challenge to reverse the unexamined social assumptions that justify our acting as though it was God’s gift that we should have dominion over nature. She challenged the Western theological mind that has led to a religious failure to protect the animals, environment and all life on the planet. Sr. Chittister questioned “ How is it that the world is filled with church goers and yet this devastation goes on?”
At its heart she feels that this goes back to the Creation story and the hierarchal superiority and domination that is embedded in religion. The creation story that has been used to secure power over the earth is anthropomorphic, that man has dominion over nature with the right and responsibility to exploit it. Joan talked about another creation story in Genesis that has been overlooked. In this story, the process of naming the animals leads to building relationship, companionship and compassion with all. This leaves us as a cultivator and caretaker of life. There is no sexism in this model. The more we open our heart to others, the more sacred all life becomes. Joan said “we have as much at stake as any politician. We must change our story and focus on the relationship story.”
Andrew Harvey, mystical scholar, novelist, spiritual teacher and architect of Sacred Activism, also spoke. He said that there is a “bankruptcy of all visions of reality that are not grounded in oneness and that our deepest commitment should be to stop focusing on our differences.” Fundamental to dealing with climate change and all the other problems currently facing humankind, we must begin to experience the entire universe as a sacred unfolding. We can get in touch with the stillness, peace, power and sacred passion of the whole universe and create a Divine human being. It is essential that we allow our own heart to break open to discover the creative force of creation itself.
When we have an environmental problem it soon becomes a social issue. Location of polluting industries, disposal of toxic waste, and resulting health risks are all environmental and social issues. Social justice issues are spiritual and moral issues. These leaders believe it is critical to our society and climate change to develop the practice of compassion, of seeing ourselves as part of the sacred whole and of being of service to the spirit that moves in all things. Remember, Climate Change is not a spectator Sport. You are involved whether you want to be or not. Blessings from Copenhagen, Michael
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in seeing with new eyes.
Marcel Proust
 spiritual leaders in Copenhagen
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As this historic Cochabamba Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, attended by over 35,000 participants, comes to a close on this Earth Day there is a great deal of hope and possibility in the air. President Evo Morales welcomed representatives of 90 governments including several heads of state to present the findings from the 17 groups working on issues such as Mother Earth Rights, Creating a Climate Tribunal, Climate Debt, Just Finance, Agricultural Reform and other related topics. Four representatives, from Australia, USA, Malaysia, and Bolivia gathered the findings and presented them to this auspicious gathering.
Another critical issue that was addressed was agricultural reform, food is a primary example of our lack of honoring the rights of Mother Nature. Factory farms, fast food, Genetically modified crops, privatization, pesticides and toxic chemicals, the patenting of seeds and our disregard for the preciousness of our water were examples of being out of touch with nature. Indigenous wisdom was called on to find solutions to help us return to balance with the needs of our Mother. It was felt that the capitalist system has used nature as a slave instead of a live being that supports all life on this planet. They suggested that this is why the rights of nature must come first and it is the duty of all people to fight for her rights.
After a gruelingly long and bombastic speech by Hugo Chavez, that put most of the people asleep, Evo Morales gave his closing remarks. He said that the corporate mass media turns things around to make people working for true democracy into the enemy and that it was up to us to get the word out and raise awareness of these important issues. In the end the future of the planet is in the hands of the people!
