Create Justice Through Food – Youth Training Opportunity

Link Loving 14.07.11

• ‘Guerilla Ballet’ disrupts BP-sponsored opera event in Trafalgar Square. Emily Coats.
• Gloria Steinem (renowned feminist) connects the dots on gender and environment. Lisa Hyman.
• When nudge policies go wrong. Anne Tergesen.
• James Altucher has some radical suggestions for the US political system.
• The environment movement post-Copenhagen. Michael Bartlet.
• If you really want to feel down – watch End:Civ.
• Industrialised countries are now losing the clean energy race. Stephen Lacey.
• Honesty creates wealth. James Altucher.
• How can corporations be designed so as to blend social, environmental, and financial mission at their very core? Marjorie Kelly and Allen White.
• A profile of journalist/hero Nick Davies. Jonathan Maitland.

Al Gore’s Reality Project

For too long I underestimated what Al Gore had done for the climate movement. He brought on-board a whole new set of people into the movement – people who trusted him and his story. An Inconvenient Truth put climate science into the mainstream, and changed the terms of debate. Nothing is perfect, but he is certainly to be praised.

After some years working on the Alliance For Climate Protection, his new project is called the Climate Reality Project.

24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message. 24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, in every time zone around the globe.Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the- clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.

This may turn out to be another game-change, particularly for countries where the science of climate change has become a political line in the sand (say hello Australia, America, Canada et all), but doesn’t this feel a little….2009? To be specific, a little… 24th October 2009?

I’m glad to hear that Gore’s team has been working with 350.org – we’ll even have two global days of climate action within 10 days of one another in September..

Peaceful Uprising’s Core Principles

I find a list of organisational principles like this very compelling. Especially the final one.

1. We refuse to be obedient to injustice.
2. Our human stories are extremely powerful, and genuine sacrifice has the ability to awaken and inspire others.
3. We are connected to something much greater than ourselves, which has an incredible power to change the world.
4. We are steadfast in our commitment to the truth.
5. Our allies and strategies align with and create the healthy and just world we want to see.
6. A powerful movement originates with personal transformation and a commitment to being an agent of change.
7. Creating a better world is not only necessary, but makes us authentically happy people.
8. We are committed to building a supportive community that empowers our members to realize their potential.
9. The best response to intimidation is joy and resolve.
10. We recognize a nonviolent movement as the most effective means of creating a just and healthy world.
11. We respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person*.
12. Protecting Peaceful Uprising as an institution will never take precedent over our commitment to the fight for a healthy and just world.

* Corporations are not people.

h/t Peaceful Uprising

Link Loving 13.07.11

• In Cuba, the voice of a blog generation – meet Yoani Sánchez. Larry Rohter.
• How do NGO’s work with the private sector. Duncan Green.
• Rory Stewart on the cult of the hero (and how he got over it). Jules Allan. 
• Should you encourage leaders for being brave? Julia Middleton.
• The generation of young men in Brazil’s favelas who want to break out of cycles of violence – and support the women in their lives. Gary Barker.
• The arrogance of willful ignorance. Seth Godin.
• Resilient to what? A new look at risk. Rob Hopkins.
• The 100 longest entries on wikipedia. Joshua Fjelstad.

Miracles

You’ll be aware by now of this blog’s policy that if Van Jones gives a speech, I will post it – no further questions. The one below is old and very, very good. The theme was real-life miracles and was given as the keynote address to the Craigslist Foundation’s “Nonprofit Boot Camp” in 2006.

“There’s probably at least one person, and maybe more than one, who feels like their little not-for-profit just may not make it.

There may be somebody that feels like their cause is too marginal, their constituency is too desperate, their dreams are too big, their knowledge base is too small, and they just don’t know if they’re going to be able to pull this one off. If you’re that person, I want to tell you a little bit about my story, my secret rules for success if you’re doing tough things, and to remind you how important it is that you stick this out.

Ten years ago, all I had with my co-founder was a $10,000 grant and a scribble in my notebook, and we had a dream. We wanted to do something about police brutality. We wanted to do something about kids suffering in prison. We wanted to do something about the level of violence that was going on in our community. All we had was each other and that idea.

Link Loving 12.07.11

• The 14 biggest ideas of the year. The Atlantic.
• Shutdown in Minnesota: A sign of things to come. The Economist.
• How outsourcing kills innovation. William Bulkeley.
• The power of witness testimony in campaigning. Harmit Kambo.
• Bibi van der Zee profiles John Christensen, an all-round tax-avoidance-fighting hero who came to lead a seminar on ‘Economics for Activists’ that I organised earlier this year.
• Make anti-oppression a strategy issue. Daniel Hunter.
• Europeans’ fears about globalisation are misplaced. Will Straw.
• Introducing We First capitalism. Simon Mainwaring.

Are The World’s Financial Markets Carrying A Carbon Bubble?

New research from Carbon Tracker into how carbon intensive the financial markets are reveal some ugly truths. Clear evidence that the financial system needs to change.

• Already in 2011, the world has used over a third of its 50-year carbon budget
• Only 20% of the total reserves can be burned unabated, leaving up to 80% of assets technically unburnable

By allocating fossil fuel reserves to exchanges, the research has built up a picture of where reserves are listed. (Say hello, London.) The map shows how the listings of coal, oil and gas reserves are distributed – needless to say, the capital markets are supporting the continued exploitation of fossil fuel reserves around the world.

Distribution of fossil fuel reserves between stock exchanges

 Read the full report here.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Link Loving 11.07.11

• Bryony Worthington is getting excited about Thorium.
• The virtue of dissent. Daniel Honan.
• The true cost of news. Gaby Hinsliff.
• AskObama is a meaningless stunt. Umair Haque.
• The elegant forms of bribery in China. Antony Ou.
• Corruption and unrest threaten autocratic Chinese rule. Ben Heineman.
• Every successful case is a special case. Seth Godin.
• 90 years of communism in China. Crazy photos.