Globally Local LLP
Fostering cooperative regional self sufficiency
SOME JOINED UP THINKING! 27 August 2010
ETHICAL TRADING COOPERATIVE 03 August 2010
GREEN DRINKS - 1st Tuesday of the month 04 May 2010
FROM TURTLES TO T SHIRTS The Green Dragons celebrate their first anniversary 18 March 2010
CHANGING LIFESTYLES ECO CENTRE OPENS 19 October 2009
Transition Towns Birmingham 05 October 2009
MIDLANDS ECO PARTNERSHIP 31 July 2009
CLIMATE CHANGE is happening - it's official! 03 December 2007
The evidence has been mounting for almost half a century, and importantly, now suggests unstoppable, but as yet largely unquantified, changes in the biosphere. CO2 emissions are rising more rapidly than at any previous recorded time. Not only is the battle to stop climate change lost, but we face the triple whammy of global warming; resource depletion; and population pressure, leading to a level of biosphere degradation, possibly unprecedented since the demise of the dinosaurs!
SO WHY ARE WE FIGHTING YESTERDAY’S BATTLES? The Kyoto Protocol is about as useful as re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; The Stern Review, an economic analysis, fails to question the sanctity of economic growth, taking for granted a three to four fold increase in economic activity by 2050. We would need the resources of 3 earths to achieve that!
Meanwhile 'Peak Oil', the depletion of essential resources such as fish stocks, and an additional 70 million a year in total world population, are unavoidable.
COLLABORATIVE FUNCTIONAL REGIONS - ... or "lifeboats"!
It would seem common sense for each region to be as self sufficient in foodstuffs as is reasonable, given climatic and demographic constraints. Forcing tropical regions into cash crop production essentially to satisfy year round demand from western countries for out of season products, has already done immense damage to many countries' ability to feed themselves.
Trade will remain important, but on the basis of subsidiarity and complementarity - not enforced (WTO) "free" trade which results in such nonesense as India now importing some tea from UK!! Talk about taking coals to Newcastle - oh - forgetting - no coal now produced in Newcastle; we import it from Chile and Australia.
COLLABORATION versus COMPETITION
There's a good deal of work to do to both identify "functional regions" and to define their natural productive capacity and essential trading requirements. Steps may need to be taken to ensure that control of basics such as water, energy, essential foods, are controlled within each region, and not subject to the profit requirements of distant multinational companies.
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