The Elders Initiative, an Effort to Infuse Wisdom into Global Policy & Conflict Resolution

The Elders is a humanitarian initiative led by South African archibishop Desmond Tutu and former South African pres. Nelson Mandela, designed to bring the African "village elders" concept to the global village, in an effort to defuse flashpoint crisis situations and speed responsible policy-making. Its foundations are the basic principles of human rights and the experience and credibility of the group's emissaries.

Apart from Mandela and Tutu, the group also includes Mandela's wife Graça Machel, Kofi Annan, Lakhtar Brahimi, fmr. US pres. Jimmy Carter, Ela Bhatt, Gro Brundtland, Fernando Cardoso, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Nobel laureate Grameen Bank for microcredit.

The stature of those included is part of what is expected to bring an international diplomatic prestige to its chosen approach to select humanitarian causes and conflict resolution. The Elders have said they reserve a place for detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The idea was originally brought to Mandela seven years ago by British billionaire and philanthropist Richard Branson.

Nelson Mandela, in his inaugural address to announce the group's founding, said:

"As institutions of government grapple, often unequally, with challenges they face, the efforts of a small, dedicated group of leaders, working objectively and without any vested interest in the outcome, can help resolve what often seem like intractable problems ... Using their collective experience, their moral courage and their ability to rise above the parochial concerns of nation, race and creed, they can help to make our planet a more peaceful, healthy and equitable place to live."

He added that the group will not become "arbitrary and arrogant" and will seek "long-term, sustainable approaches", based on the advice of local interests, scientific experts, political advisors and "anyone who is motivated to help resolve a problem".

The group's first mission will be to Sudan, in an effort to lay the groundwork for a lasting political solution to end the killing in Darfur and help Darfurians return to their homes, re-establish civil society, obtain an appropriate level of self-rule and get the food and medical aid needed to help achieve these goals.

The peace negotiated in Darfur is tenuous at best, as one of the major rebel factions has refused to sign on so long as the Khartoum government remains in political and military control of the region.

Mandela also declared that "It is kindness and generous accomodation that are the catalysts for real change", citing the African proverbial idea that "we are human only through the humanity of other human beings" and foresaw the group bringing "new energy to areas where others have become weary, because of endless conflict."

Clinton Global Initiative Brings Together 1,300, Including 52 Current or Former Heads of State

Former US pres. Bill Clinton's Global Initiative (CGI) holds a major international stakeholders' and donors' conference each year in conjunction with the UN's General Assembly, in New York City. This year's convention brings together 1,300 delegates from 72 countries. 52 active or former heads of state are participating, in only the 3rd year of this no-nonsense charity initiative.

'Members' contribute $15,000 in order to participate and must 'commit' to contributing or carrying out work of some concrete kind. They must come to the event with a plan already laid out and a clear agenda for enacting the plan. Political leaders, NGOs, business people, from around the world attend, with the aim of finding creative solutions to the world's most serious or deep-rooted problems. They must produce financial backing to bring their planned project to life before the following year's convention.

In order to ensure that the process is not just talk or debate, CGI requires as a condition of membership that those who do not follow through on their commitments be barred from attending the following year. Between the first and second conventions, 17 participants were not allowed back. Between the second and third (this year's), only five failed to return. The idea is to ensure that the event is not misused as a way to 'network' with powerful people, that its initiatives be a form of concrete progress and an example to other charitable endeavors.

The first two years of CGI raised over $10 billion for causes around the world, funding more than 600 'commitments' worldwide. The concept behind the initiative is to ensure that people with the conceptual and technical expertise have direct contact with the most influential backers to enact the kind of change needed specifically in certain areas.

As is prominently announced on the CGI website in a quote from Mr. Clinton, the idea is "to turn good intentions into real action and results". By building the requirement to follow through into the process of attending, proposal and planning, CGI has become an innovative example of effective global leadership, where interests come together and shared benefits can be both illustrated and made reality.

MORE AT
AP: "Clinton Global Initiative Hears Pledges" [2007 convention]
Washington Post: "Clinton Gathers World Leaders: Nonpartisan Conference Focuses on Global Improvement" [on 1st convention, in Sept. 2005]

Population, Land & Conflict

Lester R. Brown, EPI :: As land and water become scarce and as competition for these vital resources intensifies, we can expect mounting social tensions within societies, particularly between those who are poor and dispossessed and those who are wealthy, as well as among ethnic and religious groups. Population growth brings with it a steady shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person. That decline, which is threatening to drop the living standards of more and more people below survival level, could lead to unmanageable social tensions that will translate into broad-based conflicts.

Worldwide, the area in grain expanded from 590 million hectares (1,457 million acres) in 1950 to its historical peak of 730 million hectares in 1981. By 2004, it had fallen to 670 million hectares. Even as the world’s population continues to grow, the area available for producing grain is shrinking.

Expanding world population cut the grainland area per person in half, from 0.23 hectares (0.57 acres) in 1950 to 0.11 hectares in 2000. (See data at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/ch2data_index.htm) This area of just over one tenth of a hectare per person is half the size of a building lot in an affluent U.S. suburb. This halving of grainland area per person makes it more difficult for the world’s farmers to feed the 70 million or more people added each year. If current population projections materialize and if the overall grainland area remains constant, the area per person will shrink to 0.07 hectares in 2050, less than two thirds that in 2000.

Having less cropland per person not only threatens livelihoods; in largely subsistence societies with nutrient-depleted soils, it threatens survival itself. Tensions among people begin to build as land holdings shrink below that needed for survival. The Sahelian zone of Africa, the broad swatch of the continent between the Sahara Desert and the more lush forested land to the south, which stretches from Sudan in the east through Mauritania in the west, has one of the world’s fastest-growing populations. It is also an area of spreading conflicts.

In troubled Sudan, 2 million people have died and over 4 million have been displaced in the long-standing conflict of more than 20 years between the Muslim north and the Christian south. The conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan that began in 2003 illustrates the mounting tensions between two Muslim groups—Arab camel herders and black African subsistence farmers. Government troops are backing Arab militias, who are engaging in the wholesale slaughter of black Africans in an effort to drive them off their land, sending them into refugee camps. To date, some 140,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 250,000 have died in the refugee camps of hunger and disease.

In Nigeria, where 130 million people are crammed into an area not much larger than Texas, overgrazing and overplowing are converting 351,000 hectares (1,350 square miles) of grassland and cropland into desert each year. The conflict between farmers and herders in Nigeria is a war for survival. As the New York Times reported in June 2004, “in recent years, as the desert has spread, trees have been felled and the populations of both herders and farmers have soared, the competition for land has only intensified.” [Complete Text]

Geothermal Energy Creates Hope for Global Energy Solution

Sentido.tv :: Steam-driven process using deep underground vents to super-heat water could be 'nearly inexhaustible' resource...

The race to tap large quantities of underground, geothermal energy is heating up. In a recent bid to solve their country's demand for clean energy, the Swiss are digging deep, and the Earth is responding. A scientist at MIT, in the US, says 40% of US geothermal sources could power the entire country's energy needs in excess of 56,000 times.

At a cost of $51 million so far, the Swiss experiment in delving under the earth's crust has proven successful. The plan is to circulate water deep into the ground using shafts a bit larger than those used in drilling for oil, except pumping water and gaining access to high levels of heat, enough to harness the capacity to run a steam turbine and power an estimated 10,000 homes and offices.

The type of geothermal hot rock technology is called 'enhanced geothermal systems,' and drills into very hot granite at 400 degrees F. Even though the holes dug for these systems are deep, it only scratches the earth's surface and remains well away from the inner regions. 99% of the earth's interior is even hotter, at about 1000 degrees, where the technology is not designed to go, and where human science cannot yet reach without justfiable concerns about undesirable magma or gas leaks.

The science seems straighforward enough, but there may be a catch. In early December, the country registered a magnitude 3.4 tremor in response to Geothermal Basel's project to gain access to this untapped energy source. Coursing water through bored holes in the earth several miles deep has destabilized subsurface layers of crust causing shifts. The resulting tremors throughout the Basel region alarmed authorities enough to temporarily halt activity.

Clean and in ample supply, geothermal energy has the potential to power the current global population and much more without degrading the environment. The drawbacks include cost of drilling and stiff price competition from current fossil fuel extraction. Scientists say that certain hot rock source supplies, that cost about $7 to $8 million to drill, provide energy for only a limited amount of time, requiring a new source to be found after maybe just a decade. [Complete Text]

World Creating Food Bubble Economy Based on Unsustainable Use of Water

Lester R. Brown, EPI :: On March 16, 2003, some 10,000 participants [met] in Japan for the third World Water Forum to discuss the world water prospect. Although they [would] be officially focusing on water scarcity, they [would also] indirectly be focusing on food scarcity because 70 percent of the water we divert from rivers or pump from underground is used for irrigation.

As world water demand has tripled over the last half-century, it has exceeded the sustainable yield of aquifers in scores of countries, leading to falling water tables. In effect, governments are satisfying the growing demand for food by overpumping groundwater, a measure that virtually assures a drop in food production when the aquifer is depleted. Knowingly or not, governments are creating a "food bubble" economy.

As water use climbs, the world is incurring a vast water deficit, one that is largely invisible, historically recent, and growing fast. Because the impending water crunch typically takes the form of falling water tables, it is not visible. Falling water tables are often discovered only when wells go dry.

Once the growing demand for water rises above the sustainable yield of an aquifer, the gap between the two widens each year. The first year after the line is crossed, the water table falls very little, with the drop often being scarcely perceptible. Each year thereafter, however, the annual drop is larger than the year before.

[...] Aquifers are being depleted in scores of countries, including China, India, and the United States, which collectively account for half of the world grain harvest. Under the North China Plain, which produces more than half of China's wheat and a third of its corn, the annual drop in the water table has increased from an average of 1.5 meters a decade ago to up to 3 meters today. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, so the amount of water that can be pumped from it each year is restricted to the annual recharge from precipitation. This is forcing well drillers to go down to the region's deep aquifer, which, unfortunately, is not replenishable.

He Quincheng, head of the Geological Environmental Monitoring Institute in Beijing, notes that as the deep aquifer under the North China Plain is depleted, the region is losing its last water reserve—its only safety cushion. His concerns are mirrored in a World Bank report: "Anecdotal evidence suggest that deep wells [drilled] around Beijing now have to reach 1,000 meters [more than half a mile] to tap fresh water, adding dramatically to the cost of supply." In unusually strong language for the Bank, the report forecasts "catastrophic consequences for future generations" unless water use and supply can quickly be brought back into balance. [Complete Text]

MORE AT
Sentido.tv, Water Crisis Special Report
Sentido.tv, Sustainable Development Report
EPI, la Eco-Economía, en español

Mozambique's 'Tree of Life' Project Turns Used Weapons into Signs of Hope

Sentido.tv :: In the wake of Mozambique's long civil war, lasting from 1976 to 1992, a group of artists, sponsored by Christian aid, set up the Transforming Arms into Tools (TAE) project in the nation's capital, Maputo. Sculptors use decomissioned weapons, and parts of weapons to make art, expressing the possibility of finding new ways to secure and advance civil society.

The TAE project encourages people to exchange weapons for useful tools, such as sewing machines, tools for farming and other items that can help sustain a productive, if modest lifestyle. The project is thoroughly humanitarian and aims to educate people, to remind them of the horrors of war, and to show that good will is more powerful than the technology of war.

The "Tree of Life" is one of the most inspired and spectacular results of the project. It was sculpted by Cristovao Canhavato (Kester), Hilario Nhatugueja, Fiel dos Santos and Adelino Serafim Maté, four artists from Mozambique. At 3.5 meters in height, the Tree of Life was installed at the British Museum in London, as part of its year-long feature Africa 2005.

The sculpture and some smaller pieces, which include fascinating renditions of regional African fauna, are touring different sites where they can deliver the message that in Mozambique culture has turned toward an enduring commitment to end armed conflict and build a society structured around creative expression and learning.

Mozambique's long and arduous civil war, which began in 1976, in the wake of the collapse of Portugal's dictatorship and the withdrawal of troops from resistant former colonies, lasted for over 16 years. An estimated 1 million people were killed, upwards of 1.7 million fled into neighboring countries, and several million more were internally displaced.

Graça Machel, wife of former South African president and Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela, is quoted as saying: "When you see this Tree, you don’t just see Mozambique, you see the face of Africa. You see in the sculpture all the conflicts which have gone on in the making of it, and that’s why it’s wonderful to see the great space the British Museum has given it..." [Complete Text]

Amnesty Reported in 2006: International Arms Trade 'Out of Control'

Sentido.tv :: Human rights group says 'opaque chain' of private interests increasing shipments of dangerous arms, with little supervision...

Amnesty International (Amnesty/AI) has published a new report examining the international arms trade, and its findings indicate there is little control on the expanding web of private interests seeking to profit from a proliferation of dangerous weapons. The report also illustrates the ways in which this scattering of dangerous weapons has led to severe human rights abuses.

AI arms expert Brian Wood told the Reuters news service "Brokering is increasingly common, with main contractors sub-contracting supply, transportation and collection in an ever lengthening and increasingly opaque chain". The supply chain is slipping beyond the grip of international arms control law and regulatory agencies.

His concern, as expressed in the report "Dead on Time: arms, transportation, brokering and the threat to human rights", is that this type of shady arms trafficking is stirring conflict and facilitating gross abuses of human rights, even as perpetrators are enabled to hide their caches from international bodies.

The Amnesty report makes several suggestions for curbing the near rampant spread of small arms and military equipment to developing countries and conflict zones. Among these suggestions is a more uniform regime of arms control laws, beginning at the national level and meeting international standards based on a global treaty framework.

It calls for "Making violations of UN arms embargoes a criminal offence in all states and in the case of serious violations, a crime with universal jurisdiction". Such a provision would mean that individuals serving in governments or linked to arms manufacturers could face charges in any country for violating any arms embargo anywhere.

The principle is that without this sort of barrier to the spread of weapons, the motive to profit by circumventing international arms embargoes against corrupt or tyrannical regimes or against sending weapons into conflict zones would too easily (as it does not) find a way to serve its interests, endangering possibly millions of lives.

[...] There is no clear message from any one government on its involvement in any of these transactions or whether they are seen to contravene existing human rights treaties or war profiteering provisions of domestic laws. But the aim of the report seems to be to raise awareness among officials of leading arms exporters.

The report ultimately calls for 13 specific steps to enhance international security measures throughout the arms trade, which it hopes will be more likely after a publication campaign to raise the public's interest in pushing officials to limit such exports where conflict or tyranny is enabled or perpetuated by this sort of trade. [Complete Text]

Water Resource Stress: Global Economic-Ecological Factor for the 21st Century

Sentido.tv :: More than 1 billion people already face fresh water scarcity, figure expected to double in 20 years' time

Water is one of the "fundamental building-blocks of life", as is often said in science, in biology classrooms, in medicine, theology, environmental policy debates, and in cosmology and space exploration. It is also a commodity whose economic reality is increasingly defined by chronic scarcity and often intensely uneven distribution.

One of the most vital problems regarding the global water supply is the fact that we are already over-exploiting it, draining vital fluvial systems and ancient underground aquifers that cannot be replenished. This, coupled with the population boom and increasing industrialization, urbanization and consumerization of emerging economies, means global scarcity is fast becoming the rule.

In highly populated regions with little or highly-variable rainfall, irrigation and industrial uses are putting unsustainable pressures on the supply of safe drinking water. At least 1 billion people worldwide currently suffer the perils and hardships of a lack of clean drinkable water.

Experts calculate that by the year 2025, some 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with "absolute scarcity" of water resources, meaning they will be unable to meet demand for drinking water, irrigation or industry. The result is likely to be widespread economic chaos, famine, migration, and conflict, if no remedies are put in place ahead of time.

The first and most obvious result of such shortages is mass migration, the other is the spread of water-borne bacteria and infectious diseases. The human body can only survive a few days without hydration, so "absolute scarcity" has 3 key effects:

MASS MIGRATION: those who suffer the most extreme scarcity must move in search of survival;

DISEASE: water that carries toxins, disease and even raw sewage is a last resort, but becomes a tempting resource, and so disease takes root and spreads among afflicted and displaced populations;

COLLAPSE OF THE FOOD SUPPLY: extreme drought and desertification often follow a period of intense or prolonged degradation of agricultural water resources...

In such situations, the problem is massive and severe enough to generate real political instability and be a security concern for national governments. This means law, treaty and military power come into play, and economic crisis can rapidly evolve, or degenerate, into armed conflict. [Complete Text]

MORE AT
Sentido.tv, Water Crisis Special Report
Sentido.tv, Sustainable Development Report
EPI, la Eco-Economía, en español

Dirty Air Tied to Economic Growth

The world is facing a major environmental crisis, with multiple serious battles to fight on various fronts, if we are to avert crippling long-term environmental degradation. One fundamental problem is that post-industrial societies have not sufficiently divorced their economic activity from extreme contaminants like carbon-based fuels, so that special cases of exorbitant economic growth continue to bring with them high levels of particulate air pollution.

Barcelona, with a liberal government and policies designed to make its bus system less emissions intensive, congestion taxing on cars and a vast public transport network, has been listed not as one of the most polluted cities in the world, but as having on average across the metropolitan area the 8th worst concentration of particulate matter small enough to be ingested by respiration, out of a limited survey of 26 cities worldwide. Part of the reason is that the city has, despite its reputation as a progressive political stronghold, never implemented the EU's caps on particulate-matter pollution.

The regional government now says it seeks to meet those goals with a series of new initiatives, and that by 2010, the city will be able to prevent more than 1,000 deaths per year attributable to ailments derived from breathing high levels of pollutants. But part of the global problem tied to pollution is that cities, regions and nations that see intense economic expansion (Barcelona's tourism and real estate markets have expanded massively each year of this decade) tend to see an intensification of air pollution.

Two years ago, China was listed as host to the 8 most polluted cities in the world, and 10 of the 15 most polluted. While it is not clear that Beijing has effectively reduced nationwide pollution, and we have numerous stories each year of chemical spills, contaminated waters flooding cropland, cover-ups of environmental degradation and the massive desertification of the country's northwest, it is true that playing host to the Olympic Games in 2008 has meant that strict measures are being taken to reduce the capital's epic levels of smog.

We must ask ourselves: what policies can be implemented, rapidly and on national scales, to bring into practice environmentally sustainable industrial methods of production? And, what is needed to ensure that assistance and incentives are provided to cities and regions whose economic growth might not coincide with a political drive to clean up the air or regulate emissions?

MORE AT:
Sentido.tv: "Barcelona Places 8th Worst for Air Quality in Study of 26 Cities"
La Vanguardia: "Barcelona, octava ciudad más contaminada por encima de México, Berlín, Tokio, Londres o Nueva York" [Actualizado después]
CREAL: "Reduir la pol·lució atmosfèrica a l’àrea metropolitana de Barcelona aporta grans beneficis per a la salut (convocatòria de premsa)"

Introducing the Crisis Policy Forum, a Casavaria discursive community project

The Crisis Policy Forum is an online community project with a view to fomenting open debate and discourse on humanitarian, political and economic crises across the world. CPF aims to highlight and bring about new research and policy-proposals, to produce viable, locally-relevant solutions to pervasive crises such as fresh-water scarcity, chronic poverty, access to technology and education, voting rights, agricultural sustainability, infectious disease, conflict resolution and democracy.

The mission of CPF is not profit-driven or entrepreneurial, but is, rather, intended to focus on directing major policy initiatives toward sound, evidence-based efforts that strengthen the fabric of local communities and civil society. An essential ingredient in this project is the recognition that: ideology is a mystical devotion to singular, exclusive political structures, which as a result tends to bring about division, arbitrary exercise of power, social 'blockage', stagnation in the marketplace of ideas, persecution and a 'dumbing down' of the process of inquiry, generally.

Ideals are necessary in the planning, living and evolution of any human endeavor, but cannot be applied as blanket solutions; they are not solutions but rather seeds for thought and must be channeled through local context and available resources, needs, choice and applicability to the problem at hand; when the ideal is not imposed but is chosen voluntarily by those affected, it ceases to force or attack and begins to help resolve problems, which are, essentially, the lack of 'ideal' conditions.

CPF will combine statistics, reports from UN agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations, academics, essays on theory, history and actual policies introduced, examining how they proceed, what level of success is perceived to have been achieved, by various 'stakeholders' (involved parties, both those affected and those acting to implement policy initiatives). The format will be open, and initially without hard channeling of information, as we seek to build a reserve of commentary and a well-spring of concepts, critiques and innovative thought.

THINK: a new research project evolving solutions for smarter living

Through the 'Think' project, Casavaria aims to develop major new technologies to help bring the costly aspects of everyday post-industrial life in line with what the planet, and civilization itself, can sustain. The project seeks to reduce instability in technology for communication and to develop an entirely new sort of renewable "fuel" source.

Both of these inaugural projects are at present in the theoretical phase. To continue research and development, Casavaria will be seeking to collaborate with experts in diverse fields of study and engineering, and to find funding for projects whose results should resonate at the heart of everyday experience in today's world.

Think is envisioned as a forum which may bring together scientists, authors, researchers, critics, hobbyists and lay people, in an effort to spur discussion and to foment innovation. Projects proposed by Casavaria will remain the intellectual property of the Think project, though collaborators may from time to time be officially recognized by the editors, due to their contributions in this forum.

With Think, Casavaria takes the view that research must be open and avoid bias toward even its own stated goal, but research will be conducted, promoted or discussed, with the policy that the problem is not whether a good idea is possible, but how to achieve it, or which of various possible scenarios is optimal for all involved. [Full Text]