Showing posts with label social. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social. Show all posts
17 March 2012
14 March 2012
Five poverty-fighting women to watch
These women don't hand out aid. They're creating innovative new ways for women – and men – to lift themselves out of poverty
By Kyla Springer | Global Envision in Christian Science Monitor | March 13, 2012
CEO and founder of Samasource Leila Janah takes part in a session during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in 2010. Samasource provides women in developing countries with 'microwork' via the Internet, reducing poverty. Lucas Jackson/Reuters/File
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13 March 2012
Stemming rural depopulation in Ethiopia
Fasil Giorghis’ office in the centre of Addis Ababa affords a good view of the Ethiopian capital. There are building sites wherever you look: grey concrete structures with protruding armouring irons, sheathed in scaffolding made from eucalyptus trees
by Samuel Schlaefli | OurWorld 2.0 | March 12, 2012
07 March 2012
Forget the ‘golden age’ of capitalism: there’s no return, and our future can be better
One writing collective recently referred to the ongoing global financial crisis, with notable acuity, as akin to a ‘dull explosion’. Into this vacuum, whose intellectual environment can only be characterized as one of inert propulsion, the interpretative tools of policy makers and the majority of academic economists alike simply no longer make sense
by Aaron Peters | Mar 6 2012 by OpenDemocracy in Energy Bulletin | Mar 6 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related Content16 January 2012
The Law Of Putin’s Jungle
The Russian leader may be in for a surprise: he misjudges his adversaries
The Daily Beast in Newsweek Magazine | Jan 16, 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related Content13 January 2012
Newly Elected ECOSOC President Outlines Priorities
Slovak Ambassador Miloš Koterec has been elected to serve as President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Addressing the Council in New York, US, after his election, Koterec called for a new approach to development, including changing old perceptions about development and finding new ways to optimize cooperation among donor and aid recipient countries
Climate Change Policy & Practice | 10 January 2012
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentFAO Guidebook Highlights Carbon Finance Options for Smallholder Farmers
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has published a guidebook titled "Climate Change Mitigation Finance for Smallholder Agriculture - A guide book to harvesting soil carbon sequestration benefits," which underscores the role of agriculture in global climate change mitigation efforts and describes approaches for participating in carbon financing opportunities
Climate Change Policy & Practice | 10 January 2011
Read more... Sphere: Related Content17 October 2011
10 ways to support the Occupy movement
The #OccupyWallStreet movement continues to spread with more than 1,500 sites. More and more people are speaking up for a society that works for the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent
B Sarah van Gelder | Oct 16 2011 by YES! Magazine in Energy Bulleting | Oct 16 2011
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In Westlake Park, Seattle, shortly before police removed the tent and arrested occupiers. Sign reads: 250,000 Homeless Vets Is Unacceptable.: Photo by Sarah van Gelder.
14 October 2011
Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital
In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analysis of dropouts from high school. Use of the concept of social capital is part of a general theoretical strategy discussed in the paper: taking rational action as a starting point but rejecting the extreme individualistic premises that often accompany it.
Coleman, J. S. (1988) | The American Journal of Sociology 94, S95-S120
Read more... Sphere: Related Content28 March 2010
Indonesia: Agriculture expansion plan under fire
The Indonesian government's plan to develop a food estate in Papua has come in for heavy criticism for potentially marginalizing small farmers and threatening the environment
By IRIN | SperoNews | March 28, 2010
The government hopes the 1.6 million hectare Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate in Merauke District will turn Indonesia into one of the world's biggest food producers.
The project will need between 50 and 60 trillion rupiah (US$5.5 billion-$6.6 billion) in initial investment and is expected to create thousands of jobs, Deputy Agriculture Minister Bayu Krisnamurthi said.
Some 36 local and foreign companies have expressed interest and the government will spend between 2.5 and three trillion rupiah on infrastructure, he said.
"We need major investors to come in first," Krisnamurthi told reporters this month.
Crops to be grown include rice, sugar cane, soya beans and maize, he said.
NGO activists have rejected the plan, saying the estate could bring more harm than benefit to the local population.
"Food is not just a commercial commodity but is also a basic human right, and leaving food provision to the private sector can hinder people's access to food because corporations are driven by profit," Elisha Kartini, an activist from the Indonesian Farmer Union (SPI), told IRIN.
The Papua region, comprising most of the western half of the island of New Guinea, is divided into two provinces – Papua and West Papua. They are the poorest of Indonesia’s 32 provinces, with 35 percent of its 2.6 million inhabitants living below the poverty line, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, against a national poverty rate of 14.15 percent in 2009.
A traditional food market in Papua, one of Indonesia's poorest regions. Photo: Jefri Aries/IRIN
Competition
Indonesia's leading environmental group, Walhi, warned that the project would amount to a land grab and cause local farmers to suffer because they would be unable to compete with major corporations.
"The foundation of our food security is still vulnerable," Muhammad Islah, Walhi's water and food campaigner, told IRIN
"Farmers are still struggling with scarcity of land in the face of market liberalization and government policy unfavourable to small farmers," he said.
"If this project goes ahead, it would amount to legalised land-grabbing when domestic and foreign businesses are allowed to compete with small farmers."
Agriculture Minister Suswono said Indonesian companies would control interests in the estate and foreign ownership would be limited to 49 percent.
Deputy Minister Krisnamurthi said the estate was expected to contribute one million metric tonnes in rice production annually and between 800,000 and 1.2 million metric tonnes of sugar. Indonesia produces about 60 million tonnes of rice annually.
Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Radjasa said the project would start this year but details were still being worked out and tried to allay fears that it would damage the environment.
A local Papuan man tends to his sweet potato plants on a hillside in Papua. Photo: Jefri Aries/IRIN
"We have to really make use of idle land, so forest areas must remain intact and deforested areas will be converted into plantation areas," he said.
Environmental threat
But Walhi warned that the estate would threaten the ecosystem and its ecological balance.
"Large-scale land conversions in Merauke, which consists of predominantly low-lying land and marshes, could cause it to lose its land areas," Walhi said in a statement. "The decrease in forest and water catchment areas could result in a faster intrusion of sea water to the land."
The West Papua Advocacy Team, a Papuan pressure group, said the plan entailed an expansion of Merauke's population of some 175,000 people to up to 800,000.
The group warned that the project would likely involve a state-supported inflow of non-Papuans along the lines of decades of "transmigration policies" adopted by the government of former president Suharto.
The policy has in the past been blamed for ethnic conflict in the Indonesian part of Borneo and Sumatra islands.
"That conflict has arisen as local populations are marginalized in their own homelands as government supports programmes that favour the internal migrants to the disadvantage of locals," the group said in a statement.
"There is growing opposition to the scheme from small-scale Papuan farmers who say they fear their traditional livelihoods will be threatened by the large-scale, state-subsidized commercialization of agriculture," it added.
© Copyright Spero, All rights reserved
Read more... Sphere: Related Content24 March 2010
South Africa: Campaign against new coal mines gathers momentum
In an indication that the global climate justice movement is becoming broader, there is now intense opposition to a climate-destroying energy loan for South Africa
Patrick Bond | Green Left Online | 19 March 2010
The campaign’s leaders are community activists in black townships allied with environmentalists, trade unionists and international climate activists.
The World Bank is trying to lend nearly US$4 billion to the Johannesburg-based parastatal (quasi-government-run) Eskom. The power company is the world’s fourth largest and Africa’s largest carbon emitter (responsible for 40% of South Africa’s total emissions).
The loan is mainly for building the world’s fourth most CO2-intensive coal-fired power plant, Medupi, in the ecologically sensitive Waterberg area north of the capital of Pretoria.
The Bank also aims to finance privatised power generation, notwithstanding the abject failure of public-private partnerships in South African infrastructure, including for electricity and water.
More than 200 organisations have signed up in protest.
The loan would fly in the face of the Bank’s attempt to portray itself as a climate-friendly financer, and will generate a vast, unnecessary debt.
This will be a financial debt to South Africa’s poor and an expanded climate debt owed by South Africa to the rest of Africa for overusing its fair proportion of the continent’s CO2 carrying capacity.
Forty new mines are requested by Eskom to supply its new generators. For communities near the coal fields and coal-fired stations, the externalised costs imposed by Eskom are extremely high, including the complete degradation of water sources, air pollution, a frightening rise in mercury levels associated with coal use, and other health burdens.
The loan is being pursued at a time of intense controversy surrounding Eskom mismanagement. In its last annual reporting period, the company lost R9.7 billion ($1.3 billion) mainly due to miscalculations associated with hedging aluminium prices and the SA currency.
Both the chairperson and chief executive office lost their jobs late last year amid unprecedented acrimony.
Eskom continues its giveaway prices — the world’s cheapest electricity, heavily subsidised by all other users — to several large export-oriented multinational corporations, headquartered abroad. The two main beneficiaries are Melbounre-based BHP Billiton, which runs aluminum smelters, and the notorious London-based Anglo American Corporation.
Thus profits flow abroad, exacerbating SA’s dangerously high international payments deficit.
Activists argue that the scandalous late-apartheid-era, multi-decade “Special Pricing Agreement” deals with BHP and Anglo should be rejected.
In early 2008, repeated national blackouts finally led to cuts in supply to some of these firms, showing that the deals could legitimately be violated. The crash of metals and minerals prices has also dramatically lowered demand.
Demand-side management — a tried and tested alternative that the World Bank claims to endorse (but hasn’t considered in this case) — would lesson the need for new power plants.
Also, SA’s massive renewable energy potential has not even begun to be tapped. Eskom was given responsibility for rolling out more than a million solar-powered hot water heaters over three years, and after two years, can claim only a thousand.
Having lost the vast majority of South Africans’ trust, Eskom raised prices by more than triple the inflation rate in 2008. From 2007 to 2012, the price of a month’s normal electricity use in an “average township household” is anticipated by Eskom to rise 127% in real terms.
These price increases will have an extreme adverse impact, leading to a major increase in power disconnections (and illegal reconnections, hence electrocutions) of poor households.
Ironically, World Bank staff insist the proposed Eskom loan will have a “developmental” impact.
The Bank is in an untenable position. It will soon release a new energy policy and also campaigns to take on additional responsibilities for channeling finance related to climate change.
The proposed Eskom loan should disqualify the Bank from any further role in climate-related activities.
Critics insist that if the Bank intends to raise $180 billion in new capital from member groups prior to the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings in late April, it will have to shelve this loan, because the world’s citizens will object that this represents business as usual financing at a time when energy transformation is increasingly urgent.
Critics are gaining momentum. Communities and environmentalists have begun to protest the Eskom loan, including at the firm’s Durban headquarters on February 16.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa announced its opposition to the loan on February 18. Other unions threatened strikes against the price hikes and Eskom’s labour practices.
The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, which had the highest African profile at the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, has also endorsed the no-loan demand on grounds of environmental damage.
Opposition to the loan has also been expressed by the South African Council of Churches, which played a key role in criticising the World Bank in the past due to its apartheid financing.
Eskom is also suffering an upsurge of illegal electricity connections in communities, as its prices become prohibitive.
In sum, this company can be fairly described as a poor credit risk.
Dozens of groups across the world have committed to oppose the World Bank’s proposed Eskom loan. They are contacting the executive directors of the World Bank from each country — including Australia’s representative, James Hagan, who was visited by South Africans earlier this week — to demand a “no coal loan” vote at the April 6 meeting at which the loan will be tabled.
In advance of the Bank’s recapitalisation efforts, critics are ready to take even more vigorous action against the Bank itself.
This includes a revival of the “World Bank boycott” that cost the Bank support from many major bondholders over the past decade (including the world’s largest pension fund, the city of San Francisco, the Calvert Group, and university and church endowment funds).
For the sake of environmental justice, the surrounding communities, the citizenry, the workers, Eskom customers and the continent of Africa (and all other sites affected by climate change), the Bank will have no choice but to withdraw this loan.
Eskom will then have no other choice but to negotiate an appropriate energy mix and financing strategy with constituencies they have so far ignored.
Please send messages opposing the World Bank loan to:
Executive director, Mr. James Hagan, Australian representative to the World Bank; phone: USA 202-458-1015; fax: USA 202-477-2007; email
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentCommunity networks key to forest reform
Communities linked to their own networks and organizations have the best chance of success in community forestry, a research finds
Adianto P. Simamora | The Jakarta Post | March 24, 2010
The three-year research project, conducted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), assessed 30 sites in 10 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
“The research focused on communities that had fought for or been granted new statutory rights,” Anne Larson, senior associate at CIFOR said.
The findings were published in a book, Forest for People: Community Rights Forest Tenure Reform, which was launched on Wednesday.
“We aimed at identifying issues and concerns from the perspective of socially and economically vulnerable groups that were seeking tenure reforms,” she said.
Tenure reforms – a change in tenure rights in forested areas – represent a forest reform comparable to widespread agrarian reforms of the mid 20th century.
Although the world’s forests are still primarily public land, more than a quarter of forests in developing countries are now owned by or assigned to communities.
It said that tenure was particularly important in light of the ongoing negotiations on REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation).
For REDD schemes to be successful, clear ownership of forest resources and carbon pools needs to be established so that payments for carbon sequestration can be made. Without having secure rights and clear ownership over carbon pools, communities and indigenous groups may not be able to claim benefits from REDD schemes, and may even be dispossessed.
This would be to the detriment of efforts both to mitigate climate change and to ensure equity, Anne said.
Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
Read more... Sphere: Related Content13 March 2010
The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis by Jeremy Rifkin
Will global empathy save us from the catch-22 of climate change? John Gray is sceptical
John Gray | The Guardian | 13 March 2010
Eggborough power station in North Yorkshire Photograph: Murdo MacLeod
Whoever hacked into the emails at the University of East Anglia fired the opening salvo in a new kind of dirty war. The Copenhagen conference met on the basis that dealing with global warming was in everyone's interest. The idea that nearly 200 countries could reach meaningful decisions was always unreal, but the meeting's collapse reflected a more fundamental reality.
Environmentalists have always assumed that the threat of disaster will bring about an era of global cooperation. In reality, climate change is triggering another round of geopolitical conflict. Limiting the use of fossil fuels may be essential if disaster is to be avoided, but countries that in different ways rely heavily on these fuels for their prosperity – such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, China and the US – were never going to accept the strict carbon curbs that the EU and others demanded. How much the leaked emails contributed to the breakdown of the summit is unclear, but the effect has been to let those countries, along with the rest of the world, off the hook. The undermining effect on climate science looks like being long-lasting and profound.
"Climategate" was an exercise in postmodern cyber-warfare – a move in a larger conflict that environmentalists show little sign of understanding. In The Empathic Civilization, Jeremy Rifkin suggests that the whole of history is a struggle between the polar forces of empathy and entropy. "There is, I believe, a grand paradox to human history. At the heart of the human saga is a catch-22 – a contradiction of extraordinary significance – that has accompanied our species, if not from the very beginning, then at least from the time our ancestors began their slow metamorphosis from archaic to civilised beings thousands of years before Christ."
The catch-22 is that, as civilisation has extended the reach of empathy beyond the family and the tribe until it covers all of humankind, the expanding infrastructure of industry and transport has needed ever larger inputs of energy, increasing entropy and wrecking the planet.
Moving from hunting and gathering to farming, and then to industrial production, enabled humans to interact with one another as never before, but this increasing interconnection involved depleting the planet, a process that is reaching a climax just as civilisation is becoming planet-wide for the first time. "Our rush to universal empathic connectivity," Rifkin writes, "is running up against a rapidly accelerating entropic juggernaut in the form of climate change and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
How can this deadly collision be averted? The answer appears to be straightforward: by developing "biosphere consciousness". "Only by concerted action that establishes a collective sense of affiliation with the entire biosphere will we have a chance to ensure our future." In other words, a transformation of consciousness can save humanity from self-destruction.
It is hardly a new story. How often have we heard environmentalists exclaim that the alternatives facing the world are radical transformation or total catastrophe? The trouble is that their analysis of the environmental crisis is extremely shallow. Climate change is not mainly the work of sinister corporate interests and weak-kneed or corrupt politicians. It is a direct result of the energy-intensive civilisation in which the affluent part of humankind lives, and which the rest very much wants to join. While humans are more interdependent than ever before, they are at the same time destabilising the planet. Reining in corporate interests and chivvying politicians to be greener do nothing to resolve this fundamental contradiction.
Where Rifkin departs from the standard green line is in grasping that all of humanity is caught in a trap, but he seems convinced that, provided human empathy continues to expand, the trap can be sprung without too much difficulty. Rifkin's difficulties start with the claim – in itself quite plausible – that the environmental crisis is a catch-22. Joseph Heller's darkly brilliant satire derives its power from the insight that there are dilemmas from which there is no escape: if you are sane enough to ask to be declared unfit to fly on dangerous missions, then you are fit to fly.
The essence of any catch-22 is that there is no way out, but Rifkin shrinks from this cruel logic, with the result that his argument verges on incoherence. How could human empathy possibly defeat the force of entropy, an irreversible physical process? Does Rifkin believe an increase in altruism can lead to the repeal of the second law of thermodynamics?
His practical proposals for dealing with the climate crisis are disappointingly conventional – massive investment in renewable energy and the like – and, in line with standard green thinking, he never explains how a human population of 7 billion, rising to 9 or 10 billion over the next 50 years, can be supported by a mixture of solar panels and hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Stewart Brand's recent Whole Earth Discipline, which argues that coping with environmental breakdown will necessitate making the most of demonised technologies such as nuclear energy and GM food, is more realistic as well as more visionary.
Most of The Empathic Civilization is not in fact concerned with the practical task of coping with the mess humans have made of the planet. Instead it is devoted to defending Rifkin's view that humans are essentially empathic animals, whose benign qualities have not been fully manifested throughout most of their history. "Wanton widespread violence has not been the norm in human history," Rifkin writes, looking back wistfully on the "tranquil agricultural life that existed for thousands of years" before the "mega-machine" of property and government disrupted humankind's natural innocence. One need not be a hardened cynic to find this Rousseauesque tale implausible. Humans may be more moved by empathy than is sometimes allowed, but empathy for the feelings of others is not only expressed in compassion. It is equally the basis of cruelty, a trait that is also distinctively human.
For all its inordinate length, The Empathic Civilization fails to substantiate its central thesis. The innate sociability of human beings is a fact, but it does not follow that they are likely to cooperate in dealing with environmental crisis. The impact of climate change is rather to intensify human conflict. As global warming accelerates, natural resources such as arable land and water become scarcer, and competition to control them will be acute and pervasive. At the same time, those whose power and wealth come from fossil fuels will do anything they can to promote "climate scepticism".
This is where the leaked emails come in. With global warming fuelling a resurgence of geopolitical tensions, climate science has become a weapon in a war of disinformation. Whatever lapses in intellectual probity they might reveal, the messages are being used to obscure a mass of evidence showing that anthropogenic climate change is real, and may be occurring more rapidly than previously believed. It is still possible to frame an intelligent response to the threat, but first we need to recognise that the climate has become a battleground. Empathy won't save us.
John Gray's Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings is published by Penguin
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Read more... Sphere: Related Content07 March 2010
Nigeria: Tackling Climate Change Through Religion
The effects of climate change particularly in sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly taking toll on the social and economic well-being of people of the region. Having realised these, some top faith leaders in the region have resolved to explore religion in tackling the menace
Tunbosun Ogundare | Daily Champion in AllAfrica.com | 4 March 2010
The faith leaders have committed to taking proactive roles by helping educate members on the critical task and responsibilities all must play to safeguard the environment.
They made this commitment at the end of a two-day inter faith forum in Abuja, Nigeria, on climate change for sub-Saharan Africa.
The forum co-organised by the British Council and First City Monument Bank Plc (FCMB) to advance the awareness on climate change issues in the region, brought together over 100 participants from Nigeria, the United Kingdom and several other Sub-Saharan African countries including South Africa.
About 60 of them were faith leaders.
Those from Nigeria include Sheikh Qaribullah Kabar and Sheik Ibrahim Khali, both Islamic scholars; Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies, Noibi; Rev. Mathew Kuka of Catholic mission; Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, National President, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN); Prof Wande Abimbola, former Vice-Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; Archbishop John Onaiyekan; Dr Newton Jibunoh, environment activist; Dr Abdul Audu, academics/environmentalist, and Prof Lanre Fagbohun, environmental lawyer,
Others were Dr John Momoh; Emir of Suleja, who represented Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubarkar Sai'd; Hon Ezeuche Ubani, Chairman House of Reps Committee on Climate Change; Bishop Margret Idahosa, Church of God Mission; Oluwasetihun Salawu and so forth.
From outside the country were Longdi Daniels; and Jeremy UYhili among others.
The Nigeria's British High Commissioner Mr. Robert Scott Dewar and the British Council Director, David Higgs as well as Peter Obaseki, Executive Director, FCMB, were also in attendance.
At the end of the summit, participants arrived at a decision that as leaders of faith communities on the continent, they would commit to highlighting the very real threat to the world's people and to the fragile creation, from the threat of catastrophic climate change.
In all our religious teachings and Holy Scriptures, they said, it is clearly stated that protecting and taking care of nature and human life is one of the main instructions of Creator, and human beings are guardians of this earth.
They believe that if climate change are not curtailed, it would continue to increase the level of poverty, disease and conflict in Africa.
It is a known fact that Africa has already been impacted by climate change through more floods, droughts and extreme weather conditions - but least equipped technically and financially to deal with climate- related risks.
Subsistence farming, the main source of Africa's food, is being threatened by climate change because it mainly relies on rainfall that is becoming increasingly erratic
Studies have shown that climate change may increase competition for diminishing water resources that will force people to become 'climate change refugees', posing challenges to peace and security in the region.
Noting that faith leaders have a crucial role to play in pressing for changes in behaviour at every level of society; and that, all have a responsibility to learn and teach how to live and develop sustainable in a world of finite resources, participants identified some salient action points to pursue subsequently.
These include the need for faith leaders to strengthen their capacity building trainings on climate change issues so as to improve their knowledge and understanding of this serious global threat.
From there, they will further commit to raising awareness of environmental ethics in their religious activities and dedicate a minimum of one sermon, says for one month for issues related to climate change and environmental degradation.
Equally, they said they would commit to emphasising relevant verses in their Holy Books related to the environment as it is the responsibility of every believer to keep the earth clean and healthy for human life.
They are also ready to sharing best practices and strengthen existing structures and practices to implement agreed positive actions for adapting to climate change and preventing environmental degradation, while advising their communities on how to behave in their daily activities.
Similarly, they commit to working together with leaders of different faiths and engage with government, private sector, educational institutions, youth and civil society organisations in Africa and the region.
Their positions, however, are not limited to those above.They also said: "We should also involve and work with policy-makers and, where possible, hold them accountable, while ensuring that these people are a part of regional and national talks and (legal) agreements.
"We commit to working together to hold developed countries to account for a reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases so that global warming does not exceed 2 C Degree and advocate for an adaptation or Global Climate Fund.
To help to achieve these ends, the faith leaders agreed to use the Abuja meeting as the first step in an ongoing process of collaboration.
"We believe our communities can be key agents of change and urge the government across levels and the international community, wherever possible, to support our efforts to build capacity, raise awareness and promote sustainable practice", they declared.
Nevertheless, the Abuja forum was the first of its kind in Africa coming few months after the Archbishop of Canterbury hosted a meeting of faith leaders and faith-based and community organisations at Lambeth Palace, UK to discuss the response of faith communities to environmental crisis and; the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit held recently.
Copyright © 2010 Daily Champion. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)
Read more... Sphere: Related Content05 March 2010
Ghana's 2010 oil 'boom': Ensuring public interest over private gain
Ghana is on the precipice of an oil 'boom'. The nation’s anticipated oil production begins this year, 2010. And along with the production, the public’s high expectations from oil wealth, in addition to the potential threats that come with this oil 'boom'. Even as we remain optimistic, we should not underestimate the potential dangers of our new circumstances to our democracy, national unity and our nation’s socio-political security. There sure are no greater exigencies now than laying strong foundations for transparency and accountability, both in the preparatory stage and the eventual management of our oil wealth
By Mawuli Dake | Pambazuka in Foreign Policy in Focus | February 25, 2010
Disputes related to natural resources have exacted a toll on far too many African societies, turning the dreams of national prosperity that come with the discovery of such natural resources into perpetual nightmares. Consequently, these disputes have resulted in violent conflicts, environmental destruction, corruption, untold human hardship, displacements and a devastated future for entire communities. This sad but true reality causes even the most exuberant optimist to wonder if the discovery of oil in one’s country should be a cause of jubilation or trepidation. I am cautiously optimistic about Ghana, that the nation will take full advantage of the positive and negative lessons from others to ensure transparency and accountability as oil production begins.
This article is a contribution to Ghana’s determination to ensure a peaceful, productive and prosperous oil era. It outlines specific critical statutory, institutional, social and community strategies for ensuring transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s oil.
The reality of oil in Africa today
Aside from a few exceptions, wherever there is oil on the continent, there is misery and conflict. The causes of these conflicts, as seen across the region, range from a lack of mechanisms for accountability, inequities in the distribution of oil wealth, to injustices of endemic political and corporate abuses of human rights in affected communities. This is manifested through the violations of rights, total disregard for laws and flagrant disregard for the interests and wellbeing of communities.
A common trend as seen in oil-related conflicts from Angola and Nigeria to Sudan, among others, is the emergence of aggrieved and exploited groups of citizens, who resort to violence as the only means of demanding accountability, inclusion and justice. 'A riot is the language of the unheard', as Martin Luther King put it. The billions of oil wealth generated do not reflect in the conditions of the people and the communities from which the oil is drilled. The continent's leading oil producers – Algeria, Nigeria and Angola[i] – rank 104, 158 and 143 respectively on the 2009 United Nations Human Development Index. Other resource-endowed African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) also rank near the bottom of human development in the world.
The absence of strong mechanisms for accountability and oversight have allowed small cliques of greedy elites and their corporate allies to amass the oil wealth to the detriment of national development in too many of our countries. It is a trend too pervasive across the continent, but Ghana can and must do things differently.
Outlook of Ghana’s extractive sector
Until its independence in 1957, Ghana was called the 'Gold Coast' for its rich endowment in gold. In addition, Ghana is blessed with bauxite, aluminium, manganese ore and diamonds. Today Ghana is the 2nd and 10th leading gold producing country in Africa and the world respectively[ii], bringing in export earnings of US$1,277.2 million in 2006 and US$1,733.78 million in 2007, according to the 2008 official budget statement. Heretofore, the several decades of management of Ghana’s mining resources has been characterised by very little transparency and accountability, a characterisation that should not be repeated with the management of oil resources. There’s never been any serious public discourse, oversight or curiosity about where the revenues from the millions of ounces of gold produced so far end up. Consequently, the interest of foreign multinationals and a few local elites have dominated and controlled the management and wealth from the sector.
The 2007 discovery of oil reserves and the anticipated production estimates of up to 150,000 barrels per day[iii] is likely to change Ghana’s economic outlook. Oil will topple the mining sector as Ghana’s foreign exchange earner.[iv]
The significance of the expected impact on both the country’s economic outlook and on the communities and livelihoods of citizens demands a more responsible management than we have seen with mining in Ghana and in oil production in other African countries. The government of Ghana and the other stakeholders have indicated their laudable intentions for the effective and equitable management of the oil and the oil wealth, as citizens continue to outline their expectations and aspirations towards this wealth. Transparency mechanisms and tools, citizenry awareness and political will are important ingredients needed for the fulfilment and realisation of the commitments and aspirations.
The choices we make and the mechanisms we put in place at this critical stage, will shape the economic and security conditions of our country in far more ways than we can imagine.
We have woefully failed some of the initial tests, particularly with the initial negotiations and allocation of shares and contracts. Many critical details on contracts, investments and government plans remain unavailable to the citizenry. Other critical decisions and commitments have been made behind closed doors with alleged suspicious 'sweat equity' deals for some politicians and their allies. The Financial Times on 7 January 2010 reported on an ongoing investigation by Ghanaian and US authorities into one of such deals[v] involving key associates of ex-president John Kufuor. The new government has also abrogated a number of contracts for not following due diligence.
The ultimate guarantee for transparency and accountability is the citizens of Ghana – citizenry oversight. We all have a role and a responsibility to help Ghana turn the page on the management of oil in Africa. Citizenry oversight with regulatory and institutional mechanisms for transparency and accountability are prerequisites for safeguarding Ghana’s socio-economic and security interests in the oil era. I wish the intense interest in oil aroused among foreign interests and Ghanaian elites would inspire the same level of interest among the country's citizens.
Why Ghana can and must be different
A number of existing conditions present Ghana with the opportunity to ensure transparency and accountability. Not only do Ghanaians take great pride in being lauded for outstanding democratic and peaceful credentials, they are serious about it. Getting the oil thing right will no doubt boost this international recognition and national pride. Ghana also enjoys a high sense of national unity compared to its regional neighbours. Ghana’s stable and peaceful political environment, democratic space for free press and civil society activism are all important conditions that can help Ghana in this endeavour.
Ghana is fortunate to have a president at this critical moment that is widely regarded as a leader of high integrity. Most Ghanaians including even his fiercest opponents express their confidence in President John Atta Mills’s integrity. As encouraging as this is, it does not guarantee the same level of uprightness from the rest of his team who would be involved in the management of the oil. It also does not guarantee that he will have the political savvy to identify and expel his appointees who indulge in corruption. More importantly, as Barack Obama said in his historic speech in Accra, 'Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions',[vi] institutions that can prevent and, when it does happen, can detect and redress corruption. Above all, 'we the people' are Ghana’s greatest asset.
Statutory and institutional mechanisms
Two important legislative provisions must be met before oil production begins. The proposed Freedom of Information Act should be passed and must guarantee unconditional public access to information, including on revenues, investments and contracts. Second, our law-makers must upgrade our statutory framework to 21st century standards. Ghana’s situation today is significantly different from what it was when the two major statutes governing the exploration, development and production of petroleum resources in Ghana – the PNDC Law 64 and the Petroleum Exploration and Production Law, PNDC Law 84 – were enacted in 1983 and 1984 respectively. The government has indicated its readiness to strengthen the country’s legal framework. 'It is imperative that Ghana's legal regime relating to the oil and gas industry is reviewed and adapted to Ghana's new condition as a major oil producer', states Ghana’s attorney general.[vii] This commitment must translate into expeditious and deliberate action.
Accountability and disclosures
Our institutional frameworks must ensure accountability from both state and non-state actors in the oil sector. Multinational corporations play a major role and sometimes wield even greater power in the management of these resources and should be adequately checked and monitored. Additionally, there must be institutional mechanisms in place to allow regular disclosure and publication of all agreements and licences, payments, collections and contracts. Furthermore, I would go as far as to recommend an 'anti-kick-back' law that mandates all public officials to disclose any gifts or payments received from any of the stakeholders in the oil sector. 'Kick-backs' are increasingly becoming an acceptable norm in Ghanaian politics. It is a system where public officials knowingly and wilfully expect or accept bribes or indulge in other forms of quid pro quo for favours from certain commercial interests.
Checks and balances
Ensuring genuine accountability and transparency will require a clearly defined system of independent but accountable regulatory, governing and commercial bodies. These bodies should be independent enough to perform their functions without fear or favour but with checks and balances to prevent any functionary body becoming too powerful or isolated.
Institutional capacity development
Government must proactively invest in the capacity development of the relevant institutions and public officials who will be responsible for management, regulatory and revenue functions. We must pursue these efforts with the same level of aggressiveness we see with infrastructural development efforts.
Formal civil society role
Official oversight framework should have a formal role for civil society.
SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY MECHANISMS
Citizenry participation
The media and civil society actors must foster public engagement and dialogue on all aspects of the process, particularly on environmental impacts, oil revenue management and the defence of the rights of journalists, activists and communities that may be targeted for daring to demand accountability from powerful interests.
Accountability for the wellbeing of host communities
There must be clear mechanisms for protecting the interests and wellbeing of communities – all interest groups and not only the local elite. For example, compensation for farming and fishing communities who may be affected by oil production must be appropriated in ways that cater for the various actors whose livelihoods depend on it and not just the interest of the chiefs and traditional leaders. Additionally, there must be full disclosures on all potential threats resulting from the oil production in these communities. There must be a clearly defined system through which citizens and communities affected by the oil process can channel their concerns and grievances.
Citizenry oversight
Vigilant citizens remain the best guarantee against corruption and for safeguarding the public interest. Citizens and the media must see and treat their monitoring role as a responsibility. Based on the pathetic track record of most of our political and public officials, personal and not public interest is going to be the foremost priority of most of those who would be representing us in the planning, negotiations and decision processes. If 'we the people' don’t stand up for our collective interest, no one else will do it for us.
Alternative and shadow reports
Civil society actors, including think-tanks and citizens groups, should produce regular alternative and shadow reports on key aspects of the oil sector, including environmental and community impacts, oil-wealth management and adherence to human rights and international standards. These shadow reports will offer important perspectives that may be missing from official reports.
Capacity development
Capacity development is required for civil society actors and activists so that their oversight and activism will be constructive, effective and enlightened. Various citizenry constituencies must be sensitised and empowered for effective public oversight of our public and private activities.
Finally, President Atta Mills has the opportunity to leave a legacy of transparency and accountability. After all, the single most important quality that propelled his candidacy to power is his perceived high level of integrity. Such a legacy will not only guarantee him an enviable place among Ghana’s presidents, but will be a vindication of the confidence Ghanaians posed in him. Above all, it will be the right thing to do and Ghana will be better for it. We will need our president’s leadership in this regard but all Ghanaians must share in the responsibility of making 'our oil' the most transparently managed on the continent.
Mawuli Dake, a leading African human advocate and strategist, is the CEO of the Africa Group Consult. He is a co-founder of the soon-to-be-launched GhanaOilMonitor.com, a one-stop citizenry platform for fostering greater transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s oil resources.
This work by Institute for Policy Studies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Read more... Sphere: Related ContentFarmers blamed in Thai rice pest invasion
Thai farmers keen to exploit high rice prices have made an outbreak of a devastating pest worse by overplanting and using too much pesticide, according to ecologists
Pratchaya. W | SciDev.net | 3 March 2010
Brown planthoppers have plagued Asian rice farming for decades Flickr/IRRI Images
An outbreak of brown planthoppers has destroyed 368,000 hectares — about four per cent of Thailand's rice paddies — since August last year.
The pests have periodically plagued Asian rice farming for decades, eating their way through rice crops and spreading viral diseases that can stunt growth and prevent rice grain formation.
Prasert Golsalvitra, director-general of Thailand's Rice Department, said non-stop, dense rice planting has contributed to the problem.
To ensure good yields, farmers overuse fertilisers — thought to increase the planthopper's fertility — and pesticides such as synthetic pyrethroids, which have no effect on planthoppers but kill many of their natural enemies such as spiders.
Golsalvitra said the problem remains unabated despite state efforts to control the situation and the pest is migrating south to the Central Plains — the country's rice bowl, which is preparing for the next rice season in May.
The department has attempted a "lock and seal" method, he said, which identifies affected rice paddies and sprays pesticides such as ethion that are deadly to adult planthoppers.
He said the department is now considering the more radical measure of convincing farmers to destroy their current rice crop and leave their paddies empty for at least 30 days to cut the pest's life cycle by removing its food source.
Farmers will be given state compensation of up to 2,200 Thai baht (US$67) per rai (around one-sixth of a hectare), said Golsalvitra.
"Last year, high rice prices motivated Thai farmers to grow rice continuously," said K. L. Heong, an insect ecologist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). "Farmers need to put their paddies to rest and allow natural balance to return."
He said the outbreaks are preventable and that the best way to deal with them is to restore biodiversity rather than destroy it.
The Rice Planthopper Project, which Heong coordinates, is developing rice varieties resistant to the invading hoppers.
The team has also identified plants that farmers can grow on 'bunds' — or raised areas of paddy, in which the pest's predators can thrive — as well as developing ways to communicate to farmers the importance of biodiversity, natural control services and the need to use pesticides only as the last resort.
A farmer in the rice bowl province of Ayutthaya said he agreed with using natural techniques because of the cost of pesticides. But he said the compensation for destroying the rice crop was less than farmers could earn from the rice.
© 2010 SciDev.Net
Read more... Sphere: Related Content22 February 2010
REDD challenges show up in Sumatra
The practical challenges of successfully tackling deforestation and restoring forests in developing countries have been highlighted by problems facing an otherwise successful forestry programme in Indonesia. One of the country’s model community forestry projects is now being compromised by illegal logging with action so far taken by authorities not enough to halt it even though laws exist to do so, the Jakarta Post reports
carbonpositive.net | 22 February 2010
The community forest programme in areas of Lampung, on the south east tip of Sumatra, sees 12,000 hectares of land being managed by 6500 local families who preserve and restore standing forest, reforest cleared areas and farm selectively in and around the forest.
But it appears that the programme has become a victim of its own success. Since 2000, the area has been returned from barren land and degraded forest to dense tree cover. So much so that illegal loggers at work in neighbouring national parks have spread their activities to community forest areas. A West Lampung forestry official told the Post that large volumes of illicit timber had been discovered originating from the area.
Locals see the loggers at work but are afraid to challenge them while local authorities appear to treat those caught with a light touch, not persecuting to the full extent of forest protection laws.
The Lampung scenario shows how difficult it can be in developing countries to implement forestry programmes and projects, such as REDD and A/R. Underdeveloped governance infrastructure is characteristic of many developing countries, but it seems the problems are magnified in tropical rainforest nations that are particularly large, sprawling and hard to govern – such as Indonesia, Papua-New Guinea and DR Congo.
Not only is there a significant challenge in the forest carbon and forest preservation sector to deal with these threats inside project boundaries. Leakage issues extend the problem well beyond: Even if illegal logging can be stopped in Lampung community forest areas, how can authorities be sure that the loggers haven’t just moved all their operations back into the national parks or elsewhere?
This is a major question mark for the evolving global UN REDD initiative, aimed at reducing deforestation and its significant contribution to worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. The Copenhagen climate conference saw $3.5 billion promised by a group of developing countries to enable capacity to undertake large scale forest preservation in the developing countries paid for by the developed world. There is no framework yet suggested for how that money will be spent, but that amount and probably a lot more is going to be needed to ensure the credibility of REDD programmes.
© Carbon Positive 2006
Read more... Sphere: Related Content19 February 2010
EU biofuels target will starve the poor, says anti-poverty group
mongabay.com | February 16, 2010
The European Union's biofuel targets could starve up to 100 million people, warns a report from an anti-poverty charity.
ActionAid estimates the E.U.'s plan to source 10 percent of transport fuels from biofuels would increase competition for agricultural lands, spurring a sharp rise in food prices. Dearer food would disproportionally affect the world's poorest people.
"Biofuels are conservatively estimated to have been responsible for at least 30% of the global food price spike in 2008," states Meals per gallon. "It was estimated in 2008 that the food crisis had already pushed a further 100 million people into poverty and driven about 30 million more people into hunger."
"If all global biofuel targets are met, it is predicted that food prices could rise by up to an additional 76% by 2020. An estimated 600 million extra people may be hungry because of industrial biofuels by this date."
Beyond food scarcity concerns, ActionAid says biofuel targets will increase conflict over land and exacerbate environmental problems.
"The scale of the current land grab is astonishing," the report states. In just five African countries, 1.1 million hectares have been given over to industrial biofuels – an area the size of Belgium... EU companies have already acquired or requested at least five million hectares of land for industrial biofuels in developing countries – an area greater than the size of Denmark."
The report argues that cropland expansion (17.5 million hectares will be needed in developing countries to meet the E.U.'s 10 percent target) will come at the expense of tropical forests and peatlands, worsening climate change.
"[Industrial biofuels] are the least cost-effective way of saving GHG emissions compared to other uses of the feedstock (the crops that go to make biofuel)," states the report. "Industrial biofuels are therefore a red herring in the fight against climate change, and will compound hunger and poverty for the poor in the future."
Meals per gallon comes as biofuel industry lobbyists are making progress in their efforts to retain targets and relax environmental standards. Earlier this month a leaked document showed the E.U. is considering language that would classify industrial plantations as natural forests, allowing large-scale conversion of rainforests for biofuel production. Biofuel supporters claim conventional biofuels would boost economic activity in poor rural areas, but critics say the biggest beneficiaries of industrial plantations are corporations and expansion will deprive some already-disadvantaged populations of traditional access to land. Due to social and environmental concerns, some biofuels experts are now pushing biofuel feedstocks that will not compete with food crops, including woody grasses in temperate regions, oil palm and other crops on abandoned and degraded agricultural lands in the tropics, and freshwater algae.
Tim Rice (2009). Meals per gallon [PDF]. ActionAid.
Read more... Sphere: Related Content29 January 2010
Davos: Funding switch threatens aid to developing world, campaigner warns
Climate change funding is threatening to reduce development budgets, One claim. Photograph: John Mcconnico/AP
Larry Elliott | guardian.co.uk | 28 January 2010
Rich countries are raiding their aid budgets to bankroll a new global fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change, one of the world's leading development campaign groups warned today.
Jamie Drummond, executive director of the One group co-founded by the rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof, said the west was being "dishonest" about the $30bn (£18bn) of fast-track finance proposed in Copenhagen last month to persuade developing countries to agree a deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Drummond said the proposal to spend $10bn a year over the next three years involved no additional money, but was instead being diverted from existing budgets.
The impact, he said, would be to divert funds from health and education spending in Africa to infrastructure projects in Asia and Latin America.
"Development promises are under threat. There is double counting going on. The $30bn is not new money and nor is the $100bn promised for 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change."
Speaking in Davos, Drummond said One was lobbying world leaders to "come clean" about what they were doing. Similar concerns were expressed earlier this week by Bill Gates, who has used part of his personal fortune to fund health programmes in Africa.
Drummond admitted that it was hard for rich countries to stump up more money during a tough recession, but said the solution was to explore innovative ways of raising finance – including a transaction tax, a levy on aviation travel and selling part of the International Monetary Fund's gold reserve.
Poor countries, he added, would not be prepared to sign up to a climate change deal unless there was additional money for adaptation and mitigation.
Many countries, including Britain, have pledged to raise aid budgets to 0.7% of GDP, but Drummond said that "we may need to look at new goals and proposals like Sir Nicholas Stern's proposal for 1%, incorporating both development and climate finance".
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Read more... Sphere: Related Content22 January 2010
Not In Our Backyard
Most Germans are in favor of the expansion of renewable energy -- provided the plants aren't built in their neighborhood. All over the country, local groups are coming together to stop solar, wind and biogas projects. But where can power plants be built if no one wants them in their backyard?
Green energy in Germany / DER SPIEGEL
By Wiebke Hollersen | Spiegel Online | Friday, January 22, 2010
Part 1: Popular Protests Put Brakes on Renewable Energy
Hans Fliege likes to go for walks, and he loves the view across the Main River, which is why he moved to the village of Obertheres in Bavaria 30 years ago. But he knows that it isn't a strong enough argument against solar energy parks.
After all, the other side can base its arguments on the prospect of impending climate catastrophe. They could accuse Fliege of being prepared to accept rising sea levels, dried-up fields and hurricanes -- all so that his view of the Main River would remain undisturbed.
Photo Gallery: Citizens against Solar
An investor wants to set up solar modules on two sites in Fliege's village, covering a combined area of 40 hectares (99 acres). Fliege wants to prevent it from happening. He scored an initial victory after recently collecting enough signatures to force a referendum, the first ever in the municipality of Theres, which Obertheres belongs to.
Now Fliege is trying to convince his neighbors to vote against the solar parks in the referendum, which will be held on the last Sunday in February. He is standing in the middle of the assembly room at the Obertheres Gymnastics Association next to his laptop, which he has connected a new projector. "So, from the standpoint of energy production, the issue is complete nonsense for Germany," he says.
The citizens of Theres will not just be voting on the planned solar parks. Instead, they are being asked to decide whether open spaces within the town limits can be used for solar power projects at all.
Fine in Theory
It is a small, local issue, but it relates to some of the world's biggest problems. For instance, it brings to mind the December 2009 United Nations Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, which failed when politicians from 192 countries were unable to come to an agreement. This is bad enough, but what happens when citizens are involved in the decision? Are they prepared to adopt a climate-friendly lifestyle? Do they actually want renewable energy?
Hardly anyone opposes it, at least in principle. According to surveys, more than three-quarters of Germans support more green energy. They want to be able to consume energy with a good conscience, preserve their lifestyles and still save the climate -- just not in their own backyards.
Very few Germans live in the vicinity of a conventional large power plant. Renewable energy, however, can be produced anywhere, in every small city or village, using solar panels, wind turbines and biogas plants. But when these energy-producing plants are built close to residential areas, their drawbacks quickly become clear, in the form of noise, stench and changes to the landscape.
This does, in fact, lead to "many reasons for communication" says Björn Klusmann, managing director of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE). His choice of words is as smooth as the image of his industry. "In places where things are changing, issues of acceptance arise," he says. But he is also convinced that every dispute is in fact an opportunity for renewable energy.
'People Will Think We're Insane'
Hans Fliege, who is wearing a red cardigan, begins his PowerPoint presentation with a map of the municipality, on which many areas are shaded. These are the potential sites of solar parks, he says.
Fliege, 62, is a retired electrical engineer. Until now, he has kept a relatively low profile, not joining any local clubs and avoiding community events. In fact, he had his first longer conversations with many of his neighbors when he began collecting signatures against the solar parks. He then invited those who seemed the most receptive to his ideas to his meeting at the sports club. Of the roughly two dozen people in the room, most are couples in Fliege's age group, and all are opposed to the solar parks and ready for battle.
"People will think that we're insane," Fliege tells them right off the bat. It will not be easy, he says, to make it clear to people why solar parks in the area are not just ugly, but also a bad idea.
It's warm in the room and the smell of frying grease from the Greek restaurant next door is in the air. Fliege's presentation is getting complicated. He shows his audience tables and diagrams, energy consumption graphs and efficiency figures. He seems to have computed everything possible and has dealt with every conceivable issue.
Emotional Reaction
Does climate change really exist, he asks? Couldn't Germany's nuclear power plants -- which Fliege, who used to vote for the Green Party, generally regards critically because of the question of where to store the nuclear waste -- be kept running for a while longer? Is there even an energy crisis in Germany?
The audience is getting restless. Fliege's wife reminds her husband not to forget about people's emotional reactions to the project. The residents are more concerned about real estate prices in the village than energy consumption figures. Some are probably wondering what solving the radioactive waste storage problem has to do with being against solar parks.
"We don't want those things here. Isn't that enough?" one man asks.
Dieter Rucht from the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) has been studying protest movements for years. Establishing a citizens' initiative or collecting signatures against a development project is no longer seen as the work of troublemakers, but as a rational way of defending one's interests, he says. According to Rucht, everyone feels obliged to establish his or her own lobby. People today are self-confident when dealing with authority figures, more capable of voicing their criticism and more articulate.
But this, says Rucht, has also made the situation more confusing. Large numbers of groups calling themselves citizens' initiatives are being set up. Some claim to be promoting the environment, but are in fact sponsored by industry. "The battle lines are all over the place, and it isn't always clear who's behind a particular initiative," Rucht says.
Part 2: Taking on the Power Companies
In the town of Greifswald in northeastern Germany, Oskar Gulla spent three years fighting the construction of a coal-fired power plant, and now he plans to celebrate victory. The Danish energy company Dong, which was to fund the construction of the plant as the principal partner in the venture, withdrew from the project in December.
The coal-fired power plant was to be built in Lubmin, a nearby beach resort, but four citizens' initiatives blocked the project. Gulla heads the one in Greifswald. Instead of disbanding the group, he says, he wants to push for new regulations and a zoning plan that would ban the burning of coal in Lubmin altogether.
Gulla, 61, is a rotund man with a white beard and many years of protest experience. The student protest movement of the late 1960s, the protests against the Kalkar fast breeder reactor in northwestern Germany, the anti-nuclear power initiatives -- he has been part of them all. He has also been a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) for the past 40 years. Eight years ago, he moved from the industrial Ruhr region to Greifswald, partly because of the better air quality, and partly because of his love of sailing and yacht building. He has been very involved in climate protection efforts in recent years.
The new power plant would emit close to 10 million tons of CO2 every year, says Gulla -- at a time when the world is negotiating over every single ton of reduced CO2 emissions. Climate protection was his best argument. However, the proponents of the power plant also used climate change to support their argument, claiming that new coal-fired power plants are part of the energy revolution, because they are cleaner and more efficient than the old plants. Besides, they argued, coal is a necessary part of the energy mix, because wind and solar energy are not constantly available.
Now a modern power plant will not be built in Lubmin, a plant whose electricity would replace that generated in old, heavily polluting coal plants. Is this a success for the climate cause? Gulla wants to see wind turbines built in Lubmin, and he is already preparing for a conference on the subject.
'Criminal Destruction'
Perhaps he should take up the matter with Thomas Jacob, who lives in the eastern state of Brandenburg. He is opposed to new brown coal (lignite) plants and underground CO2 storage in Brandenburg. He also questions the efficiency of solar plants and whether the corn monoculture that is being developed to supply biogas plants is good for the environment.
Jacob is sitting on a couch in his house in the Märkische Heide region, southeast of Berlin, weighing the pros and cons of the energy debate. He has come up with many arguments against wind power, including their shadows, low-frequency infrasound, irritating noise and dead birds. Wind turbines could also be hazardous to human health, he says, but he wants to conduct a study on the issue first.
What bothers him most about wind turbines is what he calls "the criminal destruction of an entire state." Jacob is worried that a forest of giant wind turbines could soon render Brandenburg unrecognizable. A year-and-a-half ago, he co-founded a citizens' initiative called "Against the Mass Development of Wind Energy Plants in Brandenburg."
Nevertheless, Jacob doesn't want to be called an opponent of wind energy. He says he can imagine wind farms being built on abandoned strip mines or decommissioned military bases. His initiative wants to see regulations put in place that would require a distance of at least 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) between a wind turbine and a residence. "We have nothing against wind energy where it doesn't do any harm," he says. He points out that wind energy production in large offshore wind farms is more efficient and doesn't disturb anyone. (The residents of the North Sea resort island of Sylt who have come together to oppose a planned nearby offshore wind farm would presumably disagree.)
Harmful Shadows
When Jacob's initiative compiled its list of demands, it collected almost 27,000 signatures in Brandenburg. But when his group ran in the 2009 election to the state assembly, it won less than 5,000 votes.
Jacob, a TV film director by trade, filmed wind turbines for his group's campaign ad. The turbines are near houses and, in his view, cast harmful shadows on fields. Since the election, however, he has had to rethink his strategy for the initiative.
But now he has a new, smaller fight on his hands: His own neighborhood could be affected by a planned turbine project.
The proposed site is along the B87 highway, near the town of Biebersdorf, a short drive from his house. As he drives by the site, he points to a meadow where 11 turbines are to be built. Eleven new wind turbines, says Jacob, "yet another industrial wind project."
He points to the other side of the highway, where he says a pair of black storks lives. The birds have long been on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "red list" of threatened species. In a letter to the district commissioner, in which he listed his objections to the proposed wind turbines, he cited the black storks as one of the arguments against the project. He also wrote: "As we see it, the future operators of this industrial wind park are in no way concerned about the climate issue, but are purely in it for the profit."
Sitting on his couch, Jacob says that he finds the hysteria and fuss of the energy debate annoying. With logs burning in the fireplace and apple trees in the garden -- and with not a wind turbine in sight -- he lives in a quiet, idyllic environment. "Why do we need an indoor ski run in Brandenburg?" Jacob asks. Wouldn't it be better if everyone started by saving electricity and reflecting on energy conservation?
It seems that the energy source of the future hasn't been discovered yet -- the one that doesn't bother anyone, isn't visible, doesn't make any noise, doesn't produce objectionable odors and doesn't generate any waste or toxic emissions.
Part 3: Darkness on the Edge of Town
The kind of reflection Thomas Jacob is talking about began last fall in Timmaspe, a village in northern Germany near the city of Kiel. Things suddenly became very loud in Timmaspe, when the energy revolution descended on village life.
Suddenly trucks were roaring through the village day and night, disturbing everyone's sleep, says Jörg Bobsien. He is sitting in his living room, which has a view of Timmaspe's main street. Things have quieted down again, and the traffic has all but vanished.
The trucks were carrying corn waste to a field on the outskirts of town. They eventually left, at which point the farmer who owned the field announced that a biogas plant was going to be built there.
Soon a citizens' initiative was formed in Timmaspe, and Bobsien became its spokesman. The members of the group met, drank wine and produced a flyer. They talked to other residents in the area and discovered that "every community is currently worried about the issue." Biogas plants were in the works all over the area, often sparking protests from local residents.
The Timmaspe citizens' initiative distributed its flyers and collected signatures in the village. Its campaign was a success, at least for the time being. The operator of the planned facility apparently decided to build a new biogas plant in a nearby town, says Bobsien.
No Sensible Policy
"Of course, no one wants a thing like this," Bobsien says. For a spokesman, he tends to be on the taciturn side. He talks about the traffic, the stench and the industrialization of the local economy. A small plant already exists in Timmaspe, at the other end of the village, but Bobsien says he can live with that. But another plant, one that would be at least twice as big, is too much for a village of 1,100 inhabitants, he says.
Bobsien, 46, owns a parquet and interior decorating shop in Hamburg. He lives in a renovated farmhouse in Timmaspe. His windsurfing boards hang in the garage. Bobsien is the kind of person who is sensitive to his immediate environment, and he buys his milk and meat from local farmers. He is worried that farmers will be priced out of the area if local fields are increasingly used to grow corn for the biogas plants.
"And what kind of corn is it, anyway?" asks his wife, who has just walked into the house with the couple's daughters and joins her husband at their long wooden table. "And where does the electricity go?"
Bobsien nods. The traffic, the stench, the industrialization -- these are things he could live with if there were a plan. He is opposed to nuclear power and pollution from coal-fired power plants, But he says that he has the feeling "that no one bothers to think about a sensible energy policy."
Bobsien sounds a lot like Hans Fliege, the man who questions the usefulness of solar parks in Bavaria, and Thomas Jacob, the Brandenburg resident who is convinced that there is no real plan behind all the wind turbines.
Shouldering the Burden
If people have the feeling "that their region is expected to deal with the whole problem on its own," and that they are expected to shoulder the burden without seeing any of the benefits, it's understandable that they would want to fight back, says social scientist Dieter Rucht. One way forward, he suggests, would be if people in each region had to decide for themselves how to provide their electricity.
Perhaps it's a good thing that we now have to think about these things, says Jörn Bobsien, the activist in Timmaspe.
When the members of the Timmaspe citizens' initiative hold their next meeting, they decide that their village should produce its own energy in the future. And to achieve that goal, they say, they would even accept a biogas plant.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2010 All Rights Reserved
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