Create!

Along with direct action and other forms of resistance, a transformational movement must also have a constructive program that builds new institutions based on the values that the movement aspires to achieve. These may eventually replace the old systems. From small, worker-owned cooperatives to national advocacy groups, hundreds of thousands of people around the country are working to create democratic and sustainable systems that meet the basic needs of all people.

Food Sovereignty As A Path To Liberation And Justice

May 27, 2022 Adalah Justice Project and The American Friends Service Committee, Mondoweiss. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Liberation, Palestine

As apartheid Israel’s brutal siege of Gaza enters its 15th year this June, food sovereignty and climate activists Mohammed AbuJayyab and Asmaa Abu Mezied emphasized the centrality of the agricultural space in building resistance, autonomy and community in the greater fight for justice and Palestinian liberation in a recent public conversation hosted by Adalah Justice Project (AJP) and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). “To talk about agriculture in Gaza particularly, the first thing that comes to mind is the systematic challenges that face farmers in Gaza,” related to climate change and daily worries of production, yield and market prices, says Abu Mezeid, an economic development and social inclusion specialist .“Diving deep into them, you will understand how political and politicized these challenges are.”

Mini-Forest Revolution

May 24, 2022 Hannah Lewis, Resilience.org. Create! climate crisis, Forests, Paris, Urban Design

Over the course of the twenty-first century, Paris’s average summer temperature is expected to rise as much as 5.3°C (9.5°F) (or as little as 1°C [1.8°F]) and the number of days per year with temperatures higher than 30°C (86°F) could increase to forty-five days from the current average of ten days.4 Rising temperatures will come with more frequent and extreme storms, flooding, and drought. A 30 percent reduction in the flow of the Seine River is expected by 2080; along with the Marne River southeast of Paris, the Seine provides nearly half of the city’s drinking water.5 Ironically, the river also poses increasing flood risks as climate change increases the likelihood of extreme precipitation events. Paris is not alone.

If Degrowth Is Coming, What Does It Propose For Workers?

May 21, 2022 Hannah Hubbard, On Labor. Create! climate crisis, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Green New Deal

In 2015, countries participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change rallied around preventing the rise in average global temperatures beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius. With an average rise of 1.5–2.0 degrees, scientists predict 70–90% loss of coral reefs globally, an explosion of natural disaster–related deaths, and displacement of up to 1.2 billion people by 2050. We already stand at an increase in average global temperatures of 1.2 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution and, according to the World Meteorological Organization, there is now a 40% chance that the world will see average global temperatures increase to 1.5 degrees in the next five years. As the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded last year, the world missed its opportunity to prevent many of these devastating impacts and can only hope to prevent the “most harrowing” possibilities — but we need to take decisive action, and we need to do it now.

Home In Tacoma For All Coalition Seeks Greater Equity In Zoning Reforms

May 20, 2022 Kevin Le, The Urbanist. Create! Housing, Public Housing, Racial Justice, Washington State

Home in Tacoma aims to overhaul Tacoma’s housing rules to allow greater flexibility in building practices. It will allow denser housing to be built to house our city’s ever growing population. The initial framework passed in December 2021 bringing Tacoma are one step closer to that goal. Though forward thinking, the plan also falls short of its potential. As I’ve pointed out in previous articles, the reach of the plan is not exactly equitable or far reaching. In short, poorer communities of color are being disproportionately rezoned in comparison to their wealthier, whiter counterparts. Communities of color will be transformed while privileged communities get to maintain the status quo. Segregation with some window dressing, if you will.

Brooklyn’s Maison Jar Is One Of Many New Zero-Waste Grocery Stores

May 19, 2022 Linnea Harris, EcoWatch. Create! Food, New York City, Plastic, Sustainability, Zero waste

New York City, New York - At Maison Jar – a new grocery store located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in New York City – silos of dry goods line one wall. Dried beans, grains, pasta, nuts, and coffee are beside bins of cooking staples like flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar. A refrigerator on the wall opposite holds industrial-sized jars of olives, racks of eggs, and metal trays of fresh produce, and a freezer is stocked with plastic bins of frozen fruit and vegetables. Prepared snacks like dried mangos, wasabi peas, gummy bears, and chocolate-covered nuts fill glass jugs on the center tables. The back of the store has shelves of metal dispensers filled with oil and liquid condiments – like soy sauce and vinegar – glass jars of loose spices, and a table of multi-gallon pump bottles of laundry detergent, shampoo and conditioner, body lotion, and other personal care products.

Caribbean Asks For Reparations

May 19, 2022 Colonialism Reparation. Create! Caribbean, Indigenous Peoples, Reparations, Slavery

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic on September 26, 2020 during the General Debate of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves said that [...] the international campaign for reparatory justice, widely promoted by governments across our Caribbean Community and by social activists within the industrialized metropoles, must form part of any serious efforts to achieve the sustainable development agenda […]. On November 3, 2020 during the "Peacebuilding and sustaining peace" debate organized by the United Nations Security Council the President of the "CARICOM Reparations Commission" Hilary Beckles [...] called on the Council to acknowledge the global reparatory movement, adding that while most crimes against humanity were committed in past, the current century will be one of peace and justice […].

Only A People’s Monetary Reset Can Prevent A Feudalistic Technocracy

May 18, 2022 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Create! Central Bank, Finance and the Economy, Money

Fortunately for the United States, our national debt is in U.S. dollars. As former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once observed, “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.” Paying government debt by just printing the money was the innovative solution of the cash-strapped American colonial governments. The problem was that it tended to be inflationary. The paper scrip they issued was considered an advance against future taxes, but it was easier to issue the money than to tax it back, and over-issuing devalued the currency. The colony of Pennsylvania fixed that problem by forming a government-owned “land bank.”

Biodiversity Solutions Also Fight Climate Change

May 18, 2022 Tara Lohan, Resilience. Create! Biodiversity, Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Environment

Mass extinction lurks beneath the surface of the sea. That was the dire message from a study published in April in the journal Science, which found that continuing to emit greenhouse gases unchecked could trigger a mass die-off of ocean animals that rivals the worst extinction events in Earth’s history. The findings serve as just the latest reminder that climate change and biodiversity loss are interconnected crises — even if they’re rarely addressed in tandem by policymakers. Toward that point, the Science study came with a dose of hopeful news: Action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius could cut that extinction risk by 70%.

Mali’s Military Ejects France, But Faces Serious Challenges

May 16, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Counter Punch. Create! colonization, France, Mali, Military

On May 2, 2022, a statement was made by Mali’s military spokesperson Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga on the country’s national television, where he said that Mali was ending the defense accords it had with France, effectively making the presence of French troops in Mali illegal. The statement was written by the military leadership of the country, which has been in power since May 2021. Colonel Maïga said that there were three reasons why Mali’s military had taken this dramatic decision. The first was that they were reacting to France’s “unilateral attitude,” reflected in the way France’s military operated in Mali and in the June 2021 decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw French forces from the country “without consulting Mali.”

Advancing Interconnected Solutions To The Food, Energy And Finance Crises

May 14, 2022 Shiney Varghese, Resilience. Create! Food and Agricultural, Russia, Ukraine, United Nations

The governing body of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) met in Rome on April 8, 2022 in an Extraordinary Session to examine the “impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on global food security and related matters under its mandate” and advise on how it should proceed. Meanwhile, just two days earlier, the Civil Society and Indigenous People Mechanism (CSIPM) at U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS) called for an Extraordinary Plenary Session of the CFS. We must consider these developments along with a new initiative from the U.N. and against the background of the FAO’s global food prices index reaching its highest level ever.

What If We Use Public Money To Transform Local Media?

May 14, 2022 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Create! Journalism, Local Media, Media, Worker Rights

CounterSpin listeners understand that the news media situation in this country works against our democratic aspirations. There are so many problems crying out for open, inclusive conversation, in which those with the most power don’t get the biggest megaphone, leaving the vast majority outside of power to try and shout into the dominant noise, or try to find the space to talk around it. It’s no surprise, in that context, that conversations about how to make a different media system—differently structured, differently accountable—are among the hardest to have. But while corporate media can give the impression that, like it or not, billionaires controlling the flow of information is the only way things can go, that, like a lot of the elite narrative on political possibility, is simply untrue. One project proving that is an effort to replenish and re-imagine local news, which listeners know has suffered dramatically in years of media consolidation, in this case in New Jersey.

How Native Americans Are Keeping The Bees Alive

May 13, 2022 Kaylee Carter, Last Real Indians. Create! Bees, Environment, Food, Indigenous Activism

Honeybees are a declining population. Indeed, between October 2018 and April 2019, commercial beekeepers reported a loss of 37.7% of the managed honeybee population. There are a plethora of reasons that can explain the rapid decline of the honeybee numbers, such as the varroa mite entering hives and spreading diseases, loss of habitat, pesticide exposure, and poor management practices. That being said, the good news is that Native American tribes are joining the government to turn the situation around. Also, there’s a lot you can do to help save the most important pollinators in the world and the billion-dollar crops they aid every year. Yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg of this complex topic that is paramount for humans, flora, and fauna. Read on to learn more about how Native Americans are doing their part to keep the bees alive.

The Hawai’i State Legislature Calls For A Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

May 12, 2022 Fossil Fuel Treaty. Create! Energy, Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty, Hawaii, Oil and Gas

Honolulu, Hawai’i – The Hawai’i State Legislature has adopted a resolution calling for the State of Hawai’i and all counties to endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Hawai’i was the first US state to make a Climate Emergency Declaration and pass legislation to implement portions of the Paris Climate Agreement. Hawai’i may now become the first state and the first Pacific Island to join the call for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. The proposed Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty would provide an international mechanism to advance a fast and fair phase out of fossil fuel production in line with both the Paris Agreement and United National Sustainable Development Goals. Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributor to climate change.

Why Latin America Needs A New World Order

May 11, 2022 Marco Fernandes, People's Dispatch. Create! Global South, Latin America, NATO, New Cold War, Peace

The world wants to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine. The NATO countries, however, want to prolong the conflict by increasing arms shipments to Ukraine and by declaring that they want to “weaken Russia.” The United States had already allocated $13.6 billion to arm Ukraine. Biden has just requested $33 billion more. By comparison, it would require $45 billion per year to end world hunger by 2030. Even if negotiations take place and the war ends, an actual peaceful solution will not likely be possible. Nothing leads us to believe that geopolitical tensions will decrease, since behind the conflict around Ukraine is an attempt by the West to halt the development of China, to break its links with Russia, and to end China’s strategic partnerships with the Global South.

World Peace And Relief For Ukrainians Must Guide Early Resolution Of Crisis

May 11, 2022 Bharat Dogra, Popular Resistance. Create! Peace Negotiations, Russia, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

For most people worldwide, the most obvious aspect of the new crisis that has gripped our already deeply troubled planet is that the war should end immediately. Such a strong feeling is based on concerns of world peace as well on reducing the distress of people of Ukraine. At the same time the wider and longer-term aspects of the crisis cannot be ignored. Eminent academic Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University has suggested very rightly that the Ukraine crisis should be seen to be consisting of not one but three wars at three levels— Russia-Ukraine war, USA-Russia war and Western Ukraine—Donbass region war. Lasting peace will come if all three wars end.

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