babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Raffi Cavoukian says "We must not love money more than children"
January 28, 2011 - 7:00pm
Children Have the Right to a Future and We Need a New Lexicon to Convey This
Raffi, the children's entertainer, has some very thoughtful words about the climate catastrophe humanity is facing.
Raffi C wrote:
For over two decades there's been a failure to effectively communicate the climate change crisis. Despite the best efforts of climate scientists and environmentalists to describe the dangers of inaction to policy makers and the general public, political response has been slow, most people have not sensed the seriousness of the issue, and the rate of CO2 emissions, rather than falling, has accelerated.Experts are using escalating phrases to describe climate change. James Hansen: "the coming climate catastrophe," "our last chance to save humanity;" Gustav Speth: "system failure," "looking into the abyss."
In "Children have the right to a future and we need a new lexicon to convey this", Raffi Cavoukian says "We must not love money more than children" and proposes a new lens or way of looking at the problem that is child-centered.
Quote:
Urgently, we need to create a world fit for children, with social and economic systems that constitute a culture of respect for them and for their planetary habitat. A livable future for children and future generations depends on a stunning paradigm shift ... Nobody can guarantee a future. But who has the right to steal it?
and finally, obviously, necessarily, "The antidote for climate change is systems change." Oh yeah.
More at the Centre for Child Honouring This idea of making the rights of children to a future, etc., the fulcrum around which much public campaigning on preventing the climate catastrophe is a good one.
Short people are where it's at! I heart Raffi.
It going to be a hard message to sell especially here in BC where Children are left to die because government felt there was better places for tax payers money as the slush fund takes on new meaning.
In BC its Money first children last as many have died needlessly so when I wrote BC Liberals = Death to BC Kids it was a truthful statement. Unfortunatley for BC Children the Liberals stayed in power and things are hurting like never before.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Poverty+fractured+system+puts+kids+risk+death+says+report/4179052/story.html
Thats right BC children come in dead last when it comes to their standard of living as BC holds it record for the last 2 terms of the Liberals as they bring in specialist from Africia to bring the system down.
Well, there's nothing wrong with campaigning along the lines of "Liberals kill children. Stop the infanticide!" or words to that effect.
It is really hard to push Climate justice to the front and centre when even elements of the Left want to punt it aside or use it only as part of a laundry list. Many on the Left just do not get it. Months ago I went to the Michael Moore website to place a question about whether he thought the Left needed to give more push on the climate front and he or the website op did not want it placed.
Six months ago or so, Canadian Dimension had an editorial about the need to put climate change at the forefront but then never repeated that message. Their website continues to push the nonsense of Denis Rancourt and his climate denial. Likewise The Nation continues to publish the diatribes of Alexander Cockburn about a 'conspiracy.' It is high time that those on the Left who are concerned about climate justice give bpth institutions to drop their climate deniers.
Rancourt is good on some other issues. This is disappointing.
And it's not clear that so-called Conspiracy Theorists are on the left at all. Such views go along with an almost pathological rejection of science while cheerfully and ignorantly benefitting from modern medicine, dentistry, anti-biotics, and so on.
Lots of solid people get intellectually overwhelmed or swamped by all the caqtastrophic issues facing humanity today. Be patient.
Sorry for not being clear enough here. Overall, no most certainly Conspiracy Theories have domininated the 'Right' side of discourse. Yet Cockburn has said that 'global warming' is a scam for more corporate power (which makes no sense; oil represents an excellent monopoly). If only more Greens/green-types would provide more analysis as to the economic/power structure imperatives that prefer oil. Solar/wind/geo-thermal are real alternatives but they cannot be monopolized. Moreover, there are a whole host of measures to make housing, barns, etc far more energy efficient. Jack Layton has made his Toronto home effectively almost energy use neutral over the course of the year (not truly off the grid but still really important). There is so much already techically possible but the information is so diffuse (Scientific American is hardly radical but they have pointed out to the large possibility of renewables but that information does not get the replay, rotation that one would get about Sarah Palin's most recent mangling of history).
Oh I understand overwhelmed; many environmentalists I know have become extremely agitated and depressed in the way James Hansen has sometimes quietly acknowleged.
I would like to be patient but over the course of the last few years I have seen a few who should be here drift over to the Alex Jones frame of mind because he is so effective at providing (completely false) explanations of a multitude of events. It does not help that there is a former embittered Leftist here in Winnipeg now actively funding and promoting Jones' site.
Ah, yes, embittered leftists. I've seen a few. That subject is worthy of an entire thread or more. For example, one fellow who shall remain nameless chased his girlfriend halfway across the country because she had a job working for an NGO, etc. He joined what she joined. However, once she left Canada for elsewhere, he reverted to the loutish, bigot-spewing, simpleton views that he had brought with him.
I'm sure you know plenty yourself.
Well my point was the sucess of/impetus behind someone like Alex Jones. One of his websites gets heavily promoted here in Winnipeg thanks to this donor. In contract, no progressive/website gets promoted by anyone.
Check out GlobalResearch.ca under the climate change section and you will be unpleasantly surprised.
Yea, I kinda knew about that. OTOH, Chussodovsky and others have written some good stuff. Apparently, almost anyone can be an idiot. But we knew that, didn't we? :)