Share The World's Resources attends the Climate Forum, London, June 14-15th 2008

Share The World’s Resources (STWR) attended the Climate Forum held in Camden, London, on the weekend of June 14th to host two workshops on our proposals for economic reform based upon the principle of sharing.

Amongst a mix of more than 50 other workshops, STWR also manned a stall and distributed information on our organisation, activities and campaign initiatives.  The talks received positive feedback and benefited from further ideas and input from other organisations and campaigners, including a discussion with Richard Douthwaite (co-founder of FEASTA: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability), John Jopling and James Bruges, all from the Cap & Share framework for emissions reduction which may be adopted by the Irish government.

On the first day of the Forum a national plenary, themed ‘Are we losing the race against climate catastrophe’, was chaired by journalist Mark Lynas and hosted speakers including Caroline Lucas (Green Party MEP), Michael Meacher (Labour Party MP) and Tony Juniper from Friends of the Earth.

Many of the Forum-goers also became part of the UK national news on Sunday evening when taking part in the anti-Bush demo upon his arrival in London, including a 15-foot high banner declaring ‘Bush Wanted for Crimes Against the Planet’.

The talks by STWR were titled: Global Warming and Global Poverty: A solution through economic sharing.  An outline of this theme was made on campaign leaflets summarising our perspective, with an introduction beginning:

Global Warming…Global Poverty: Joining the Dots.

"Global warming and global poverty have become the most urgent issues of our time, but the connections between both crisis are often overlooked by campaigners and non-governmental organisations.  An economic system that priorities growth, commercialisation and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market over and above environmental limits is widely acknowledged as a basic cause of global warming, but the same economic system has also failed to provide basic needs and essential resources for the majority world.  Despite a growing public awareness of global warming and global poverty, the links between these central causes remain unaddressed by mass public campaigns, and far less heeded by government leaders or policymakers.  Share The World’s Resources (STWR) believe that it’s time for the dots to be linked – and for a common platform to be established that can unite the global justice movement as a whole around a single cause."

A PDF of STWR’s campaign leaflet on Global Warming... Global Poverty: Joining the Dots.

A short VIDEO clip of the talk by STWR’s editor, Adam W. Parsons 
-including a full AUDIO of the talk and a discussion with Richard Douthwaite, John Jopling and James Bruges from the Cap and Share initiative.