>SchNEWS Of The World
>IS OUT
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>This week's SchNEWS: http://www.schnews.org.uk/
>Friday 6th September 2002, Issue 371
>
>WAKE UP! IT'S YER ALWAYS AFTER SUMMIT...
>
>SchNEWS
>
>SUMMIT ROTTEN
>
>"...These people at the summit are not kind. We earn peanuts and they don't
>even tip us. They think they are so important, they fly around the world
>having meetings and getting waited on, but they know nothing of how we live.
>I came here from Zimbabwe because my people are very desperate there. I live
>in a shack in Soweto now, one room with two children, no privacy, trying to
>earn money to send home. For months the government has talked about cleaning
>up the city for the summit, but when these people go home, everything will
>be back like it always was. They will still be rich, we will still be poor.
>It's not right that they say they meet for our sake. It's all for their
>benefit, not ours."
>- Rosemary, a Zimbabwean refugee waiting tables under the shining towers of
>Sandton, South Africa, where the conference was held.
>SchNEWS would never snipe at the sidelines telling anyone who'd listen 'we
>told you so' but as the Johannesburg Earth Summit finishes, the new
>blueprint to save the planet is about as useful as waterproof bogroll.
>Corporations hailed it a success (hooray - no strings, we can carry on
>polluting), there was fine words from politicians (like Vice-President Blair
>banging on about climate change then promising to improve the people of Iraq
>'s climate by bombing them), plenty of NGO hand wringing and muttering in
>Victor Meldrew 'I don't believe it' style disbelief and demonstrators being
>given a good kick in the privates so they don't feel left out in the new era
>of global partnerships. SchNEWS has sifted through the final 65 page
>document with its eight key commitments and come up with summit of the
>highlights.
>* Dropping all renewable energy targets, because oil rich nations argued
>that until they figure a way of charging us for the sun and wind they aren't
>interested in bloody solar panels and windmills.
>* Promising to increase the number of people cut off from essential services
>like water and electricity by privatising services immediately.
>* Getting rid of poor people, or at least making them disappear out of view,
>with the use of very big fences surrounded by razor wire and men with
>machine guns (hey, just like the Earth Summit).
>* Making people re-use envelopes and dig ponds in their back gardens to
>preserve fish stocks.
>* Handing out free umbrellas and suntan lotion to help lessen the effects of
>climate change.
>*A pledge to stop species extinction through gene transfer and cloning of
>profitable animal and plant crops.
>* A free market monopoly in exchange for eternal debt and gratitude plus
>spontaneous culling of various groups as and when necessary all done in the
>best possible taste.
>Er, that's it.
>But perhaps the 'major triumph' of the Summit was the creation of
>"partnership agreements." Corporations promise to respect the environment
>and peoples' human rights, as long as they can do it voluntarily and with
>none of that silly red tape that spoils it for everyone. As an ecstatic
>spokesman for Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD - see
>SchNEWS 361/2), a powerful new lobby group stuffed full of fat cats, told
>SchNEWS "We can't believe those suckers expect us, the very people who are
>destroying the planet to come up with a grand plan of how to save it!"
>
>
>BASDtardly Deeds
>
>During one of the BASDtards Summit knees-up Shell Chairman Philip Watts
>reluctantly accepted a Greenwash Lifetime Achievement Award, muttering
>something about the good work his company has done in Nigeria and the report
>his company had produced which said how responsible they now were. Isaac
>Osuoka of Environmental Rights Action, a Nigerian group that has documented
>Shell's pioneering human rights and environmental work in the Niger Delta
>pointed out "How can we talk of partnership and trust with business leaders
>who do not recognise the most blatant corporate crimes?"
>Other Greenwash Award winners include BP, who spent £20 million on their new
>sunflower logo to show the world how much they like flowers, Nestle who
>continue to defend the rights of mothers in the developing world to use
>powered milk, Enron for Best Makeup, and accountants (and we use the term in
>the loosest possible manner) Arthur Andersen for Best Documentary
>Destruction. As author Naomi Klein puts it "Post Enron it's hard to believe
>that companies can be trusted to keep their own books, let along save the
>world." Or as Kenny Bruno co-author of Earthsummit.biz says, "Most
>corporations, when left to their own devices, are attracted to irresponsible
>behaviour like moths to a flame." So, without wanting to become the pub bore
>going on and on about what's to be done, we at SchNEWS Towers repeat it's
>only when people get together to solve problems, offer solutions and take
>direct action against those who are destroying the planet, that life will
>ever change.
>
>SchNEWS Vocab Watch
>
>Greenwash: spending millions on adverts telling the world how green you are,
>while behind the scenes doing everything to oppose or avoid any social or
>environmental law that might harm profits.
>* The Greenwash Awards did actually happen. Find out more
>www.earthsummit.biz/
>* During last weeks day of action against a 'Corporate UN', Dutch Earth
>First! used paintbombs to 'greenwash' outlets of a dozen corporations in
>Amsterdam. "Anyone who believes that profit making, economic growth, and
>sustainable development can go together is very naive." For details of other
>actions on the day www.aseed.net
>Recommended reading
>* Earthsummit.biz: the Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development by
>Joshua Karliner and Kenny Bruno (Food First Books) www.corpwatch.org
>* Battling Big Business - countering greenwash, infiltration and other forms
>of corporate bullying. Eveline Lubbers (Green Books) 01803 863260
>www.greenbooks.co.uk
>* Check out the special Earth Summit report in this month's Ecologist
>magazine www.theecologist.org
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