thefuture.net

8am on London’s main shopping junction. Oxford Circus is busy with marketing executives, retail staff ready for work, London’s morning rush hour of people entering the daily grind. The sun is shining over lanes of bus and taxi traffic. Everyone is en route.

Enter The Future. Last Friday the United Nations were meeting in Bonn and somewhere, too low down, on their agenda was a discussion point: ‘how to save the world from climate change’.

As the suits gathered in Bonn to wrangle about our future, a group of young dancers from London gathered around the junction at Oxford Circus. They’re a new element of The Future: The Future Flash Mob.

We wanted to make London stop – just for a moment. We wanted people during their daily rush to ask why the kids are dancing in the midst of traffic; putting their bodies at risk to make people stop and pay attention.

And so we stepped out into the junction – easy as that.  Four of us – in high vis vests and with traffic cones that we’d found nearby – blocked four lanes of traffic. This cleared Oxford Circus for the dancers to enter and dance.  We hit play on a portable sound system and everyone stopped and watched.

As the song drew to a close the dancers picked up their bags and left the junction.  They spoke to the crowd who had gathered.  They gave them this message and told the crowd that in Bonn conversations are going on amongst the most powerful people in the world – conversations that will decide whether or not we will have a future. The crowd was concerned, for a moment, before they carried on to work.

Through our dance we joined a conversation that we have been shut out of.  The conversation about whether our generation will have a future that we can survive.  Through our dance we took Oxford Circus, and for a moment – we chose our future.

Shuar of Ecuador by David Ducoin

My name is David Dene and I live in Andalusia, in Southern Spain (here is my blog).

This is my story.

In 2001 I was invited to Amsterdam to partake in ceremonies using the plant medicine, Ayahuaska, from the jungles of South America. This medicine has been used for millenia by the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

I was so impressed that I invited the Shaman to come down to Andalusia. This was the start of this particular journey. Within a year, a Shaman, from the Shuar tribe of South Eastern Ecuador, came and introduced us to the Shuar Culture and their Ayahuaska Medicine, which they call Natem, or the Little Death, signifying death of the Ego.

I was consequently invited to spend time with this Shaman in Ecuador, which, of course, I did. Over the years a strong friendship was built up with various Shamen from the area who came over to visit us here in Southern Spain. His Holiness The Dalai Llama took medicine in the jungle with these Shamen, so I felt that I was in good company.

In 2012 I received a call for help from “the family” as they were, and still are, threatened by a huge open pit copper and gold mine, set to mine 60,000 tons of ore per day. The Open pit mine, to be 800 meters deep, 4 kilometers wide and impacting over 200 water sources will have horrendous effects on the Shuar Culture and their ability to live and pursue their lives.

This mine, financed by Chinese Government-owned mega-companies, has the potential to become one of the biggest mines on the Planet rivaling Bingham Mine at Kennecott in the USA. The area is of huge bio-diversity and contains endemic species. In other words, the mine is in direct contradiction to the Rights of Nature enshrined in the Constitution of Ecuador.

Kennecott Utah open pit copper mine is comparable to the Mirador project

I decided that the best thing to do would be to visit the area and spend time with the Shuar and to visit NGO’s working with them. I spent 2 months in a Shuar community in the jungle where I learnt of the conflicts and divisions running throughout the 70 Shuar communities in danger from the mining project.

In Quito I was able to secure a map of the hydrology of the area submitted in the Environmental Impact document. Here in Andalusia we used PhotoShop and showed how poisoned waterways could affect the communities. These maps were circulated throughout the 70 communities and were also used by NGOs in Ecuador.

We then created a web site: protectecuador.org as a resource for all people wanting to know about the mine.

The Shuar protest

Our next action was to set up an Avaaz petition calling on the judge, due to take the case presented to the Constitutional Court, to uphold The Rights of Nature. This case was dismissed, appealed, and lost on the grounds that mine was in the National Interest.

We funnelled the Avaaz petition through The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and built friendship with the Global Alliance and with Wild Law in Australia.

I wrote an abstract for a Wild Law Conference and was invited to speak in Brisbane, Australia. Subsequent to that Conference I was invited to a Summit Conference of The Global Alliance held in Ecuador last January. At the end of the Conference we set up the first Citizens Tribunal to try cases which clearly abuse The Rights of Nature.

The Mirador Mine, in the Shuar territory was accepted as one of the cases to be judged, and at that time, in Quito, I was enrolled in an European Citizens Initiative and am working as co-ordinator in a working group (currently 40 people in 14 EU countries) who are drafting a Directive to propose to the European Commission, on the Rights of Nature . We aim to bring a European Citizens Initiative later this year.

Last Summer I visited Ecuador traveling with Amazon Watch on an advocacy tour to see the damage caused by Chevron in the North Eastern Ecuadorian Amazon. It is almost beyond belief. “The Toxic Tour” is an apt description. We also visited the Sarayaku tribe, deep in the jungle, who won their case against the Government of Ecuador. The case was heard in the International Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. For the first time in the history of the court the judges visited the accused Government and declared against the Government of Ecuador, citing Human Rights abuse.

Chevron’s work in Ecuador

After leaving the Tour I visited tribal leaders in the South and at a meeting of the leaders they agreed that funding for regular monthly meetings would be a great help. The funding covers food, transport, communication, and the calling of reunions.

We started this funding last July and out of those meetings we have formed a school to work with 50 young Shuar leaders, to re-invigorate the Shuar Culture, to re-integrate communities, to teach on Human Rights and Rights of Nature and how to defend these rights.

We have been able to assist the Nations of Ecuador to meet and create resolutions heard in the General Assembly, (Parliament) of Ecuador. Work in progress is the creation of a film showing the potential damage likely from the mine and a short film on The Rights of Nature. Both films will be released in the next month or two. We will be fund raising for the school and for a Shuar village project to introduce people to the true Shuar Culture, their traditional houses, their knowledge of plants and all life, their medicines and their life style.

I have written this to show how it really is possible to make a difference, how respect and confidence and trust can start to shift paradigms of thought, and create real change. This is both a critical, and a crucial time.  Planet Earth’s ecological systems are under threat. We are altering the fundamental patterns of relationship which have created the planet we live on.  Our opportunity, indeed, our need, is to connect with others to take a stand for those fundamental relationships which we know as Nature.

We are developing an Internet platform to enable connection. The European Citizens Initiative and The Mirador Mine are two of the emerging catalysts  to enable us, Citizens of the World, to take a stand together. For me, this is a most rewarding and exciting adventure. I invite you to join in and to share the sense of joy,  fun, and positivity embedded in all actions to empower Nature.

David Dene. March 18th 2014 Co-founder of Protect Ecuador.

The Rainforest Alliance undoubtably does good work enabling more ethical brands to demonstrate they contribute to rainforest conservation so that conscientious consumers can make better choices. Products and brands bearing their frog logo have demonstrated that they have achieved an established standard of sustainability. However, in their new advert (just promoted by Upworthy), they seem to suggest that buying sustainable products is all we have to do. We don’t need to: protest, block bulldozers, think differently or change our lives – just buy the right brands and environmental problems will melt away. By presenting this idea to the world aren’t they in fact undermining efforts to create the scale of change we need to protect rainforests that are under sustained violent attack?

“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best’. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” Winston Churchill

In 2008 Tom Compton wrote a brilliant report for WWF challenging this way of thinking called Weathercocks & Signposts. I sincerely hope Rainforest Alliance take a look. They could continue to do their work with brands but also encourage their customers to think differently, live differently and where appropriate take part in effective, globally-coordinated protests. If we ask ourselves honestly – “what will it take to create a world in which other species can thrive” the answer isn’t – choose certain items in the supermarket. As it is, the global economy is an out-of-control machine that destroys wildlife without remorse whilst enriching an increasingly shrinking minority of financiers. It is not just naive to think changing our shopping habits will save the natural world it is dangerous because it stops us taking appropriate action.

The time for “keep calm and carry on” is long gone. We need to organise and fight corporations that damage the natural world and change governments that facilitate their actions.  Compton’s report demonstrates how these behaviours as well as lifestyle changes are based on shifts in our underlying values:

“As our understanding of the scale of environmental challenges deepens, so we are also forced to contemplate the inadequacy of the current responses to these challenges. By and large, these responses retreat from engaging the values that underpin our decisions as citizens, voters and consumers: mainstream approaches to tackling environmental threats do not question the dominance of today’s individualistic and materialistic values.

Read the full report here

The debut single and video from Let The Machines Do The Work is probably the first ever video to be shot at an actual EDL rally. Rather than members of the English Defence League, the Brighton four piece are fans of the English Disco Lovers and joined forces with them to bring some good vibes to the occasion.

Let the machines do the work on FB

Ibiza may be infamous for its summer season when legions of tourists flock into mega-clubs to thwap one out to often dubious electronica and spend weeks of their wages on small bottles of water costing ten euros a pop, but there are whole other dimensions to this unique and sacred “Pine Island”.

Early ravers

Ibiza is an exquisite jewel in the Mediterranean with precious ecosystems and a rich cultural past resulting in large portions of the island being registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Phoenician settlers founded a port here in 654 BC and named it Ibossim (from the Phoenician “iboshim” dedicated to the god of music and dance Bes).

Something magical about this extraordinary countryside and coastline lends itself to bacchanalia and has been drawing revellers ever since. Some say it is the unusually intense magnetic field focused on a magnificent rock of the southern coast called Es Vedrà.

Es Vedrà

Of course, at a time when our planet’s climate is dangerously changing and renewable alternatives abound, drilling for oil anywhere is unacceptable. However, by setting their sites on our beloved “White Island” the oil hoodlums have finally gone too far.

Perhaps the money men have bought the myth – that this island is just a den of iniquity. They have failed to appreciate that the international, elite of House Heads are actually a major creative force driving much of the positivity keeping our culture float in these dismal times of corporate hegemony.

Paradise @ DC10

The dance floor of DC10 contains so much wasted talent the average IQ is significantly higher than at most of the world’s leading universities. Not only is this a fight Big Oil can never win, by rounding on the latent passions of the Techno Troubadours they may find they have picked an enemy that will prove their downfall. Underground club culture is grass roots and touches every major metropolis in the world. Roused into action it could prove an unstoppable force for change in the world.

In the island’s legendary cave after-parties the talent is so wasted it is actually pretty much wall to wall Mensa members. These people haven’t been partying non-stop for the last fifteen years because they can’t get a job – they’ve been doing it because it makes a hell of a lot more sense then working 9-5 in an office for a company participating in an economy that decimates the natural world whilst enabling six billionaires to sit in mega yachts the size of small cities off Formentera.

Yoga on Formentera

How to solve the “energy crisis”

This latent genius could solve the world energy crisis in 30 seconds if someone got in there and told them there was a problem. We don’t need to disturb them though as we have figured the solution out already. All we need to do is connect giant, concentrated solar arrays in all the world’s major deserts to a global renewable energy grid. If the fossil fuel corporations were simply acting in the interests of their shareholders, as they claim, they would have done this already. The truth is, these companies are run by evil, greedy men who have been so intoxicated with their poisonous business model they plan to destroy our planet just because they can.

Logical arguments can only take us so far. What we need is for the good people of the world to unite into an unstoppable force of positivity and demonstrate that other ways of living are available and much more fun. We don’t need to work five days a week, banks are not too big too fail and the last wild spaces on earth are definitely not for sale. A key tool in our arsenal is house music. Over to you Romanthony:

Please sign the petition here

Bruce Parry, member of the EcoHustler Advisory Posse say no:

Please sign the petition here

Tuesday 5 November marks twenty years since John Major’s government passed the opportunistic and short-sighted Railways Act, which permitted the breaking-up and selling-off of our beloved railways.

Since 2009, Bring Back British Rail has been working hard to ensure that the history of our once proudly publicly owned railway is not forgotten. On our website, on Facebook and on Twitter, we are a growing movement of more that 60,000 people demanding a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit. Please join us today!

To mark the twentieth anniversary of privatisation, we are working with our friends at Action For Rail to co-ordinate a national ‘day of action’ for the Public Ownership of our railways. Please join us for the rally at Euston Station or see the Action For Rail website for details of protests taking place at more than 30 stations across the country on Tuesday 5 November, which is a national day of civil disobedience.

Protest Against Privatisation
Tuesday 5 November 2013

7:30 – 8:30 (8:00 AM photocall)
Euston Station
London
NW1 2RT

This autumn we are very excited to be launching our ‘sister campaign’ Power For The People - “the Bring Back British Rail for the Energy Industry”.

Power For The People aims to challenge the monopoly power of the UK’s ‘big six’ energy companies – who continue to hike up prices whilst dodging their tax obligations – by popularising the commonsense idea of re-nationalising our country’s energy production and supply.

Working together with Bring Back British Rail, we aim to draw attention to the disastrous consequences of the privatisations of the ’80s and ’90s which have seen prices soar whilst standards have fallen. Our website went LIVE today, so please follow the link and be one of the first to join us!