eBook:: Instinctive Knowledge : Sustainability & Climate Change
Australia
Do poor Indians and Chinese need Australian coal?
This has reference to the news items that the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will arrive in New Delhi today on a four-day visit. It is widely expected that he will advocate for, among other things, increased coal and Uranium export from Australia to India. The issue of coal export to India gains significance in the backdrop that world’s largest coal mine in Australia is being planned to be developed by Indian company Adani Australia.
Such an export of coal from Australia is being pursued in the guise of “lifting over a Billion Indians from the clutches of poverty”. It is also reported from the Australian media that this mine (Carmichael Coal Mine in the state of Queensland) will produce two types of coal of which the low quality (high ash content) coal is being planned to be exported to India, whereas good quality coal is planned to be sold to other premium markets.
In this context, the true relevance of coal import from Australia needs to be questioned since it will have huge social and environmental implications also in addition to the cost implications.
An open letter (of 5 November 2014), which was sent to the Australian political leaders highlighting the India’s true relevance of coal import from Australia, as forwarded below is self-explanatory, and may please be considered for publication while the Australian PM is in India to reveal the associated problems to the Indian society.
The letter
Shankar Sharma
Over 35 years of professional experience in electricity industry in the areas of generation, transmission and distribution worked with Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power, Govt. of India; Electricity Corporation of New Zealand, New Zealand and Queensland Electricity Transmission Corporation, Brisbane, Australia.
Working with many NGOs and educational institutions on power sector reforms, Climate Change, and sustainable life style issues.
Books:
- “Power Sector Road Map for Tamil Nadu – 2050”; April 2016;
http://mitramaadhyama.co.in/archives/2791 - “Integrated Power Policy”, Sept. 2012; http://freebookculture.com/?p=172
- Written a handbook on the relevance of nuclear power in joint authorship with Dr. A N Nagaraj
Compiled two reports
- for Karnataka State Pollution Control Board on recommendations for state action plan on Climate Change, June 2015; https://kspcb.wordpress.com/
- a survey report for Greenpeace India “Still Waiting” on energy injustice , 2008.
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/report/2009/11/stillwaiting.pdf
Australia’s Aboriginal children ‘essentially being punished for being poor’ – UN rights expert
4 April 2017 – (UN) -Stressing that the rates of incarceration for Australia’s indigenous peoples have reached astounding, “tsunami” proportions, a United Nations human rights expert today called on the authorities to respect the peoples’ right to self-determination, to full and effective participation in society, and to step up the fight against racism.
“High rates of incarceration were described to me as a tsunami affecting indigenous peoples […] while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders make up only three per cent of the total population, they constitute 27 per cent of the prison population, and much more in some prisons,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, at the end of her official visit to the nation.
The situation of youths and children from these communities is particularly concerning and the number of children being removed from their homes is increasing.
For instance, at a youth detention centre in Townsville, Queensland province, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children constituted 95 per cent of the children detained.
“These children are essentially being punished for being poor and in most cases, prison will only aggravate the cycle of violence, poverty and crime,” noted Ms. Tauli-Corpuz. “I found meeting young children, some only 12 years old, in detention the most disturbing element of my visit.”
[pullquote]I found meeting young children, some only 12 years old, in detention the most disturbing element of my visit[/pullquote]
“As already recommended by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, I urge Australia to increase the age of criminal responsibility. Children should be detained only as a last resort,” she highlighted.
The expert also noted that Aboriginal children were seven times more likely than non-indigenous children to be in contact with the child protection system or to be subject to abuse or neglect.
New relationship between Government and National Congress of First Peoples needed
She also noted that while numerous policies have been adopted to address the socio-economic disadvantage of indigenous peoples, these have failed to deliver on targets in the areas of health, education and employment.
In particular, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz criticized the Government programme known as the Indigenous Advancement Strategy which was initiated in 2014 and involved a large budget cut in funding for support programmes.
“The implementation of the strategy has been bureaucratic, rigid and has wasted considerable resources on administration. Travelling across the country, I have repeatedly been told about its dire consequences,” she said, pointing to threats that targets on closing the gap in areas such as life expectancy, infant mortality, education and employment would not be met.
Urging for a comprehensive approach including specific objectives on reduction of detention rates, child removal and violence against women, the UN rights expert also called on the Government to forge a new relationship with the national representative body for indigenous peoples, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, and restore their funding.
In her remarks, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz also spoke of effective community-led initiatives in a range of areas including public health, housing, education, child-protection, conservation and administration of justice, and their potential in making immediate significant positive changes in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The rights expert will present a comprehensive report on her two-week long mission to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council at its session in September this year.
Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
Gandhi: 'My life is my message'
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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ |
As most of the world ignores or hypocritically celebrates the 147th birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on the International Day of Nonviolence on 2 October, some of us will quietly acknowledge his life by continuing to build the world that he envisioned. When asked for his message for the world, Gandhi responded with the now famous line ‘My life is my message’ reflecting his lifelong struggle against violence.
Gandhi’s life was dotted with many memorable quotes but one that is less well known is this: ‘You may never know what results come of your actions but if you do nothing there will be no results’.
Fortunately, there are many committed people who have identified the importance of taking action to end the violence in our world – whether it occurs in the home or on the street, in wars, as a result of economic exploitation or ecological destruction – and this includes the courageous people below. These people have identified themselves as part of the worldwide network, now with participants in 96 countries, committed to ending violence in all of its forms. I would like to share their inspirational stories and invite you to join them.
Christophe Nyambatsi Mutaka is the key figure at the Groupe Martin Luther King which promotes active nonviolence, human rights and peace. The group is based in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in central Africa. They particularly work on reducing sexual and other violence against women.
Also based in Goma, the Association de Jeunes Visionnaires pour le Développement du Congo headed by Leon Simweragi is a youth peace group that works to rehabilitate child soldiers as well as offer meaningful opportunities for the sustainable involvement of young people in matters that affect their lives and those of their community.
Given the phenomenal suffering in the DRC, which has experienced the loss of six million lives and the displacement of eight million people due to the long war driven by Western corporations keen to exploit the country’s mineral wealth, Christophe, Leon and their colleagues are testimony to the fact that committed people strive in the most adverse of circumstances.
Tess Burrows in the UK is an adventurer (including parachutist, mountaineer, cyclist and marathon runner), peace activist, author, speaker, healer, and ‘most importantly a mother and grandmother’. In her words: ‘I am dedicated to the pursuit of World Peace and the healing of the Earth.’ Tess has written several books and, if you are looking for inspiration, I suggest you try these: ‘Cry from the Highest Mountain’ (describing a climb to the point furthest from the centre of the Earth), ‘Cold Hands, Warm Heart’ (describing a trek across the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth: the Geographic South Pole), ‘Touch the Sky’ (describing her climb of Mt Kilimanjaro, in Africa’s heartland, pulling a car tyre which included peace messages from every nation on Earth and embodying their desire for everyone to pull together to promote peace) and her latest book ‘Soft Courage’. Her video ‘Climb For Tibet’ won’t bore you either! among other things, built six schools in Tibet and supported a Maasai community tree-planting project in Africa. Tess collects messages of peace from individuals and speaks them out from ‘far high places’. So far, this has included the North and South Poles, the Himalayas, Andes, Pacific and Africa. You can be part of her next Peace Climb in Australasia by writing your personal message on her website where you can also check out her books. Be warned however, this website will exhaust you!
Recently, on the International Day of Peace, the Afghan Peace Volunteers and Borderfree Street Kids in Kabul, mentored by Dr Teck Young Wee (Hakim), reached out to the visually impaired and blind students at Rayaab (Rehabilitation Services for the Blind Afghanistan). They brought MP3 players as gifts to 50 visually impaired students. The students will use the MP3 players to listen to recorded school lessons and educational programs. Rayaab is an Afghan non-governmental organization run by Mahdi Salami and his wife Banafsha, who are themselves visually impaired. If you want to see photos from this day, and to watch an extraordinary three minute video, you can do so at ‘To Touch a Colourful Afghanistan’.
Kristin Christman in the USA continues her tireless efforts to make our world more peaceful by seeking to understand the deeper drivers of conflict while offering practical steps forward. She is currently working on a book based on her monumental ‘Taxonomy of Peace: A Comprehensive Classification of the Roots and Escalators of Violence and 650 Solutions for Peace’ A recent rather personal article offers insight into her approach: ‘Make serving in war an option, not an order’ and illustrates how violence is ‘built-into’ society.
Ghanaian Gifty A. Korankye has just developed a new website titled ‘Daughters of Africa’. Explaining why, she writes: ‘Over the years I watched women go through unbearable pain …. Our daughters go through FGM in their puberty…. The humiliation we face when we lose our spouse, all in the name of customs and tradition.’ Determined to help address the issues that plague many African women she wants to give them the chance to be ‘a useful voice to our communities’, to share the success stories of African women and African-American women in business administration, the entertainment industry and elsewhere in order to share learning from their journeys and to ‘help mentor our young generation’. She invites African women to write to share their stories and work together to find solutions. ‘We can do it because we are daughters of Africa.’
So what about you? Do you believe that ending human violence is possible? Even if you believe that it is not, do you believe that it is worth trying? As Gandhi noted: ‘The future depends on what we do in the present.’ What will you do?
In essence, working to end human violence and to create a world of peace, justice and ecological sustainability for all life on Earth might not be what gets you out of bed in the morning. But if it is or you would like it to be, you are welcome to join those of us who are committed to striving for this outcome by signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
And if you subscribe to Gandhi’s belief that ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every [person’s] needs, but not every [person’s] greed’, then you might consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ which he inspired as well.
Each of us has a choice. We can stand aside in the great fight for survival in which humanity is now engaged. Or we can be involved. What is your choice?
The bottom line is this: What will be the message of your life?
Tasmania 2016 – Overland track | East Coast
by Gregory Naud