Konference: “Global and Institutional Crisis and Red-Green Alternatives” (København)

How to respond to the growing systemic crisis in Europe and globally? This is a combination of multiple crises – political, social, climate and environmental – requiring systemic alternatives. System criticism is not enough. The conference is a contribution to the debate on if and how to break with the capitalist system underlying the crises and to develop red and green alternatives.

Programme

9:30: Registration and coffee/tea etc.

10:00: Welcome

10:15-11:00:  Daniel Tanuro, Belgium, author of ‘Green Capitalism: Why it can’t work’ and contributor to the book ‘Økosocialisme – fra systemkritik til alternativ’ (Solidaritet, 2015), ecosocialist and writer in La Gauche, certified agriculturalist.

“Urgency of an Ecosocialist Alternative. How to fill the gaps in emissions and in consciousness?”

There is an objective gap between the path of emissions reduction compatible with a 1.5°C temperature increase on the one hand, and the projections based on the Nationally determined contributions (NDC) on the other hand. There is also a huge subjective gap between the ecosocialist consciousness needed to break with the productivist logic of capitalism, on the one hand, and the alienated consciousness of the vast majority of the population, on the other hand. Bridging the first gap entails bridging the second. What strategy for ecosocialism? 

11:00-11:45: Elizabeth Mpofu, Zimbabwe, General Coordinator of La Via Campesina International.

“Alternatives to the ecological crisis, the food crises and the climate crisis”

How can we promote alternatives to the ecological, food and climate crises that we are experiencing today. These crises have been caused by decades of the Green Revolution or Industrial forms of agriculture promoting conventional forms of agriculture emphasising increased usage of hybrid seeds, synthetic fertilizers, agro chemicals and currently GMOs by capitalist multinational corporations and agro dealers. Our ecology and food systems have been destroyed – land, deforestation, freezing of our rivers and lakes, soil system and our forests including our indigenous or traditional seed and knowledge seed systems. Climate change crisis has led to a fall in productivity, loss in livestock and peoples’ livelihoods especially women, small scale and peasant, affecting crop, indigenous, pastoralists, fisher folks and mountain farmers. Other questions that we again need also to ask are how we can convince our policy makers to promote alternatives when the policy makers collude with funders of the Green Revolution for funding. These alternatives are premised on promoting sustainable agricultural practices such as agro ecology, food sovereignty and increased usage of indigenous seeds. How can we convince the urban consumers and younger generations to consume traditional foods? How do we promote and campaign for agro ecology that can reach out to our policy makers and other farmers?

11:45-12:00: Break (coffee/tea)

12:00-13.00: Questions and debate

13:00-14:00: Lunch

14:00-16:00: Parallel seminars on 1) To combat climate change – the role of ecosocialism and ecofeminism; 2) Our common goods – reclaiming public services

Seminar 1: To combat climate change – the role of ecosocialism and ecofeminism

Yayo Herrero, Spain, Anthropologist, Director of FUHEM, Ecologistas en Acción

“Ecofeminist views to confront the Anthropocene”

 Humanity has reached the twenty-first century facing the material foundations that sustain life. This war against life is manifested in a systemic crisis (ecological, economic and social) that generates a deepening of the inequalities between people in all the axes of domination (class, gender, age, origin, etc.). The eco-dependence and interdependence are constitutive features of the human essence, but the notions of production, development and welfare have been built ignoring the insertion of the human species in a nature that has limits and hiding the vulnerability of human life.

Ecofeminism can help to shape a different perspective that gives light to invisible and undervalued aspects, but unavoidable if you want to start a transition before a more than likely collapse. 

Asbjørn Wahl, Norway, author and trade unionist, director of the Campaign for the Welfare state

”The role of labour in the fight against climate change”

Action to combat climate change will require major societal transformation. We have most of what is required in terms of technology, knowledge and competence to avert a climate disaster. What we lack is the social power to translate words into action. The role of organized labour will therefore be decisive. The climate struggle will have to be unified with the social struggle.

Seminar 2: Our common goods – resisting privatization; reclaiming public services

Birgit Daiber; Germany, author and publisher, Transform commons working group, The Common-Good-of-Humanity-Network

“Left politics and Commons-movements in Europe”

Commons-movements are spread all over the world – and so they are in Europe: There is Barcelona with numerous initiatives like “Fearless Cities” and the recuperation of houses for homeless people; Referendums on water in Italy and in cities like Thessaloniki, Berlin and others reclaim water as common good; Community land trusts in Great Britain, Germany and other countries try to secure housing for citizens; urban gardening; occupied abandoned industrial plants and their re-organisation in alternative cultural spaces as “Officine Zero” in Rome; Workers’ recuperated companies (WRCs) and public health-care-initiatives trying to save living and working conditions under the threat of EU-austerity-regime in Greece; workers’ cooperatives (SCOPs) in France. The impressive and rich diversity of commons initiatives all over the world can be seen as acts of resistance against exploitation of nature and people, or more specific: against the continuous and ever-growing greed of reactionary politics and capital for privatisation of natural resources. It’s time to discuss strategies on European level: Commons as one dimension of initiatives to reclaim a social, ecological and democratic Europe.

Nanna Clifforth, Denmark, NOAH – Friends of the Earth Denmark

“Earth Incorporated: The impacts of trade and privatisation on nature”

Nature, biodiversity and ecosystem functions are increasingly included in trade agreements as well as turned into aims of financialisation and off-setting with severe environmental and social consequences.

Wanda Wyporska, Britain, Executive Director at The Equality Trust, campaigning organization working for greater equality

“Our common goods – reclaiming public services”

Access to and provision of public services play a key role in inequality, whether reducing or increasing the gaps in society. How the fragmentation of education, health and social security is affecting the UK and those who deliver these services.

The Equality Trust was launched in 2009 by Bill Kerry, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett after the publishing of “The Spirit Level – Why Equality is Better for Everyone” (In Danish: “Lighed – Hvorfor alle klarer sig bedre i mere lige samfund”).

16:00-16:15: Coffee break

16:15-17:00: Workshops and networking

17:00-18:00: Concluding debate in plenary between the speakers of the conference and the participants on the main topics of the day.

Organizers

Transform!Danmark in cooperation with transform!europe, Enhedslisten/the Red-Green Alliance, Afrika Kontakt, Solidaritet, Det Ny Clarté, DiEM25-Copenhagen, NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark, and others.

Participation

Registration: [email protected]

Participation fee (to cover for food and drink during the day): 100 DKK (to be paid in cash at the entrance)

More information: http://www.transformdanmark.dk

TransformDanmark facebook, https://www.facebook.com/events/423362018080951/