We’re entering crucial months for the future of humanity! The world is preparing for COP26, the UN Climate Conference in November. The Global Ecovillage Network will send a small delegation to advocate for the ecovillage pathway of regeneration, and we need your support.
We want to hear from you! What message would you like the GEN team to deliver at COP26? How is your ecovillage or your project creating the better world we know we can build together? Please share with us by leaving a comment* below.
We look forward to hearing from you!
*By leaving a comment in this post, you agree to allow GEN team reach out to you to share updates about COP26. You can ask us to stop emailing you at any time. This is outlined on our Privacy Policy.
Climate change is proving so difficult to tackle because individual countries do not have sufficient incentive to take adequate individual action. This is the ultimate free-rider problem. We need a robust global agreement that changes the incentives in a way that ensures effective cooperation between countries.
The current approach of touring around the world urging each country to increase its individual level of ambition is doomed to failure. There is almost no chance of that resulting in sufficient action to save the world.
OUR BEST CHANCE OF ACHIEVING EFFECTIVE GLOBAL COOPERATION IS – A RECIPROCAL COMMON COMMITMENT TO A GLOBAL MINIMUM CARBON PRICE.
Please refer to “Global Carbon Pricing – The Path to Climate Cooperation” for further details
Dear GEN team,
the message I would like to share is that we need to see our world more holistically and not only focus on CO2 reduction as there are so many other factors contributing to the degeneration of our environment. Tell the leaders to make laws which are in line with nature and not against it. So many regenerative action is blocked by the current laws only protecting the big corporations and disempowering the people. So much climate action is only misused to raise new taxes without channelling them into regenerative projects.
Thank you for your work!
Much love,
Anett
Hi everybody,
Ananda Valley, in the center of Portugal, contributed to a chapter for a COP26 targeted book:
Here is the pre-print (in PDF):
https://dochub.com/emily-qmhzyq/mqNjP3BVWommzlGV9yGzLk/cop26-digitalversion-compressed-pdf?dt=tTvxrdgKqhw4LVMDcp46
Here is the real book:
https://arkbound.com/product/climate-adaptation-accounts-of-resilience-self-sufficiency-and-systems-change/
We believe that Ananda Valley and several ecovillages can serve better the local community and overall inspiration when there is support and planned interactions with local Academia and governmental institutions. Many times both the institutions and the ecovillages are a bit far away from each other, so a step towards better utilization of our Ecovillages can be also an intensification in relations between the two (and many times, institutions will need an incentive or a policy to guide them to have more contacts with the Ecovillage world). Thank you for the amazing work that GEN is doing, we hope to be more and more involved in GEN from this year.
All the best!
i would like world leaders to take on board the well know fact that we have had the solutions and methods to avert global catastrophe caused by climate change for ages. They are simple and we can enact them now. What we need is cultural change not climate change to make this easy for us all. (putting it this way not my idea but more from Looby McNamara!)
Question 1: Why is it still possible to deny the human made climate change? Why is it so hard to communicate/proof?
Question 2: Why is the climate change catastrophy not the first to solve problem when the extinction of mankind is probably happening? Nothing makes sense any more if we extinct.
My town has a community farm, we all own the farm, we employ 3 people, we volunteer if we can and we all take a share of the produce. It is organic, fresh, nutrient dense and has very little fossil fuels embedded. Governments need to disassemble out overly complicated supply chains and enable citizens to create their own networks and become more resilient in power generation, food and water production and local green solutions. Such as not for profit car clubs and local finance solutions. It’s not rocket science, it just takes bravery and real leadership, time to step up or get out of the way!
As ambassador of GEN Africa I am intervening in the Competitive Cashew Initiative which has been launched by the German Union of International Development (GIZ) https://www.comcashew.org/ with the Dagomba community in Tampion, northern Ghana. to introduce syntropic farming methods for Cashew production. Mohammed Issahaku a student of the Kumasi College of Agriculture will be doing his diploma project with this theme. Simultaneously, Sulemana Alhassan, the Agriculture Officer of the area is doing the Soil Food Web School Diploma which substantiates the effectivity of syntropic farming. The community of Tampion is a traditional farming community, which hopefully in the not too distant future will also evolve into an intentional GEN community. The video Reversing drought and preventing flood and fire by changing our relationship to nature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cT2fZ9I88M explains in its first hour the clear connection between syntropic farming and the microbiome.
The traditional community of Tampion which is under governance by the Dagomba people of northern Ghana are experimenting with syntropic farming of Cashews. This activity was made possible by the existence of GEN Africa and the acceptance of Alice Grossmann-Güntert into the GEN ambassador program. Since Alice was in need of a community of practice she has adopted the community of Tampion. Using the Ecovillage Design Cards, she was able to win the respect of the community.
I would love to see people in the central of COP discourses (politicians, decision makers, NGOs, corps..) to acknowledge the value of “unmeasurable” aspect of regeneration (like worldview/culture, holistic practices, socio ecological practices…) and give space for it in their agenda.
Understanding that making policies upon tangible numbers (like CO2 sequestration, hectares, Watts..) is easier but a space for the more subtle and intangible impacts could really boost the efficiency and power of their decisions and efforts.
Also give more voice and power to the people, not companies.
My long answer can just be summed up by Nancy’s words. But, in “synthesis”:
COP 26 should be a time for awareness and a clear mind, not less clear than that of a rope-walker, more about action than words.
http://donellameadows.org/must-reads/ , 20 years ago- do Systems get taught..
https://collections.dartmouth.edu/teitexts/meadows/diplomatic/meadows_ltg-diplomatic.html shows Limits to Growth, 1972, Jørgen Randers updated us in 2014 (“2052” lecture) and others after him. Most worrysome curve: the Population. Fixed the infant mortality, we also survive longer – good! But did no one remember over here that every land and so the whole Planet has a carrying capacity? Early in the story, China had a one-child policy, India offered sterilization. 2020: the FP2020 Global Partnership invested in Family Planning.
https://www.iucn.org/commissions/world-commission-environmental-law : global environmental law is making big strides. I’d hope that e.g. a tropical forest may not be seen as belonging to a state but to all Living Things. Ecology has principles – see them: no free lunch, everything depends on everything, etc.
Randers suggests generically a strong government. Could the UN take over the needed powers for a global governance on our common good? Pointless to found a second UN – or to leave it up to certain states. We need a strong unitary consensus.
In about 1960 I was a child. My uncle said: “What will these people understand from life after they’ve had a dozen children?” In about the same year dad said: “There’s too many of us in the world” (I was the only child, like most of my classmates).
I do hope UNFPA is going to be present, and so Practical Action (aka Intermediate Technology – E.F.Schumacher was one of my heros); both posts kindly cut away from my FB (I quit every single exploitive platform since).
The Capital eats young human flesh during lie-supported-wars that feed the Capital. Old human flesh is also needed, unwilling-to-be-treated terminal patients take expensive medicines they paid via taxes – that feeds Big Pharma – but several parents of friends of mine provided their own d.i.y. dignified exits, telling the system where to go.
Various types of greenhouse gas emitters, bad governmnets, mass controls like religions helped the Capital achieve similar obscure goals, worth nothing but spelling disaster for the Planet, by helping the expansion of its population needlessly, using ignorance and disempowering women and men alike about family, diseases, choices.
Spirituality was never at stake, the existence of the spirit in the Universe and all its beings is not cancelled when humanity uses the head, to survive. Everybody can have beliefs, these help the individual. My heart and body house my spirit, Nature enhances it. The Cathars did not need a priest either: they got mass killed. And who killed lately so many climate activists and journalists. How about some global intelligence service to find out.
To me government should finally be a place for awareness and science, for knowing and acting on knowledge, all world citizens need to follow it; as far as I’m concerned no belief or guess should enter the totally scientific decisional field which governing must become – if we are to survive. Or at least a dialectic process should get everybody to agree and act as one man on a view, until verified evidence shows a different way.
The heart should conduct us, but the head is a tool that’s been given to us like to the proverbial chicken, and it must be used, like the rest of ourselves. We can choose to cross the road blindfolded – going all together will be nicely catastrophic. The major powers will endly collapse and give the Planet a deserved rest. Such ending will not really matter because there are plenty of lichens and micro-organisms behind us in the queue, waiting to take over and evolve again into new generations of dinosaurs. The sun is still going to shine for a while.
But we have a brain, we can identify the Capital, huddle together, set up hard lines, set aside what at mass or government level does not help, e.g. believing, and replace it with knowing from reliable scientific or other verifiable sources, which the Capital tries always to hide and confuse. We can start with a heart-felt commitment to this change.
Thank you for the fantastic work you do at GEN, I hope to end up in an ecovillage soon (there are thousonds of cultures and languages out there to choose from, each one of them can still shine its own beauty again, as the Geneva Convention would like).
From our community in Cordoba, Argentina de propone a plan for a better distribution of population starting from slums supporting aboriginal and small farmers communities. There is a work to do in a global scale and with a kind of world war II logistic: Take care and regenerate biodiversity.
Some things that should be spoken about ~
Cost of not saving the climate vs cost of saving it (which is A LOT less than having to constantly spend on rebuilding due to climate induced disasters)
CCC – Civilian Climate Corps. This will especially help in poor communities. Not only protecting the environment but also taking care of a community and more jobs.
The solution starts with honesty and racial justice for everyone. This includes all indigenous people
Indigenous tribes should be given large areas of land and/or water to protect. They should be LARGELY involved with climate plans/action as the indigenous alone cuts 20% of Carbon emissions.
Educating children on our climate. Schools should have a garden too. Teaching kids about how to grow food and how to harvest while also being served healthy foods picked right from the garden. Healthier and Cheaper.
Diversity is essential on this planet to permit life. Everything should be done to permit ans secure such diversity in all domains
We are writing from the Bega Valley in south-east Australia where our region has been deeply impacted by massive catastrophic bushfires and other extreme climate events. We live on a community-title property entitled “Bend”, and as a neighbourhood we have taken strong, concerted personal action in response to the climate emergency. This includes emissions reductions, specifically regarding renewable energy and local food production, passive solar house design, water self-sufficiency, and waste reduction
Bend plays a role in our local community as a model of more sustainable living, incorporating diversity, conservation and permaculture principles. Each of the households contribute on a local level to the wider global response to the climate emergency in terms of energy, soil and water conservation. The neighbourhood also promotes waste reduction, as well as practicing the resilience skills that come from consensus. Bend stands as a potential example of immediate changes we can make in the climate crisis.
Peggy Storch and Frances Sutherland
IF their are indeed more Western Eurocentric ethnicities attending COP26 than previous I hope for the sake of the health of the living earth that the majority of the discussions are about taking actions right now (not in the future) at the conference in the West and not simply more agreements and hand shakes. For example, a right now action, we are turning down the thermastat right now in the conference room by 2 degrees, I am not saying this as a joke but enough of this “by 2030 ” or “by 2050 we will” the living earth cannot wait any longer for green infrastructure blah blah “to go online.”
And, why is technology the solution to the problem technology caused us to begin with? External costs. Do we really want to extract more and more precious metals from Africa without local ownership and control of those resources for the sake of upgrading technology? Solar panels need those precious metals from Congo, and African countries. Economic inequality. Driverless cars, means still more traffic on already clogged megacity highways. Who can afford these new technologies? Who can’t? Why not scale back the technological appetite and rising external costs and desire for something high tech and think of low tech, like agriculture is learning to do out of necessity, ancient techniques like cover crops or no till farming, and other old style, low tech solutions. Paris wants to a bike centered city.
There is no such thing as a sustainable plantation. Chocolate, coffee, sugar cane, Wangari Maathai saw when she returned from studies in the U.S. how plantation farming in Kenya destroyed a once green country, caused more runoff, and lowered water quality for villages downstream. If you live in a western country how about stop consuming chocolate, coffee, sugar cane if you care about green house gases, climate change and thriving eoovillages in Africa.
Xomoa