Global and Institutional Crises and Red-Green Alternatives – Conference 17 March 2018

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?

The programme focuses on issues we have prioritized the previous years, and the public meetings we held last autumn on the fight against privatisation.

In addition to the plenary session with two speeches in the morning, we have two seminars in the afternoon: One on the fight against climate change and for ecosocialism and ecofeminism; the other about our common goods, which today are under attack from capital interests and privatization, and where popular movements and pressure from below contribute to create counter-movement and alternatives, for example in the form of de-privatisation.

With a good international panel, we hope to give the audience at the conference a unique opportunity to get new inspiration from the outside to the domestic debate and action.

Venue: HK København, Sven Aukens Plads 11, 2300 Copenhagen S

Price: 100 DKK, to be paid at the entrance.
This also covers lunch and refreshments
Registration: send email to kontakt@transformdanmark.dk

Program:
  9:30              Registration and coffee/tea etc.
10:00 – 10:15  Welcome
10:15 – 11:00  Urgency of an Ecosocialist Alternative. How to fill the gaps in emissions and in consciousness?
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.
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?
Document

11:00 – 11:45 Alternatives to the ecological crisis, the food crises and the climate crisis
Elizabeth Mpofu, Zimbabwe, General Coordinator of La Via Campesina International.
How can we promote alternatives to the ecological, food and climate crises that we are experiencing today? Climate change crisis has led to a fall in productivity, affecting crop, and resulted in loss of livestock and peoples’ livelihoods especially for women and peasants,  indigenous, pastoralists, fisher folks and mountain farmers. Other questions that we again need 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?
Article in “Det Ny Clarté”
(text)

11:45 – 12:00 Break
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

Ecofeminist views to confront the Anthropocene
Yayo Herrero,
Spain, Anthropologist, Director of FUHEM, Ecologistas en Acción
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.

Document – in Spanish

The role of labour in the fight against climate change
Asbjørn Wahl, Norway, author and trade unionist, director of the Campaign for the Welfare state
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.
Presentation

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

Left politics and Commons-movements in Europe
Birgit Daiber,
Germany, author and publisher, Transform commons working group, The Common-Good-of-Humanity-Network
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.
Document

Our common goods – reclaiming public services
Wanda Wyporska,
Britain, Executive Director at The Equality Trust, campaigning organization working for greater equality
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”).
PresentationArticle in “Det Ny Clarté”(text)

Earth Incorporated: The impacts of trade and privatisation on nature
Nanna Langevad Clifforth
, Denmark, NOAH – Friends of the Earth Denmark
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.
Presentation

16:00 – 16:15 Coffee break
16:15 – 17:00 Workshops and networking
The intention is to make workshops around each of the topics of the talks of the conference, and possibly build working groups for ongoing work on these issues.

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, Miljøbevægelsen NOAH (Friends of the Earth Denmark) and others.