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"Dawning of Commons Trusts" Diagram

Glossary of Terms

2020 Climate Leadership Campaign

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diagram: The Dawning of Commons Trusts       pdf file

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary of Terms

 

 

Development - on an international scale, the development of livelihoods and greater quality of life for human beings. Human and social development encompasses foreign aid, governance, healthcare, education, gender equality, disaster preparedness, infrastructure, economics, human rights, environment, and other associated issues

 

Bipolar paradigm - a system where two dominant functional components determine all implementations and solutions. In the case of state capitalism, the public-private dichotomy is actually a monoculture with more similarities than differences

 

Public Sector - deals with the delivery of goods and services by and for the government, whether national, regional or local/municipal. Mainly funded through taxation

 

Private Sector - the economy run for private profit and not controlled by the state. For example: private banks and corporations

 

G-8, G-20 & G-192 - groups of nations that meet periodically for determination of interests that pertain to the nations within the group. The lower the number, the greater the tendency for concentrated self-interest in relationship to other nations outside of the group. G-192 represents all member states of the United Nations

 

Multilateral System - system of governance in which all nation-states work together to solve global problems

 

Commons - people sharing resources (both depletable and replenishable) including: air, water, fossil fuels, forests, fisheries, food resources, biodiversity, genetics, internet, open source info/ mass collaboration, human rights/ health/ culture, pollution, security, climate, communications. "Commoning" is the ability to organize, express the will of, and meet the needs of people without harm to systems on which we depend.

Resources: International Association for the Study of the Commons, www.iascp.org, also www.onthecommons.org

 

Commons Trusts - co-governance and co-production of a commons asset by a local community of producers and users with the primary goal of preserving the resource for future generations. Local trusts must coordinate regionally and cooperate across regions creating Global Trusts to effectively safeguard global commons

 

Co-Governance - process of participatory management in which decisions are made at the lowest levels possible (ie. subsidiarity and decentralization), thereby recognizing the decision of each member equitably

 

Co-Production - the outcome of synergistic cooperation; productivity, creative output and social capital created through a group working under a transparent process of co-governance

1. Sheth and Uslay, From Exchange to Value Creation, www.jagsheth.net/docs/Implications.pdf

2. Bauwens, The Political Economy of Peer Production, www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue37/Bauwens37.htm

3. Bollier, The Commons as a New Sector of Value-Creation, www.onthecommons.org/content.php?id=1813

 

Full Cost Accounting - transparent reflection of true costs of resource development, production and distribution, as well as long-term advantages for projects or proposals. 'Triple bottom line' (People, Planet, Profit) is an example, where financial considerations and also ecological and social performance are included in the equation for a model's success

 

Carbon Tax - an environmental tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for the purpose of protecting the environment and slowing climate change by reducing greenhouse emissions

 

Cap and Trade - proposal to set a cap on carbon emissions and issue pollution credits. Emissions cap can be reduced over time. Some see this as a public-private sector system with its own market, which could lead to manipulation of the credits and a tendency toward privatization of the air

 

Cap and Dividend - a system where carbon credits are issued to limit carbon emissions. The revenues resulting from the credits and penalties are returned to the taxpayers as dividends, thereby increasing common wealth while suppressing the tendency for the private sector to manipulate credits and enclose (privatize) air resources

1. USA: Peter Barnes testifies to the US Ways and Means Committee on the benefits of paying carbon dividends to every American via a Sky Trust, www.onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2240

2. International: A worldwide agreement to secure drastic cuts, negotiate benefits to be shared equitably. Global Cap and Share proposal from FEASTA, www.capanddividend.org/?q=resources

 

Contraction & Convergence [C&C] - conceived in the 1990's by the Global Commons Institute to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas [ghg] concentration. To this end, global ghg emissions are decreased each year [contraction], while the international quota shares of this are predistributed by moving to equal per capita shares globally by an agreed date [convergence], www.gci.org.uk/briefings/ICE.pdf

 

Equity-Based Money System - system where creation and usage of money is based on, and determined by, existing commons assets (reserves), rather than assumed future assets (fractional reserves) based on debt and interest rates. Thomas H. Greco, Jr., "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization", 2009, or download an overview of his work: www.circ2.home.mindspring.com/Money_and_Debt_Part3_lo.PDF

 

Debt-Based Money System - the dominant economic paradigm, pervasive across the planet. Richard Greaves, The Negative Consequences Of The Debt-Based Money System, www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/negcon.html

 

Declaration of Respect for Life and Human Security across the Global Commons - Respect for the entire Sacred Web of Life: All human beings, all species, all flora and fauna, and the Earth, its elements and minerals, are required for survival and prosperity. The laws of cause and effect, energy, biodiversity and interspecies ethics have taught us to recognize and legitimate the essential rights of all of Earth's life forms. To this end, we declare our rights to the sustainability and security of this Global Commons, encompassing local, national, regional and global stability and the environmental and economic threats to our survival as societies, groups, and individuals. We have no need to petition government for entitlements or businesses for permissions to these rights - we claim them in partnership as our legal and moral birthrights and our responsibilities as Sovereign Beings on Earth, www.wiserearth.org/group/commonsgroup

 

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2020 Climate Leadership Campaign Website

 

Excerpts:

 

 

"... all of us must take responsibility for our climate, whether at the individual, community, company, institution, state, or national level"

 

"... our capacity to solve our greatest crisis that affords us our greatest opportunities for growth within the context of sustainability"

 

Our 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign has a number of components, detailed below, include:

1.  "2050 by 2020" Call to Action

            We are in a crisis because we are not implementing solutions already here.

2. Planning for 2020

Our climate crisis is a climate opportunity and that by solving global warming in a decisive manner we will also solve our financial and economic woes and generate social and economic growth.

 

1. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels

2. Implementing energy efficiencies

3. Creating clean technologies

4. Developing renewable energy

5. Cleaning up natural systems

6. Creating sustainable lifestyles

7. Establishing a culture of sustainable growth

 

3. Developing on line collaboration

...continue to share information and collaborate beyond the conference itself. What we are launching is a ten year initiative and thus must have a way to stay together, build momentum, and spread the word.  In this endeavor, we have partnered with the Gaiasoft corporation in the UK, which has pioneered a very sophisticated software to enable real time information sharing, active collaboration and project management.  We have also partnered with the Hague Center in the Netherlands.

4. Brazil 2020 Campaign

What is also unique about our over-all 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign is the role Brazil is playing. While virtually all the countries in the world either dither or vaguely commit themselves to reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, the country that seems poised to develop a national mobilization around climate leadership is Brazil. ... This is not to say that Brazil is already there. The government has shown little leadership on the issue of global warming and has tolerated, if not encouraged extensive clear cutting of the Amazon. There is also systemic exploitation of the general environment. But huge portions of Brazilian society are waking up ...

5. Timeline

A. Our August 4-7 State of the World Forum in Belo Horizonte served two purposes. It served as the actual launch of the global 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign with representatives from all over the world participating.  It also served as the launch of the Brazil 2020 mobilization.

 

B. The State of the World Forum in Washington, D.C. February 28 - March 3, 2010 will be the second step in the global campaign. The Washington event will again have two components: a global aspect around the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign and it will profile the national campaigns, like Brazil 2020, that are underway by that point, such as are beginning to take shape in Australia, Mexico, and the Netherlands. The over-all goal is to empower people everywhere, personally as well as collectively, to create greener and more resilient lifestyles and communities within a 2020 timeframe with the emphasis that all of us must take up climate leadership.

 

C. The State of the World Forum in Rio de Janeiro August 30 - September 3, 2010 will complete our first year of convenings. By then, we will have had a year to get things underway, build constituencies, and refine our message. The Brazil 2020 campaign will have developed along with other Climate Leadership Campaigns.