Presentation
Humanity is facing major environmental challenges: climate change, water, soil and air pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, desertification, etc. .. Each year humanity, and especially poor populations of the South, live terrible tragedies : famines, droughts, floods, etc. These global changes that degrade the natural environment, are occurring at a high speed, endangering human life as well as the life of thousands of animal and plant species.
All these alarm bells should had triggered a powerful ” eco -social” movement for radical shift, but the reality is quite different. There are some very important and very significant struggles against particular ecological damages, but they are insufficient if they forget to go to the roots of these environmental perturbations. Many environmentalist sectors have thought that the gradual contest could stop these damages and that the dominant economic system would have the ability to correct its own disorders. The reality is quite different : the ” capitalist answers ” , sustainable development, green capitalism or green economy, or technological advances are just dust in the ideological eyes and did nothing to slow the growth of environmental damage, for a main reason : this damage is the result of endless growth , and this growth is a necessity of the capitalist system to maintain its profits. Ignore the anti-ecological and anti-social essence of capitalism equals shutting the eyes to the magnitude of the crisis and to the way of solving it.
To confront all these challenges, the environmental and social movement (in the broadest sense) needs to be coordinated, at least at the European level, not only for campaigns on specific issues (shale gas exploitation, water privatization, climate change, etc. ..) but also in order to better coordinate the struggles, analyze all policies that concern us, learn from the experiences of each blossom, etc…
The association “Alternatives to ecological challenges” has been created to organize this meeting, on the initiative of the ecosocialist group of solidaritéS. We wish that this meeting would bring together in an extended way activists of collectives that are fighting for a society respectful of human beings and nature and who feel the need to radically change system. The future will be ecosocialist (including social ecology, ecofeminism, libertarian ecology, etc…) or there will be none. It is urgent to take the route together.
We invite you to sign the Call, to register for the meeting and get in touch with us.
Alternatives to ecological challenges association
Ecosocialist Meeting in Geneva, 24-26 January 2014