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You probably don't need to be told that the threat of climate change is real. If you're concerned about the issue, it's fairly easy to conjure the apocalyptic scenes of widespread drought, frequent deadly storms, mass hunger, and wars over natural resources like oil and water. Much harder to come by are examples of positive actions that can avert these disasters and ease the crisis in places where they are already in play. So let's skip the litany of catastrophes that await if global warming is not controlled. Instead, why not focus on some solutions? None are perfect or complete, but each offers a model of positive change that is more than theoretically possible -- it is already happening.
Many of these examples are small-scale and local. That's instructive because our best hope for sustainability -- in agriculture, industry, energy, community design, and government -- may lie in local, small-scale models like some of those presented here. It may seem as though large-scale problems require large-scale solutions. But most big institutions and processes are driven by the very people and ideas that have generated our global crisis. It's in the local and the small that the majority of people can exercise agency and decision-making power.
While we may not be looking to create large-scale models of every success story, we do need to replicate, adapt, and institutionalize what works for people, communities, and the environment. We need to link local initiatives and build on them by enacting policies that can sustain their momentum.
To overcome our global environmental crisis, we need solutions that are at once visionary and concrete. Here are some of the many innovations that are ours to develop.
1. What if women -- the majority of the world's farmers -- could resist the commercialization of agriculture and strengthen food-centered economies?
When the World Bank forced Kenyan farmers to start growing tea for export instead of food, Kenyan women took the lead in resisting those policies. Through their Green Belt Movement, the women planted over 40 million trees to offset deforestation caused by tea plantations and created initiatives to promote sustainable farming. Today, the Green Belt Movement includes hundreds of thousands of rural people across Africa.
2. What if poor rural families were given land so that they could grow their own food?
Through mass civil disobedience and political organizing, the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil succeeded in overturning government policy and securing 15 million acres of farmland for 250,000 families. The families' average income is now four times the minimum wage. Infant mortality is half the national average and many MST settlements are models of sustainable agriculture.
3. What if Indigenous Peoples' collective rights were recognized, ending the attack on those who have managed and maintained the world's most delicate ecosystems for millennia?
This year saw a major step in this direction with the passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration recognizes Indigenous Peoples' right to control their territories and resources, which hold much of the Earth's remaining biodiversity and half its untapped fossil fuels. Now, Indigenous women are working to ensure that governments honor the Declaration.
4. What if economic policies recognized that preserving the environment was more important than obtaining fossil fuels?
Ecuador's President Correa has announced that he will not drill for oil in Yasuni National Park. The decision marks the first time an oil-producing country has formally chosen to forgo oil exploration and shift its economy from oil dependency to more sustainable alternatives that protect ecosystems and Indigenous rights while averting more global carbon emissions.
5. What if governments valued people's happiness over economic growth?
The government of Bhutan has replaced the singular, narrow standard of Gross Domestic Product with a measure it calls Gross National Happiness. Bhutan is not a utopia, but it has made remarkable progress in building its economy while preserving the environment, limiting corruption, and supporting education and healthcare. Life expectancy in Bhutan has risen by 19 years since the "happiness index" was established in 1972.
See more stories tagged with: environment, water, women, climate change, global warming
Yifat Susskind is communications director of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization.
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