If you want to know what you can do to help save the world, to help build a better future, there are glimmers of hope. You can join Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and you can support AVAAZ.
They are a force for positive action. They harness the energy and zealism of all those who care about the destruction of the planet.
There is hope. We can make a difference. Support AVAAZ.
Dear Avaazers,
Amidst all the darknesses of our world, Avaaz’s light is shining brightly — we’ve had 4 huge wins in the past few weeks!
– We WON governments agreeing to protect 30% of our oceans!!
– We ENDED the career of Brazil’s corruption king!!
– We helped CREATE the world’s largest marine reserve in the Pacific!!
– We finally STOPPED Monsanto’s mega-plant in Argentina for good!!
In just a few weeks, while we’ve also been flat out on stopping Trump! This movement is getting out of control — in a good way. Let’s keep it up! Here’s more on each win:
Everyone thought our demand of 30% was crazy, except the scientists. But armed with the voices of a million Avaazers, our community stepped into the negotiations and out-maneuvered major blockers like Japan. By standing with Palau, meeting directly with key swing countries, and winning press to our side WE WON big … with 89% of the vote!
The Head of the Palau delegation said – “We were heartened to have 1 million Avaaz members from around the world stand with us.”
Insiders and even journalists warned us that Congress President Eduardo Cunha was too powerful to oust. But we refused to be cowed — over 1.3 million of us demanded a national Ethics Committee vote to fire Cunha. And when his allies rallied to block the vote we hit back — delivering our petition directly to Congress, flooding key swing voters with phone calls, direct messages and on social media, including focusing on officials shielding Cunha. He was forced to resign and then barred from running for office for eight years! And just today, he was arrested!!
Anti-corruption champion MP Chico Alencar told us: “If it hadn’t been for public pressure, we wouldn’t have won. I want to thank and congratulate you.”
Our oceans are in serious trouble, so when we heard that President Obama was weighing whether to create a *giant* marine reserve in Hawaii, a million of us signed a petition and thousands wrote messages. To further tip Obama’s decision we delivered our messages to key meetings, organised colourful protests with kids that helped win over the press, and worked to remove other blockers from Obama’s path. In days the President signed the reserve into law.
The Director of the Global Ocean Legacy project, Matt Rand, said the “1.3 million people who signed and the tens of thousands that sent messages had their voices heard at the White House, and were a big part of getting this done.”
Chemical Giant Monsanto had locked in a high-level deal to build a mega factory in Argentina – but local communities decided to fight it, so we joined forces. Together we went door-to-door, ran polls showing massive local opposition, helped elect a city council opposed to the deal, met Monsanto in court, and amplified the local movement with a million voices worldwide. Monsanto was forced to abandon the project.
Local Malvinas organizer Celina Molina said: “Today we celebrate the victory of our long battle we shared with the global movement Avaaz…. Monsanto has only one option: to go back home.”
If you can’t get enough of this stuff, check out our top ten all time wins, and 100 favorite highlights of Avaaz campaigning. It’s a smorgasborg of people-powered achievement.
Together, we’re not just standing up to forces of hate and division in our world, we’re also driving forward a beautiful vision of hope, step by step building the world most people everywhere want. Because in the end, only love and hope can defeat hate.
With loads of love and appreciation for this amazing movement,
Ricken, with Alice, Ben, Emma, Pascal, Mais, Camille, Dan, Mike and the whole Avaaz team
Monsanto is a giant company with business in a multitude of sectors. They’re not all bad.
They are the firm who design and manufacture loads of sophisticated automated medical equipment that’s responsible for saving countless lives. I’ve found that not too many people know this.
Yes but it is the more dubious side of their business that is cause for concern. They are looking to create monopolies and control a lot of seed production that creates problems. Some of the GM side is worrying too though I am not a wholesale oppose of GM. I think there is a lot of good can come out of it. If they were to clean up their act they could be OK.
I know all about them. I made a packet with their shares around 2000, having invested in their medical division.
So what’s your take on the agricultural side?
Well, if it feeds the starving, what’s the complaint?
It’s the off-shoot stuff that’s a problem – chemical deposits entering fresh water supplies and oceans.
They need to be a heck of a lot more careful where they do this stuff. For instance, it’s not as if the US is short of a bit of spartan land where the environmental effects wouldn’t be anywhere near as prevalent.
Well feeding the starving is the big hope for GM. That is the positive. The negative is how it does that. It controls the seed distribution and produces hybrids so that seed cannot be kept from the crop to sow the next year – fresh has to be bought creating a monopoly they can exploit. They enable excessive use of pesticide and herbicide which plays havoc with the environment (by producing resistant hybrids) and use practices that could cause genetic cross-ver into other plants. They seem too intent on creating profit to worry about the risks or exploitation. It seems to me that if they were a tad more responsible they could be a power for good.
I’ve eaten GM tomatoes, there’s no seeds in them!
Whomever let this stuff out into general farming systems needs shooting. It has to be done under strict control and there’s really no need for any dangers of cross-overs if the land and crop grown is kept completely separate from anything else, ie, the middle of nowhere.
It’s not as widespread a practice as many people seem to think it is. Most parts of the world get at least 3-4 natural growth crops a year – it’s mainly the upper half of the northern hemisphere where the weather’s lousy that doesn’t.
Even southern Italy, Greece, Cyprus etc get 4 crops a year.
That must be weird! I can’t imagine a tomato with no seeds.
There’s always a risk of cross-over. Transmigration of genes is only now beginning to be understood. But the benefits are enormous. It just needs to be handled with care and strict isolation. That’s what they should have done – too much rush.
Tasted no different, same texture, juice etc.
That’s my thoughts on this GM stuff – do it properly and there shouldn’t be any problems.
Seems we’ve got intelligent science yet no common sense – again!
GM shouldn’t taste different. They are merely introducing specific genes into the genome to do certain jobs. As with a lot of things (like nuclear energy or fracking) they take good science, cut corners or rush it and bodge things up. The end result makes people very skeptical of science. It’s not the science though – it’s the way it is done.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
There are things we can do to protect the environment. Support AVAAZ and support Labour. Put the environment first. Negotiate an exit for Europe that puts the environment first. All nature needs us! Don’t allow the Tories to trash the country for profit.