Peace Geek on Climate Change (Blog Action Day '09)

This year's blog action day topic is Climate Change. The idea is to get as many bloggers as possible from around the world to share opinions on Climate Change and encourage our leaders to prioritize this issue and take action. Check out http://www.blogactionday.org for more information.

I've been reading "Hot, Flat and Crowded" recently and getting charged up (pun intended) about the idea of cheap, clean electrons. It sounds rather obvious that the time for debate is long past us and every moment we spend not developing and implementing a systemic solution for reducing atmospheric CO2 levels is going to make the job that much more difficult, if not impossible, done the road. I haven't finished the book, so I won't recommend it just yet.

The author - Thomas Friedman - makes enough assumptions of his own to enable people to poke holes in his arguments. One "given" that I'm struggling with is the idea that growth is a necessary condition for lifting people out of poverty. The struggle I'm having is a lack of distinction between growth to support peoples' needs versus growth to support peoples' wants. If I cut my consumption in half (since 50% of my consumption is to satisfy wants, not needs) and use that other half to meet the genuine needs of two people living in poverty, then we have zero growth but still help get people out of poverty. I still need to think through this. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'm all ears (or eyes).

The implications for peace are that people who are not living in a state of despair are less likely to resort to violence to have their basic needs met. If the predictions of climate change impacts are anywhere near accurate, the competition for resources and violent struggle for existence will only increase if we don't address the problem sooner rather than later.

Peace,
Peace Geek

Canada introduces Department of Peace legislation!

Hot off the presses is the following article from the Vancouver Sun about how the Canadian lawmakers are pursuing the idea of creating a Department of Peace. Way to go, Canada! Now, what can the rest of us do to help make this happen? We can start by sending MP Bill Siksay a big "THANK YOU!" at Siksay.B@parl.gc.ca or visit his web page. Read the text of bill C-447 here.

OTTAWA — A federal New Democrat has teamed up with a Liberal to propose the creation of an army of peace professionals within a new federal department to resolve violent conflicts within Canada and around the world.

The idea was introduced through new legislation tabled Thursday by NDP MP Bill Siksay, seconded by Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis. Siksay said the proposed department of peace could change the role of the Canadian military, but not necessarily replace it.

"In a utopian vision of our world, maybe that will be possible some day but certainly we see this as an area that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves," said Siksay at a news conference.

"The inclination to seek a non-violent solution to conflict isn't always the first action that people take in our society and around the world."

Siksay's private member's bill was modelled after a proposal by an advocacy group that suggests Canada needs more trained experts to promote peace in its diplomatic corps as well as in the military.

Bill Bhaneja, a co-chair of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, said the proposed department could employ hundreds of professionals who would promote a culture of peace in the government's policies and actions, as well as help to resolve conflicts in a non-violent way.

"These peace professionals would be different from the diplomats and from the soldiers," said Bhaneja. "Right now we have suits and boots on the ground, but we don't have people who are trained to resolve conflicts at the cutting edge where the problem is taking place."

He said his group has also submitted its proposals to the Harper government which replied it was satisfied with existing policies and practices.

Siksay said it was unlikely that the legislation and its proposals would get adopted in the near future in Parliament since it is a private member's bill. Government legislation gets priority for debates in Parliament while opposition bills are debated in order based on a random draw.

But Bhaneja said he was encouraged by recent meetings with Liberals and New Democrats who appear to be more interested by the establishment of a ministry of peace, following other countries such as Nepal, Solomon Islands and Costa Rica.

It's Not Rocket Science

(Inspired by Toothpaste For Dinner)

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Peace Studies Take Off

(By Dana Micucci, New York Times)

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico — The Bradbury Science Museum in this drab high-desert town studded with old army barracks houses life-size replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man, chilling reminders of the human capacity for unspeakable violence. The cutely named atomic bombs, which were invented here, were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

Less than 100 miles away, or 160 kilometers, in Montezuma, New Mexico, lies United World College of the American West (UWC-USA), a two-year pre-university residential school offering an international baccalaureate diploma, with a special emphasis on peace studies and conflict resolution.

One of twelve UWC campuses worldwide and the only one in the United States, the school admits about 200 students a year, aged 16 to 19, from more than 80 countries, with the aim of fostering respect for diverse cultural, social and religious backgrounds.

Building upon its commitment to conflict-resolution training, UWC-USA established the Bartos Institute for Constructive Engagement of Conflict in 2000 to expand students' skills in managing and reducing interpersonal and inter-group conflicts locally and globally.

Renata Dwan of Ireland, a 1988 UWC-USA graduate who now works in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations, says her education at UWC was instrumental in teaching her how to live peacefully in a community of diverse cultures.

"Creating an environment where peace can thrive is, at the most basic level, about respecting and accepting others and realizing how subjective our perceptions are," Dwan said.

Please visit the New York Times to read the remainder of the article...

Veterans For Peace Support the Youth PROMISE Act

At the recent Veterans for Peace convention in College Park, Maryland, Jim Ramelis introduced a resolution for VFP to support the Youth PROMISE act - and it was approved! The below text is from the VFP website:

"YOUTH PROMISE ACT

Whereas Veterans for Peace affirms its responsibility to serve the cause of world peace in its "Statement of Purpose", and

Whereas a bill known as "The Youth Promise Act " has been introduced in the legislature as House of Representatives Bill 1064 and Senate Bill 435 that proposes to reduce violence among our youth in targeted neighborhoods and areas. Violence will be reduced through prevention in positive ways such as after school programs, sports and community activities, by implementing the best policy recommendations from crime policy makers, researchers, practitioners, analysts, and law enforcement officials from across the political spectrum concerning evidence- and research-based strategies to reduce gang violence and crime, and

Whereas many of the neighborhoods where violence is rampant are the same neighborhoods that have Junior R.O.T.C. programs in the schools and are heavily targeted by recruiters, and

Whereas many at-risk youth turn to military service because they have limited options for productive citizenship, and

Whereas the Youth Promise Act seeks to provide at-risk youth with alternative life skills,

Therefore Be It Resolved that Veterans for Peace hereby endorses the Youth Promise Act and strongly encourages chapters and individual members to lobby Congress to request co-sponsor the Youth Promise act (currently H.R.1064 and S.435 in the 111th Congress)

Approved at the 2009 VFP national convention"

Congratulations, Jim, and thanks for helping build a culture of peace!

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Walter Cronkite with Dennis Kucinich on the Department of Peace Idea

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"Corrections" System So Wrong

(Guest post by Kendra Mon)

Correcting California's so-called “corrections” system could reduce budget woes and help people turn their lives around. In the last 20 years our prison population tripled. We waste billions of dollars yearly, locking up thousands of nonviolent drug offenders though community-based treatment is cheaper and actually gets people off drugs. We throw away hundreds of millions of dollars annually on the largest, most dysfunctional death penalty system in the country even though permanent imprisonment is cheaper and no less effective. We pay over $380 million every year to lock up more than 1,600 young people in youth prisons, even though local programs like Sonoma County's Restorative Resources are cheaper and more effective.

The Youth Promise Act is Congressional legislation that could help turn our youth corrections system around. House bill H.R.1064 and companion Senate bill S.435 would provide funding to local community councils to spend on effective programs that reduce youth crime, violence and incarceration. This bill has remarkable bipartisan support as well as endorsement by officials and organizations concerned with law enforcement, civil rights, education, and the U.S. Congress of Mayors. The knowledge about effective rehabilitation programs exists. It's a crime not to use it to save lives and taxpayer dollars.

To learn more about the Youth PROMISE act and send your Representative and Senators a letter asking for their support, visit Change.org and sign the e-mail petition.

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Aim4Peace - A Program to Help Stem Inner-City Violence

Amidst the non-stop media reminders that we live in a violent society, every once in awhile comes a story that offers an amount of hope. One such story is about the work of a group called Aim4Peace in Kansas City, Missouri. Aim4Peace recruits and trains ex-convicts and puts them to work to prevent future convicts. The street-savvy Aim4Peace "violence interrupters" are charged with identifying hot spots in the most violent neighborhoods and defusing the situation before violence can erupt.

By their own count, Aim4Peace mediators have been able to resolve 22 potentially-violent conflicts in 2008, and at least 14 so far in 2009. The Kansas City police department is crediting Aim4Peace with reducing violence in the East Side to the point where it no longer is the most violent area of the city. According to Maj. Anthony Ell, commander of the Kansas City Police Department's violent crimes division,

"The work they're doing in that area is having an impact."

The Aim4Peace program is modeled along the lines of Chicago's CeaseFire project, which sends former gang members and ex-convicts to the streets to stop violence before it starts. The program is rooted in the theory that violence is a public health concern akin to diseases or viruses.

Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist who founded CeaseFire, said training people to control violence is no different from teaching them to control tuberculosis or AIDS. Says Dr. Slutkin:

"Violence behaves like every other epidemic does. One event leads to another just like every other epidemic."

Of course, programs like Aim4Peace and CeaseFire require funding to sustain their positive impact. In these difficult economic times where municipalities are cutting budgets, proactive pro-peace programs are at greater risk of being cut. This makes it even more important to pass federal legislation such as H.R. 1064 - the Youth PROMISE act - to help get the most at-risk communities the funding they need to keep programs like Aim4Peace alive. Visit Change.org to learn more about H.R. 1064 and send a letter to your elected officials urging their support of the Youth PROMISE act.

Congratulations to the forward thinking leadership in Kansas City and to the people of Aim4Peace for their outstanding success!

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