Words of the Decade

The Herald published an extra review of the decade today, continues tomorrow, I couldn't find it on their web site.

They offer three words which define, they claim, the past decade.

Terror - I've had an idea on terror and the so-called war against terror in Afghanistan. In stead of sending Marines and Paratroopers, why not send the Medical Crops and offer free medical care to the poor, and send the Catering Crops and feed the hungry, send the Royal Engineers and let's build hospitals, schools, roads, water treatment plants, sewage works. We won't win this war with guns, we need to win it with generosity and love.

Celebrity - Sad but true, people today want to be a celebrity. They used to want to be singers, film or TV stars, sports people - someone who does something and becomes well known, perhaps famous for doing something. Are we not all weary of those 'I want to be a celebrity will someone please notice me in this jungle' shows? We need to change expectations and ambitions away from notoriety for doing nothing into recognition for doing something.

Meltdown - as the Herald puts it, 'From dot-com bubble to credit crunch'. We all love to accuse the bankers of greed, and yes they were greedy. But, their greed fed off our greed and in turn fueled our greed in a cycle of ... sin. It is time to call our Adam Smith economics for what it really is, sin. Our whole economic system depends upon the greed and selfishness of consumers who always want more. The evil of this system is seen in the casual way millions of our sisters and brothers are condemned to the most abject poverty - to serve our greed! The last thing we need is to get this evil system working again, we need a new system, an economics of contentment, sufficiency, generosity, sharing.

I wonder what will change over the next ten years?

G20 Summit

Tearfund released the following press release after the conclusion of the G20 summit on Thursday. Please continue to pray for the poorest peoples of the world who are suffering most the effects of climate and economic crises.

G20: Progress on the economy, some hope for the poor but failure on climate
2 April 2009

The G20 today made some significant progress on funding for stimulus packages, tackling tax havens and shadow banking. However the reported 1.1 trillion dollar programme of investment pledged to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) needs to be looked at closely, according to the development NGO Tearfund.

It says that much of it is not new money and that far more will be targeted at the world’s richest countries and not the poorest.
Tearfund acknowledges that on the surface there will be several billions of new money for developing countries.

'We welcome the new money in this huge fiscal package but the G20 today missed a major opportunity to ensure that all new investments constitute a genuinely Green New Deal,' says Paul Cook, Tearfund’s Advocacy Director. 'With no clear commitments to ensure that stimulus money is invested in low carbon technology the world risks a recovery which is based on business as usual. It locks us into a path which will result in runaway climate change and devastating impacts for the world’s poorest community.'
The G20 communiqué ended with a weak reference to the need for a deal at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December. Whilst Tearfund welcome any reference to Copenhagen, the agency says G20 leaders failed to show real leadership and inject new life into UN talks by a more ambitious statement setting out the kind of deal they want to see in Copenhagen – one that 'truly drives down global carbon emissions and releases billions to help poor communities adapt to the impacts of climate change' adds Paul.

Tearfund works with communities that are frequently in the frontline of the devastating affects of climate change caused by global temperature rises. It says that there must be a definitive consensus to keep global warming below 2 degrees and that billions of dollars must be released to help the poorest countries adapt to extreme environmental conditions.