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Open Future New Zealand

An Open Future has to be built, by us,
by our decisions and by our actions.

Humanity faces the greatest possible challenge. A political, technical and social revolution is happening. This process goes on, despite human efforts to control it. The ecological response of the planet to excessive human activity can be brutal. We seek to expand our prosperity, but we are probably already in an economic decline that we cannot stop.

We face a “closing future” that threatens our children with shorter lives, poverty and hardship. This was filmed at the Climate Summit in Durban 2011 (COP17).

"Get It Done": Urging Climate Justice at COP17

Presented by Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai

(5 minutes)

Published by: Democracy Now, 10 Dec 2011

[Edit 2024]Thirteen years later we've still done almost NOTHING.
That's the point we need to understand, since Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, in 1962 we've known that human activities are damaging the ecosystem.[/Edit] So, Greta Thunberg is right. We must do better. Politicians can't or won't help. Don't blame them, they are trapped too. The "system" is intended to generate, profits and political power, to accumulate wealth. Saving the Earth, or humanity is not the purpose of the system.

That system will self destruct, but not without resource wars, that far from protecting us, preserving our "freedom", will only accelerate the process.

Perhaps the source of our predicament is that we are focused on Climate Change as a problem, while in fact the key problem is Economic Overshoot, we have just committed too much of Planet Earth, to meet our human desires, not recognising that nature also needs time and space and diversity to sustain it's own health.

The fundamental problem is OVERSHOOT.

So what to do? You and I can make better personal and local choices. Be active in your community, be useful. Do that; live lightly on the Earth.

"We don't know what's going to happen.
We are all morally obliged to do what we can to protect the Earth and to protect future generations.
That's our business. Listen to the Earth, where-ever you are. Do what you have to do."

Dahl Jamail,
author of "Climate Code Red"