Eskom: clean energy, not coal! - Avaaz

In just days, the World Bank will vote on a proposed R29 billion loan to Eskom to build the fourth-largest coal plant in the world -- a climate disaster. At the same time, Eskom plans to effectively double electricity rates over the next three years. Big polluters are getting cut-rate electricity while ratepayers would be left to pay back this disastrous loan.

But the loan is not a done deal. Some creditors are having second thoughts, with the US expected to abstain and several European delegates reportedly on the fence. And we can tip the balance -- we just need one "no" vote to table the proposal since the Bank rarely proceeds with divisive votes!

While Eskom trumpets the plan, we can tell World Bank directors how we feel about coal. Let the Word Bank know that we don't want its dirty loan - click below to sign the petition today:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_eskom_coal_loan/?vl

The Bank is right to recognize South Africa's energy needs, but this loan would be putting money in the wrong place. Instead of dirty coal, South Africa needs energy efficiency and clean, renewable sources of power that people who most need it can actually afford. If this loan is approved, South Africans will pay for it several-fold -- in meteoric electricity rates, missed clean energy investments, polluted air, destroyed land, and the warming earth on which we live.

Dozens of South African environmental, community, church, labour, academic and women's organizations, representing a diverse, unified voice have mobilized to stop the loan. But every voice counts in these last days before the World Bank vote. Act now -- sign the petition opposing the loan:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_eskom_coal_loan/?vl

With hope,

Ben, Paul, Graziela, David, Alice, Ricken, and the whole Avaaz team

More information --

NGO Response to the World Bank panel report and Fact Sheet
http://www.groundwork.org.za/Publications/EskomFinalDocs/ResponsetotheWorldBankpanelreportandFactSheet.pdf

Original World Bank Fact Sheet
http://www.groundwork.org.za/Publications/EskomFinalDocs/WBEskomloanfactsheet.pdf

Eskom Tariff Hikes Slammed
http://allafrica.com/stories/201002250561.html

World Bank to Consider $4 Billion Loan Application From Eskom
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aGkhG0hBKlrE

SAfrica grants Eskom 24.8 pct price rise for 2010/11
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWEB199720100224?type=marketsNews

AVAAZ on climate change

The global climate wake-up call is here! Now all of us can get involved from home -- by making a phone-call to our own governments, or following this extraordinary day of action as it unfolds around the world -- plus, there’s still time to join a local event near you!

The press is reporting that global climate talks are in a shambles and the UN summit on Tuesday is the only hope to revive them. This Monday, we’re flooding media and government office phone lines worldwide with a wake up call for leaders to act -- with phone calls being made from over 2000 rallies, marches, meetings and "flashmobs" in public places across the planet, and by hundreds of thousands of us from home.

We've sourced government phone numbers for your country, with suggestions about what to say. You find all the information you need about the great Global Wake-Up Call events and phone-calls on the hub page at the link below, including photos, video and a liveblog for us to share our experiences of the day -- make a phone-call from home or work and tell us how it went at this link, or find an event near you to attend:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/sept21_hub/

Here are the numbers to call in your country (Please start calling after 12.18pm Monday local time):

President Jacob Zuma
(+27) 012-300 5200 (+27) 021 - 464 2100

President Assistant Private Secretary
(+27) 012-300 5226 / (+27) 021-464 2174/2181

Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Ms Buyelwa Patience Sonjica
(+27) 012-336 8733 / (+27) 021-464 1500

If you don't see any phone numbers here, or want to find different contact information, click on the link above.

Make at least one call, and if you don’t get through, it’s probably because we’re jamming the phone-lines and it’s working -- so just keep trying throughout the day, or switch to another number!

We suggest you say you’re calling as part of an international action called the Global Wake-Up call, asking leaders to commit to go to the Copenhagen climate meeting in December and agree on a global climate deal that is FAIR, AMBITIOUS and BINDING (“FAB”), and ask them to register your call and convey the message to the decision-maker.

Once you’ve made your call, visit the Wake-Up Hub at this link and post a short update on how it went in the live-blog on the [right] of the page -- you can also check out other people’s experiences there, and see photos and video from the wake-up call events as they are posted:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/sept21_hub/

If you’d like to join a wake-up call event or flashmob in a public place near you, there may still be time -- click the link above and then click on the global map to find events wherever we are.

In recent weeks, we've stunned national governments, heads of state and political parties with sudden barrages of thousands of calls. These phonecalls tie up staff and shut down phone lines -- but they are never missed, and time after time, we're finding, they work. 14,000 calls reversed the Brazilian President's position on a new climate protection law, 3,000 calls persuaded the German Chancellor's party to engage with climate groups, just a few hundred calls got the attention of top advisors to French President Sarkozy.

We have just 78 days left until the final UN meeting in Copenhagen, where we'll succeed or fail to get an historic global treaty to place binding global limits on carbon pollution, stop a climate catastrophe and unleash a new clean and green economy. Our leaders are nowhere near success, they're not even planning on going to Copenhagen.

Let's send them a wake up call they won't forget. Use your phone now, and let’s share our worldwide experiences of this day on the hub page:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/sept21_hub/

With hope and determination,

Brett, Paul, Iain, Graziela, Ricken, Alice, Ben, Paula, Pascal, Luis, Benji, and the rest of the Avaaz team

PS - an amazing diversity of wake up call events are happening on Monday, from a drumming circle in Guatemala to a coastal ceremony in French Polynesia to a march in Kinshasa. But one exciting global event is the premiere of the new climate change film The Age of Stupid. Images and videos from the Global Wake-Up Call events will be combined, in a matter of hours, into a short movie to be shown in 700 satellite-linked cinemas at the Age of Stupid's global premiere. The screenings are one night only, September 21 in the US and Sept 22 in over 40 other countries. You can find screenings near you along with all our global wake up call events. For more information about the Age of Stupid movie (and to buy tickets), see: http://www.ageofstupid.net

Reference

The New York Times reports that climate talks are "badly stalled", with a breakthrough needed this week at the UN heads of state summit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/science/earth/20nations.html?hp

ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages! You can also follow Avaaz on Twitter!

Mexican flu, swine flu origins

From Avaaz.org

No-one yet knows whether swine flu will become a global pandemic, but it is becoming clear where it came from – most likely a giant pig factory farm run by an American multinational corporation in Veracruz, Mexico.(1)

These factory farms are disgusting and dangerous, and they're rapidly multiplying. Thousands of pigs are brutally crammed into dirty warehouses and sprayed with a cocktail of drugs -- posing a health risk to more than just our food -- they and their manure lagoons create the perfect conditions to breed dangerous new viruses like swine flu. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) must investigate and develop regulations for these farms to protect global health.

Big agrobusiness will try to obstruct and scuttle any attempts at reform, so we need a massive outcry that health authorities can't ignore. Sign the petition below for investigation and regulation of factory farms and tell your friends and family and we will deliver it to the UN agencies. If we reach 200,000 signatures we will deliver it to the WHO in Geneva with a herd of cardboard pigs. For every 1000 petition signatures we will add a pig to the herd:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic

Last week the flu was all that we talked about -- Mexico has been nearly paralysed and across the world leaders halted air travel, banned pork imports and initiated drastic controls to mitigate the spreading virus. As the threat shows signs of subsiding the question becomes where it came from and how we stop another outbreak.

Smithfield Corporation, the largest pig producer in the world whose farm is being fingered as the source of the H1N1 outbreak, denies any connection between their pigs and the flu and big agrobusiness worldwide pays huge sums of money for research to argue that biosafety is ensured in industrial hog production. But the WHO has been saying for years that 'a new pandemic is inevitable'(2) and experts from the European Commission and the FAO have cautioned that the rapid move from small holdings to industrial pig production is in fact increasing the risk of development and transmission of disease epidemics. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that scientists still do not know the extent that infectious compounds produced in factory farms affect human health.(3)

Studies abound of the horrific conditions endured by pigs in concentrated large-scale operations, and the devastating economic impact on small farmer communities of bloated large-scale operations.(4) Smithfield itself has already been fined $12.6m and is currently under another federal investigation in the US for toxic environmental damage from pig excrement lakes.(5)

But even with all of this damaging evidence, a combination of increased global meat consumption and a powerful industry motivated by profit at the cost of human health, means that instead of being shut down - these sickening factory farm operations are propagating around the world and we are subsidising them (6). In the wake of this swine flu threat, let's hold industrial pig producers to account. Sign the petition for investigation and regulation:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic

If we resolve this global health crisis boldly by reassessing our food consumption and production, and urgently calling for an inquiry into the impact of factory farms on human health, we could put in place tough farm practice rules that will save the global population from future animal borne lethal pandemics.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic

in hope,

Alice, Pascal, Graziela, Paul, Brett, Ben, Ricken, Iain, Paula, Luis, Raj, Veronique, Milena, Margaret, Taren and the whole Avaaz team

(1) Biosurveillance report tracing the disease to the Smithfields farm: http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html
Reports on the link between the Mexican factory farm and the flu:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fg-mexico-flu28-2009apr28,0,1701782.story

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=can-swine-flu-be-blamed-on-industri-09-05-01

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227063.800-swine-flu-the-predictable-pandemic.html?full=true

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/swine-flu-outbreak----nat_b_191408.html

(2) WHO pandemic information
http://www.euro.who.int/influenza/20080618_19

(3) FAO, EC and CDC reports on the risks of industrial farming on public health
FAO and CIWF and http://www.cdc.gov/cafos/about.htm

(4) CIWF and PETA video reports of the disgusting conditions for animals in factory farms and the disease ridden manure swamps:
CIWF and PETA

(5) Reports on Smithfield's animal welfare and environmental damage
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/press/releases/new-report-highlights-the-trouble-with-smithfield-article03132008

http://avaazimages.s3.amazonaws.com/SmithfieldJan08.pdf

(6) Reports on UK tax payers subsidising factory farms http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/5225298/Taxpayers-forking-out-700-million-for-factory-farming-in-England.html

Critical climate change meeting

Afrom Avaaz.org:

Pressure is rising as critical global climate negotiations near an end this week. Germany, Poland and Italy had been the main blockers, but now Poland has begun to waver! This leaves just Germany and Italy left standing in the way of the strong European leadership that's essential to secure us all a global deal.

Germany is the key – Chancellor Merkel is normally a climate champion, but has caved to industry, fearing for German jobs. She needs to hear from us that a Green Recovery is the answer to both our climate and our economic crises.

Merkel cares a great deal about her international reputation, which is why Avaaz has delivered our 150,000-strong petition and protested at her international meetings with the Poles. But now for the punch: an Avaaz commissioned opinion poll which reveals that 85% of Merkel’s own people are calling for her to show leadership in securing a strong climate deal. Together, we can help push Merkel over the edge -- follow this link to leave her a quick message encouraging her to do the smart thing for the environment and the economy:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/merkel_lead_on_climate

The growing Avaaz petition, our joint demonstrations, the Fossil of the Day Awards (delivered to the climate offenders of the day) and our advocacy meetings with leaders are starting to shift climate positions at the global climate talks in Poznan. New heroes are emerging, such as the group of small island states whose revolutionary climate solutions we have supported before. The umbrella group for developing countries, the "G77", and China are also now standing firm to the Europeans.