Sombath Somphone: Your spirit is also in Bolivia

Publicado el por Admin

Today I found this letter. I looked for it because it’s December and on the 15th of December of 2012, Sombath Somphone was abducted in Vientiane. After five years, the Lao Government still has not clarified his disappearance.

Dear Sombath

Today (May 30 2015) I left Asia. Among my memories yours is for sure the most brief and none the less the most deepest. We meet very shortly in Vientiane during the Asia Europe Peoples Forum in 2012 and we shacked hands saying that we would continue chatting. Nonetheless, that never happened. Few months later you were last seen going into a police station and since then the authorities of Laos have never giving an explanation of what happened to you. Continúa leyendo Sombath Somphone: Your spirit is also in Bolivia

TIPNIS: the saga for the rights of nature and indigenous people

Publicado el por Admin

by Pablo Solón

[Versión en español] The story of TIPNIS is a story of dignity, struggle, glory, betrayal, heroism, repression, victory and renewed betrayal against the rights of Mother Earth and of indigenous people. Continúa leyendo TIPNIS: the saga for the rights of nature and indigenous people

As water scarcity deepens across Latin America, political instability grows

Publicado el por Administrador
Ecuadorians clash with police 30km from Quito in 2010 in a protest over proposed water privatisation. Photograph: Pablo Cozzaglio/AFP/Getty Images

[John Vidal, The Guardian, 01/03/2017]

In Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador disputes over water shortages are part of a wider fight for equal access and shared responsibility. Continúa leyendo As water scarcity deepens across Latin America, political instability grows

From Paris with love for lake Poopó

Publicado el por Admin

By Pablo Solón

Lake Poopó becomes a desert while in Paris, governments conclude an agreement they call “historic” to address climate change. Will the Paris Agreement save over 125,000 lakes that are in danger of disappearing in the world due to climate change?

08 MujerTemp1947The second largest lake in Bolivia did not disappear by magic. The causes of their demise are many and complex, but among them is the rise in temperature and increased frequency of natural disasters like El Niño caused by climate change. The lake Poopó that had an expanse of 2,337 km2 and a depth of 2.5 meters, is now a desert with a few puddles in the middle with no more than 30 centimeters of water depth. Continúa leyendo From Paris with love for lake Poopó

Art 3ter. New Carbon Markets under the name of Sustainable Development

Publicado el por Admin

By Pablo Solón 

A draft climate agreement and decision with 48 pages and 939 brackets has been presented to the ministers in Paris on Saturday 5th of December. Many things can be said about this text. For example, the words “fossil fuels” don’t appear once. There is no proposal [in brackets] to limit coal, oil or gas extraction in the coming years, and no proposal to halt deforestation. Also, as was expected, no text [in brackets] from any country addresses the issue that current INDCs (Intended Nationally Determine Contributions) will actually increased the greenhouse gas emissions gap from a surplus of 12 Gt CO2e in 2020 to around 25 Gt CO2e by 2030. Continúa leyendo Art 3ter. New Carbon Markets under the name of Sustainable Development

When the Walls speak

Publicado el por Admin

El Cristo de la Higuera - FragmentoWalter Solón Romero Gonzales (1923-1999) was a master Bolivian muralist that lived with the obsession to make the walls speak, embrace and dream. He painted walls and canvas to refresh the memory, unhide the truth and light up rebel spirits.

Today to address climate change we must use all our creativity, humor and imagination to challenge the pragmatism that erodes human beings. These are difficult times in which capital can capture almost every idea and transformed in its opposite like it has happened with the “green economy” concept. That is why it is so important to go from the discourse to the practice and to link the local with the galobal to reveal the contradictions of this system with real alternatives.

In this task the Fundación Solón aims to contribute combining art with utopia. Continúa leyendo When the Walls speak

Another Tomorrow is possible!

Publicado el por Admin

El Encuentro de la Diversidad

The future is not written. It depends on what we do now. What happens at COP 21 is the result of a long process through which big corporations have captured governments and climate negotiations at the United Nations. The Paris agreement is a good deal for politicians that seek popularity and re-election because it does not force them to do anything. For the extractive industries it is also a good deal because they can continue with business as usual and benefit from new carbon markets like REDD+, Climate Smart Agriculture, CDM+, land use change offsets, and also from false technologies like Carbon Capture and Storage, Bioenergy and geoengineering. Continúa leyendo Another Tomorrow is possible!

COP21: A new disguise for an old agreement

Publicado el por Admin

[Pablo Solón] The Climate Paris Agreement carries with it the shadow of the Cancun Agreement and like it, will fail. Both Agreements are based on voluntary pledges that prioritized the interests of polluting corporations and governments rather than the needs of humanity and life on Earth.

Ayer fue por la fe, hoy es por la democraciaTo limit the temperature increase to 2°C, the Cancun Agreement should have guaranteed the reduction of annual emissions of greenhouse gases to 44 Gt of CO2e by 2020. But with the pledges from Cancun we will instead be at 56 GtCO2e by 2020. Continúa leyendo COP21: A new disguise for an old agreement

43 years ago, he was 22: The struggle to find Jó and to bring justice continues

Publicado el por FS

Tunup@ Nº 02/2015 E 

#Jo43años (version en español)

On February 2, 1972, 43 years ago today, José Carlos Trujillo Oroza, was last seen by his mother Gladys Oroza de Solón, and would never be found again. He had only been 22 years old. Jó, as he was fondly called by his loved ones, had been in the infamous State prison called “El Pari” for 41 days. He had been detained by the members of the Political Control Department (DOP) of the city of Santa Cruz. He was brutally tortured, but thinking of the pain it would cause his mother, who would visit him regularly, he had tried unsuccessfully to hide his grotesque wounds from her. Jó was a young activist full of hopes and dreams inspired by Che Guevara. This was very dangerous in times of the cruel and brutal dictatorship of Hugo Banzer Suarez.  And in the blink of an eye, Jó was gone, disappeared from within the steel bars he was imprisoned in. Two other prisoners disappeared with him that fateful day, Carlos López Adrián and Alfonso Toledo Rosado. Continúa leyendo 43 years ago, he was 22: The struggle to find Jó and to bring justice continues