By Alvaro Valdebenito Sanhueza, Chile 10 month Development Volunteer team The environmental struggle It has been a custom to think that the struggle about climate change is related with a couple of environmentalist hippies or a small groups of eccentric young people that want to get attention with their new style of life, as the vegetarianism or th...

During the last days, the people of Chile have mobilised in the face of the perceived injustices in the conditions that exist to live in the country, considering that the state is not guaranteeing their basic rights even when Chile is considered one of the richest country in Latin America. Last Friday, the underground subway increased its price by ...

The IPCC report from 2018 stated that we have a window of 12 years to take drastic action to cut down our CO2 emissions. If we don't succeed, and the earth keeps warming more, the consequences will be extreme and difficult to live in and survive, for most people and for the rest of the natural world. There are already thousands of species that have gone extinct. According to science, we have 11 years left to prevent these extreme conditions. However, new reports are saying that the political steps to enable the cuts to carbon to take place will have...

  Speech from Chrystal Awards in Davos, January 2019 “ Thank you, Professor Klaus Schwab, Hilde Schwab and the World Economic Forum for this generous award and inviting me to Davos. I am quite literally from another age. I was born during the Holocene- the name given to the 12,000-year period of climatic stability that allowed humans to settle, farm and create civilisations. Those conditions fostered our unique minds, giving rise to international trade in ideas as well as goods making us the globally-connected species we are today. Much of what will be discussed here is the consequence of that...

We recently introduced our new green energy project at CICD Environmental Centre, in order to promote renewable energy in the school and also in nearby communities. Our world is on the edge of turmoil due to the limitless usage of fossil fuel, pesticides, and all sort of chemicals and waste as the final “product” of vast production. What can be possibly done to help Mother Nature carry this burden? We do organic gardening for instance; we are composting, recycling, planting trees around and customising our consumption. Further more our new green energy project has been...

By Diego Dusetti, from investigation trip with his team, October 2018 (picture credit: www.snipview.com ) This is the map of how Israel has been taking land from Palestine. As you can see from 1946 to 2000 the Palestinian area has been reducing a lot: everything started when a small group of Jewish people who went to Palestine for few days with the excuse to visit the country; they were staying in a Hotel that they never left. After them, soldiers started to come with the goal of colonizing the country. Since that moment until now, different conflicts have been happening...

3 of us from CICD went to Denmark to participate in the conference at DRH Lindersvold, our sister school. We arrived at Copenhagen Airport with high expectations and enthusiasm. As we (Alessia - 3 months Climate Activist Team (CAT), Vasile - 5 months Climate Activist Team, Tamas - Teacher of 3 months CAT) were picked up and taken to the school, it was clear we could look forward to a really busy and fruitful weekend. The program started on Saturday morning with Gert Tjoelker’s welcome speech. He greeted all the participants from CICD UK, Norway school, DNS Tvind, DRH Lindersvold,...

During the spring and summer 2018 a lot of things have happened here! Tamas who is in the lead of the Environmental Centre, explains about our visions and actions until now: At CICD we are continuously developing our Environmental Centre in order to contribute to diminishing the effects of Climate Change. Drawing attention to the changes and at the same time offering solutions decreasing it, is the main focus. Our tools are sustainability, stewardship and proper education. Multiple projects has been started up in our Environmental Centre this year: We are putting up our first solar panel and plan to...

"The Masque of Anarchy" is a British political poem written in 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley, following the Peterloo massacre of that year in Manchester. In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance. It was banned from printing for 30 years.     The Masque of Anarchy Here are some selected verses: "Ye who suffer woes untold, Or to feel, or to behold Your lost country bought and sold With a price of blood and gold. Let a vast assembly be, And with great solemnity Declare with measured words that...

Together we can do this We want to have a future that is open for us all where it is not the 1 % who has the power Never mind skin or religion, age or nationality We've more in common than divides us anyway! Chorus: Together we can do this and together we must fight Only together do we have a chance to really put things right The farmer in Malawi, her crops ruined by the drought The homeless in the food bank queue in Hull They're casualties of capitalism, struggling to survive and they've more in common than divides...

The future needs us now The future is around the corner It actually starts today It starts by you deciding That you want to have a say Stop listening to the news that fill you with hate and fear That make you feel powerless and despair Seek out the news about the hundreds of thousands of do’ers Because, you see, they are out there Stop listening to moaners and complainers Who will not do but talk and row We have not got time for it For the future needs us, and it needs us now Don’t let anyone tell you...

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land. The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine. If you add together all the people who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine – in Cape Town, Washington, D.C., New York, New Delhi, London, Dublin...

The world today is facing a deep crisis. Yet at the same time, the neo liberal growth model is still presented as the only possible option. The Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos exposes the myth and made it his life’s mission to build an epistemology of alternatives. "It’s time to open the doors and windows of our universities and let the wind of alternative knowledge blow through", says de Sousa. Boaventura de Sousa Santosis is a monument in the social sciences. He is head of department of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, but spends most of the...

Take my hand - and open your eyes    This is our land – and this is our skies! Take my hand - together we go   In this world - a lot to sow Seeds that come from deep in our hearts To sow right is a piece of art! Dirt and rubbish are flowing all over The flowers we plant can hardly cover We live in “one World” share the sea and the air Powerful humans think of profit and do not care! Life in our Oceans are under serious threat – Great “Pacific Plastic Garbage Patches” float in the...

Click here to enjoy the song on Youtube:   It was in the 1970s, the fuel crisis had begun The choices were presented to us as if we had none Leaders of industry said they could solve the problem By mastering the power of the radioactive atom Some folks in western Jutland got a notion in their heads They thought there might be something they could offer up instead A few hundred people gathered in a little place called Tvind And declared their will to harness the power of the wind   They said we're gonna build the biggest windmill...

Here yet another example of abuse of power from the world’s strongest nations. Disguised as a fight for saving democracy and for protecting the West against chemical warfare…. Click on the links below:  

This is a speech by Harold Pinter that he made in 2005, regarding the bombings by NATO of Serbia in 1999. This is an example of a vastly superior power (in this case NATO) abusing this power outside international law and United Nations. These bombings were presented by US and UK leaders at the time as “a defense of civilization” and as being “morally imperative” – but in fact, according to Harold Pinter and many others, this was a bandit action and a war crime. Click on the link below to read the full article: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/05/pint-m07.html Click on the link below...

The legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger died Monday at the age of 94. For nearly seven decades, Seeger was a musical and political icon who helped create the modern American folk music movement. We air highlights of two appearances by Seeger on Democracy Now!, including one of his last television interviews recorded just four months ago. Interspersed in the interviews, Seeger sings some of his classic songs, "We Shall Overcome," "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." He also talks about what has been described as his “defiant optimism.” "Realize that little things lead...

A major project is restoring fertility and hope to China's Loess Plateau, until recently one of the poorest regions of the country. Centuries of continuous agriculture have removed the trees and leaving land vulnerable to erosion from wind and rain. An area the size of Belgium, its once fertile soils have been washed away, leaving a blighted land scarred with deep ravines - and farmers scarcely able to make a living. According to soil scientist John D. Liu of the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP), it's a story repeated all over the world. For 15 years John has been following a...

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits believes he has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans — and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.   Click on the link below to watch his TED talk in Long Beach,  California from February 2009: http://www.ted.com/talks/willie_smits_restores_a_rainforest