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<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"></SPAN> A collage of recent articles which attempt to put current and future geopolitics into perspective:</P>
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<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA">One can't help but applaud the recent UN instigated report "Resilient People, Resilient Planet" ... with this proviso from a recent Treehugger column:</SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"></SPAN> </P><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA">
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt"><STRONG><FONT size=2>By 2050 We're All Likely To Be Using Fewer Resources, Whether We Like It Or Not</FONT></STRONG></SPAN></P></SPAN>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><A href="http://www.treehugger.com/economics/by-2050-were-using-fewer-resource-whether-we-like-it-or-not-u-n-sustainable-development-report.html"><FONT size=3 face=Calibri>http://www.treehugger.com/economics/by-2050-were-using-fewer-resource-whether-we-like-it-or-not-u-n-sustainable-development-report.html</FONT></A></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 12pt; BACKGROUND: white; mso-margin-top-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><STRONG>Resilient People, Resilient Planet</STRONG> may not explicitly present a cornucopian vision of the future. Indeed, it presents a stark future, that we can choose to avoid, if we follow the presented policy recommendations. But I just wish somewhere it would mention that <A href="http://www.treehugger.com/culture/earth-overshoot-day-2011-is-september-27-by-mid-century-well-need-two-full-planets-for-us-all.html"><SPAN style="COLOR: #004276">if everyone keeps consuming resources like we have been that by 2050 we'd need 2.5 planets</SPAN></A>, and continuing to do so is recipe for ecological and civilizational collapse. If we don't avert course the vast majority of us will be consuming less whether we like it or not.</SPAN></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 12pt; BACKGROUND: white; mso-margin-top-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA">I think it's pertinent at this point to note that Canada, the US and Australia, while participating in the commissioning of the recently released</SPAN><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><FONT face=Verdana><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'HelveticaNeue-Light','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light"><FONT face=Verdana><SPAN><STRONG> International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science </STRONG></SPAN><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light"><STRONG>and Technology for Development</STRONG> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN><STRONG>(<SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light; mso-themecolor: text1">IAASTD) </SPAN></SPAN>Global Report, </STRONG></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sabon-Roman">initiated by the World Bank and </SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sabon-Roman">the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations</SPAN><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sabon-Roman">(FAO), subsequently panned the report. The report rightly placed emphasis on forms of agriculture other than industrial scale agriculture/factory farming as a solution to the world's impending sustainability and resilience challenges in food production, GHG emissions, energy consumption, unsustainable nitrate pollution, ocean acidification etc. After presumably conferring with their partners in Big Agribusiness, these global spoilers decided not to put their support behind the report.</SPAN></FONT></P></SPAN>
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<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal>And what about the world's corporate elite? Apparently they've been talking "Great Transformation" at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. </P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 15pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 13.2pt; BACKGROUND: white" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo was on hand to </SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: text1"><A href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16772738"><SPAN style="COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none; mso-themecolor: text1; text-underline: none">call bullshit</SPAN></A></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"> on the summit's "transformational" rhetoric, observing that "it's more about system recovery than system redesign.”</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 8pt"> <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA">So things like, for example, prosecuting financial fraud, redesigning incentives for corporate predation, and, well, reining in a capitalist system that is sucking the world's real economy dry, are just not on the table. Link to an Alternet article below:</SPAN></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><A href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/153941/how_male_global_elites_work_hard_to_fix_the_economy_-_in_their_favor/?page=entire">http://www.alternet.org/economy/153941/how_male_global_elites_work_hard_to_fix_the_economy_-_in_their_favor/?page=entire</A></SPAN></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">I could be wrong, but it's beginning to sound like some of the world's corporate elite are intent on steering the world on a radically different (and, I would argue, radically unsustainable) course for the foreseeable future. Acclaimed writer Chris Hedges sounds off below on the upcoming implications of the corporate response to global protests in support of greater democracy. Perhaps we should be taking the familiar corporate bromides we're being fed with a grain of reality salt:</SPAN></P></o:p></SPAN>
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<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 132%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><A href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/corporations_have_no_use_for_borders_20120130/">http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/corporations_have_no_use_for_borders_20120130/</A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 81%; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 3pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 81%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><A href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/category/hedges/"><SPAN style="COLOR: #990000; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none">Chris Hedges' Columns</SPAN></A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 15pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 12pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-outline-level: 2" class=MsoNormal><B><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia','serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><FONT size=2>Corporations Have No Use for Borders<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></B></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><EM>The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan. </EM></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><EM><o:p></o:p></EM></SPAN> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><EM>“I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat,” Canadian activist </EM><A href="http://conspiretoresist.wordpress.com/leah-henderson/%20"><B><SPAN style="COLOR: #990000; TEXT-DECORATION: none; text-underline: none"><EM>Leah Henderson</EM></SPAN></B></A><EM> wrote to fellow dissidents before being sent to Vanier prison in Milton, Ontario, to serve a 10-month sentence. “I want to tell you that you might be too. I want to tell you that this is something we need to prepare for. I want to tell you that the risk of incarceration alone should not determine our organizing.”</EM></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><EM><o:p></o:p></EM></SPAN> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; BACKGROUND: #f9f9f9; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA"><EM>“My skills and experience—as a facilitator, as a trainer, as a legal professional and as someone linking different communities and movements—were all targeted in this case, with the state trying to depict me as a ‘brainwasher’ and as a mastermind of mayhem, violence and destruction,” she went on. “During the week of the G8 & G20 summits, the police targeted legal observers, street medics and independent media. It is clear that the skills that make us strong, the alternatives that reduce our reliance on their systems and prefigure a new world, are the very things that they are most afraid of.”<o:p></o:p></EM></SPAN></P>
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