Key words: Canadian multiculturalism, diversity, the Canadian experience, immigration, symbiosis global society, symbiotical relationship, global ministries
Canadian society today includes a vast diversity of cultural heritages and racial groups. This multicultural diversity is a result of centuries of immigration. Truly, the struggle for the making of Canadian multiculturalism is the Canadian experience and the Canadian identity. Canadian multiculturalism is a symbiotical relationship between Canada, the Canadian people, and the world.

Indonesia — If, as you read this, you're tucking into a KitKat or dipping into a tube of Pringles, you might be interested to know that these products contain palm oil that is linked to the destruction of forests and peatlands in Indonesia. As our new report "How the palm oil industry is cooking the climate" shows, it's a recipe for disaster. The manufacturers of these products - Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever - are sourcing their palm oil from suppliers who aren't picky about where they site their plantations. As the volunteers at the Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra have seen, this includes tearing up areas of pristine forest then draining and burning the peatlands. Indonesia's peatlands act as huge carbon stores so replacing them with plantations them not only threatens the amazing biodiversity, including the rare Sumatran tiger, it also releases huge volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They only cover 0.1 per cent of the land on Earth, but thanks in part to the activities of the palm oil industry they contribute 4 per cent to global emissions. If expansion of the palm oil industry continues unabated, that figure can only rise. What's to be done? The Indonesian government should urgently introduce a moratorium on forest and peatland destruction, which will provide a chance to develop long-term solutions and prevent further emissions from deforestation. And our eyes are fixed firmly on the UN climate meeting in Bali next month, where the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol will be discussed. With deforestation accounting for up to a fifth of global emissions, including financing for forest protection as a core part of the plan to tackle climate change is essential.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) for the first time in its human development report has analysed the impact of climate change. The Human Development Report 2007-08 – Fighting climate change : Human solidarity in a divided world is released at a time when the climate change agenda is slowly gaining its entry in the WTO negotiations and the discussions on the review of the work under Kyoto Protocol is slated to take place in Bali in Indonesia in December, this year. The report documented the impact of climate change across the world also projected the likely scenario for the future. Making out a case for alternative sources of energy and fuels like bio-fuels, the UNDP report said that global trade has a major role to play. It said :

International trade could play a much larger role in the expanding Markets for alternative fuels. Brazil is more efficient than either the European Union or the United States in producing ethanol, Moreover, sugar-based ethanol is more efficient in cutting carbon emissions. The problem is that imports of Brazilian ethanol are restricted by high import tariffs. Removing these tariffs would generate gains not just for Brazil, but for climate change mitigation.

Negotiations on emissions limits for the post-2012 Kyoto Protocol commitment period can – and must – frame the global carbon budget. Saying so it noted most developed countries like Canada fell short of the targets. Though the European Union and UK have both embraced their targets, they are likely to fall far short of the goals set unless they move rapidly to put climate mitigation at the center of energy policy reform. Two major OECD countries like US and Australia are not bound by Kyoto Protocol. The report suggested two ways to mitigate climate change, one is to directly tax carbon dioxide emission and the other is cap-and-trade. Under cap-and-trade system, the government sets an overall emissions cap and issues tradable allowances that grant business the right to emit a set amount. Those who can reduce emissions more cheaply are able to sell allowances. One potential disadvantage of cap-and-trade is energy price instability while the potential advantage is environmental certainty, it noted. While the transition to climate protecting energy and life styles will have short-term costs, there may be economic benefits beyond what what is to be achieved by stabilizing temperatures. These benefits are likely to be realized through Keynesian and Schumpeterian mechanisms with new incentives for massive investment stimulating overall demand and creative destruction leading to innovation and productivity jumps in a wide array of sectors, the foreward to the report said. While government leadership is going to be essential in correcting the huge externality that is climate change, Markets and prices will have to be put to work so that private sector decisions can lead more naturally to optimal investment and production decisions.

More than 800 million poor people in India are bearing the burnt of climate change. This is partly due to the emissions caused by the few privileged rich people in the country, said a report released by Greenpeace India Society. The report on climate injustice entitled `Hiding Behind the Poor’ urged the government to apply the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” in the country to deal with the situation arising out of climate change. The study authored by G Ananathpadmanabhan, K Srinivas and Vinuta Gopal, however advocated India’s right to seek common but differentiated responsibilities at the global level. Referring to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, it said that India claims its right to development and thus its right to consume more energy from fossil fuels, asking developed nations to create the carbon space. Implicit in this is the notion that the developed countries need to decrease their carbon dioxide emissions drastically so that developing countries can still increase theirs without pushing the planet in the direction of climate change.” However, the study pointed out that over the last few decades, emissions of rapidly developing countries like India and China have surged. In fact, rankings by the WRI of top GHG emitters has US on top and developing countries such as China and India are ranked at No 2 and 5 respectively, making them amongst the world’s biggest emitters. The Greepeace India made an urgent plea to the government to consider the situation especially when the next round of negotiations for the second phase of Kyoto Protocol is scheduled to take place in Bali in Indonesia in December, this year. The Greenpeace India report further said that India was faced with two sharply contradictory realities. On the one hand there was a rapidly growing rich consumer class which has made the country the 12. The largest luxury market in the world and on the other hand India has become the home to more than 800 million poor people on the planet who are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. India’s per capita carbon dioxide emission has averaged to 1.67 tonne.

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon urged the national governments to do more to arrest the climate change. The report also offered blueprints to avert the worst catastrophes, he said and added that climate change imperils the most precious treasures of our planet. Ki-moon said that the report would be placed before the forthcoming UN framework on climate change meeting in Bali in Indonesia to review the progress made under the Kyoto Protocol. The report noted that observational evidence from all continents and most oceans showed that many natural systems were being affected by regional climate changes, particularly rise in temperatures. Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of the human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial value determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years.

A recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is a recognition of the Jews special entitlement, as eternal victims, to have a Jewish state. Such a test of supreme stake for Jews is the supreme criterion not only for racist policy making by the legislature but also for a racist constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court.The idea of a state that is first and foremost for the sake of Jews trumps even that basic law of Human Freedom and Dignity to which the Israeli Supreme Court pays so much lip service. Such constitutional interpretation would have to make the egalitarian principle equality of citizenship compatible with, and thus subservient to, the need to maintain the Jewish majority and character of the state. This of course constitutes a serious compromise of equality, translated into many individual manifestations of oppression and domination of those victims of such compromise--non-Jews-Arabs citizens of Israel. The demand is that Palestinians recognise Israel's entitlement to constitutionally entrench a system of racist basic laws and policies, differential immigration criteria for Jews and non-Jews, differential ownership and settlements rights, differential capital investments, differential investment in education, formal rules and informal conventions that differentiate the potential stakes of political participation, lame-duck academic freedom and debate.
The Jewish state could only come into being in May 1948 by ethnically cleansing most of the indigenous population -- 750000 of them. The fate of the descendants of those 750000 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 would continue to be discriminated under a two-state solutions. The judaisation of the state could only be effectively implemented by constantly internally displacing the population of many villages within the Israel state. The Right of Return of Palestinians means that Israel acknowledges and apologises for what it did in 1948. It does mean that Palestinian memory of the 1948 catastrophe, the Nakbah, is publicly revived in the Geography and collective memory of the polity. It does mean that Palestinians descendants would be allowed to come back to their villages. If this is not possible because there is a Jewish settlement there, they should be given the choice to found an alternative settlement nearby. This may mean some painful compulsory state purchase of agricultural lands that should be handed back to those who return. In cases when this is impossible they ought to be allowed the choice to settle in another place in the larger area or if not possible in another area in Palestine. It is clear that part of the realisation of that right of return would not only be a just the actual return, but also the assurance of equal stake and citizenship of all, Jews and non-Jews-Arabs after the return. A return would make the egalitarian claim by those who return even more difficult to conceal than currently with regard to Israel Arab second class citizens. What unites Israelis and many world Jews behind the call for the recognition of the right of a Jewish state to exist is their aversion for the possibility of living, as a minority, under conditions of equality of stake to all. But if Jews enjoys this equality in Canada why can not they support such equality in Palestine through giving full effect to the right of Return of Palestinians?

Humanity is rapidly turning the seas acid through the same pollution that causes global warming, the world’s governments and top scientists agreed yesterday. The process — thought to be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans for 20 million years — is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans and to make climate change worse. The warning is just one of a whole series of alarming conclusions in a new report published by the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scientists add that, as the seas become more acidic, they will be less able to absorb carbon dioxide, causing more of it to stay in the atmosphere to speed up global warming. Research is already uncovering some signs that the oceans’ ability to mop up the gas is diminishing. Environmentalists point out that the increasing acidification of the oceans would in itself provide ample reason to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and felling forests even if the dwindling band of skeptics were right and the gas was not warming up the planet.
Getting agreement on a new treaty to tackle climate change hangs on resolving an “after you, Claude” impasse between the United States and China, the two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. China insists - with other key developing countries like India and South Africa — that the United States must move first to clean up. It points out that, because of the disparity in populations, every American is responsible for emitting much more of the gas than each Chinese. But the US refuses to join any new treaty unless China also accepts restrictions.

If India wishes to be a respected member of the international community, it would need to uphold international law. This would entail working with other countries to outlaw weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, including Depleted Uranium weapons), as well as weapons that target civilians, such as land mines and cluster bombs, all of which violate international law by failing to confine their effects to military targets. Obviously this would imply halting the nuclear weaponisation programme in India.
It is easy to understand why the current US administration is so desperate to seal a strategic alliance with India, at a time when Pakistan, its traditional ally in South Asia, appears to be faltering. For India, however, the deal would be a disaster. Backing out of it under pressure from public opinion may be embarrassing, but not shameful; on the contrary, it is the only democratic option. Going through with it, on the other hand, would be detrimental to India in the multifarious ways outlined above. Clearly, the democratic option is both the wisest and the only honourable one.

The US Navy, with the assistance of British and Australian commandos, is building a permanent base to guard two oil-export platforms in Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. The military mission goes far beyond the patrols which US warships have conducted in the Persian Gulf for the past 30 years, in the name of keeping oil shipping lanes open. The Navy finds itself with an additional, much more specific role: playing security guard to Iraq’s offshore oil infrastructure. US, British and Australian military officers will control Iraq’s oil export shipping for the indefinite future.
Iraq is one of the least-explored countries among the major oil producers, and there are plans to explore for oil in the western desert (Anbar province) as well as the traditional oil-producing regions in the north and south. Iraq has 112 billion barrels in proven oil reserves, but UN estimates have placed its probable but as yet unproven reserves at 214 billion barrels, perhaps the world’s largest pool of untapped oil. The oil ministry reported last week that daily crude oil production in October hit a three-year high of 2.7 million barrels a day, of which 1.8 million barrels were exported. Hussein al-Shahristani, the oil minister, said that crude production should reach 3 million barrels daily by the end of the year.

Post-invasion non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan - a month on from the 6th anniversary of the war criminal US invasion and occupation on 7th October 2001 – now total an estimated 3.2 million. However comparisons with Occupied Iraq (1.5-2 million TOTAL post-invasion excess deaths, and 0.8-1.2 million or about 50% of these being VIOLENT deaths) suggest that the post-invasion violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan could total 3 million. The racist, war criminal US military state that they “don’t do body counts” of Indigenous victims but publicly-accessible UN demographic data allow us to estimate the carnage as outlined below.
With Racist Zionist-beholden Bush America and Racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel threatening to devastate remote, peaceful, non-invading, non-occupying, non-threatening, non-nuclear armed, democratic Iran (population 70 million, half of them KIDS and three quarters Women and Children), perhaps the best advice about how the World can stop these proto-Nazi, racist war-mongers is that given by outstanding CONSERVATIVE American economist, writer, academic and “Father of Reaganomics” Dr Paul Craig Roberts (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02122007.html ), QUOTE :

“Dump the Dollar! How the World can stop Bush … If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war ...The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time. It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran.”

Here are 11 solutions already being put into practice by innovative communities around the world. You probably don't need to be told that the threat of climate change is real. If you're concerned about the issue, it's fairly easy to conjure the apocalyptic scenes of widespread drought, frequent deadly storms, mass hunger, and wars over natural resources like oil and water. Much harder to come by are examples of positive actions that can avert these disasters and ease the crisis in places where they are already in play. So let's skip the litany of catastrophes that await if global warming is not controlled. Instead, why not focus on some solutions? None are perfect or complete, but each offers a model of positive change that is more than theoretically possible -- it is already happening. Many of these examples are small-scale and local. That's instructive because our best hope for sustainability -- in agriculture, industry, energy, community design, and government -- may lie in local, small-scale models like some of those presented here. It may seem as though large-scale problems require large-scale solutions. But most big institutions and processes are driven by the very people and ideas that have generated our global crisis. It's in the local and the small that the majority of people can exercise agency and decision-making power.

Dr. Barry is founder and President of Ecological Internet; provider of the largest, most used environmental portals on the Internet including the Climate Ark at
http://www.climateark.org/ and
http://EcoEarth.Info/ .
Earth Meanders is a series of ecological essays that are written in his personal capacity.