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	The status quo is not working for most people by Uffe Elbæk Denmark   We live in an era of inequality and face catastrophic climate change. But there is an alternative, says Danish politician Uffe Elbæk.   We live in challenging times. Our settled ways of life are deteriorating; the systems we have built and the ecosystems we rely on are collapsing.   The very limits of the planet we inhabit are being tested in front of our eyes; not just by corporations but by how we ourselves care for our environment. Those are the facts. How we react individually, and formulate our responses collectively, will determine how history sees us; how we manage to change will determine history itself.   As I see it, and as more and more people are seeing it, staying with the status quo is not an option. A few facts to illustrate my point, 62 individuals own half of the planet’s wealth, 65 million people are refugees and estimates show these numbers could at least double in the near future; and we are on a path towards catastrophic climate change expected to displace hundreds of millions, and cause rapid desertification on land, acidification in our seas, erosion of our shorelines and more frequent extreme and dangerous weather events across the globe. It is too late to outsource responsibility for these problems; we have to start with ourselves.   That’s what we did when we founded The Alternative (Alternativet in Danish) in 2013. We had the audacity to imagine a radically different future: greener and more sustainable; full of hope and equal opportunities; a future that lives up to the full potential of humanity coming together. Three years later, after the Brexit referendum, with the popularity of Trump in the US, and the continuing collapse of European leadership, the need for radical solutions is even greater. Our sense of an alternative way of responding to breakdown is growing. And, as history tells us, there is always an alternative.   Lessons from the past   Denmark went bankrupt in 1813. After wars we did not win, and after the nation’s capital was bombarded and left in rubble by the British and there was no money left, we did something courageous and perhaps unexpected. We invested. Massively. And we put education at the core. In doing so, we laid the foundation for a golden age of art, ideas, democratic values and an unprecedented bloom of social innovation.   Attending school was made mandatory and free for all children across the land. Inspired by thinkers and social movements from across the world, adults educated themselves  in the folk high schools that offered non formal education, while farmers united in cooperatives and workers formed unions. We created communities and ways of organising ourselves that in turn inspired others around the globe. As we built the welfare state, as we continued to invest heavily in education, healthcare and equality, and as we furthered our civil rights, riding high on a continuous wave of innovation, we secured better lives for most, if not all. Danes benefited. They lived well. Better than before the crisis.   But with the rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s, with the dominance in recent years of austerity, we started becoming enslaved by the economy rather than using the economy as a means to achieve greater things. Parallel to this, it seemed, societies stagnated. As a whole, we got richer (mainly the rich got richer), but we did not get happier, we did not show more empathy and we certainly did not get wiser. Somehow we became disconnected from the meaning and purpose of our work and entered into a trance of achievement and procurement. We got stressed out, and those who could not keep up had to work more jobs to make ends meet. We did not have the time to care for our parents or our children. In an effort to create economic growth, to buy the next iPhone, to get a bigger house, we lost track of what should be most important to us.. We became too passive. Or numb, maybe. Even lost, perhaps. In our approach to society building, we became conservative.   In our approach to politics we for the most part got satisfied with preserving the status quo. We were so happy about what we achieved (and yes, we achieved great things) that we stopped dreaming big, stopped rethinking. Instead of changing, renewing and improving, we focused on safeguarding. What a waste of potential and ambition. We set aside the greater vision.   A wave of innovation   That is why we founded The Alternative; to start a wave of innovation like the one that kick started our progress in the past; to create an arena where dreaming comes naturally; an arena where new ideas are encouraged and where dreaming out loud, with your eyes and ears open, is appreciated.   Today, as it was when it was founded, The Alternative is a value based movement; a platform for progressives of all sorts and starting points, one that is not blinded by ideologies of the past. On this platform, we plan to build great things: sustainable communities; solar energy projects; urban gardens; publishing companies. We started by building a political party. This might sound like an oddly familiar place to start, but The Alternative is not your regular political party.   Our political programme is 100% crowdsourced through ‘political laboratories’, open to all and held throughout Denmark after our launch in 2013.   Our politics and policies are not formed by special interest groups; they are measured against how well they perform on three bottom lines: the economic bottom line, the social bottom line and the environmental bottom line. A good proposal will create surpluses on all three.   A proposal that creates a surplus on the economic bottom line alone is not something we would endorse. On top of that, everything we do is guided by our six core values: transparency, generosity, humility, courage, empathy and humour. That means that we do not practise politics in the way that it is usually done. Since we were elected to the Danish Parliament last year, we have insisted on doing things differently: reading poems as part of our policy proposal in our equivalent to the House of Commons; throwing Alternative Parliaments that involve inviting citizens affected by the laws being debated in chambers to have a synchronised debate in a room next door; and inviting artists to work by our side, acting as creative disturbances.   We are deeply serious about what we do, about the radically different future we want, and about the real and sustainable transition that we want to drive forward as fast as possible. And we insist on doing it differently because the way we have been doing things up till now is what has got us into this mess.   A new political culture   Most revolutionary of all, at least to the system, has been our insistence on a new political culture. Media, fellow politicians and the public in general have been stunned by our refusal to participate in the blame game of politics, our commitment to stopping the name-calling and our readiness to be curious and non-judgemental about the position of a political opponent. When we are proposing new initiatives, we lay out the pros and cons, we acknowledge the grey areas and admit when we were wrong or have changed our minds. In most walks of life that would be totally normal. In politics, not so much.   When we spin, we are open about it. We publish media declarations on our website, chronicling how we talk to journalists on specific stories that we place in the media, what our considerations are and what we aim to achieve.   These approaches are certainly new, at least by Danish standards. And against all odds, or more precisely against the odds of media pundits and their low expectations, we have been successful. We got elected to parliament in our first try last year, have experienced rising polls ever since and our membership base is now fourth among the nine political parties in the Danish Parliament.   I believe this success (and the success of other new parties like ours) has many causes. First of all, many people are tired of the old version of politics (a large percentage of our membership base has never been politically active before). Second, we address other problems and have radically different solutions than most other parties. Third, we have proven that politics can be fun, inclusive, thought-provoking and action-orientated for all.   Fourth, and most important to us at least, we want change. We are not satisfied with the status quo. Why should we be when the status quo is not working for most people?   Instead of focusing on austerity alone, we see the real challenge as the empathy crisis, the systems crisis and the climate crisis. And our responses are action orientated. So, for example, we want our agricultural industry to go 100% organic; we want experiments with basic income for all; we want a 30-hour work week to give people more time for themselves and each other; we want all our energy to come from renewable sources by 2040 or before; we want to phase out fossil fuel cars by 2025; and we want to stop using GDP as the most prominent indicator of the progress we make.   Most of all, we want to establish new economic thinking that makes sense on an international scale and can replace the blind trust that most politicians have in economic growth as the only solution.   Each of the three crises indicates the potential for change; the potential to renew our society as we did in 1813. We welcome the chance to build new, sustainable systems that respect the planet’s limits, that prioritise wellbeing over wealth, and that further civil participation by and for the people. If we fail to do so, we don’t deserve any better. Visit the related web page
	Big corporations dominate list of world''s top economic entities by Phillip Inman, Nick Dearden Global Justice Now, agencies   Time for a treaty on TNCs and human rights, feminist advocates say, by Ana Ines Abelenda. (AWID)   The sheer size and scope of corporate power, when compared to nation states, can be difficult to comprehend. Research shows that 63 per cent of the top 175 global economic entities are transnational corporations, not countries.   Up until now, the ability to sue corporations for human rights violations and environmental damage has depended on national governments’ capacities, political will, and resources to pay the exorbitant amounts of money to sustain such international lawsuits, to hold corporations accountable and demand compensation.   With the rise of corporate tycoons to the global political arena, in alliance with, or themselves heads of corporations, the de-regulation of corporate activities in the name of “investment protection” could, if left unchecked, get much worse.   This is a deeply worrying trend for human rights advocates, especially women. Every week we see more news of violent backlash against activists protesting the actions of corporations around the world, with many activists, including women human rights defenders like Berta Cáceres paying with their lives for defending their communities and their territories.   Examples abound, from those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in the United States to indigenous communities resisting the Agua Zarca dam project in Honduras and the Niger Delta where women continue to challenge oil exploration by international oil companies.   Gendered impacts of corporate abuse are largely overlooked. For example, women human rights defenders confronting corporate abuse in their communities have repeatedly denounced how they are targeted, not only for the work they do, but also because of their gender. This includes rape, sexual assault, and threats to themselves and their families, to restrict their political participation in the public sphere. Their perspectives need to be taken into account in any binding treaty through the voices of WHRDs themselves.   It is no surprise, thus, that a proposal to have an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights has attracted widespread support from gender and women’s rights advocates. The proposal is currently under study of an open-ended intergovernmental working group (IGWG) working within the UN Human Rights Council.   Participating of the 2nd session of such intergovernmental working group, recently held in Geneva, feminist activists expressed their hopes and demands for this process.   In the words of Fernanda Hopenhaym, of Mexican organization Poder: “It’s essential to think of the impacts that these corporations are having on the lives of women, for example on labor rights, the gender pay gap, the impact on women in local communities when there are human rights violations – especially economic, social and cultural rights-, capture of land, territories, and natural resources that have an impact on rural and indigenous communities.”   “For too long, women in all parts of life; women in rural areas; women from indigenous communities; women from social minorities; women suffering poverty, have had to carry the worst effects of human rights violations and denial of basic livelihood because of corporate power working in coordination with States that have refused or failed to protect women’s human rights. said Debbie Stothard, ‎International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Burma.   “We need to have a binding treaty in order to equalize that situation.” http://bit.ly/2nl2r04   Big corporations dominate list of world''s top economic entities. (Global Justice Now)   The world’s biggest corporations have increased their wealth compared with nation states in the last year, illustrating the growing power of multinational businesses.   A study by the anti-poverty charity Global Justice Now found that the number of businesses in the top 100 economic entities jumped to 69 in 2015 from 63 in the previous year.   While many emerging market economies have struggled to grow in the last couple of years, mainly as a result of China’s slowdown, many of the world’s largest corporations have increased in size.   The London-based campaign group said the 10 biggest corporations – including Walmart, Apple and Shell – make more money than most countries in the world combined.   The charity blamed governments for bowing to pressure from multinational firms to promote business-friendly tax regimes above the needs of their citizens.   An assessment of the top 200 entities found that many smaller countries were squeezed out, leaving 153 corporations above many nations from Africa, Asia and South America.   The US, China, Germany, Japan, France and the UK make up the top six economic entities followed by Italy, Brazil and Canada.   Walmart ranks as the 10th largest, followed by China’s electricity monopoly State Grid at number 14, China National Petroleum at 15 and Chinese oil firm Sinopec Group at 16. Apple ranked 26th behind the 18th-placed Royal Dutch Shell, with Exxon Mobil at 21, Volkswagen at 22 and Toyota at 23.   The value of the top 10 corporations was $285tn, beating the $280tn worth of the bottom 180 countries, which include Ireland, Indonesia, Israel, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, Iraq and Vietnam.   Nick Dearden, the charity’s director, said: “The vast wealth and power of corporations is at the heart of so many of the world’s problems – like inequality and climate change.   “The drive for short-term profits today seems to trump basic human rights for millions of people on the planet. These figures show the problem is getting worse.”   Global Justice Now said it released the figures to increase pressure on the British government ahead of a UN working group, led by Ecuador, that aims to draw up a binding treaty “to ensure transnational corporations abide by the full range of human rights responsibilities”.   Campaigners said they are calling for the treaty to be legally enforceable at a national and global level. The charity has criticised Britain for refusing to support the process.   Dearden said: “The UK government has facilitated this rise in corporate power through tax structures, trade deals and even aid programmes that help big business.   “Their wholehearted support for the US-EU trade deal TTIP, is just the latest example of government help to big business. Disgracefully, it also routinely opposes the call of developing countries to hold corporations to account for their human rights impacts at the UN.”   http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/2016/sep/12/10-biggest-corporations-make-more-money-most-countries-world-combined http://bit.ly/2cWIrgk Visit the related web page
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