Scenes from COP17, Durban, South Africa

Strategic  Planning Session with Global Alliance for Rights of Nature – December 1, 2011

The planning session location

Tom Goldtooth, president of Indigenous Environmental Network, flanked by Cormac Cullinan and Shannon Biggs of Global Exchange

Spiritual leader Mkhosi Rutledge blessed our planning session and aligned us with the spirit world

A monkey on the University of KwaZulu-Natal campus

Presentation – The Earth Bears Witness:  Who Should Stand Trial? - December 2, 2011

Cormac Cullinan and Sister Pat Siemen presented at the Diakonia Centre,  which is the Durban headquarters for the World Council of Churches and has been a center for faith-led resistance and organizing during the apartheid days; it is now a node for climate justice.  The Diakonia Centre continues to advocate resistance to the violence being done to the Earth community by the  commodification of Nature and market driven carbon mitigation mechanisms, rather than actual reduction in GHG emissions.

Sister Pat spoke to the “Earth bears witness” dimension and our own complicity in the violence being done to Earth by unexamined behavior patterns and addiction  to unrestrained economic growth that ravages Earth. She also explored the question of who could be an impartial judge and jury when we live in a such dominant human-centered worldview, raising the possibility that it is time for a “Council of All Beings,” with the most vulnerable  serving as the jurors. Expanded remedies need to include equitable restoration that brings forth Earth’s healing of eco-systems and species, and the ending of market systems that take precedence over people and planet.

Read a press release about the talk here.

Global Day of Action March – December 3, 2011

Getting the word out

Cormac Cullinan and the Earth Balls

Cormac Cullinan and Shannon Biggs

Sister Pat with Jane (intern, Cullinan & Associates) and Sarah (partner in Cullinan & Associates)

Starting the march - Shannon Biggs (in red), Lia (in front, intern with Cullinan & Associates), Jane (intern with Cullinan & Associates), Osprey Lake and Robin Milam

A great banner

And one more