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Editors’ letter www.newint.org

Time to lift fig-leaves and see through greenwash

The United Nations says the global earth summit it is holding in Rio this month ‘is a chance to move away from business as usual and to act to end poverty, address environmental destruction and build a bridge to the future’.

Splendid aims. However, a great many of those involved in shaping the outcome are from the fossil-fuel, mining, banking and carbon-trading sectors.

So we reckon a reality check is in order. This month’s issue gives you the ‘unofficial guide’ to Rio+20, as the summit is called. Writer and activist Danny Chivers also removes the fig-leaves from a selection of corporate miscreants in his exposé of ‘Eight Great Greenwashers’. Some on the list are household names; others may be new to you.

Also this month, Richard Swift answers the tricky question of why the political Right gained and the Left lost ground in the wake of the financial crisis. This essay won him the prestigious US Daniel Singer Millennium Prize. Time will tell if the tide can really be turned, in Europe at any rate, following the French and Greek elections.

Elsewhere, intrepid filmmaker Nadia El Fani explains why she had to leave her native Tunisia. Outspoken US scholar Norman Finkelstein posits that Jewish Americans are falling out of love with Israel – and discusses what that could mean for peace in the Middle East. Charismatic Indian activist Bunker Roy talks about ‘granny power’, and British comedian Jeremy Hardy reflects on being a Marxist at the tender age of 10. ■

Vanessa Baird and Jo Lateu for the New Internationalist Co-operative www.newint.org

This month’s contributors include...

Richard Swift is a former editor with New Internationalist. These days he survives as a freelance writer and activist. His most recent book is Gangs (Groundwoodbooks 2011).

Ruth Buendía Mestoaquiari is an Asháninka indigenous leader from the Peruvian Amazon. She has campaigned internationally against mega-dam projects and is president of the River Ene organization CARE.

Paco Chuquiure has worked as a photojournalist for several Peruvian newspapers and magazines and as a photographer for Spanish News Agency EFE. He now works as a full-time freelancer.

Danny Chivers is an environmental writer, researcher, professional carbon footprint analyst and activist. He is the author of the No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change – the science, the solutions and the way forward.

Coming next month...

What’s so funny about peace, love and – co-operation? Look around for a moment. The world appears a pretty unco-operative place, torn by vicious squabbles and bloody violence. Indeed, ‘watch out for number one’ seems to be the driving credo behind a global economy ruled by greed, blind ambition and self-interest.

But there’s more to the story than that. There’s another approach to human affairs that has yet to receive its due and is exactly the opposite of the cutthroat, competitive model which drives corporations and agitates governments.

Co-operation: we would never have progressed as far as we have as a species without it. You could even say it’s in our genes, as the new scholars of evolution have shown.

Next month’s New Internationalist marks the UN’s International Year of Co-operatives. Around the world more than a billion people are involved in co-ops – as members, customers, employees or worker/owners.

The crisis in growth and the global economic slump have uncovered an urgent need and a deep yearning for doing things differently. The continued success and growth of co-ops proves that’s possible.

N ew I n t e r nat i o nal i s t ● J U N E 2 012 ● 3