STWR - Share The World's Resources

5th Novemeber 06, Kenneth Kwama, The Standard (E. Africa)

About three decades ago, Mr Ad de Raad, the Executive Coordinator for the United Nations Volunteer (UNV) programme, was a simple young man with a noble ambition.

His desire was to join the UN, work for about two years and then move on to a "better job".

6th September , 2006 , Anchorage Daily News

National oil company will buy heating fuel for Native villages

The irony of it.

Alaska, an oil-rich state with more than $34 billion in its Permanent Fund, more than $2 billion in its budget reserve fund, a budget surplus the past two years -- and thousands of villagers fearing another winter of costly heating oil bills.

From water to peace, from knowledge to work, from the sea (the Mediterranean) to the coasts of the South, from energy to territory - these are the themes of an agenda that helps us to build an economy based on Common Goods. This economy is not founded on commoditisation, privatisation, war, but on people's rights, on equality and solidarity - an economy that is thus an alternative to our model of growth.

The theme of this conference is utopian and proudly so. Let us remember that U-topia does not mean "impossible" but no-place. Or perhaps no place yet. The topics above introduce it and will be discussed by the opening round table in which I've been kindly asked to participate.

Which of the terms it puts forward are now "Common Goods"? Let us look first at the state of play, then what might be done to change it.

By what name will future generations know our time?

Will they speak in anger and frustration of the time of the Great Unraveling, when profligate consumption exceeded Earth’s capacity to sustain and led to an accelerating wave of collapsing environmental systems, violent competition for what remained of the planet’s resources, and a dramatic dieback of the human population? Or will they look back in joyful celebration on the time of the Great Turning, when their forebears embraced the higher-order potential of their human nature, turned crisis into opportunity, and learned to live in creative partnership with one another and Earth?

15th May 06, The Observer

Venezuelan President promises fuel to the needy and proclaims 'final days of the North American empire' before visit to Britain today.

The commons includes all the things we own together and none of us owns individually -- the air and waters of the Earth, wildlife, the human gene pool, the accumulated human knowledge that we all inherit at birth, and so on. The commons form the biological platform upon which the entire human enterprise -- and, indeed, all life -- depend.

STWR would like to express our deepest sympathies for all those affected by the Asian Tsunamis. We urge all individuals and governments to give generously to the relief operation and to maintain their levels of commitment to aid over the crucial months and years ahead.