STWR - Share The World's Resources

The Occupy movement and its predecessors in Europe and the Arab world represent a fundamental shift in public opinion. Around the world, people are waking up to the fact that the current system of free-market capitalism simply doesn’t work and are demanding systemic change.

As the Durban climate talks near, debate over the best approach for ensuring emissions reductions is heating up. Should governments give up on a global agreement and resort to bilateral and voluntary measures, or is the UN process our only hope? Tom Levitt and Craig Bennett present opposing views in the Ecologist.

Last week’s G20 summit in Cannes elicited mixed reactions from the development community. Praise flowed for world leaders who promoted a financial transactions tax, but a weak outcome and inaction on debt and tax havens left many disappointed.

During a time of deepening crises, a Great Transition can only succeed with the awakening of a new social actor: a vast and coherent movement of global citizens is the critical historical agent now missing from the global stage, argues Michael Narberhaus. 

The central challenge for Rio +20 is a necessary process of decommodification of the Earth. It is not by chance that the World Social Forum in Belem in 2009 launched an anti-globalization call in order to defend common goods against their commodification and privatization, write Geneviève Azam and Michael Löwy. 

Filmmaker Emily James spent a year documenting the secretive world of environmental direct action, delving into the motivations, creativity and determination of those involved. The result is a film which breaks through tired stereotypes and may just inspire the new wave of protest actions across Europe, writes Adam Parsons.

An empowered and reformed United Nations system could meet the challenges of achieving greater peace, democracy and human rights and a way of life based on more sustainable management of our planet, says a report by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.