Refuse to become climate refugees!
The movie ±2℃ predicts that the coastal areas of the middle south region will be the first high risk belt to be flooded by rising seas, but countless cancer villages in Yunlin county are already facing a disaster in progress. To meet the needs of Formosa Plastics’s Sixth Naphtha Cracker, the Jiji River Weir and Hushan Reservoir are squeezing dry the rivers of Ilha Formosa, and now there is pressure for a fifth phase expansion of the plant; Kuokuang Petrochemical has grown from Yunlin to Chuanghua and is preparing to assault Zhuoshui River in a pincer attack, while forcing the government to refrain from designating an internationally significant wetland as a protected area.
The Central Taiwan Science Park masquerades as high technology while hiding the reality of high pollution and swallows up more and more land to fulfill the insatiable avarice of corporations. Even after its environmental impact assessment was ruled null and void by the Supreme Administrative Court, construction brazenly continues. In that hallowed place Taiwan’s environmental movement was born of opposition to planned DuPont developments, but was later threatened into silence by Taipower’s manipulations of environmental impact assessment . Through a series of developments that are laying waste to the land and pushing Taiwan’s humpback dolphin (Sousa Chinensis) to the brink of extinction, we can see the future that awaits the people of Taiwan.
Government officials and politicians led astray by demons believe that huge development projects will push up GDP and win votes. But actually the people care most about clear fresh air, sweet clean water, uncontaminated food, and the passing of homes and farms from one generation to the next. This is our local economy of good fortune.
Capitalists of the world have united in suppressing government action to forestall the fever of our planet. From 30 April to 2 May the second Asia Pacific Greens Network Conference will be held in Taiwan. Several hundred environmental activist and green party legislators will join together in refusing to become the climate refugees of the future.
Please join us at the Central Taiwan pre-APGN Conference meeting to share experiences and build consensus. For the APGN Conference we need to plan which materials or on-site visits we can use to demonstrate the myriad environmental threats to Ilha Formosa. We also plan to draft a resolution requesting governments to implement or even help create “five year working plans” for a multinational corporation supervisory network. Together we can piece together the image of local good fortune.
>>Click here to register online<<
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[event date] 13 March 2010 (Saturday)
[schedule]
1:00-1:30 Registration
1:30-2:00 Introduce APGN and Open Space Technology
2:00-5:00 Open discussion and action plan
[event site] Lugang Wenwu Temple, No.2, Qingyun Road, Lugang City, Changhua County. (click to see map)
[event format] Open space meeting (equality in participation, sharing of wisdom)
For information on Open Space Technology visit: http://www.frontier.org.tw/ost/resource.htm
[hosted by] Changhua Environmental Protection Union, Global Greens Network Friends of Taiwan, Taiwan Green Party, The CP Yen Foundation
[contact] Changhua Environmental Protection Union, Shih Yueh-ying
Email:7626609@gmail.com, Tel: (04)7764467
03/02/2010 – 22:15