Join the charity bike ride for the survival of Thai elephants!

The weekend of the 6th and 7th of February 2010 we invite you to join the ‘Bike for Elephants’ tour in Northern Thailand. Two days of adventure and fun biking through the Mae Tang valley, in Chiang Mai province.

This event will raise much needed funds for the Elephant Nature Park and create awareness about the plight of Thai elephants. The Elephant Nature Park, in a beautiful mountain range north of Chiang Mai, is a safe home to rescued elephants that were previously neglected.

The route: Tour de Chang

February 6, 2010

48 km, 40% off road but flat land, 60% concrete with some hills, road quality is good, route is suitable for average bikers.

We will depart from a resort on the Samoeng road, following an irrigation canal through the rice fields and cycle off road to join the road to Pai. On a concrete road through the mountains we will cycle towards the Elephant Nature Park, where we will camp on Saturday night. Here you will not only have a chance to refresh in the river while washing free roaming elephants, but also to learn about natural elephant behavior and to see how your money will be spent. We will set up our tents in the Elephant Nature Park, have an early night and wake up with the sounds of elephants!

February 7, 2010

33 km, 95% small concrete roads, some climbing at the start of the route, road quality is good, route is suitable for average bikers.

After breakfast we will climb one hill to get out of the Elephant Nature Park valley. A shortcut will lead us to the rice fields near Sri Lanna National Park. After passing some villages, we reach Mae Ngat reservoir where we will take long tail boats to the Echachai houseboats. Here we can share experiences, swim, have drinks, snacks and relax after all the hard work. You can stay overnight in a houseboat or take the boat and minibus back to Chiang Mai.

Start your team

Join this event by starting a team with any of your social network. It’s a great team building event and fun and healthy way to do something good for the world!

A team needs to have at least 4 and maximum 10 members. As a team you will receive your own page on the Bring The Elephant Home website to help you with online fundraising. Your team will set your own target for the fundraising efforts, but a minimum amount of 5,000 baht per person is required.

Join Bike for Elephants

Will you join the Bike for Elephants event? You pay for the costs of the event, 2,500 baht pp – excl mountain bike (or 3,300 baht pp incl mountain bike, helmet and water bottle) and raise a minimum of 5,000 baht per person to support the Elephant Nature Park.

This fee includes insurance, safety instructions, a sponsor book, meals and drinks, camping at the Elephant Nature Park and the boat ride on Mae Ngat reservoir. Also included: elephant feeding, bathing, elephant morning walk, a lot of new impressions, friends and an experience you won’t forget.

Visit the Bring The Elephant Home website for more information.

As background to this call from Jubilee South you may wish to look at http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/2009/11/copenhagen-reality-check-25-by-2020.html look at the computer model graph and its assumptions toward the end. The Call below I believe in its original form had fundamental weaknesses – a failure to recognize the class nature of society as cause of our problems,  a continued use of notions of trade and debt taken from the ruling class in its discussion and an apparent ignorance of the ongoing crisis affecting industrialised countries which in the context of the Climate Catastrophe have far more real liabilities than assets.  I have attempted to keep its original structure with suggested amendments in italics. Please Read and discuss in the comment space below. Ricky To all JS-APMDD Members and Friends Call for Coordinated Activities and Actions for Climate Justice On December 7 to 18, almost 200 governments will be meeting in a Conference of Parties (COP) in Copenhagen in an attempt to reach agreements that will have major impacts to the future of our peoples and the planet. JS-APMDD urges all its members and friends to use this occasion to raise the demands for climate justice and call on governments all over the world to take decisive steps towards solving the climate crisis. In particular, we urge you to organize actions during the following dates: Nov 29 to Dec 5, when government negotiators prepare to leave for Copenhagen . We urge you to hold mobilizations in front of embassies of the G8 and G20 governments. Dec 12 -  the day of the massive mobilization in Copenhagen joined by all groups and movements.  We urge you to hold counterpart events and actions in various Asian cities. December 14  -  which will be the day of action not on Ecological Debt and Climate Debt but  but on ending and reversing Economic Growth and reversing the negative effects of Imperialism & Neo-colonialism. We urge you to organize actions raising no rejecting the call for Reparations. The call for reparations is misguided in two respects. Firstly looking at history and the punitive reparative outcomes forced on Germany after WWI can be regarded as a cause of the rise of Nazism and WWII. In contrast the Marshall plan was a success which brought peace. Secondly apart from assets such as developed educational and health systems, the so-called developed countries will be found to be close to bankruptcy while faced with the need for an urgent transformation of every aspect of economic life. . Through these actions, we will put forward the following demands: 1. Not for North countries to give full reparations for the ecological debt and climate debt they owe to the South as these are historically too long (going back to the destruction ofNorth Africa by the Romans and Greeks) , too great and in cases such as the thousands of species extinctions and countless cases of genocide, without meaning. Neither of these are the responsibility of the North alone. Rather we call for the canceling of all debts both national and international; the socialization of housing, productive property, infrastructure and superstructure;  and the internationalization of the World’s natural wealth to be managed sustainably and equitably with the local people . 2. We demand not only that the North countries to undertake deep, drastic cuts of GHG emissions through domestic measures but they do so drawing on positive experiences on lifestyles and transformative measures of the South and East and that parallel cuts and transformations also take place amongst sectors of Southern & Eastern societies which hitherto have been developing along the capitalist, consumerist road. 3. The Peoples of the Southern nations to assert their right to eliminate the greedy elites that run them for the benefit of the few and to develop and meet the needs of their people through a system that is ecologically sound, just, equitable and democratic. 4.  No to false solutions that: Violate the rights of indigenous peoples, women and other marginalized groups; Undermine ecological balance and have no significant contribution to reduction in GHG emissions Allow northern and southern governments to evade their responsibilities; Pave the way for private corporations to continue in existence and thereby generate profits from the climate crisis and for elites to exercise greater control over natural resources. 5.     End the policies, operations and projects of IFIs (International Financial Institutions) that exacerbate climate change.  Stop IFIs, especially the WB (World Bank) and regional development banks, from claiming major roles in addressing the climate crisis by developing a new World Currency giving equitable access to all humanity and abolishing existing national currencies and gold as currency . 6. Cancel all illegitimate and fair debts claimed from the South as a matter of justice and as a major step towards enabling countries to deal with the economic and climate crises as the first step towards No 5. 7.  End trade and related agreements that continue the destructive exploitation of the environment and local social and economic systems, obstruct climate justice and exacerbate peoples’ vulnerability. 8. Fulfillment of the basic rights of indigenous peoples, working people, farmers, fisher folk, forest peoples, women, youth and other marginalized groups in all processes and programs addressing the climate crisis. 9. An end to War and immediate nuclear disarmament. We will give prominence to the following calls: SYSTEM CHANGE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE ECONOMIC CONTRACTION NOT GROWTH CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW! Please share with us information on your plans and send us news and photos of your activities immediately after they have taken place so we can help circulate and disseminate them and post them at our website.

New Exhibition Centre & Lake Complex for Chiang Mai

Not some extravagant marina development in the Persian Gulf but yet another grandiose government building project this time by the Ministry for Tourism and Sport.

The pictured sign appeared along the Irrigation Canal Road, about 5 km from Chiang Mai City Hall, opposite the Green Lake Resort in the last week of November 2009.

As Chiang Mai residents continue to struggle with the problems of filth and stench in the ancient Klong Mae Kha this project with its large ornamental lakes threatens to deprive the Mae Kha of flow and farmers who rely on the Irrigation Canal of water for irrigation.

Some four years ago farmers were protesting that the Royal Flora Ratchapreuk Project with its large ornamental exotic style gardens would deprive them of water for food production. The new evaporation ponds shown in the display hoarding which must draw water from the Irrigation Canal will pose a similar threat.

All along the eastern face of Doi Suthep streams are dammed and water which once flowed to the Mae Kha diluting the pollution from the town is retained in ornamental lakes, while the Mae Kha becomes unfit for most animals which inhabit our streams.  Here we have yet one more uninspiring costly project with huge ponds and huge car parks at a huge  1.8 billion baht price tag.

One wonders how many Chiang Mai folk would chose such a project for their city given other pressing needs?

In Thai & English below is a pamphlet draft for Chiang Mai – please add your comments

โลกร้อน - ขอเรียกร้องทุกๆท่าน

โลกกำลังสิ้นหวังกับความเป็นผู้นำในการเปลี่ยนแปลงสภาพอากาศ . ถ้าเราต้องการจะหลีกเลี่ยงสภาวะล้มเหลวของสภาพอากาศที่ไม่สามารถจะกลับคืนแก้ไขได้รัฐบาลทั่วโลกจะต้องสร้างนโยบายที่เข้มแข็ง ก่อนที่จะมีการประชุม สภาพอากาศของโลก กำลังจะมีขึ้น ที่เมืองโคเป็นเฮเกน ในเดือนธันวาคมนี้. โลกกำลังเข้าสู่ภาวะวิกฤตอันสืบเนื่องมาจากสภาวะโลกร้อน เกินกว่ามนุษย์จะสามารถควบคุมได้ เพราะผลตอบสนองของระบบโลก มนุษย์ทำให้โลกร้อน เกิดน้ำแข็งละลายจนทำให้แสงอาทิตย์ สะท้อนกลับไปยังอวกาศน้อยลง การระเหยของน้ำในบรรยากาศมากขึ้น สัดส่วนเพิ่มมากขึ้น ทำให้อุณหภูมิสูงขึ้นอย่างต่อเนื่อง.  ก๊าซมีเทนถูกปลดปล่อยออกมามากจากชั้นดินน้ำแข็งและชั้นโคลนใต้มหาสมุทร  ก๊าซคาร์บอนไดออกไซด์ถูกขับออกมามาก เนื่องจากการย่อยสลายของ ผืนป่าที่มากขึ้นของชั้นดินที่มีการทับถมและการลดลงของ photosynthesis ( พืชใช้คาร์บอนไดออกไซด์) และจากความจริงที่คาร์บอน เนื่องจากความร้อนที่เพิ่มขั้นอย่างมากไฟป่า เชื้อโรคต่างๆ และศัตรูพืช. กระบวน การตอบสนองเหล่านี้เป็นผลมาจากการเพิ่มขึ้นของก๊าซที่ทำลายชั้นบรรยากาศที่ห่อหุ้มโลกและยังคงเพิ่มขึ้นอย่างต่อเนื่อง, และยังคงมี GHG (green house gases)  (ก๊าซเรือนกระจก  สิ่งเหล่านี้มีทำให้เกิด ความแห้งแล้ง ไฟป่า อุทกภัย โรคระบาด  ความแห้งแล้งพืชผลเสียหาย  และโรคระบาดในสัตว์ต่างๆ การเพิ่มระดับของน้ำทะเล และ ความเป็นกลดในมหาสมุทร ที่จะเป็นผลกระทบอันเลวร้ายสู่รุ่นลูก รุ่นหลานต่อๆไป หรือพูดง่ายๆ  คือสภาวะโลกร้อน อาจกลาย เป็นสิ่งที่มนุษย์ชาติไม่สามารถจะควบคุมและทำให้ อุณหภูมิโลกสูงขึ้นมากกว่า  6 องศา  นั่นจะทำให้ ประชากรบนโลกจำนวนมาก จะไม่สามารถดำรงชีวิตอยู่ได้  บางทีพวกเราอาจจะมีเวลาเหลือแค่ 2 ปีข้างหน้า เพื่อที่จะป้องกันไม่ให้เราต้องเผชิญชะตากรรมเหล่านี้

The people of the World need your personal effort to lower net carbon emissions but particularly to contact influential and powerful people especially in governments to persuade them to strengthen their policies to reduce net national carbon emissions. All nations must help to the extent of their capability.

A study commissioned by the premier online eco retailer     www.e-photoframes.co.uk, written by visiting English researcher Alex Putnam in 2009 a.d. with both   andThai  English versions, has found that the high market price of a particular type of wild mushroom, Hed Thob, and its lucrative allure of potentially doubling a farmer’s yearly income, is one of the main factors underpinning the deliberate setting of forest fires. A phenomenon that, due to the emission of large amounts of smoke containing carbon dioxide (CO2), is a killer of people and tourism and is also one of the most significant causes of climate change.

  www.e-photoframes.co.uk/blog

as the UN Climate talks drag on to a Copenhagen Catastrophe …..

Dr. Michael Tuckson, Chiang Mai resident writes:

If we are to avoid irreversible climate breakdown, the world’s greenhouse gas strategies must be upgraded to reflect the latest science, notably that of the NASA team in 2008, and the reality that technological change may not be fast enough to stop a state of irreversibility. Not only is political leadership not reflecting the science, but many in ’modern’ sectors of the world would benefit from learning support on climate science and strategies. New ways of educating the powerful are needed, but if this is not possible in the short-term, some hope lies in a people’s web strategy.

This web site http://www.stopglobalwarming-newstrategies.net/ proposes that:

1. Assuming human compassion, the common weak government policies on emission reduction indicate that most people do not sufficiently understand the latest scientific research and surface earth systems feedback and irreversibility. We have already passed safe global greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures. Without a deeper, up-to-date, more widely spread understanding, especially among senior people in all types of organization in all major emitting nations, catastrophe looms.

2.  Leadership implies public articulation of up-to-date understanding, in this case particularly the lastest scientific research that is more frightening than that known just two years before.

3. The world’s ‘modern’ sectors need crash courses in up-to-date climate change science and strategies, particularly for senior personnel in government, parties, unions and corporations. What the world’s major government’s are proposing may merely delay the tipping stage by a few years.

4. Its too late to depend only on the spread and innovation in appropriate technology. We must lead with behavioural change, globally coordinated.*

5. We should use lifetime emissions in negotiations, and separate rich and poor sectors in analysis of the larger developing countries.

6. Thousands of knowledgeable people could contribute to a strategy working up important organizational hierarchies to spread understanding.

7. The people can use the web to globally coordinate a people’s strategy

* for more details on this see the entry on Minqi Li’s work on ourchiangmai.com – Ricky