MANIFESTO
THE WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN AS WELL...
Since the second world war, all the statistics of wars and armed conflicts are in decline(*1). The number of undernourished people has declined by 132 million between 1990 and 2012, a decrease of 6.1% over the whole of the world's population(*2). And UNESCO reveals that the literacy rate has raised from 76% of the world population in 1985 to 83.6% in 2006(*3). Also, if we consider that the existing democracies are far removed from what is a real democracy, this political regime is more respectful of its citizens than autocracies and dictatorships that have seen their numbers decline since the 80's (*4). Finally, in 2016 the global investments in renewable energies made a outperformance of $ 256 billion euros (*5). An amount more than two times higher than those devoted to new facilities for the coal and gas industry.
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...AND YET THE WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN SO BAD
According to Oxfam, and after readjustment of their report on inequalities 2017, 56 people would possess more than half of the world population - the top 1% more wealth than the 99% left(*6)... Provided that the armed conflicts are declining, the UNHCR estimated that, by 2016, more than 65 million people have been forced to leave their homes(*7).
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Pollution reached a peak record, 269 000 tonnes of plastic waste floating on the oceans, sometimes forming continents made of plastic : as in the north pacific, where a pile of waste plastics is agglomerating on a surface of 3.4 million km2(*8) (1844km from side to side...). ORBmédia has analyzed the great lakes waters as well as all the major cities, from New York to New delhi. Particles of plastic were found in more than 80% of their samples(*9). We are basically drinking plastic.
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In terms of ecology, even if renewable energy sources are seeing their investment growing, the practical implementation of the measures let no chance to comply with the COP21 Paris agreements(*10). Deforestation of primary forests persist both in Indonesia and the Amazon. The “sustainable” labels of palm oil and soy divert attention from the real issues of those ecocides. Our responsibility in the climate change already has irreversible consequences on the environment : the coral reefs, which are home for 30 % of the marine biodiversity on 0.2% of the surface area of the seas could disappear by 2050 (*11). 20% of the plant species are endangered (*12). While the wildlife and its diversity dies at a pace unequalled since the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago (*13).
ODE TO THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITTMENT
The western society is far from showing by example what could be. And yet, it is set up as a role model by a large part of the world. We need to act all together. We need to act now to demonstrate that a better version of the society is possible. Denouncing or criticizing abuses is not enough when so many opportunities to act for the common good are existing.
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“The world will not be destroyed by those who do the evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. ” Albert Einstein
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All the causes are a priority for they are related to each other. Assume your beliefs, get involved! The solutions are there, through the non-profit world, politics, and many organisations working for a fairer world.
#socialjustice #environmentaljustice
A CRITICAL TIME
We are in a decisive period in the history of humanity. Everything can take a new turn. We are entering the era of “cloud” and private companies - industries from today as start-ups from yesterday - now possess more influence than governments(*14). They slowly take control over population through their armies of psychologists, marketers, and careless business accomplices(*15). As they appear to make our life easier, we all agree to let them scan our daily lives. If they are dexterous at influence our consumption, we can easily suppose that can interact on our political decisions.
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WE CAN CHANGE THINGS
Since always, people gathered and stepped up against injustice. Today, there is a tremendous number of significant causes that need to be defended, and there is probably as much organisations which already started to look for solutions :
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Friends of the Earth, Attac, ZeroWaste, Greenpeace, Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders, Amnesty International, Oxfam, ATDquartmonde, The Red Cross, Stop TTIP (EU), Sea Shepherd, i-boycott (fr), Le mouvement des Colibri (fr) , Alternatiba (fr), anv-cop21 (fr), L214 (fr), among many others...
CHANGE YOURSELF AND THE WORLD WILL CHANGE
Everyone can act, on a daily basis. All the problematics are related. And the more we feel moved for a cause, the more our thinkings and the meetings that will follow this sensitiveness will make us aware about other issues.
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Thanks to the communication ressources we have today, citizens ' initiatives are being set up as movements. Those ones have a major impact to our societies maturation. Feminism, zero-waste, local consumption (km zero), permaculture, the fight in favor of the well-being of the animals, flexitarianism, vegetarianism and veganism, alternative education, etc...
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The way we manage individually our daily lives - according to our beliefs - not only generates a positive dynamic and inspire our entourage. It also creates a societal impact. The mantra of the french association i-boycott illustrates it pretty well : “Every time you spend money, you cast a vote for the kind of world that you want to live in.”Indeed. Take action daily, it is as simple as that.
PART OF LES COLIBRIS, AND OUR POSITIONING
We have created animated videos for small organizations as for large organisations such as the United Nations (UN-REDD+), and TED conference (TED-Education). We also produced videos - through Visual Cabin - for UNEP, MSF, GreenClimateFound, the adaptation found, the iied, among others.
Very humbly, we are stepping forward to another stage of our professional commitment : We position ourselves, as a privileged communicator for organizations working for the common good.
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Sources
(1) Systemic Peace : http://www.systemicpeace.org/conflicttrends.html
(2) Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’Agriculture et l’Alimentation : http://www.fao.org/news/story/fr/item/161824/icode/
(3) UNESCO :http://www.un.org/apps/newsFr/storyF.asp?NewsID=17467
(4) Systemic Peace : http://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html
(5) Renewable energy Network for the 21st century (REN21). Le document du REN21 : https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5imu3kamiepxpk/REN21-GSR2016_Final_High%20res.pdf?dl=0
(6) OXFAM : http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/8-men-now-own-the-same-as-the-poorest-half-of-the-world-the-davos-killer-fact-just-got-more-deadly/
(7) UNHCR : http://www.unhcr.org/fr/news/stories/2017/6/5943f3eca/nombre-personnes-deplacees-atteint-haut-niveau-decennies.html
(8) PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science) : http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111913
(9) OrbMedia : https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics
(10)Les amis de la terre : http://jeunesamisdelaterre.org/laccord-de-paris
(11) Science Magazine : http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/80
(12) Internation Union for Conservation of Nature : https://www.iucn.org/
(13) Science Magazine : http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253
(14) Corporate Europe Observatory : http://osonscauser.com/10-faits-montrent-multinationales-achetent-politique-europeenne/
(15) The Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/09/facebook-sean-parker-vulnerability-brain-psychology
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