Today, 20th June 2012, is the summer solstice, the first day of the full summit at Rio+20 and the Festival of Transition. Locally, in New Cross Gate & Telegraph Hill, we’re marking all this with a solstice parade and open mic event. It’s a chance to think hard and embrace new people into this thinking about how we can work together for a liveable planet. So far, politicians and companies have worked together in the opposite direction. If you want to know what to do, listen to what young people suggest. This is the action plan from the 6th Youth World Congress, held at Rio in the past few days:
1. Put sustainability at the centre of education
2. Let youth lead governments, corporations and society into sustainability.
3. Make it easy for youth to start businesses by providing capital, tax-breaks and reducing administrative bureaucracy.
4. Redesign our economy to be sustainable and to make people happy by moving away from insatiable consumption practices.
5. Shift to the use of renewable resources, and effectively make use of non-renewable resources to make this happen.
6. Make the best use out of energy – be efficient.
7. Reduce your footprint, soundly manage the waste you leave.
8. Sustain what all life is based on – water.
9. Enforce regulations against pollution, exploitation and degradation of our oceans.
10. Recognize the realities and impacts of climate change, take responsibility, demand accountability and act to reduce emissions.
11. Recognize the links between development and vulnerability to natural disasters, to integrate place-based disasters risk reduction and sustainable development.
12. Demand biodiversity conservation, the ending of mass species extinction and habitat degradation.
13. Recognize ecocide as a crime against humanity and nature.
14. Respect the right to healthcare.
15. Produce food for people and the plant, not just for money.
16. Restrict transnational corporations power over food systems.
17. Recognize gender empowerment and freedom of sexual and gender choice in a society free of discrimination.
18. Promote democratic youth representation amongst societies’ decision-making processes.
19. Make the world a non-conflict zone lead by youth peacemakers.
20. Acknowledge that the respect of human rights is integral part of sustainable development.
The Unextinction Machine 