[pp.int.general] Towards a Pirate Policy on Environmental Issues

[Amelia Andersdotter]

Pe 29.07.2012 20:35, Kenneth Peiruza a scris:
> In my personal opinion, we could extend our principles in a similar way
> as we do in copyright and patents: citizens first, not corporate profits.
>
> That doesn't mean that we're commies or anything like that. It just
> means that we don't put economic profit in front of citizen's rights and
> welfare.

In your country more than 50% of all people my age are unemployed. More 
than 90% of all Europeans are employed by medium- to big-sized 
corporations. Any analysis of citizens' welfare, if it includes an 
aspect of financial or material prosperity, should therefore reasonably 
take this into account.

One must ask which are the consequences of our vehement advocacy of use 
of new, often expensive and raw material intensive, technologies. My 
view is that new technologies and the means of communication they bring 
are positive and advantageous for our societies, and that we, to the 
extent that we are willing to go deeper into the economic play behind 
these technologies, should focus our efforts on an analysis of the raw 
materials resources and distribution.

To this end, I'd like to emphasize that European raw materials resources 
are very low. The biggest deposits of rare earth elements, much used in 
new technologies, in the world currently are situated in Africa, East 
Asia, Russia and the Americas (so basically everywhere but here). To a 
much smaller extent Scandinavia. This implies a trade regime in order 
for us to have access to these materials, where we (Europe) is in the 
economically weaker position since we are the ones with a need of a 
particular resource of which we are not in possession. How do we deal 
with this?

Of course, one conclusion could also be that the employment and 
subsequent material prosperity of Spanish people should and cannot be a 
priority of our parties, and that communication derived from new, mostly 
electronic, equipment is undesirable. In this case I very much agree 
with Thijs that it seems like the better political movement to join is 
the Greens, because they have long advocated a line of less new 
technologies and less material consumption, something which I perceive 
as incompatible with the Pirate aim of promoting dissemination, 
consumption and use of new technologies and material products.

best regards,

Amelia