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Feast your ears on Carlos Luis Ferretti’s musical art. My musical artist cousin lives in Buenos Aires…
How do you define “artist”? Do you make art, yet don’t consider yourself an artist? My novels have yet to be published (click here for more on them) but fortunately, I have no problem declaring myself an author artist.
It’s scary how strict some of us can be when it comes to self-imposed art standards about earnings, recognition, and birth. How I admire those who create art entirely out of passion, curiousity, or whatever. Bravo to all who persist without needing to make a dime from it …
Today’s guest blog post is by Birgit Heesemann-Nielsen, a blogger I regard as an artist. She was born in Hamburg, Germany and has lived in Denmark since 1993. Her site is filled with her writing, photographs, music, crafts, cooking, gardening, travel, as well as her fascination with people, cultures, languages, and more. She’s guested at Happiness Between Tails here and here and here…
In addition, she often writes about environmental issues. Here she shares about the Mercosur (the South American trade bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with Venezuela suspended, and associates Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname) Agreement. (Her first link regarding Contergan gives an example of how disasters can sweep across many countries for decades) …
Europe Spreading its Poisons Abroad: The Mercosur Agreement, by Birgit Heesemann-Nielsen
Greed and contempt for others once again show their ugly face unconcealed. Do you still remember the Contergan (Thalidomide) scandal of the 1960s? When it was already known that this substance caused heavy deformations in fetuses, it was simply sold to African countries … now that it had been manufactured, would have been a shame to throw it away, right?
I think that today’s topic is similar, with an additional effect: shooting yourself in the foot. The German politicians who want the agreement to come about do not care about their own nation’s health, not even their own family’s health.
EU-Mercosur Agreement: The Environment Institute of Munich’s (Umweltinstitut München) report exposes the greenwashing attempt
In mid-March, Robert Habeck and Cem Özdemir were walking barefoot on the edge of the Amazon rainforest in front of a dreamlike natural backdrop and with ornamental paint on their faces [no doubt for showing how much they sympathize with the natives]. The reason for the long journey? Germany’s federal government is on a promotional tour for the EU-Mercosur agreement. The agreement, which has been negotiated since 1999 between the EU and the four Mercosur countries Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, would mean the largest free trade area the EU has ever created. It would affect more than 780 million people and exempt 91% of EU goods exports to Mercosur from customs duties. During the presidency of far-right Jair Messia Bolsonaro, ratification was a long way off. But now that Lula is president again, the EU sees its chance to finally put the agreement into effect.
European industry could export its toxic pesticides and dirty combustion SUVs to Mercosur duty-free. In return, we import agricultural products such as meat, bioethanol, soya and cane sugar, but also raw materials such as iron ore, silver or petroleum. The consequences in Latin America? Among other things, rainforest destruction and displacement of the indigenous population to make room for the production of food and feed for increased export to the EU. The consequences on our side of the Atlantic: Even more farms have to give up because they cannot compete with the prices of the now cheaper imported products. And as consumers, we have to expect that our food will be more frequently contaminated with pesticides that have long been banned in the EU.
No wonder farmers, climate activists, indigenous peoples and human rights advocates are up in arms against the outmoded agreement.
In order to save the contract anyway, the EU is currently negotiating a “product insert” that should allay all concerns. We wanted to know whether this additional declaration is actually suitable for preventing negative effects from the EU-Mercosur agreement. That is why we have commissioned two renowned lawyers with a legal opinion on the additional declaration. Your report comes to a clear conclusion: This additional declaration is not capable of more than greenwashing! You can find out why in our current report.
In the next few weeks we will start a movement with our friends in Latin America and Europe that will make it unmistakably clear from all sides of civil society: We will not allow our health, biodiversity and the rainforest to be endangered – we stand in solidarity with the workers in Latin America and the farmers in Europe! We have a lot planned for this. We would like to invite you: Stay informed and get involved with us for a sustainable foreign trade policy!
(Source: Umweltinstitut München, Newsletter 16 May 2023, translated from German)
The Umweltinstut München (Environment Institute of Munich) is … [the text below is translated from their “about us” page from their own website: Über uns | Umweltinstitut München)
Where we come from and what we stand for
April 1986 – After the nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl, a radioactive cloud reaches Germany. Instead of providing the population with comprehensive information, the German authorities are covering up and downplaying the danger. A group of committed citizens and scientists do not want to accept this and start to carry out independent measurements of the radioactive contamination. In July 1986 they found the Munich Environmental Institute.
The local initiative has grown into a professional environmental organization that is successfully involved in German and European environmental policy. We get to the bottom of things. We provide information based on independent measurements and scientific findings. We encourage people to work with us to make forward-looking changes.
Independent – critical – committed
In addition to the founding topics of radioactivity and nuclear power, we are fighting to curb the extinction of species and the climate crisis. Our goal: the agricultural turnaround towards 100 percent ecological agriculture and the energy turnaround towards completely regenerative energy production.
Our independence has top priority for us: we finance ourselves for the most part from the contributions of our more than 12,000 supporting members and donations. In addition, there are foundation grants for some projects and a small proportion of subsidies. There are many small contributions that enable us to investigate, dig deeper, organize protests and stay on the ball until we have been able to move politics in Berlin and Brussels into the right direction again and again.
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[…] Happiness Between Tails da-AL suggests that you might be an artist without realizing it. […]
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Thank you for linking 😀
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The EU-Mercosur deal sounds like an absolute disgrace, and the Umweltinstitut München should be doing everything it can to call attention to it. Pesticides are either safe or not safe — they cannot be unsafe in Europe but safe in South America.
Europe has generally done a better job with food safety than the US has, but there are always corporate bosses eager to make money regardless of how much harm gets done in the process, and governments can sometimes be bribed to allow them (they prefer to use longer words than “bribe”, but that’s what’s happening). Often the only solution is the glare of publicity and the pressure exerted by mass protest. In Brazil, in particular, now that democracy is fairly secure, the problems with the deal need to be publicized so that citizens can pressure Lula not to go through with it.
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Definitely the more people who hear about this disgrace and raise their voices about it, the better.
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I loved the guitar music, he is a great player! I tried to watch your video but must admit that I could not hear you properly. I will have to watch it over out telly again, it has better sound.
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I feel so lucky to have such a talented cousin 😀
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Thank you for sharing my post, Daal, I think that it is very important for the world to know what is going on. Just like with Contergan, the treaty cannot possibly good for people, only for the industry and the trade organisations. I am quite sure that the agricultural workers in Latinamerica won’t see any of the profit that the EU-Mercosur treaty will generate, their share will be poisoned food alone. It is rather disgusting how some rich countries exploit the bad economical situation of other countries to dump on them what is prohibited at home because proven harmful. If I think about it, it seems to me like remote colonialism.
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It’s a very important issue. Thanks much for helping publicize it!
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Very interesting post and video, thank’s for share da-Al.
Have a wonderful day!
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Thank you 😊 you too!
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