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Several days ago a document, the “GlobalMay Statement,” showed up in my email inbox. In the website where this statement can be found, http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2012/05/may-12th-globalmay-statement/, it is explained that “this is an attempt by some inside the [occupy] movements to reconcile statements written and endorsed in the different assemblies around the world. The process of writing the statement was consensus based, open to all, and regularly announced on our international communications platforms, that are also open to all. It was a hard and long process, full of compromises. This statement is offered to people’s assemblies around the world for discussions, revisions and endorsements.”

One of the things which struck me was how strong the statement is on the climate and environmental crises. The first sentence of the first general point says that, “The economy must be put to the service of people’s welfare, and to support and serve the environment, not private profit.” Four of the ten bullet points under that first general point deal in some way with environmental issues.

This was striking given the serious weaknesses in this area as far as Occupy Wall Street’s first overall statement of what it was calling for last fall. In that document, released on September 30th, there were two sentences about a monopolized, poisoned and cruel-to-animals food system and a sentence about the 1% “continuing to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.” That was it.