Support TNI book project: Cashing in on Catastrophe

Dear friends of TNI,

I am writing to ask you to please contribute to a very important TNI book project called Cashing in on Catastrophe: climate change, corporations and security states. It is a searing expose of how military planners and corporations are gearing up to profit from climate change. It also shares the inspiring stories of popular movements engaged in just solutions for sharing our food, water, energy and building dignified livelihoods in a climate-changed world.

It is a crucial book for difficult times but it won't happen without your support.

See this appeal on film and donate here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cashing-in-on-catastrophe

I work on communications for TNI and the idea for the book came three years ago after I attended the UN climate summit at Copenhagen. My daughter at the time was one-year old and I was deeply aware that her future was at stake. There was huge expectation that the world's leaders gathered there would heed the warnings of scientists and make a real commitment to move our world towards a low carbon future. But the opposite happened. We instead are heading in the wrong direction. I came back deeply depressed at what this would mean for my children and their generation.

But it also led me realise that the world's most powerful corporate and political leaders do not intend to stop climate change-- they plan to control it.

So together with TNI fellow Ben Hayes, an expert in the EU security industry, we began to examine the military, security and special interests that are already mapping out our future. As climate change hits home, their agenda is not one of how to protect the vulnerable, nor how to put the common welfare of people at the heart of decisions. Instead they are looking at how to secure control of resources and profit from climate change.

In 2010, for example the Pentagon started organising war games to look at how they could maintain "domestic order amid civil unrest” as a result of climate change. A year later, arms companies, such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Thales at a conference breathlessly welcomed “what looks set to become its most significant adjacent market since the strong emergence of the civil/homeland security business almost a decade ago.” In the last few months, we have seen how the US and many EU countries have established an unparalleled surveillance system, supposedly targeted at terrorism but one that can equally be used to control populations.

With TNI's support, we've pulled together some of the best analysts, writers and activists around the world to:

• look into what the military and corporations are planning;
• examine how their actions will affect our basic necessities such as food and water at a time of climate change;
• and present how popular social movements suggest these resources can be shared and used in a just manner

An exciting number of prestigious authors came on board the project – from renowned TNI fellow Susan George to journalist Christian Parenti to Nigerian activist and writer Nnimmo Bassey. Their contributions have created the best compilation of progressive analysis on the militarisation of climate change.

We have made great progress in getting the research together, but we now desperately need 10,000 Euros to get the book out and publicised. That money will help pay for copy editing, layout, formatting and design, and some marketing and media work to promote the book so that it gets the publicity it deserves.

I am sure you get a lot of financial requests from all sorts of groups that deserve it, but I hope you will be willing to chip in some money for this project. Any donation from 5 Euros upwards could help us reach our goal. By making a contribution, you will also get exclusive updates on the project (and a whole range of other perks!) and therefore become part of the team that shapes this project and brings it to fruition..

You can find out more, watch a video appeal and donate at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cashing-in-on-catastrophe.

Thanks in advance for your support! Please contact me with any ideas or suggestions as we complete this timely and critical project.

Best wishes,

Nick Buxton
Communications Manager, TNI