The biggest rainforest on Earth, the “lungs of our planet”, are on fire.

Why? Because the meat industry is profitable, and big businesses don’t care about destroying the planet if it means they can make money. They are burning and chopping down more trees than ever before for cattle farming and growing animal feed. Huge agricultural corporations like SLC Agricola make millions from land they ruin, and banks like HSBC make billions from financing these operations [1].

Scientists are talking about a complete collapse of the ecosystem. If the world's biggest forest burns, global temperatures will rise and more ice will melt into the sea, causing extreme flooding all around the world. Including in Hull.

Did any of us agree to this?

We’ve been taught since school how deforestation destroys ecosystems and has devastating impacts on the climate crisis, and we all care about the lives of people and animals, but it can feel like we have no way to make a difference.

Indigenous people are giving their lives to defend the rainforest — their home — but huge corporations are given free reign by governments who prioritise profit over all else. It’s time to stop letting them use their money to destroy our planet, and to put power back into the hands of the people. If our societies were organised democratically, with decisions made by us, would we choose destruction of the Amazon, or cuts to pensioners fuel allowances, or record profits for oil companies while the rest of us “feel the squeeze”?

This is Cooperation Hull’s mission.

Through People’s Assemblies and local economies, we’re taking power from the hands of billionaires and building real democracy.

It’s a fecking big job.

• Learn more about People’s Assemblies on our website, then sign up on the homepage to share your skills and learn many more.

• Come to Waffle on a Tuesday evening, 4:30 - 7pm at the Lonsdale Centre in HU3, to see how a different way of eating and living together could work. Waffle reminds us how to be good neighbours, and gives us space to live and play and argue together — space we need if we’re going to look after each other. Plus you won’t find any Amazon beef in our bourguignon.

[1] Global Witness - Deforestation Dividends

30 September 2024

By Cooperation Hull