The Rio Earth Summit of 1992, also known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was the first time the world on the scale of the UN was paying attention to patterns of production — particularly the production of toxic components, or poisonous waste and radioactive chemicals. The first time that alternative sources of energy were called for to replace the use of fossil fuels, and the role of fossil fuels in climate change was acknowledged.
A small group of thoughtful individuals had come together – just before the Earth Summit – and asked: Who are the most powerful players in global economics that might prevent action to stop climate change. And the members of the group, that took the name POCLAD, Project on Corporations, Law and Democracy agreed: Corporations are using the Law to subvert Democracy and have now become more powerful than nation states.
Two of their most public members were Richard Grossman, who co-founded POCLAD and Jane Anne Morris. They were not just excellent writers of pamphlets and books but very popular public speakers.
Both came to Seattle in 2001 and talked about ways to defy corporations and re-define democracy that had been so grotesquely subverted. Jane Anne Morris spoke first.
Grossman and Morris later connected with CELDF, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund – and taught and developed material for their Democracy School weekend sessions. Sadly both are no longer with us, Richard Grossman died in November 2011, and Jane Anne Morris in March of 2019.
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