In ETC Group, says that 15 months remain for humans to get ourselves through one of the most dangerous times in history. ‘Copenhagen was a tragedy, Cancun was treason,’ says Mooney, referring to the last international climate negotiations and their effects globally. From the upcoming Durban climate conference to the Rio+20 Earth Summit, there is only a small window of time for people to take to the streets and to the negotiating rooms to set the agenda of the coming years and the fate of the planet. Rio+20, he says, will be an ‘earth grab’ rather than an ‘earth summit’, adding that it is important for activists and social movements to have a clear agenda on how to organise against the ongoing expropriation of resources and the grabbing of biomass and the stratosphere.

New mapping technologies make it easier to collect data on biodiversity, making biopiracy easier and taking intellectual property out of the hands of indigenous communities. ‘New forms of biopiracy and new strategies for biomass control may mean that the realisation of rights, benefits and justice for indigenous peoples are receding,’ Pat Mooney writes.

As the UN General Assembly prepares for the June 2012 environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, the global response to the current set of crises around ‘food, fuel, finance and Fahrenheit’ are giving rise to even greater commoditisation of our lives, writes Pat Mooney. In the face of new ‘shock doctrines’ around agricultural erosion, ecosystem collapse, cultural extinctions and gender ‘disappeareds’, Mooney discusses the supposed therapies and ultimate pay-offs.