Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Cancun climate talks off to beautiful start on-line. Have a Watch Party!

Check out great video on-line from the U.N. climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. The UNFCC.int event website has live streaming from the event, and yesterday’s events available on demand.

Watching climate negotiations in Cancun online can be pretty inspiring, like a TED Conference video binge meets planetary survival think-tank/diplomat theater.

On-line you’ll find the Climate Action Network gave a good summary of what’s on-the-table at negotiations. “Cancun can be be the calm after Copenhagen’s political storm, a calm where we can get some real progress made for poor people” said Tim Gore of Oxfam, who notes that the UN process allows poor countries to be heard.

Look for the inspirational nature video, (about 46:30 minutes into the very interesting Opening Plenary/ Welcoming Ceremony.)

So why not play five hours of this content while you clean your kitchen. Or better yet, invite friends over for a watch party!

To spice it up, play the Cancun Watch Party Drinking Game. Suggested rules: gather friends and favored beverages. Watch the event on-line and drink when you hear the word “mitigate” “transparency” or “350 parts per million.” Drink every time you feel patriotic. Drink if you have lovin' feelings for the U.N.. Make a toast to Mother Earth every time you hear “Rights for Mother Earth.” And so forth.

Seriously, though, people should watch the Cancun process, because the more public attention that is on this process, the more our political leaders will want to do something. Like it or not, these UN proceedings is the most serious forum for dealing with the climate crisis at the moment. We need an educated citizenry on the Climate issue, so please gather and tune in!

Here are some of the topics being negotiated. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres talked about four places to make a deal: climate adaptation measures, clean technology transfer to poor countries, forestry protection, and creation of an international climate fund.

Cancun is a U.N. meeting of countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol to assess what can be done to make it work better. Or according to the official website jargon, “COP16/CMP6 is the 16th edition of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) and the 6th Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). “Parties” refers to all the national states that signed and ratified both the international treaties...”

The meeting is being held at a big resort in Cancun, on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Delegates and media are meeting at the Moon Resort, while other events happen around the city. Civil society will be given space to get their ya-ya’s out, in a 5000 person auditorium billed as an Expression Zone. That’s an improvement to many international meetings where the public and NGOs are kept away by barricades and tear gas.

Still, it’s a private party compared to Cochabamba. The Cochabamba Summit was far more vital and interesting than Copenhagen. Held in April 2010 as a response to Copenhagen, the World People’s Summit on Climate Change and Rights for Mother Earth was a model of inclusive participatory democracy and open process.

Cochabamba created the vast, intelligent and radical Cochabamba Accords that Bolivia is trying to include into the negotiations this year in Cancun. The Cochabamba Accords call for a goal of temperature increase as 1 or 1.5 degrees, rather than 2 degrees, as industrialized nations favor. (We have 1 degree increase already and have seen lots of change. So I agree, let’s aim low, 1%!!!!)

The Cochabamba Accords also passed the Resolution on the Rights of Mother Earth. Bolivian President Evo Morales is the world’s first indigenous president. He is a sturdy voice in climate leadership and in bringing indigenous thinking into the political sphere. It may seem dreamy to talk about granting Rights to Mother Earth, but some view this as a central idea to healing humanity’s relationship with the Earth. We must see the Earth as alive, worthy of respect and protection. Follow this discussion on the lively blog at pwccc.wordpress.com.

I hope for positive movement of the Rights for Mother Earth in Cancun. I hope the US delegation supports this language. It would not cost anything and would be a place to compromise in a culturally respectful manner.

I hope some good progress comes from Cancun. Yet it’s hard not to feel dissatisfied by that this is the best government can do. Humanity’s survival hangs in the balance, and they struggle to agree on un-ambitious actions that won’t stop the problem. Politicians don’t deal with the approaching climate Tsunami, because it’s terrifying effects are in the future, while economic concerns nip at the heels this moment. US politicians are particularly irresponsible, especially since the US is the number one carbon polluter in historical terms. Unfortunately, the US congress has yet to pass Climate Legislation, and so the US remains “all talk and no walk” in terms of having legal obligations to cut carbon emissions. Time for the US to get on it!

The annual climate negotiation’s most useful function may be the annual focusing of the world’s scattered ADHD attention on the Climate Crisis. Earthlings take an annual moment to thinking about the Big Problem That May End Us All. Last year at this time, the world’s media was abuzz about a summit in Copenhagen. That gathering disappointed many, and made association with the process a political liability. Who knows, maybe they’ll get more done this year with calmness and less political hubbub.

We must stop the Climate Crisis, or everything we love is destroyed. The Sermon on the Mount will go into nonexistence! So does Glee! Runaway climate change means the end of the world as we know it and probably human extinction! So let's get on it, people!

People of the world want action on the Climate Crisis. Check out incredible aerial art made by 350.org and thousands of people as evidence. May we witness solutions to Climate Crisis in Cancun and in our own lives.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Reading into the Signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity

Many people carried funny protest signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on Washington DC’s National Mall. On a sunny late October Saturday, thousands of silly signs bobbed in the massive crowd called to Washington by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. .

Some signs were insightful into the political landscape, like cloud watching for signs of approaching weather.

On Obama: “Sanity: Knowing that it takes longer than 2 years to fix an eight year disaster!”

“Yes we can- but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

“I see you went half-black and are deciding whether or not to go back.”

Many signs spoke to the rally’s main theme: “Take it down a notch, America.” The American body politic has been getting riled up in a dangerous way that historically has led to violence. Recently, a zombie-like volunteer for Rand Paul assaulted MoveOn’s Lauren Valle. The Nazis started by finger pointing at the different: Jews/Roma/gays etc. America has a proto-fascist movements afoot, so this comedy serves a serious healing function at a serious time.

“Radicals for moderate discourse”

“Endless outrage is a form of mental illness, not a form of gov’t.”

“You are mad as Shell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

A highbrow statement from Thomas Jefferson was given more snap by being held by a very cute young woman, “Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things.” Imagine! Jefferson predicted the theme of the rally over two hundred years ago!

Jefferson, an early adopter of interracial babymaking, would have appreciated the healthy modern views on sexuality on display:

On Christine O’Donnell: A sign said “I’m You* (*but I masturbate.)” On another sign was a picture of a sheep saying “I’m not a witch. I ewe.”

Some signs were against all extremism, like this war cry from a Unitarian Sunday school:

“If you aren’t with us, well, you may have an equally valid worldview to consider.”

and:

“The center: getting stuff done since 1776.”

Some signs winked at the act of carrying signs.

“I have a sign”

“I have a really big sign”

“I like this sign”

“This sign doesn’t say anything.”

“My political views cannot be summarized on a pithy sign.”

“Americans for... OH LOOK! A puppy!”

“Who farted?”

The doctors were more straightforward.

“Young doctor for universal health care.”

“More doctors, less jails.”

Some signs called for civility:

“Beat your pitchforks into sporks”

Some signs called to evolution:

“Men: Liberate! Ditch the tie!”

“Fear high-speed trains! They save energy.”

Something about the cultural superiority trip and masturbatory Reaganism of Sarah Palin really sets this crowd on edge.

One sign had a picture of Palin and “Keep fear alive.”

and: “You don’t have to hunt a moose to be a real American.”

“I can see America from my house!”

“Pray for secular gov’t”

Redheads gathered to get a picture with a sign that read: “Redheads for reason: we’re on fire for sanity”

On moderation:

“I’m moderate as hell.”

“I’m with sensible.”

“Death to nobody!”

“Nonviolence by any means necessary!”

On interfaith religious tolerance for Muslims:

“Muslims are nice people.”

“Beards are evil” carried by a bearded man.

The rally had a healthy, Muslim-friendly atmosphere that is a beautiful, godly improvement on the Vibe of recent days. America is stronger and wiser because of our interfaith tolerance. Hyper-partisan religiousness is almost always a tool of secular people to bad trip sincere religious people.

I love Sufi poetry, the poems of Rumi and Hafiz, and the ugliness of a decade of Islamophobia was put in perspective when suddenly, Islam was included in the circle of the cool. I want to live in the Jon Stewart’s America: tolerant, multi-ethic, and islam-friendly, so Kareem Abdul-Jabber can stop by.

For me, the rally’s most heartwarming moment was when Cat Stevens came on stage. This man suffered greatly for following his spiritual path where It lead. When Ozzie came out, it was grotesque counterpoint, but dynamic theater. But, hey, that’s America: the sublimely spiritual and Loud People must share one big stage.

The phenomenon of a self-selecting crowd is always interesting to observe. The crowd for the rally seemed like educated, politically aware, liberal people with a sense of humor. A quarter million people who like jokes! Yes, 250,000 is the semiofficial estimate on numbers, reported by Politico.com, based on 50 people’s estimates. To compare, Glenn Beck’s rally was 87,000, from the same source.

One new friend said he “just felt they should come, an inner call to stand up for something, albeit vague.”

One sign expressed why so many came:

“Thanks, guys, for keeping me sane during the Bush years”

The Daily Show has kept people sane while enduring the deceitful Bushite political theater. The rally felt healing to the national mind of America. Clear thinking and being grounded in reality is healthy. Tolerance, justice, and goodness are healing. Dark thoughts of anger and racism make us sick. The American media is creating a dark, propagandized mindscape.

The media isn’t helping us think together and act rationally. We haven’t yet gotten political will to solve the Climate Crisis because oil-companies are out propagandizing Dr. James Hansen. So we are destabilizing the structure of our sky! This situation threatens humanity’s survival, but try to get that heard through the punk band racket of the Fox Noise Machine.
This allows Climate Denial to be nearly prerequisite for Republican Senate candidates.

Humanity must learn to think straight on the science of the composition of our atmosphere in this delicate, thin terrarium, or we are no place. But that’s my private soapbox. Note: I did not see one sign about the Climate Crisis, nor hear one comment from the stage. We need a climate movement, and we don’t have one sign.

In closing, the day felt like it might be DC’s best day ever. DC is town of spooky impressive stage set theater buildings. It needs the good vibes off the American people. Americans need to be in DC more, that our tolerant goodness can rub off. At the very least, we should gather annually so that the Mythbuster guys can lead is in a progressively sillier group antics, like when they got everybody to jump and measured for an earthquake.

On Oct 30, 2010, the lonely, unheard masses gathered, this underrepresented american majority: liberal, tolerant, with a sense of humor.

They came, they laughed, maybe they voted.