What a rollercoaster ride. Yesterday everybody around here was wearing their long faces over the (pretty much) final outcome and the feeling of powerlessness at seeing big business, big oil, big government just punching down hope after hope after hope.
Today was better. Today we saw the counterforce, and it spoke up so loud and so strong. Everybody who was in the plenary when Powell spoke came back PUMPED. There it was -- the strength, the passion, the energy that we wanted to see from this summit, directed AT this summit because it failed to muster it, and directed squarely at the true culprits.
Post Rio, there was a lot more disagreement about the significance of what that Summit achieved. Sadly, this one is pretty black and white. Exxon won, Bush won, the planet and the people lost.
But as somebody I really admire but can never remember who they are once said in an incredibly memorable quote that I always forget and will now mangle, "Never underestimate the willingness of governments to undermine the will of the people. But never underestimate the ability of the people to stand up and strike back."
If this summit had a bright side, it's that the lines now are clear. Governments have been bought: lock, stock, and barrel, by the corporate interests that now control them. The United States of America was not here at this conference. The delegates wearing US badges were simply the hired guns of Exxon. The challenge for all of us now is to find ways to hold accountable the new superpowers -- Big Oil, Big Autos -- and make the future of this planet an issue that doesn't come second to their bottom line.
Governments are supposed to look after our collective futures. If they haven't risen by now to the achievable challenge of moving our world away from its addiction to fossil fuels, they never will. We're going to have to force that future on them ourselves somehow: through the way we buy, the way we vote, the way we organise our lives. The encouragment today was seeing that nobody among the people who followed these issues was duped. Business was pleased, environmentalists universally outraged, and the developing world left with crumbs. Not good enough. And if this is the best this system can deliver, we need a new system.
I'm an American by birth, but those 300 people in that room claiming to be Americans weren't representing me. Nor were they representing any American who cares about the future of this planet, or who recognises that America's continued priveleged position in the world depends on its generosity and greatness as an empire. Because it is an empire. And we all know what happens to Empires that stop bringing benefits to the poor, empires that corruptly look after their own profits before the common future, empires that take and give nothing back. They crumble under their own weight or they fall victim to the outrage they fuel.
People will only take so much before they find a way to throw out the old and rebuild anew. I hope that this Summit marks a turning point. One way or another, we need to be heading for a new world. We need leaders who see what needs to be done to spur renewables investment and a massive change in our civilization's way of working. I hope America will be in the forefront of driving the changes that need to happen, recognising that short term economics can't hold ransom the investment we need to make in our world's future. But by the look of things today, that's going to take new leadership in America. And leadership that hasn't been bought by big oil.
This incredible team that has sweat blood to try and make a difference is now
running around packing up the Greenpeace Information Bunker, taking down the circus tent, and about to scatter on the four winds. But I think what those winds will be carrying in every one of us who was here a very small spark of outrage and inspiration.
Appropriate that it should come from here in South Africa, one of the great lessons in what a people united can achieve.
You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire.
Signing off,
--b
Posted by brian at September 04, 2002 06:57 PM"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
Brian, I liked very much what you had to say. Although I was not a part of South Africa, I was there in spirit. When you said that when all was over and all were backing up and going to the four corners of the world, I remembered what Jesus instructed his disciples to do--just that--carry the message and sweat blood when it's needed.Jesus carried the cross and did not crumble under its weight. If we all do the same, someday a positive effect will happen to cause that candle to never go out and inturn light the campfire of all nations so that Big government an corporate interest groups(actually the 'real' big government)will see the need for a Human Ecology that will bring fulfillment to all the needs of the worlds peoples.Futhermore addictions begin to be handled when we humbly recognize our powerlessness over them and how they have made our lives unmanageable and insane.Perhaps the 'new system',will be found in this.Maybe this is whats needed in our buying,voting and the way we organize our lives. I will always believe that an earth friendly future is possible and will be a reality. Lets continue to keep the light shining and pass it one to all,for in doing so we secure earths future-even if it means the need to sweat blood.Lets keep the spark of outrage and inspiration alive.
Bill N