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Okay, so many things have happened this week. I'm going to try to put my thoughts together, but it will require spreading it out over several posts.
As I finished my last couple assignments for school, I was able to start going to all the Klimaforum events I talked about earlier. I haven't spent as much time wandering the city and seeing the exhibits because there's about eight things going on at any one time at Klimaforum alone. I'm glad I got to see the other stuff around town earlier on, because it feels like there's just not enough time to do everything. Which there isn't. There are literally seven presentations going on at the same time in the same gigantic building all throughout the day, every day. So, I've picked the ones that seem the most interesting, and accepted myself as a finite being. I may have stolen that phrase from Ailish, one of my mentors at Goucher. I think I'll spend next post creating a list with descriptions of all the Klimaforum things I've been to. Some of them have been great. In the meantime, I want to talk about Saturday.
I went to a massive climate demonstration. We marched from Christiansborg (parliament building) to the Bella Center (site of COP15). There were between 25,000 and 100,000 people there, depending on who you ask. There were at least a hundred different organizations represented, many of which made banners, floats, etc.
I’ve heard it said in the past that protest movements died in the 70’s, and that may have been true to some extent. Images of thousands of people marching with signs and yelling stopped being a new and exciting phenomenon, and the news stopped covering these protests. It became harder and harder to get publicity. Those times are over. The protest is back. I have a theory as to why, and it starts with that idea of media images.
Organizers have come up with new and creative ways of getting their message out there. There’s no longer just a bunch of people. There are a bunch of people coordinating their dress, making human formations, creating floats, whatever they have to do to present a single, clear message. A sound bite, a photograph, whatever gets the message across.
(Photo of Saturday's crowd)
Protests get a bad rap when it appears to be just a mob of angry people yelling, especially when they seem unsure as to what they’re yelling about. Back in 2004, I was at the massive anti-RNC protest in New York City. The only lingering memory I have from the march was the pro-Gore and pro-Nader people screaming at each other. That’s the sort of crap we don’t need, and the kind of crap that has been blessedly absent here in Copenhagen.
A single unifying message is incredibly important. While the various groups present were at the protest focusing on different aspects of climate legislation, everyone more or less agreed with each other. While some focused on indigenous peoples' rights, some focused on wildlife conservation, some focused on emissions reduction, and some focused on keeping the world anti-nuclear. Nevertheless, all these groups understood that these issues were related, and that a truly fair deal at COP15 could not ignore any of them. As such, folks got along just fine across movements, and it was a great event.
I've heard that a violent group tried to infiltrate the protest, but they more or less got cut off in the back, and didn't really manage to cause serious trouble. Arrests were made, though. Meanwhile, as you'd expect with a protest that size, those of us in the middle and the front didn't hear a thing until after the fact. We were too busy being positive.
Anyway, while our action was going on in Copenhagen, folks around the world were holding candlelight vigils in solidarity. Some great photos and beautiful displays of global unity, much like the 350.org event back in October (when I got to be a Mr. Green). I'll talk about 350.org more in my next post, and show some more photos as well.
(This vigil photo was captioned "Amherst, USA," but I have no idea who or where it is)
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Quick updates from recent posts:
1) The polar bear took about as long to melt as expected. Unfortunate, really. I was hoping for some irony. Or is it double irony? (Hint: no, it's not irony at all)
2) The weird temporary glass buildings on City Hall Square house various climate solutions. The overall exhibit is called "the future city.
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