The other day a good friend of mine asked me; “Len, are you going to Copenhagen for the climate talks?” My answer was no. To which her follow-up was; “But don’t you want to be part of the biggest event of this decade when it comes to the climate matter?” And here I did not know what to say. Because, of course I do, but do I? It’s something that has actually kept me awake yesterday.
The thing is, I want to be ‘for’ things. I want to say yes, I want to focus my energy on constructive matters, not destructive. And, knowing the history of protest around ‘global gatherings’, they’re not so constructive. Of course the feeling of unity amongst those who come there to voice the need for stronger measures on the reduction of carbon emissions, the need for a new paradigm in terms of our energy supply in general, and new policies when it comes to the way we interact with ‘Mother Nature’, is one tempting me to go. Yet, I feel its not all. With the ones that dictate the global political debate (US) likely not to even be there, it will be a facade of incompetence.
I truly believe that, within the current economic system (that despite the opportunity that has been around in the last years, still stands and is enforced by governments to keep it the way it is) we would be better of (and closer to change) if we’d focus our energy on the companies that actually create the pollution and waste. Let’s urge them to make a change, not simply because it’s something we think they should do; but more so because it makes more business sense in general.
See, looking at others to take responsibility is something we have been doing for years and years. Businesses look at the law and look for loopholes. This has been the case since the start of business and business law. When businesses look at their turnover, and see change, they move.
Carrotmob is an initiative that has shown this.
“Buy Nothing Day” (a facebook initiated ‘day’) is another one.
By keeping our focus on the government that are dependent on business for their income we will not likely see the change we would like to see. Yet, we need them in order to get the ‘wholesome’ effect.
We are stuck in a web of economic numbers, we are all, whether we like it or not, dependent on this web for our livelihood. So though we might not agree with it, we will have to either completely dissolve the current system (to which I have little hope, nor do I think it will benefit increasing equality amongst the people of the world) or we need to get ourselves together, pick the system apart and reshape it the way we would like to see it. If we want to get rid of corporate influence in our society, we will have to group ourselves, create platforms upon which individuals are enabled to work in a cell-based structure, if we want companies to be environmentally sustainable, let’s ‘reward’ those who are and disregard those who are not, and most of all, let’s stay away from negativity. And if we want our energy supply to be fully sustainable, let’s do so by voting ‘green’ into parliaments, the energy issue has to be resolved from two sides.
In Copenhagen, having lived there, we will see a huge amount of ‘riot-police’, these kind men and women will be pulled in from all over the country and are not properly trained to ‘control’ huge crowds. This means they will be afraid once the people start buzzing, atmosphere get a little grim (which is also not very smart) and they will charge. This will be widely read in mainstream media and thus will ‘once more’ show that anti-globalists, anarchists, environmental protesters and however else we are being catagorised, are a bunch of aggressors that only scream about change and do not wish it to be constructive.
That sucks, because I know for a fact that we do want it to be constructive, we simply need to organise ourselves, form collectives, create platforms and be patient. It took the world 150 years to organise the world the way it is currently organised, and if we want to change it, lets do so cell-based, de-centralised and thought-through.
Peace and love.
