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Don't Betray Our Generation. Get It Done.
The following is the prepared speech of remarks made by Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, as she addressed the COP17 climate conference in Durban, South Africa on behalf of youth delegates. Just after her speech, she led a mic check from the stage — a move inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests:
I speak for more than half the world’s population.
We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not on the table.
What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money? You have been negotiating all of my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises.
But you’ve heard this all before.
We’re in Africa, home to communities on the frontline of climate change. The world’s poorest countries need funding for adaptation NOW. The Horn of Africa, and those nearby in KwaMashu needed it yesterday.
But as 2012 dawns, our Green Climate Fund remains empty. The IEA tells us that we have five years until the window to avoid irreversible climate change closes. The science tells us that we have five years, MAXIMUM. You’re saying: give us ten.
The most stark betrayal of your generation’s responsibility to ours is that you call this AMBITION. Where is the courage in this room? Now is not the time for incremental action. In the long run, these will be seen as the defining moments of an era in which narrow self-interest prevailed over science, reason, and common compassion.
There is real ambition in this room but it’s been dismissed as radical, deemed not “politically possible”. Long-term thinking is not radical. What’s radical is to completely alter the planet’s climate, to betray the future of my generation and to condemn millions to death by climate change. What’s radical is to write off the fact that change is within our reach. Stand with Africa. 2011 was the year in which the silent majority found their voice, the year when the bottom shook the top, 2011 was the year when the radical became reality.
Common but differentiated and historical responsibility are NOT up for debate. Respect the foundational principles of this Convention. Respect the integral values of humanity. Respect the future of your descendants.
Mandela said “it always seems impossible, until it’s done.”
So, distinguished delegates and governments of the developed world: deep cuts now. Get it done. To wild applause from the audience, Anjali then stepped away from the podium. As delegates took their seats, the youth remained standing.
Dropping the pages of her prepared speech on the floor, Anjali cupped her hands over her mouth and screamed: Mic check. Fifty or so young people echoed back:
Mic check.
Equity now. Equity now!
You’ve run out of excuses. You’ve run out of excuses.
And we’re running out of time. And we’re running out of time.
Get it done. Get it done.
Get it done. Get it done.
Get it done! Get it done!
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26 Comments so far
Show AllYou have to hand it to the college students attending the U.N.-sponsored climate talks in Durban. They know how to cut through the nonsense and tell it like it is.
Read more at Transition Times: http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/college-climate-activists-lead-the-way-at-cop-17-in-durban/
Yes. Nice speech. I am sure it is going to make a big impact.,,
Like the individual drops of rain that together can cause a flood, individual voices speaking out have the potential of causing change, if they grow in mass and volume.
NOT! MONEY talks here as everywhere else and BS does MIC checks for all there worth.. which is more nothing.
It is past time to stop attending these corporate-owned events.
It is hypocritical to spew more toxins into the environment by traveling to an event which has become, especially since Copenhagen, a corporate PR event.
I disagree.
There is no wrong place , there is no wrong time.
Everywhere and all the time we must raise awareness that the cost of curtailing climate change is much less than the costs of ignoring climate change.
BE A PART OF THE CHANGE NOW!
I agree 100% - 1000% if that is possible.
Manysummits
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Our global capitalist corporate masters will betray everything, including themselves and their own families: Doing what it takes to slow or halt climate change would spell the END OF CAPITALISM--and they know this well. SEE NAOMI KLEIN in The Nation. No effective agreement can possibly be reached by totalitarian states based on exploitation and extraction and metastatic growth (USA, CHINA, RUSSIA etc., all owned by a few murderous and suicidal oligarchs.)
It breaks my heart when I see young people who have no idea what we older people have done to them, and what future climate portends for how the rest of their lives will play out.
It breaks my heart when I see young people who understand what we older people have done to them, and what future climate portends for how the rest of their lives will play out.
But I also find some small shred of hope in this: when young people understand. It is their future decades which are up for discussion. Young people need to take charge of the conversation.
So would you be willing to give up power to the people who come after you?
That would be justice, indeed. Both political power and energy resources need to be ceded to the young.
The current generation of adults has demonstrated unprecedented depravity - an indifference to the welfare of its progeny which no species could survive. It's time for young people to hold us responsible for our intergenerational crimes.
I'm kind of surprised and impressed that you've said that. Quite frankly, a lot of people seem to gleefully look forward to people younger, browner, and poorer than them dying-even while simultaneously lamenting how nothing is changing and sneering pointlessly at those who come after them.
Aleph: You're usually keen on issues like climate change, but here you go along with the popular MSM meme that paints with a broad enough brush to make IT everyone's problem, as if we all had equal input into lifestyle-bases for the exploitation of resources, added to policy decisions. This is patently UNTRUE.
While most of those living in Western culture have a larger footprint, ecologically, than those of the Global South, the accountability scale is wide and diverse. SOME people in the older generation are responsible, but then many are not. Hansen spoke out against climate change, as did David Suzuki. Many people, like myself, live with a small ecological footprint. Paris Hilton is younger than I am, but her footprint FAR faster. Get the point?
The attempts to blame everyone reliably leaves those in powerful enough positions to enforce policy OFF THE HOOK. It's my opinion that such an angle is posted on purpose on C.D. for it protects the two most significant trespassers: 1. The elites and the libertarian credos they've busily been spreading, and 2. The government agencies that fell to the bidding of Mammon and thus alter law to suit their corporate sponsors.
Third on the list is "The People," and I'd divide this group into various levels of culpability based on their ecological footprints, not their age groups.
If everything is the same, and everyone equally responsible, then nothing holds meaning. It's a smokescreen... or deception device.
Anjali Appadurai said:
"The science tells us that we have five years, MAXIMUM. You’re saying: give us ten. The most stark betrayal of your generation’s responsibility to ours is that you call this AMBITION. Where is the courage in this room? Now is not the time for incremental action. In the long run, these will be seen as the defining moments of an era in which narrow self-interest prevailed over science, reason, and common compassion."
I agree with Appadurai's blunt assessment that my generation is starkly betraying her generation. It is impossible to address the issue of intergenerational injustice without generalizing onto all members of a privileged generation collective responsibilities, debts, and even crimes.
Similarly, it is impossible to discuss racial injustice without generalizing onto all members of a privileged race collective responsibilities. Injustice has victims and beneficiaries. All older people have benefited from climate injustice, in the same way all white people have benefited from racial injustice.
For that matter, all men benefit from the subjugation of women - not just those men who engage in harassment and worse - and consequently all men need to conscientiously take responsibility for all men. This was the compassionate message of Andrea Dworkin's great speech "I Want A 24-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape."
Aleph Null:
One can now take an IQ test on-line. My score came back within 3 points of what it was when I was a kid. I was staying at the home of a man who always scores about 20 points higher than I do. The trick questions for me were those that spoke in what I found to be an illogical idiocy saying things like, "If all Zebras wear red, and all umbrellas are purple, then..." (I don't remember the actual phrasing.)
My friend pointed out what I was missing was that the word "all," in context, applied to a very specific subset, not every possible category. (Now with this realization, I suspect my IQ would shoot up closer to his!) And I'd apply that logic to your post. Did you attempt to snag me with the final paragraph showing sympathy for women's rights (and too often subjugation), since I speak out on that issue often enough in this forum? Nonetheless, one can find a Robert Jensen or Phil Donahue who would work FOR women's rights, and an imbecile like Michelle Bachman who'd undermine them. So this idea of "ALL" is very suspect.
EVERY generation, you could argue, since the industrial revolution has set the climate collapse into motion. I will NOT take responsiblity for all of that! Many people from my group (mid l950's) were the hippies who elected to wear used clothing, recycle everything, buy from consignment shops, and carefully conserve our water/power/gas usage, etc.
Ultimately, in spite of your apparent empathy for "The Women's Issue," I don't buy or agree with your argument. It puts FULL blame on the latest group in a long line of environmental abusers. However, you are free to carry the generational guilt for all of us, if you so insist.
Wow! Another beautiful, inspired Arundhati Roy-type woman who speaks boldly and powerfully from the heart! Thank Goddess for beings like her! She socked it to 'em. Truth is a powerful thing, and it stands out like a lightning bolt hovering over the din cast by multi-million dollar advertising & PR firms there to endlessly shape and distort the discourse while maintaining their webs of deceit.
We should all send this young woman emails of gratitude. She speaks for Life, and thus all of us.
Love the bravery and REAL audacity, instead of prez's bull shit audacity. This young lady is a hero.
...she gave me wonderful goose bumps.
ROCK ON little sista!!!
Awesome display of smarts and guts...and an exceptionally effective use of the opportunity...
you read them the riot act, reminded them why they were really there to begin with, then gave props to your peeps and your entire generation... VERY VERY cool...
News of this action has gone viral and is doing more to draw focus to the true spirit and "foundational principles" of Kyoto and the COP conference than the entirety of the global MSM coverage combined...
Well done, young woman... If we had more like you, this planet would be a place of peace and paradise....
Anjali reminds me Severn Cullis-Suzuki, when she gave a similar speech at the Earth Summit in Brazil 1992 ! Almost 20 years ago !
And yet, not much has changed. As Anjali says: "you have negotiated all of my life.. you have missed targets, you have broken promises..."
It is long time due to take real action, and we can not afford to keeep waiting for the governments to do the "right thing", as their buses, the big corporations, won't allow them anything that hurts them.
Bravo Anjali ! The time for #OCCUPY EARTH is here ! .
Way to Mic Check Anjali Appadurai !!!!!!!!
"To wild applause from the audience, Anjali then stepped away from the podium..."
Listen up - those who want to abandon the UN - who do you think was applauding wildly.
My favorite mountaineer Bill Tilman once remarked, in relating his war experiences (both world wars in their entirety - artillery officer, behind the lines and decorated...) that in reality, no one was innocent.
Never mind bringing up the exceptions - get real - and see what is behind this remark.
And never mind apportioning blame.
Get it done - get it done - that's more like it.
Manysummits
=====
You go, girl! Occupy and then some :O).
Well folks, it looks like some kind of a deal has been agreed to. AP is reporting that a "landmark deal" has been approved:
"Climate conference approves landmark deal"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_CLIMATE_CONFERENCE?SITE=WABEL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
or
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_CLIMATE_CONFERENCE
Here are the three key aspects of this deal, as I understand it as of now:
(1) The Kyoto Protocol would be extended by another five years beyond 2012.
(2) Negotiations for another binding treaty would start, that would include ALL countries and impose commitments on ALL the countries. This new treaty would come into effect by 2020, at the latest.
(3) [Quote] The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year for poor countries. Other documents in the package lay out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues. [End quote]
At first glance, I have to say that this is better than what I feared might come out of Durban. The US is not happy, but according to Todd Stern, the U.S. climate negotiator, "the package captured important advances that would be undone if it is rejected."
Looks like the EU's pressure tactics to bring about a binding treaty that would impose commitments on all the countries seems to have worked - but with the compromise that the developing countries would still have a few years to get their house in order.
I really do not want to give in to cynicism at this point. Even if the entire talks had collapsed without any agreement, I was determined not to give in to cynicism. The responsibility of ordinary people to take charge of the situation still remains until we "get it done". But right now, my feeling is that things could have been worse. I'll wait for more details to come out.
The Guardian also reports "Climate deal salvaged after marathon talks in Durban"
http://gu.com/p/342tf
The ***reality*** is that the Durban meeting was where negotiations were held among competing self-interests of so many parties in the face of a common threat. The outcome could have been far worse. The whole thing could have been junked, with no treaty whatsoever. Right now there is an extension of the Kyoto Protocol and a "road map" for the next treaty, to be decided by 2015, and to be implemented no later than 2020.
Some here do not like to deal with ***reality***. I know for a fact that this outcome at Durban is not enough to avert disaster. But I think it could have been worse. It is now up to ordinary people everywhere to force the negotiations in the next year or so to move towards a serious international treaty. Those who do not care about treaties can pursue other avenues if they think they have something better. They are also free to imagine and pretend that they are the only ones who know how dangerous the whole thing is.
Hi Alcyon - I'll crosspost too:
From the BBC - in Durban:
"Michael Jacobs, visiting professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London, said the agreement could bring real changes.
"The agreement here has not in itself taken us off the 4C path we are on," he said.
"But by forcing countries for the first time to admit that their current policies are inadequate and must be strengthened by 2015, it has snatched 2C from the jaws of impossibility.
"At the same time it has re-established the principle that climate change should be tackled through international law, not national, voluntarism."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16124670
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YAWN.
Get it done? Here we go again.
What exactly is "it"?
Yes, we WANT YOU to fix this for FUTURE GENERATION.
We need to go out and breed some more, so better hurry up and fix things for us.
YAWN. Wake me up when the heterosexism is over.
Get it done? Wear a condom.
Compare this clip from the first major eco confernece in Rio in 1992:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM5XYFYhLx0
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Ever get the feeling that these conferences reflect the same theme as the film Ground Hog Day while ignoring the difficult task of regulating their corporate pay masters?