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It is exactly three hundred and forty-one days since I posted anything on this blog. 341 days during which I have been totally absorbed in climate change, 341 days of drowning in acronyms – UNFCCC – LULUCF – REDD – NAMAS – NAPAS – BASIC – AOSIS – CDM – MRV – MVCS – these, and many more, now bounce around in my brain and roll of my tongue as I navigate my way through the inconprehensible policy documents and advocacy statements that clog my Inbox on an hourly basis.
341 days’ later, I am now on a holiday from my Inbox. I must resist the temptation to click on the terminal server from home and await the day I return to work where thousands of e-mails will greet me. A curt message is displayed to all who try to contact me – I am not available for 2 weeks, if it’s urgent, breathe deep and find someone else. Sorry.
Now I have time to read a book, to weed the garden, to brush the cobwebs from the rafters, to bake and sew, maybe even paint.
It has been a long and exhausting year. I have met some extraordinary people. I have learned that the world is a complex place and that there is little to celebrate about being human. The road ahead is paved with a hopelessness I was not aware of 341 days’ ago.
At the Pasifika Festival a couple of weeks’ ago, the dancers from Tuvalu performed in spectacular costumes, wide smiles and 
skin the colour of toasted honeycomb. My friend from Kiribati said “Do not be fooled by our smiles, our always smiling, our laughter and our song. Beneath all that, in our hearts, we carry a despair about losing our land and culture, to the encroaching tides, to the king tides, which turn our drinking water brakish and our skin red and blistered. Our children line the corridors of our inadequate hospitals; our fish fills the bellies of people thousands of miles away; when the tsunamis come and the radio tells us to go to higher ground, we pray. There is no higher ground. We live in fear because we do not understand why this is happening to us. Can you tell us why?”
0.06% of global emissions of greenhouse gases come from the Pacific. Islands like Tuvalu, Kiribati and Tokelau. Their islands are disappearing before their eyes. This is not a dramatic statement intended to get you to sit up and take notice, it is a fact.
Yes, my friend, I can tell you why. Our greed and addiction to stuff - to the display of acquisition representing status to satisfy our addled screwed up brains – means that we need to fill our lives with product, we measure our success by how much we consume, we shop til we drop because we are basically fucked up.
In 341 days, almost 300,000 people will have died because of climate change related impacts. Of these 300,000, most will be in the developing world, the people who are least responsible for the problem.
So, that’s the what and the why, but what of the how? How do we change things? In 341 days immersed in this fight for survival have I seen much change? The tragedy of what happened in Copenhagen in December 2009 should be etched on everyone’s soul, and branded on our collective conscience. The big globe in the Bella Centre where the UN climate change summit was held did not even include the Pacific Islands. A large expanse of oceanic islands at the frontline of climate change not displayed in a United Nations’ summit on climate change, with 193 world leaders present .
How I cheered on the strong clear voice of the delegate from the tiniest of these ‘forgotten’ islands, who likened what was happening to the low-lying atolls of the Pacific, a crime against humanity. Watching it live on my laptop, from the comfort of my deck on a sunny afternoon, I probably saw more of what happened during those tragic hours than many present in Copenhagen at the time. The suppressed rage of those present, many who had not slept for days, the blood dripping from the palm of a South American beauty as she smashed her table in disgust, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Chair of the Conference of Parties, becoming inchoherent through exhaustion and having to be removed from the Plenary.
A convergence is about to happen in Cochabamba in the 3rd week in April. The World’s People’s Conference has been convened to talk about the rights of Mother Nature. Thousands are journeying from all the corners of the globe, to Cochabamba to discuss the how. It’s purpose is to set the stage for a World Referendum on Climate Change.
This World Referendum will take place on October 12th this year. On this day we can start to put an end to the madness. The questions are very simple:-
a. Do you agree to restore harmony with nature, being aware of the rights of Mother Earth?
b. Do you agree to change this over consumption and waste model that represents capitalist system?
c. Do you agree that developed countries should reduce and re-absorb their domestic greenhouse gas emissions for temperature not to rise more than 1 degree Celsius(1°C)?
d. Do you agree with transferring everything spent on wars and allocating a higher budget in defense of Mother Earth?
e. Do you agree to establish a Climate Justice Tribunal to judge those who destroy Mother Earth?
Voting in the World Referendum will be simple – by electronic means, by popular vote, through customary channels etc. A Unity of Peoples’ Nations (UPN) will be formed to be the representative organisation and the results of the Referendum will be taken to the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC when they meet in Mexico at the end of November.
This is the beginning of the how.
It has taken me 341 days to become a radical. 341 days of learning who is to blame for the mess we are in. 341 days of my eyes brimming with tears on a daily basis as I read what kind of planet my children will inherit. 341 days of realising who is to blame and why.
Not sure when I’ll get back to the blog again. Once this break is over I’ll be back in the maelstrom of climate change campaigning, navigating my way through thousands of e-mails, looking for that small ray of hope to guide us out of the Darkness, towards the future. Will my heart be singing 341 days from now? The answer is in all of our hands.
