Gordon: cracks showing

Back home again, I return to my hobby of smiting wood.

We green woodworkers prefer to make out own tools where possible. I have 3 mallets, one a great Neanderthal style clunking fist called Gordon, one a lightweight called Dave, and an odd medium sized chap that I called Brian, for no particular reason at the time, but which I now realise relates to Brian Paddick the LibDem candidate for London. Who shared the fate of Ken and Sian, of being beaten by Boris.

Brian is a worthy mallet, being of a new design in that the fibres of the smiting face go in at 45 degrees, thus avoiding splittages. The handle is made of a natural branch, so there is strength at the heart of the mallet.

Gordon is breaking up. There are bits missing, and he is developing a great split.

I know this is of no significance whatsoever, except in some obscure journalistic sense.

Burma and R2P

The Government of Burma/Myanmar is clearly not exercising its responsibility to protect its population, because it is blocking international aid effort.

I would say that if physically possible, the aid should go in anyway, regardless of the Junta's "permission", on the grounds that humanitarian effort takes precedence over legal niceties. The UN can argue about the details afterwards. This action would be in the spirit of, if not in line with the letter of, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.

This is a case of human need rightly overruling the sovereignty of undemocratic regimes.

Maybe Dam Aung Sang Suu Kyi (?sp.) should be invited to oversee the aid effort.

Leaving Pousada dos Franceses

6th May Impressions of Sao Paolo

Last day. Pack bags, breakfast and then take the metro out to the highest tower in Sao Paolo to see the view. I’m getting used to SP now, though I still keep a sharp eye in the back of my head looking out for footpads (Joe the Californian was threatened with a knife last week), and also am looking all ways at once when I cross the road.

Having said that, with every day I experience more fellow feeling with the Paulistas. Smiles come easily, and people go out of their way to help, several times a day.

A noticeable thing about the Paulistas, and presumably generic Brazilians is that they are great readers. Street newspaper kiosks (which happen about every 100 yards) have books racks displaying Lorca, Dostoyevsky, Shaw and all the greats, in the place where London bookshops would have Jackie Collins. Interesting…

I have my camera out today, and am still awestruck by the buildings. There is a real sense of the aesthetic, where London (IMHO) goes either for stark functionalism or nauseating opulence. But London’s pavements are of higher quality than SP. More predictable. Which is a pity because if you are on dodgy pavements, you have to keep an eye on the ground. What is the point of having stunning towers if everyone is having to watch the broken pavement? Thing is, they have these really nice Art Deco and cobbled pavements, but the patterns (and the surfaces) do not get replaced once the utilities companies have done their thing. Lib Dems are known for their “pavement politics”, and they have a point. People want to see a difference after they vote for someone, and pavements are a good way of satisfying that desire*. There is much less litter than in London, partly because there is 2 or 3 sweepers on every street corner. Great. Better that than long dole queues. (I have a political solution to the litter problem over on www.greenhealth.org.uk > political essays > Litter Our Cultural Heritage. I can’t do a hyperlink because I am writing this on the plane, so no web link. And no mains plug, so this blog may be cut short…)

The trees are looking even better in the sun. They could do with more trees, though they have more than London already. And window boxes. Part of the Sustainable Cities paper mentions the “vertical greenhouse” – the use of window boxes to green the city. Imagine every tower face covered with greenery trailing down from the windows, cooling the buildings, fixing a bit of CO2, adding beauty and growing a modicum of food. Or even more than a modicum. I see loads of inefficient old air conditioners sticking out of the windows, but not a single solar heating or photovoltaic panel. Wake up, Brazil! Ever noticed how hot the sun is? That is because it is a source of energia.

The traffic is still nuts today. On the way back from the Brigadeiro metro station I notice that the motorcyclists hunt in packs. Sometimes alone, but they seem to prefer groups. Big groups if possible. Safety in numbers. Leader of the pack stuff. And why not?

I find a near-total absence of buskers. In particular there are more Chilean pan pipe bands in Reading than in the whole of Brazil. That is because perhaps because they prefer samba, but there are more open air Sambistas on a Climate Change march in London than the whole of SP. So.

I saw one street preacher. He was on song. Looked like a nice man, nice smile. Preaching outside a bank. There was a street person asleep behind him. I wonder if Jesus might not have been inside the bank, preaching to the bank manager about social equity.

Arrive at the Banesta Tower to see the view and who should be there but Ralf Fuchs, one of the organisers of part of the Congress. He is polite, but not chatty, so I refrain from opening a discussion with him on the subject of green economics, which I would dearly like to do.

The city is spread out in all directions below us stretching as far as the tree-clothed mountains on the horizon. Everywhere the jagged towers are below us. A church is down there, completely outclassed, and its domes striking a different note. I murmur something to Ralf about sustainable cities, which was the subject he had brought together at the Congress, and he says yes, he cannot understand why it does not completely fall apart.

I as if he was happy with the Congress, and he looks a little doubtful. I …[to be continued]

[The laptop battery ran out at that point, so I spent most of the rest of the journey reading a thought-provoking book “Is there a Green Ideology?” Which is the subject of a blog below.]

I left the hostel, the Pousada dos Franceses, saying fond farewells to the people who run it, and very glad I went there instead of a hotel; originally went for this because of cheapness as I am only part supported by the International Committee. It was clean, but basic; the breakfast was great, but the real bonus was the genuine friendliness of the staff. In hotels you can get ingratiating servility from the staff, a layer of trained super-politeness, without depth. In the Pousada you get heart. Recommended.

The bus journey through town was slow because of traffic. At one stage chocolate vendors were walking along a 3-lane highway, selling to the motorists, secure in the knowledge that the 100-kph motors on the 100-kph asphalt raceway were not going to go any faster than a granny with 2 OA hips.

Noticed a definite sense of relaxation when we finally burst out of the city into the greenery and scenery.

Lots of street people: like London. This is a symptom of a dysfunctional economy.

Saw Ralf again at the airport, but then I met Ozod Boum Yagalgch, coordinator of the Mongolian green coalition, and a speaker at the conference. We had 20 minutes talking before our respective planes departed (almost missed it, so absorbed).

My understanding is that 10% of the surface of Mongolia is affected by gold mining processes, that the health of the miners is seriously affected by the processing, especially the mercury and cyanide, and the health of the environment is likewise affected. The Mongolian people, especially the miners, profit little from the gold, since most of the profits are enjoyed by the multinational companies and taken out of the countries.
Please correct me if I have not understood correctly.

This situation is a perfect example, a cameo, of what is happening to the world itself. The common wealth of the planet is being extracted in such a way that the profits go to multinational corporations, and the people and the environment are left with the costs only. Governments are too weak, and sometimes corrupt, to control the multinationals, so it is up to the green movement to do this.

The objective of the Mongolian Green Party is to have a moratorium, to all gold mining in Mongolia, and then to restart it using processes that do not damage environmental and human health.

There is justifiable anger of Mongolians at this situation, and I feel that it is of vital importance that the Global Greens and the global green movement to take effective action to help the Mongolian Greens to succeed in their aims using methods consistent with the Global Green Charter. I believe that this should be made a campaigning priority for the global Greens because it is such a clear example of the distorted balance of power between environment, people, government and multinational corporations; therefore a swift victory here would be a good example of what we wish to achieve on a world wide basis.

The flight was 11 hours. I watched “There will be Blood” about an oil man; interesting. Chatted briefly to nice Christian government official (Tax dept – that’s OK by me, I am paid by taxes) but she is against the congestion charge, not yet having made the connection between motor cars and the destruction of God’s handiwork…

KLM was fine. I like Dutch peeps. Their pleased surprise when I said “Dank u wel” on leaving was touching; they speak English better than most English, but are pleased when an English person knows 3 dutch words. actually I know 8 words altogether: Weisbegeertje van der Wetsidee.

Back in England there was a bit of difficulty with the taxi. Distinct contrast to the helpfulness of the Brazilians. But this slight friction was offset by the glorious sight of Somerset clothing herself in sweet green leaves, and birds singing, and my heart was filled with joy at being home again. Great trip, great conference, great clarity of mind: the greenhouse effect is happening now, sea levels are rising, we know what to do about it, all we have to do is bring green rationality into politics and economics, which means taming the corporations. No problem. Let’s go!

“Is there a Green Ideology?”...

...is the title of a Book by Per Garton http://www.cogito.nu/wp-gallery/saljbrev_en.pdf . My off the cuff response, speaking as someone who is jet-lagged:

Yes, there is a green ideology. It is the ideology of the heart, where the word “heart” means the totality of our human existence, where the myriad aspects of our human existence meet at a point, just as the colours of a white light spectrum can be traced back towards a point of origin, the “white light” source. “Heart” means the point at which all our structures and functions, those of our body, consciousness, emotions, cognition, our economic life, our laws, art and love form a unified significant being.

The unique point of the green philosophy is the realisation that “Man”, the author and subject of all philosophy, is not some god-like, self-subsistent being, but is one “component” of a web of life on Earth. This living system can give us human contented and happy lives if, and only if, we can learn to live within the limits imposed by the biosphere, learn not to disturb the equilibrium of the planetary system.

Every human being has this knowledge at their heart, but their instinctive bonding with nature is for some people, at the moment, too buried beneath layers of suffering, mis-education, worry, and frustration, that they are unable to access the consciousness and power of connection with Nature.

The green movement is composed of people who are conscious, at any level,
from the naïve through to the intellectual, from activists without formal education who just “know in their heart” that what they see happening about them is wrong, through to academics, professionals and activists with detailed and accurate understanding of the scientific aspects of these problems. Theri common perception is of a big problem, and it is their wish to take action to stop and reverse the damage that is being done to the planetary life system.

The green parties are the political wing of the green movement. They take the path of trying to penetrate to the heart of Government, seeing that it is a preferable (for them) option to influence policy before it is implemented, rather than reacting to the end effects of these policies effects.
Green paries are a complement to necessary NGO action. Green parties, like environmental NGPs, reserve the right to take non-violent direct action to prevent environmental damage if it is sufficiently serious, and if normal political channels of peaceful negotiations and election are not functioning.

A transformation of the present irrational and destructive “economy” is possible, but only if the cooperation of everyone at all levels of society, plays their part. This entails stopping all forms of oppression and human rights abuse, including genocide, oppression, torture, illegal imprisonment, discrimination against minorities on account of race or sex, including orientation. This is why the fight for human rights and social and economic equity is an intergral part of green politics.

Obviously there is much more to be added, but a bird is singing outside among new green leaves, calling me out to listen and look at Nature in all her beauty..

Last day in Sao Paolo

Today I went to Ibrapuera park to meet up with Shuji, leader of Ecolo Japan, Moena, president of Mahoni Greens (French Polynesia, Tahiti to you and me) and Suresh Nautiyal, from Uttar ?Khaur, a new state in the north of India. He had been in the movement to create the state, and the movement had continued as a green party, but unfortunately one of the more unsavoury legacies of the Brtish Raj is the stupid First Past the Post, winner-takes-all electoral system, so they are excluded from Parliament.

Moena confirmed that Kiribat and Vanuatu islands are indeed going under the rising sea, and will soon have to evacuate. So much for Exxon, George Bush and the dwindling band of man-made global warming deniers. It is time for Greens to be far more assertive in our challenge to the present system.

We walked around the beautiful park, taking pictures and talking about the problems that we face. We walked back into the town and stopped at a cafe for fresh orange, pausing every now and then as a bus roared up the hill.

I could fall in love with Sao Paolo with its monumental buildings were it not for the motor traffic. How anyone can still argue that motor cars add to our quality of life when they are drowning Pacific islands and melting the Arctic as well as choking the cities is beyond understanding except in psychiatric terms. They are in denial, and allowing themselves to be suckered by psychopathic (that is, self interested) propaganda from the all-powerful oil companies. Things have got to change, and fast. The air is toxic, it is known to cause respiratory and heart problems, while the noise is known to cause stress and hypertension. This is quality of life? Please.

On the other hand, the Paulistas have great hearts. So great that one of them nearly gave me a heart attack yesterday when he got up to give me his seat. Because I have grey hair. I was grateful, but mortified. Thats the problem in having an eighteen year old mind in a 61 year old body.

Got my shoes shined by a sweet trio of shoe shiners, easily moved to laughter. I got some photos but missed the ones of them laughing.

I came back and dealt with 83 emails. One, from my childhood friend Peter Britton was a .pps show of the greates series of animal and nature photos I have ever seen. Then had dinner with Joe, a 25 year old Californian student of south American history, with great concern for the planet, and at a loss to account for the unresponsiveness of the politicians.

Tomorrow I leave at 1pm to fly back to UK in the evening, arriving Wednesday evening. This has been the most incredible experience. I am refreshed and renewed. We have got to get serious about changing the economic system. Greed is going to kill us all. People do not want to die for the likes of Exxon and George Bush. We can show them that they do not have to do that. There s another way, a way that leads to real quality of life.

Thanks for reading.

G'night.

Saturday Night in Sao Paolo

Red stars in a cloud-smeared sky:
lights on a pylon on a tower.

Humanity like tiny mice
scurry beneath the feet of giants

vertiginous white Titans,
gleam coldly in diffuse grey light,

great trolls caught in an icy spell,
naked, immobile, dead and still.

A river flowing over rocks
would sound like chattering humans

dining beside this roaring road,
laughing with all our bright warm smiles

our shining eyes, as cars burn by,
faster than blooded predators.

A few trees mark the ancient place
where forests used to hide the land,

where once before, their flowing life
gave monkeys a green home.

Much black-red human blood was spilled
to build a city to Saint Paul,

Supplanting sacrificial mounds
with stony churches pointing to

a half-grasped heaven. Now this immensity
defying sky, crushing the earth.

Right now, we mean no harm,
only to have a happy time

We feel but do not think
We think, but do not know
We know, but do not act

The trees are eyeing up the towers,
patient.
Waiting.

Biding their time.





More like this

© Richard Lawson
5.5.2008

Global Greens Congress completion

The Congress is over. In the morning session we voted through (at a pace that would have created overheating in a Green Party Conference in England) the following:

A 21 Point Plan for the 21st century: a 30 page document covering
Economics
CO2 reduction
Water management
Food crisis
Biodiversity
UN MillenniumDevelopment
Global partnership for development including Tobin tax
Fair Trade
Socially and ecologically inspired science and technology
Increasing price of raw materials
Women’s rights
Strengthening democracy
Developing a World Environment Organisation
Reinforce the UNHRC, International Court of Justice, ban death penalty and an Index of Human Rights in the UN
Recognition of environmental refugees
Cooperation between the great cities of the world to get best environmental practice
Promote sustainable cultural policies
Promote structured dialogue among world religions (to include atheists)
Reinforcing the rights of youth
Facilitating access to medicine for poorer countries
Promote peace (my submission to include a reference to the 2weeks arms spending/52 weeks basic needs spending was accepted)
Work to make the 21st century a green century

It was passed with I think 3 against and some abstentions. I voted for, despite a weakness in its CO2 targets, on the understanding that the wording would be cleared up in the final tidy up.
It is not a perfect document – perfection is not an option in any document – but all in all, it was an impressive achievement in a few days, with so many diverse nations there, and the language difficulty. It is rightly said that broken English is the lingua franca of the world community.

We also passed papers on
Support for the Tibetan people
Against nuclear power
Biodiversity
Sustainable cities
The next steps for the Global Greens (Europe gave way to world pressure, and the final document has global ambition tempered with European caution)
A declaration on sustainable cities (which will be useful for Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones in the London Assembly)
A Declaration on Climate Change.

This last I abstained on. I explained regretfully to the plenary that I could not support it despite the correct temperature rise target (2 degrees Celsius) its CO2 emissions target clashed with the policy of the GPEW, and that I would be in deep doodoo if I did anything but abstain. I hoped that I was the only one to abstain, and I was.

The thing is that C&C has not gone far beyond Dover, and we are going to have to take time to sell it, maybe with a motion to the next conference.

The final papers will be up on the Global Greens website soon.

Saturday

Biological alarm clock activates at 6am today, which is worse than the 4am previously, because there is less chance of getting any meaningful sleep. So I Googled the London
Election results, to find that The Joker has taken over Smoketown, and that New Labour has been giving a well-deserved drubbing. Wait for the obligatory Bloody Nose speech from Gordon. Sian got 3.8%, not bad in a squeeze situation, and Darren and Jenny are still on the Assembly.

So. See how Boris performs now he has a real job.

On a brighter side, it turns out that Elisabeth May, the Canadian leader, was on Canadian TV with the Congress web-link in the background. Well done everyone who set up the web link, including the Green Party back home who called for it.

Saturday is on biodiversity. Listening pleasure is variable. Some have well-prepared speeches with slides of nature in all her beauty in the process of being wasted.

Others shout into the microphone, which creates static over the interpreter headphones, causing me to switch off. Which just proves that if you shout at people it causes them to not listen. Also shouting into a microphone is like buying an expensive bike then running along pushing it.

An Indian speaks movingly of the Forest and its importance. His ancestors said that if it was destroyed the Earth also would fall sick. He speaks of immediate physical danger that he faces from political commercial and criminal enemies.

Mongolia has the world’s third largest deposits of gold. Everyone gets richer from gold except the people who own the land and work to extract it. They just get sick. Oh dear.

I was interested in Haider from Senegal because Senegal is one of the places that we could start the re-afforestation of the Saharan coast. He spoke with passion, a typical hand-on Green. He poke of the overfishing off the coast of his country in West Africa; the solution lies in democracy, so we must reach the heart of the people, and change from acting like a predator to acting like a thinking being that wishes to survive. I met him afterwards. He can plant a mangrove for less than a price of a cup of coffee,and has planted many thousands of them personally. His knee-high children help him. I feel my interest in coastal forests nurtured by solar desalination reawakening.

18% of greenhouse gas emissions arise from deforestation – “wreck locally, smash globally”. This advertising slogan is available free for any logging company that wishes to use it. Forest burning accounts for 7% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions. Fires are now occurring in the rainy season. The speaker felt that the solution lay in ew governance models. The Amazon bioregion involves nine countries, so ecology demands a new step in international diplomacy.

Alain Liepetz, a French MEP, spoke of the madness of inequality and profit motive, but he was shouting, so I could not hear him.

The session on biodiversity was eye opening. We all “know” that ill-conceived human economic activity is wrecking the planet, but to actually look, for hours on end, at the evidence, is a different matter altogether. The problem in the Congress is that despite the specifications in the conference brochure, speakers were long on problems and short on political solutions.

On our way out to go to the workshops, we were held back by the Security. There was a demonstration outside, staged by Brazilian Greens, maybe about 20. A Pakistani observer showed me a film he had taken, with one of the demonstrators on the ground. My present understanding is that it was against the President of a section of the Green Party in South Brazil. He had bought his way in to the position, and was pushing away from a truly position. There was no official statement on the position, but clearly there is again cause for concern with certain instances of the leadership…

My overriding concern at that point was to get to a workshop on the declaration on 21 points, to nurture the Index amendment. With half of us arriving late (more getting lost, not my fault) the process was very rapid, but nevertheless (when you understood how it worked) highly efficient. To my immense relief, the proposal for an Index of Human Rights in the UN was recommended for acceptance. Six months of subliminal anxiety
fell away from me.

After lunch, the future of the Global Greens was discussed. It became clear that the cautious position claimed by the Europeans on the first day was going to have to yield to more ambitious position coming from the rest of the world. Per Garton mentioned that people feel that the Europeans do not support the Global Greens enough.Douglas Arege, a young green from Kenya was an excellent speaker.

I have to go now. It was a great day, with a great feeling of positivity – apart from the fracas over the South Brazil affair – and I wrote a poem in the evening. But just before I went to bed I realised with a shock that I had not been following developments on global warming targets. Basically, the UK Greens have a far more developed policy. I may not be able to vote for the paper. Worry struck again. Luckily I was able to switch off and go to sleep, but it was the first thought to hit when I woke early at 6.30 to write this. Breakfast calls, and then a tense period of last minute negotiations.

(Sorry if any typos, no time to proof-read)