My trip to Copenhagen - Bob Wilson
I, along with a few people from other NGOs, went to Copenhagen (bus / ferry / chunnel), where I attended numerous events as part of ‘Klimaforum’ – the Peoples’ Climate Forum held in a big hotel in the city centre – and the grassroots gathering at the amazing urban eco-village of Christiania (now under threat from the Danish government)
Here are a few comments.
Wow !! There were literally hundreds of talks, discussions, films and displays at these two places, plus many more scattered around the city. A good part of my time was taken up in walking between them and, in some cases, being disappointed to find them over-subscribed with queues to get in. There were over 50,000 visitors to Klimaforum alone.
I took part in two big demonstrations – the biggest being a people’s organised peaceful march from the city to the Bella Centre where the politicians were bickering when many local people, including families, joined in and the whole city centre was brought to a temporary standstill – anything from 70,000 to 100,000 people.
The Danish government – voted in on a ‘law and order’ ticket – gave the cops carte-blanche to be heavy-handed. They had undergone training by British riot police (well known for their recent murder of a peaceful protester) and were supplemented by a lot of German cops drafted in. The result was that, like a pack of hunting dogs, they were straining at the leash and had to taste blood. They picked out a section of the marching crowd that included a few possible troublemakers and surrounded the whole section of nearly 300 people, made them sit for two hours on the freezing ground, then bundled them away into pre-prepared steel cages for several hours ‘detention’. Many innocent people were beaten with batons and sprayed with pepper-spray – even when totally helpless in the cages, until finally a select few were officially arrested and the vast majority released. No doubt there were a handful of would-be trouble makers, but these could have easily been picked out without innocents being made to suffer. The demos and routes had been agreed with authorities beforehand and it was criminal of the cops to behave in such a heavy-handed manner. I was staying as a guest in a communal house of Danish teachers and artists who expressed their embarrassment and disgust with their own government.
This police brutality seems to be the norm now – reminiscent of the ugly scenes I witnessed at Rossport two years ago when cops supposedly defending Shell workers attacked unarmed peaceful protestors with batons, kicking and punching – again given carte-blanche by the government. Governments and their corporate pals are fearful of protests that challenge the ‘business-as-usual’ capitalist system and can only think to use intimidation tactics.
So, back to the People’s Forum – here I noticed another parallel to the way things happen in Ireland. At a conference on Sustainable Forestry, a presentation was given about the clearly unsustainable forestry practices in Sweden where they have big monoculture coniferous plantations with large areas being clear-felled and all the associated problems of pollution of water-courses, flash flooding, soil compaction, loss of biodiversity – resulting in eventual desertification of the landscape. All done under certification of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Sound familiar ? It did to me too, so I suggested to the panel (which included sustainable forestry specialists from Russia, Canada and a couple of other countries) that FSC was clearly a waste of time – what could be done about it ? They concurred that FSC is ineffective because it has been infiltrated by corporate vested interests, now amounts to simply a green-wash and the only thing to do is continue to fight it by documenting the failures, working with a group called FSC-Watch and seeking legal protection for sensitive habitats and landscapes.
George Monbiot (author and journalist writing in UK Guardian) gave a rousing and interesting talk. He claims that a recent and reliable study has shown that whatever carbon emissions we put into the atmosphere now are cumulative and will take hundreds of years to be reabsorbed by the earth. Furthermore, he calculates, using World Energy Council figures, that 2 degrees global warming will be reached when we have used up just 60% of viable, available reserves of fossil fuels. So it is madness to be seeking new reserves and totally disgusting to be creating massive emissions by digging up and processing the tar sands of Alberta. He pointed out the ridiculous contradiction of governments to be talking of reducing emissions whilst at the same time increasing production of oil, gas and coal and he called for measures to be introduced to leave the fossil fuels in the ground. Well said !
Another excellent speaker was Vandana Shiva, physicist, philosopher, environmental activist, eco feminist and author of several books and over 300 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She spelled out the importance of food security and its direct link with biodiversity. She suggests that climate change will result in droughts, floods, plagues of pests, etc, that will decimate monoculture crops and lead to riots and mass migrations. The only answer is to support organic small-scale agriculture that is more resilient and produces far less carbon emissions. See Vandana Shiva
There was also a man from Cuba talking about their urban agricultural developments over the past few years. From nothing, they now produce over 20,000 tons of compost (a third of this being from wormeries) which is used to fertilise and to create new gardens – a sort of snowball effect. They now grow most of their own food requirements and have a much stronger and happier community-based lifestyle. Other talks covered the benefits of permaculture and agroforestry – a favourite subject of mine which I believe has great potential in Ireland to provide added value to farming and small-holdings along with enhanced biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
So its not all doom and gloom – we need to continue harassing governments to take action and we need to continue taking action ourselves. Much more can be done at local community level, providing living examples of energy descent, sustainability and resilience. Education is also important – look out in the new year for a new film about Gaia featuring scientist and author Stephan Harding – I saw the draft version and it is very well done and gives an easy to understand explanation of how the earth has, for millions of years, thanks to the chemical and physical actions of rock, water and of living creatures, maintained a relatively constant temperature suitable for continued and developing life. Now it is under severe pressure thanks to us humans. temperature suitable for continued and developing life. Now it is under severe pressure thanks to us humans.
