Archive for Hope

A few years ago, Elizabeth May said that we need to plan cities around the child, instead of around the car.  There’s now a movement around 8-80 cities that calls on cities to be planned with two groups of people in mind – 8 year olds and 80 year olds.  The theory is that if you take care of the young and old, the able-bodied in between will be able to look after themselves.  It’s a compassionate approach to community building with the goal of safe streets, local economies and cohesive neighbourhoods, rather than maximum mobility.  And it’s very much at the heart of what the Green Party is all about.

Something truly magical is happening in Cancun.  Patricia Espinosa got a standing ovation when she returned after giving people a couple of hours to peruse the text.     Read more »

COP 16 President Patricia Espinosa just received a prolonged standing ovation simply for announcing 10 hours late that negotiations were still ongoing and a deal was still possible.  I am in tears.

The youth action outside this building was forcibly stopped.

The best analysis I’ve seen of the new text is offered by BBC.  It is better than nothing.

A ceremony announcing the Colossal Fossil was widely expected to award Canada for the fourth year in a row, given the large number of fossils accumulated during this year’s negotiations.  But in the confusion outside, the announcement has been put off.  I’m proud of the young Canadians for their courage, and disgusted by our leaders for their lack of it.

[Adriana is blogging from the UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, in an attempt to keep the Canadian delegation honest.]

The open meetings have all been delayed as last-minute negotiations continue behind closed doors.  I’m sitting in the Cancunmesse area where displays are being taken down and people are tense and bored.  For anyone following in Canada, now would be a good time to call the Prime Minister’s Office and tell him you want Canada to show some leadership in breaking the logjam by going along with the majority of countries and supporting a second Kyoto period, and urging Japan and Russia to do the same.

[Adriana is blogging from the UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, in an attempt to keep the Canadian delegation honest.]

This morning, a group of 30 Greens from all over the world gathered for breakfast in Cancun.  Most were officeholders in Europe, either in the EU Parliament or in country governments.  But municipal councillor Cathy Oke arrived from Melbourne, Australia, former Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein came from the United States, and four Canadian Greens joined in with three Brazilians, including the leader of the Brazilian Greens, Senator Marina Silva, who gathered 20 million votes in the last presidential election, earning 20% of the popular vote, 30% of the urban vote and winning the popular vote outright in Brazil’s capital city of Brasilia.

I had wanted to meet Marina ever since she left Lula’s government over disagreements about dam-building and other environmentally damaging policies and began to consider running for the Greens.     Read more »