Floods and other outlandish weather in Europe are finally driving home the
message about global warming鈥攋ust as the besuited delegates from 180-odd
countries meet for next week鈥檚 global warming conference in The Hague. But the
well-intentioned hordes are in for a shock: the protesters who ransacked
Seattle, trashed burger joints and coffee shops, and lit up Prague like nobody
since the 鈥�89 revolution are planning to join in.
The conference is intended to 鈥渨rite the rulebook鈥� for the Kyoto Protocol
on curbing emissions of greenhouse gases, agreed three years ago at the previous
eco-shindig in Japan. You can watch conference proceedings live from 13 to 24
November at http://cop6.unfccc.int.
On the streets, however, there will be another bust-up between governments
that prevaricate over the global clean-up. The Rising Tide Festival of
Resistance will 鈥渄ive into action鈥� with festivals, street theatre, an
鈥渦nderwater demo鈥� and dyke-building (well, it is Holland, after all). There will
probably be more they wouldn鈥檛 dare put up on their websites in advance. But
check www.aseed.net/climate/climate.htm and
http://squat.net/climate/action.htm for the latest info.
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Not into building dykes? You could send a message to the conference
chairman, Dutch environment minister Jan Pronk, via Greenpeace
(http://zope.greenpeace.org/z/Pronk/Pronk).
The group will flash the messages up on a giant
billboard at the conference door.
Fighting climate change is now a huge industry, of course. Read about the
science and politics any time at www.climateark.org. But every industry has its
victims. The developing world fears 鈥渃arbon colonialism鈥濃�攕chemes by
Western companies to dump technical solutions to climate change in Southern
backyards. Check out the worst at Equity Watch, a climate newsletter from the
Delhi-based Centre for Science and the Environment at
www.cseindia.org/html/cmp/climate/ew/index.htm.
