Skip to main content

Doha talks invite the rich to simple reality


Another climate change conference started yesterday here in Doha. It has been given full ceremonial look by Qatar and the Qatar who took over the chairman's seat declared that this was a golden opportunity for the people to protect the planet earth.
Well we all appreciate Qatar's initiatives, and support its efforts therefore urge the high carbon producing nations especially the most industrialized nations to take the lead.
When the Copenhagen summit was held in 2009, I was in Brunei, and in that small country with about 300000 people, we journalists took special interest, reported and wrote opinions on the developments of the conference. Brunei with a small population and small in size,I appreciate its ruler's commitment to protect the country's forests. Its main revenue comes from petroleum but the country contribute its share towards carbon cutting effort. If a country reserves over 70% of its land cover for forests, it should be a genuine model of protector of the earth and the living beings, and Brunei's carbon production could be justified because it struggles to maintain a forest cover of 78% out of its land cover about 5000 sq. km.
At the end of the Copenhagen summit, selfishness won the day and the efforts failed. The result was disappointing, reported BBC quoting an economist Lord Stern. He said the Copenhagen summit was down to "arrogance" on the part of rich countries. This is another opportunity especially for such countries to revisit their positions and make a pledge to give the summit agenda necessary teeth.
After all the arrogance was responded by nature in many forms. Heat waves, snow storms, floods, and cyclones angered and battered many countries in unusual manner since the end of the Copenhagen summit. The Sandy was the last which destroyed life and property in America.
People need money, more money to live luxury and gain power, but what people should realise is that making money at the expense of the planet would not help them enjoy the life. Living being sustained on this planet since time immemorial, and they did not enjoy all the luxury similar to that of extravagance by the rich nations today.
The over consumption by rich nations is one of the reasons to the existing economic tumult, and if the same countries are not ready to save this earth, the destruction of the earth is not very long. The end of the world is not at the end of this year, it would happen one day, but it seems that the inhabitants of this planet themselves asking an advanced date.
Nature has given the man a thorough warning, it is reiterated day and night for all the stake holders. How are they going to enjoy the luxury and power they earned risking the planet if there is no safe place for them to stand on? They should be alive to make use of them, and to live a life we all need a clean earth.
Will the rich shed the blanket of illusions and walk towards this simple reality? Let's wait and see, the Doha summit will tell it.     


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Watalappan and Amaraweera dreams  Former minister of Disaster Management, though he could not manage any disaster, threatened on a television that he can topple the government. The known fact about Mahinda Amaraweera is his servitude to his former boss Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers. This is the man who said that he has exploited enough for a few generations and his stomach was already full, and what he wanted more is Watalappan (some desserts). So he urged people to vote his boss to power to feed his greedy stomach with some watalappan and warned the voters not to bring the opposition to power as they could exploit public property in a manner worse than that of his clan did for the last 20 years. It is true that UPFA still has the majority in parliament. But he should know that there is a tug of war between UPFA coalitions and its main party SLFP. Therefore, SLFP cannot topple a government of its own unless its coalitions push it to do so. The other importan...
1 comment
Read more
Wellstone Action for progressive politics Critical issues by Lionel Yodhasinghe East West Centre of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu awarded this year's Jefferson Fellowship Spring Program to Sunday Observer Senior Journalist Lionel Yodhasinghe. Following is the second in a series of his study notes on his visit to the United States of America. After the tragic death of US Senator Paul Wellstone who plane-crashed along with his wife Shiela and daughter Marcia during an election campaign in the North Star state of Minnesota, his two sons did not intend to erect statues throughout the state nor did they succeed him and grab his power bases. Instead, they chose to continue the parental legacy by imparting the progressive policies and ideologies in the minds of upcoming leaders thereby propagating Wellstone vision for a better American society. Progressive politics is the driving force of human and material ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Doha outskirts a death knell

Walking on public roads in the outskirts is a death knell. Many young drivers are at the wheel while using mobile phone or eating (not during Ramadaan). They never head for pedestrians, and the road network is like a cob-web. It is everywhere, you cant imagine from which side the demons arrive, and they never use signals. When you want to cross the road, wait at a bumper until they rush, or put your hand on and stop them before you enter the road. Yesterday, I saw an old gent stopped his car, even not at a bumper, and gesturing a man to cross, that was on Muither Commercial street.
Post a Comment
Read more