Ordinary Hero: Abigail Borah, her COP 17 plea heard round the world

Screen shot of Abigail Borah speaking out at COP 17
Democracy Now! video

This week in Durban, South Africa, the United Nations concluded its seventeenth conference on climate change. Abigail Borah, a Middlebury College Student, flew to Copenhagen to attend the talks, along with many other youth concerned about their future.

Disturbed by the failure of the United States and other nations to address the immediacy of the situation, Abigail penned a short statement, stood up, and "with trembling hands," read it to the assembly.

2020 is too late to wait

The conference chair told her "No one is listening to you." Todd Stern, the United States delegate about to address the assembly waited with rather a condescending pose. (I want to believe he was secretly glad for her stand.) Abigail, an ordinary person who could not and would not be afforded an officially sanctioned microphone at these talks, persevered, determined to be heard. Here is her statement.

I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty. You must take responsibility to act now, or you will threaten the lives of youth and the world's most vulnerable. You must set aside partisan politics and let science dictate decisions. You must pledge ambitious targets to lower emissions, not expectations. 2020 is too late to wait.

Why I stood up and spoke out

Despite the ultimate failure of the talks to take action now, it gives me some small ray of hope that the audience applauded Abigail as she was led from the hall.

Immediately after Abigail's impromptu speech, Todd Stern hastened to call a press conference, where he refuted Abigail's assertions regarding the US do-nothing approach.  In this Democracy Now! video titled, "I'm Scared For My Future": Student Disrupts Speech By US Climate Envoy Todd Stern in Durban" (7.3 minutes), watch and hear Abigail read her statement, followed by an excerpt from Stern's press conference.



It is important to note that one day following Stern's assertion that the United States was not standing in the way of a legally binding agreement, the State Department issued a statement saying otherwise.

You can read the whole story, in Abigail's eloquent words, here, in Why I stood up and spoke out.

Ordinary Heroes Award
© L Kathryn Grace

Abigail Borah, in speaking out as you did, you risked arrest, potentially putting your reputation and your future in jeopardy, yet you acted. Rather than become immobilized by fear, you used your fear to take a dramatic stand and to power your voice--a voice literally heard round the world.

For your courage, for your commitment to making change, for speaking for millions who feel as you do, for being one of the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands working to create a better world, a good world, you are an Ordinary Hero and my hero. I bow to you in deepest gratitude.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Thirteen year old Felix Finkbeiner addresses the United Nations on climate change

Listen to this kid.



What do you think? What, if anything, will change in your daily life going forward, after hearing this young man?

It's only fair, if I ask that question, that I tell you what I expect to change in mine. First thing, when I'm feeling that I'm just one person and my efforts can't mean that much to anyone, I'm going to remember Felix and keep on working for change--every day. Second thing, I'm going to try and get me a posse to stand with me, like he has standing with him. Was he the spokesperson they chose? I don't know, but I want to make sure every member of my posse has a strong voice. Want to be on my posse? Contact me. We'll figure out it out together.

Posted with gratitude to the Sierra Club for their article, We children will do it ourselves.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Take a stand to change the course of history

Humanity is on an unsustainable path, headed in a direction that no one wants—and there is limited time to turn things around. At the same time, the solutions and technologies to address this crisis already exist. What is missing is the commitment and will to act. FOUR YEARS. GO. is about generating that will.

Four years.Go.

No matter how many times I watch this video, it never fails to shock, awe and inspire. Take a couple of minutes to watch it, and if you've seen it before, perhaps you'll have the same experience I have had. Better than anything I can say, this video explains why I pin my hopes to the work of all of us at Four Years.Go. Yes, I'm involved now, doing what I can.



Learn more about Four Years.Go. and consider making a commitment to help galvanize "the collective will that makes this new dream the guiding principle of our time by the end of 2014." What will you be committing to? Here's the language from the Four Years.Go. web site.

I stand for a new dream ~

A Thriving, Just and Sustainable

Way of Life for All.

I am committed to galvanizing the collective will that makes this new dream the guiding principle of our time by the end of 2014.

This is my vow to myself and all beings.

As an expression of my participation, I will:

✥ Communicate with others and invite them to join in this commitment

✥ Adopt lifestyle practices and take actions consistent with my stand

✥ Educate myself about the issues and solutions

✥ Create my own form of participation

That's it. You decide how you will participate. I participate primarily by continuing the work of these blogs and by changing my daily habits, one conscious choice at a time. I also work with the people of Four Years.Go. and support the work of other organizations that are working to achieve similar goals.

How you participate is entirely up to you. The important thing is that we begin to work together in such numbers that positive change--reaching a tipping point toward sustainability, fairness and justice for all human beings--is inevitable.

We've got four years, maybe less, maybe a little more. After that, we may have moved too far beyond the tipping point the other way to save our civilization from the effects of irreversible climate change. That's not all of course. There's a lot of evil done in the pursuit of satisfying greed and the lust for power, and it seems to be getting worse. That's got to tip the other way too.

Will you join me?

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

You can give today's youth a fighting chance just by talking about it

Touchy, funny, quirky or cogent, it's the Quote of the Week:

I walked around and asked a number of young people what they expect of Copenhagen. What strikes me when I do it is how important young people are. It is we who will take over the world afterwards. Those that I talk to really cares about what happens here on our planet, and that also must be done soon. As soon as possible. When the world has its eyes focused on the Copenhagen, it is far too good an opportunity to let it slip out of one’s hands. It is now we must act for ourselves in old age, for our children and our grandchildren. For all farmers, all women, all of which have already been bad for water, for all who live below sea level.

We must not only act, we can act and do so, we can make a big success!
[Google translation]

Jonathan Sundqvist
adopt a negotiator tracker at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen

Here is what the young people he interviewed had to say.



Talk at my high school graduation forty-plus years ago was whether college mattered, given the threat that our leaders would push the button and annihilate us all before we graduated four years later. Thankfully, that did not happen and our boomer generation prospered more, bought itself more trips, toys and homes, and contributed more pollution and more waste than any generation the planet has ever seen.

Not only do the youth of today face an increasing threat from nuclear proliferation, they face the multi-barreled threats of ever rising seas, increasingly violent weather patterns, starvation-inducing droughts, exposure to higher and higher levels of sun rays on the cancer-causing end of the spectrum, and the accompanying fear-induced violence, all due to unmitigated global warming.

We have about five seconds left to slow global warming enough to give us time to discover ways we might halt and reverse it. If we waste them, chances are good the Earth will look more like Mars in a couple hundred years than the beautiful Blue Marble space flight brought to us in the 70s.

The world's young people are paying attention. They're doing something about it this week and next in Copenhagen.

This may be one of the most important questions I will ever ask. What do you think we need to do here at home during this two weeks to help them?

At the very least, we can spread the word about their concerns. If you're a blogger, help me do that will you? Post links to this page or to the links on this page on your blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, wherever you hang out. Let's give these kids a fighting chance.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Lower payroll taxes, save the planet, create jobs

Lester R. Brown
Image courtesy Earth Policy Institute

In Germany a systematic shift of taxes from labor to energy reduced global warming emissions and created 250,000 jobs.

 

Economist Lester Brown

Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

 

Imagine what could happen if we took this approach in the United States. To learn just how possible it is, visit the Earth Policy Institute for more information and free full-text copies of Plan B 4.0 and all Earth Policy Institute publications.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.