Rio +20

I'm about to drive to Rhode Island, but before I hit the road I want to call every one's attention to something that I hope you attention is already directed to! Rio +20. This is sort of like Durban which I blogged a few months ago, I have a hard time dealing with how political it is! Confronting these issues are nothing less than necessary for us to live; individually, as countries, and a race, and in general as a planet. Something so important should be worth more than policy and debates between countries. It should already be a necessary. Sadly, our foresight has been skewed.

 

Rio +20 basically is a massive meeting of countries to decide how we will continue to live and sustain ourselves and our planet in a world that is rapidly changing. Their website states, "At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want."

Fun Fact: Governments spend almost 1 trillion dollars of public money on oil subsidies, according to the Huffington Post. If we were to use a fraction of this money to invest in green energy just THINK of the possibilities. Jobs would be created, energy would be greener. We might be able to get below 390 parts per million of CO2 and start heading back toward 350, as McKibben and much of the science world states, is the limit to a safe level of CO2 on the planet. Here are some videos to help you understand how very IMPORTANT this conference is for our future!

I hope that people will take action, pay attention, and that governments will step up to the plate. I really do. Knowing how dependent our current (corrupt) political structures are and the complexity and interconnectedness of food production, oil, water, and CO2 emissions on so many different levels I am doubtful that this conference will bring about the changes we need. The people at the conference may be passionate but the governments represented depend of the current state of environmental destruction to continue as they are now. The changes they will have to make are not ones they are willing to make because they are not the most profitable.

I will be hopefully watching the progress of +20 Rio and I hope you will too, because if these policies are going to be made they need our pressure. One clever blogger from the Human Impacts Institute recorded giving out the Fossil of the World award, the  "Today’s award was given to the United States for the overall strength of their commitment…to not having any real commitments. This fossil recognizes the United States’ (once the considered the only remaining superpower) efforts to delete meaningful commitments from various parts of the negotiation text all through the day yesterday." It seems the U.S. might need a push from us, the people, to remind them that these are lives they are gambling with here, not the big oil bucks.