Sunday, July 12, 2009

Generación 2.0


Siempre que presencio un concierto de rock multitudinario, tengo la impresión que esta especie de comunión mutua del público y de los artistas debe tener un parecido con lo que sentían en la Edad Media los peregrinos cuando llegaban a sus destinos.

Ayer por la noche, yo tuve la suerte de presenciar y disfrutar del concierto de Miguel Ríos en la Sierra de Gredos. Creo que Miguel sería una especie de arzobispo o de nuncio si el rock & roll fuese una religión.

Estaba también allí Xavier Pastor (ahora Director de Oceana), lo cual nos dio ocasión de rememorar los viejos tiempos de los principios de Greenpeace-España hace 25 años. No hace falta tener una memoria de elefante para recordar el papel y la dedicación de Xavier durante los primeros 15 años de Greenpeace-España.

Más discreto, pero no menos importante fue el apoyo de Miguel Ríos desde los comienzos de Greenpeace-España, especialmente sus esfuerzos, con sus amigos, para sacar un disco que sirvio para financiar y lanzar la primera campaña de Greenpeace en el Mediterraneo en 1986. Si no fuese por Miguel and Friends, el Mediterraneo sería un poco más enfermo aún.

Miguel dijo que la que arrancó ayer seria su última gira, pero después de verle actuar non stop durante casi tres horas es dificil creerlo. Aunque con la participación de representantes de la nueva generación de rockeros españoles presentes con él en el escenario, el recital de ayer evocaba la entrega y toma de relevo.

De alguna manera, la Generación 2.0 del rock y la 2.0 del activismo ecologista tienen problemas parecidos: a ambas se les quedan obsoletos vectores convencionales para llegar al público, vease por un lado los discos y por el otro la protesta.

Evidentemente, las oenegés tendrán siempre un nicho como watchdog (perros guardian) de los derechos humanos, de los derechos ambientales, la salud pública, la acción humanitaria, etc. Pero no podemos ladrar con el lenguaje de siempre en el mundo de hoy dónde el mismísimo Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas habla y actua casi como un activista. También es difícil que las photo opportunities tradicionales surten efecto en un mundo dónde las revoluciones prenden a golpe de teléfonos moviles y de Facebook.

[Hablo de lenguaje de siempre o de photo'ops tradicionales, pero esto era totalmente novedoso cuando empezamos a desarrollar, en los primeros tiempos de Greenpeace hace poco más de 30 años, una nueva manera de hacer politica. Del mismo modo que gente como Miguel inventaron nuevos sonidos, nuevas maneras de hacer música.]

Cada uno a su manera, musicos y activistas son agitadores. La Generación 2.0 de ambos colectivos deberían hablarse para buscar soluciones juntos para los nevos tiempos de difusión horizontal. Como lo hicimos con Miguel en otros tiempos, los miembros de la Generación 1.0.

Ayer, Miguel cantó Antinuclear, una canción que él escribió al principio de los años 80. Yo quise averiguar pues qué proporción de energía nuclear y de renovables se mandó a la Red ayer, mientras Miguel tocaba: consta en la estupenda web de Red Eléctrica que el Sábado salieron a la Red 693.227 MWh, de los cuales sólo 131.506 eran de origén nuclear contra 209.537 de origén renovable (solar, eólica, hidráulica), de los cuales España exportó 32.467 MWh a países vecinos. La [r]evolución está en marcha.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Three fifty+G Eight


I just watched 350.org's video designed in universal graphic language. Very Powerful.

Three-fifty.org was set up to promote with very simple words and images what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in several volumes of scientific literature: that if we don't get back to 350 Parts Per Million of CO2 in the atmosphere [three hundred and fifty, now we're at 390], humankind is in deep-deep trouble.

There has a been a lot of criticism of the G8 leaders in the past 24 hours for announcing a target of 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by the year 2050. Critics say that this target alone is not enough to create trust, because none of the current G8 leaders will be in power in 2050. Long term targets are fine, but we need commitments with shorter timeframes to be sure that the G8 leaders are liable and stick to their words. Otherwise, China and India won't take the G8 commitment seriously, and they won't accept any target for themselves. That can't be good for the planet.

I just checked how old (how accountable) the current G8 leaders will be in 2050. Born in 1961, President Obama will be 89 then. Nicolas Sarkozy will be 95, Angela Merkel 96, Japan's Taro Aso 110, Berlusconi will be 114 (the young girls around him will average 57 by then, if I've understood correctly), Canada's Stephen Harper will be 91, Gordon Brown will be retired I suppose (he will be 99), and Dmitry Medvedev --the benjamin of the lot -- will be 85 (at 98, Putin will continue to be venerable; maybe also venerated).

Given the very high percentage of senior citizens in Japan, I suppose that Taro Aso has some chance to be around in 2050. I truly hope that we will all (I'll be 93) be in a position then to honour Mr. Aso as the representative of a generation of leaders who put the world on the right track.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Deal


With his Sign the Deal campaign for Kyoto II, the UN SG Ban Ki-moon in person has launched this week what activists in the contemporary NGO community call a cyber-action.

This is excellent, but of course this raises the stakes for the NGOs. Victims of their own success, it's harder and harder for NGOs to be heard above the background noise.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Desert storm


I took this photo yesterday in the Monegros Desert in Aragon, Spain. Los Monegros is a rare arid ecosystem with a landscape of stunning beauty which is unique in Europe [there are only two other ecosystems with the same characteristics anywhere in the world; they're located in Mauritania and Turkey respectively].

But there is a dodgy operation underway there now, consisting in turning the area into some sort of European Las Vegas with 32 [thirty two !!] casinos, 70 [seventy !!] hotels and numerous golf courses [don't ask me where the water to irrigate them is supposed to come from] according to the website of International Leisure Development Plc, the UK-based promoters of the project.

There are great controversies over this project of course, and the Aragon blogosphere is full of it, including expressions of concern of origins as diverse as the Association of Addicted Gamblers in Rehabilitation of Aragon and social and environmental activists.

It is scary to think that there are politicians who buy into the gross and vulgar propaganda on the promoters' website. And it is sad to see that local land owners are apparently left with no or little alternative, or that they don't want to see them.

Worst, it's hard to believe that this pharaonic project can be economic. So, if it does not fall apart before the bulldozers arrive, it's quite possible that after the damage is done, the promoters will vanish and leave a big mess behind [economic, social, environmental, cultural]. Spain's territory is plagued with scandals involving bankrupted unsustainable urban and touristic developments.


This second photo is from the Sierra de Alcubierre also in Los Monegros. I took it from a trench featured in George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. I only spent less than an hour in the trench, but it was moving to think that Orwell spent several weeks there, in the winter of 1937 during the Spanish civil war.

The local Government of Aragon recently restored this and other civil war trenches in the area, as part of an effort to rebuild the collective historic memory around the horror of the war. This is excellent, but also a little bit ironic: increasingly the defenders of rural life and the environment are forced to retreat into virtual trenches.

I could have written this piece in Spanish but I went for English, thinking of what a local environmentalist told me yesterday: "The only way we'll stop the destruction of Los Monegros is if the rest of the world gets interested, and the European Commission takes action". Hello, World.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Whale Watching massacre


I wrote quite a bit about whale watching last week on this blog, from Madeira during the meeting of the International Whaling Commission.

One positive political development at last week's meeting was that no country anymore opposes the consideration by the IWC of whale watching as a management option, although disagreements remain on whether whale watching and whaling are compatible.

A couple of years ago, I've heard Joji Morishita of Japan argue that eating a whale steak after a whale watching trip was not very different than when Western urban families go eat hamburgers after visiting a cow farm on a week-end.

But more recently I've heard someone else explain two reasons why both activities may clash. First, whales accustomed to the presence of whale watching boats may become easier targets for whaling boats approaching them. Second, the opposite may also be true: whale populations (say, families) that are used to run away from whaling boats may be more difficult for whale watching boats to approach.

This morning, someone sent me the trailer of Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre, a film due to be released in September. It's certainly an intriguing trailer.

At this point, it's hard to tell whether the film will be positive or not for the Icelandic whale watching operators who compete with the Icelandic whaling industry on the same grounds. But in the trailer, the whalers certainly don't look like nice guys.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Whale watch


A fairly large group of IWC delegates, observers and staff went whale watching yesterday after the annual meeting of the Whaling Commission ended.

The whale on this photo is a Bryde's whale, a species found in tropical and sub-tropical waters. In the 1970s the population of whales to which this whale belongs was hunted indiscrimately by two infamous pirate whaling boats called the Sierra and the Tonna flying flags of convenience. Around the same time also, Japanese whaling entrepreneurs approached the then traditional whalers from Madeira and offered to upgrade and modernize their operation. Fortunately, they failed and Madeira instead transformed its whaling industry into a remarkably successful whale watching operation.

Seeing these whales yesterday evening was a good way to remind us that the decades-long efforts to protect whales constitute a success story. Obviously, if whaling hadn't been stopped in the late 1970s, we wouldn't have seen Bryde's whales here yesterday.

I read on the BBC website that Bill Hogarth who's been the Chair of the IWC until yesterday says that perhaps less whales would be killed if the current moratorium was lifted. I think it's fine to explore possible exemptions to the moratorium, as I did in my op'ed earlier this week, but I don't think it's wise to talk of lifting it altogether.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Chairman Richard


The man chatting with Kelly on the photo here at the IWC meeting is Richard Black of the BBC.

Richard has just published this afternoon an excellent sober blogpiece that all non-governmental and governmental advocates here [pro- and anti-whaling advocates alike] should read carefully, I think.

The IWC will elect its new chairman in the next two days. There are several excellent [undeclared] candidates. But when I read his blogpiece this afternoon I thought that in a way it's a pity Richard can't be one of them. He'd do a good job reminding everyone to change the tune.