Lame it on Rio: Youth stage Earth Summit walkout

[marmar]

from Grist:




Lame it on Rio: Youth stage Earth Summit walkout
By Bill McKibben





The Rio+20 conference is remarkably listless; the energy of 1992 has bled into a formulaic bureaucracy-fest. The text negotiators have agreed to punts on virtually every major issue (one analysis showed that governments agreed to “encourage” and “support” actions 148 times, but only on three issues summoned the courage to say “we will” actually do something).

But it came spontaneously alive for a few hours this afternoon, when a youth-led demonstration turned into an Occupy-style sit-down that in turn agreed to a mass walkout. We’ve just marched out the front doors of this sprawling complex, 130 strong, surrounded by as many cameras and tape recorders.

The youth-led demonstration violated all the U.N. rules — security squads surrounded us at the first sound of controversy, announcing that our gathering was “unsanctioned” and if we didn’t stop immediately we’d lose our accreditation. People discussed the threat through the human mic for a few minutes, and then decided it wasn’t a threat at all — in fact, we were eager to surrender our badges, because then we wouldn’t be part of what had turned into a sham.

Almost everyone who participated was young (I can attest that there’s a certain age past which sitting on the stone floor for a few hours is less fun than you might think); as we marched we chanted “This is not the future we want.” ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/politics/lame-it-on-rio-youth-stage-earth-summit-walkout/