craft/kraft night

today felt like the first day of spring.

for whatever reason, i have been waking up very early recently, which has been real great. just this morning, i even had time to work on my @$&#$* paper, go pick up groceries, and get ready for the day. all before noon. unheard of.

so anyways, on this first evening of the first day that feels like it could be spring, we had our first craft night. with kraft dinner (yah that’s right, we went there).

walking over to laur’s place, i bumped into a friend who is working on her ph.d. at massey college. with heels, smart skirt, and a date, she was off to the symphony. “where are you off to, may?”

“erhm, craft night? with kraft dinner!”

we cooked up five whole boxes of kd (mmmmmmmm) and just so our mothers wouldn’t scold us for not eating our greens, i tossed up a bowl of salad with freezé (is that how you spell it i am not sure) and some resplendent looking beets. lauryn and i drank the water that we’d boiled the beets in (“beet juice!”) which totally creeped all the other kids out, but we were undetered in our hunt for the great vitamin c, our lord and saviour.

i’d written about the need to cook more here, and figured nothing could go wrong with good company, cheap wine, and everyone’s secret favourite comfort meal.

the evening did get slightly not-kosher when we decided to go on chatroulette. i had warned the first timers that at least one out of seven “strangers” will be with not much clothes. and of course, the first two connections we get were of masturbating men. in quick succession, there was screaming, pushing away of poor mac whose only fault was having a built-in cam, and down right outrage at being violated in such a personal, but primal way.

but i digress.

and while we’re at it, let me tell you something here. these girls i have come to know through environmental-y initiatives/events/activism/lobby/mobilization/classes/you name it. and they are all incredibly wholesome, and witty, super talented. and they are also all super attractive. they are the type who will grow bee hives on rooftops, plan hiking trips, devour books on Things That Matter, do remarkable things (like painting their bike helmets to resemble UN helmets cough) read the newspaper, and hold your hand if you gently ask. they are all prurient, irreverent, and ebullient. did i mention they practically glow?

and so, despite my original plans of gracing a million other engagements (well, actually only three), i ended my evening where i begin. unknowingly, i had gotten drunk adn easy off of cheap wine (why not wednesday?), and despite the truck load of work that awaits me, i retire to bed happy, well-fed, and feeling lucky to have these kindred souls close at bay.

revisiting severn’s speech

i am currently sitting on the deck of a cruiseship, off the coast of one of the many harbours that copenhagen opens up to. it is freezing, and so i sit bundled up. after a long grueling day of press conferences, i am ready to sleep for a week.

today’s news was the bold and binding proposal tabled by the group of small island countries led by the spectacular grenadian chair woman, dessima williams.

this exciting news, however, was soon overshadowed by a decision made in a neighbouring european capital: brussels. european union leaders had agreed to a $10 billion financing deal. against research that predicts a $600 need for climate-related disasters, $10 billion is enough to “buy coffee” as the chinese delegation bitterly muttered, and enough to “buy coffins” as i misinterpreted. yet however meagre, the AOSIS text (as the island proposal is known) is but aspirational, and will most likely be torn apart along the process of reaching consensus (what a cruel concept, if you sit down and think about it. can 192 of anything really agree on anything? let alone 192 countries on a legally binding treaty?)

today – or yesterday as i write this – marks the last work week of the united nations conference on climate change. and for the past five days, the world of LULUCF, REDD, LCA, and AWG have been my life. i had my own apprehensions, and i still do: what is newsworthy and what is not? i had taken a hiatus from environmental affairs for two years since the bali conference. was i ready to dive back in? environmental issues – especially if you approach it from the ambiguous terrains of activism and journalism – is a tiring affair. the impossibility of the issue, and the concurrent immensity of it, is enough to crush you and leave you despondent. and the ever taunting question: if you care, can you really be an empty vessel? but then again, can humans ever exercise complete objectivity?

pouring desperately over UN texts, even falling asleep clutching at a copy, and waking up to do it all over again, it is easy to lose oneself in the intricacies of the convention centre, and forget to take that crucial step back for reflection.

but i digress.

as i was clearing out my “to read” tab this evening, i came across a video that i had meant to watch. it was one of the twelve-year old severn suzuki making an impassioned plea for action at the 1992 earth summit. taryn’s coverage in the globe and mail – where she asks michael martin about how ashamed he feels as a citizen of a country not taking a progressive stance on climate change – inspired me to revisit that sacred 9 minute video in the environmental activism world.

perhaps it was the lack of sleep and the bone-deep tiredness that i have been ignoring. but within a minute of the youtube clip, i found myself sobbing. pretty audibly. and uncontrollably too. not the gentle sniffle that you see at operas or ballets, but the violent expression of something really really sad happening. the kind that only crescedos throughout. and i don’t even like severn suzuki. and i am sitting across from a bar full of belligerant sailors and bar musicians. in short, this is not optimal crying space. i could be doing better things.

but something about that twelve year old suzuki’s composed yet concerned chiding of adults tugs at your heart. and it tugs at mine tonight. never during the entire speech does she lose her calm. but perhaps it is this sobriety that is so utterly heartbreaking. what is more tragic is the fact that this speech was delivered over 17 years ago.

this translates to a lot of things. it translates to that amount of species extinct. carbon emissions increase. forced migrations. increase in climate refugees. disappearing of ecosystems. the utter incompetence of the international community to set aside their differences for, you know, the fate of our shared planet. the painstaking pace at which negotiations have continued. how, as we bicker over base lines and acronyms, there will be families displaced, ozone layers destroyed, notions of climate justice disgraced.

and as yvo mentioned, to expect much is to be disappointed. here, expectation is a funny thing. the right amount merely feeds the self-entitlement frenzy. not enough, in some twisted fate, you are pleasantly surprised. but that lethal dose of over prescription, will inevitably lead to disappointment of unprecedented proportions. it seems that cop15 suffers a similar fate. of course it is too late to scale back the ambitions of prior, but perhaps it is not too late in the game to see how far this climate pact is willing to go. and with that thought, i end my first week in this harbour city of unbridled beautiful.