Word: johannesburgers
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...Quincy Jones managed, in the 1980s, to get the world's leading rock stars to sing "We Are the World" in perfect harmony - by insisting that they "check their egos at the door." But harmony has proved elusive at the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg - because the participant governments don't check their interests at the door. As 100 heads of state gathered for Wednesday's closing session, negotiators were still struggling after almost two weeks of horse-trading over the terms and provisions of a summit declaration that in the end will...
...even if they did contain precise targets and timelines - which they don't - they're not enforceable, anyway) justify the environmental impact of the jet-fuel used to fly some 10,000 summiteers and about five times as many camp followers to South Africa for the event. Indeed, the Johannesburg summit was originally intended as a followup to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, whose lofty proclamations went the way of most lofty proclamations. The perennial failure of such summits to produce meaningful programs of action has prompted some observers to suggest that summitry itself may begin to breed cynicism...
SOUTH AFRICA Development in Deadlock At least 20,000 people from 193 countries were in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The summit agreed to restore most of the world's major fisheries to commercial health by 2015 by reducing catches to a level that can be maintained indefinitely. Yet other progress was scant. The U.S. and the E.U. declined to discuss cutting their subsidies to agriculture. And they disagreed over targets for renewable energy, the cleanup of pollutants and the protection of endangered species. The Europeans want renewables to account for 15% of the world's total...
Today I'm no longer a child, but I'm worried about what kind of environment my children will grow up in. In Johannesburg the delegates will discuss the adoption and implementation of documents by governments. Yes, important stuff. But they did that at Rio. What this meeting must really be about is responsibility--not only government responsibility but personal responsibility. We are not cleaning up our own mess. We are not facing up to the price of our lifestyles. In Canada we know we are wiping out the salmon of the West Coast, just as we wiped...
...simple but fundamental things like reducing household garbage, consuming less, not relying on cars so much, eating locally grown food, carrying a reusable cup and, most important, getting out into nature. (For the full text, go to www.skyfishproject.org. Three friends and I will take the Recognition of Responsibility to Johannesburg, where we will meet with South African students and then present the pledge to the World Summit as a demonstration of personal commitment...