Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 1 July 2012
There is a best-selling little book titled Everything Men Know About Women. Written by Cindy Cashman (under the pseudonym of Dr Alan Francis), it has been in print for over two decades and contains a ‘profound message in its simplest form’: every page is completely blank.
My women friends claim this is the bare truth, but let’s not argue that here. I think of this book — I was once gifted a copy! – whenever I listen to environmental scientists say how little we still know about our home planet.
At the recent Rio+20 summit and in the weeks leading to it, many experts reminded us of the limits of our scientific understanding of the intricate and inter-linked natural systems on Earth. We know even less about how 7 billion of us…
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I share my impressions and reflections of the city of Rio de Janeiro that just hosted the Rio+20 conference. But this piece is not about the event, but its venue — where the first world of affluence and third world of deprivation co-exist.
Statue of Christ te Redeemer looks down on Rio de Janeiro from Corcovado Mountain
තිරසාර සංවර්ධනය පිළිබඳ එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ සමුළුව (UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20) බ්රසීලයේ රියෝ ද ජනෙයිරෝ නුවර පැවැත්වුණා.
Animation films are hard to make all around. Even with digital technologies, the art and science of making entertaining and informative animations remains a challenge — and that’s why there are few good ones around.
I was thus happy to discover There’s No Tomorrow, a half-hour animated documentary about resource depletion, energy and the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet.
Inspired by the pro-capitalist cartoons of the 1940s, the film is an introduction to the energy dilemmas facing the world today. It is made by Incubate Pictures.
Their intro text says:
“The average American today has available the energy equivalent of 150 slaves, working 24 hours a day. Materials that store this energy for work are called fuels. Some fuels contain more energy than others. This is called energy density.”
“Economic expansion has resulted in increases in atmospheric nitrous oxide and methane, ozone depletion, increases in great floods, damage to ocean ecosystems, including nitrogen runoff, loss of rainforest and woodland, increases in domesticated land, and species extinctions.”
“The global food supply relies heavily on fossil fuels. Before WW1, all agriculture was Organic. Following the invention of fossil fuel derived fertilisers and pesticides there were massive improvements in food production, allowing for increases in human population.The use of artificial fertilisers has fed far more people than would have been possible with organic agriculture alone.”
My Sunday (Sinhala) column in Ravaya this week was on impressions of the National Media Summit 2012 held at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, on 24-25 May 2012. My own talk at the Summit, during a session New Media policies for Sri Lanka, was titled New Media, Old Minds: A Bridge Too Far?.
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 24 June 2012
As government officials, activists, researchers and journalists from around the world converged in Rio de Janeiro this week for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, everyone was clamouring for answers, solutions and agreements.
For journalists, at least, there was no shortage of stories – if only we went off the beaten track.
I wanted to see real city beyond the tourist hype and summit frenzy. So, as the heads of state sat down for their talkfest at the Rio Centro convention centre, I walked the streets of downtown Rio.
The city had declared three days of holiday, life went on as usual. Planet saviours were in town, but the…
Text of my news feature published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 23 June 2012
The UN Kicks the Paper Habit – at last!
By Nalaka Gunawardene
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The United Nations secretariat – the world’s largest bureaucracy – has long been known as a formidable ‘paper factory’. It cranks out millions of documents every year in the organisation’s six working languages. Some of it is not read even once.
A few years ago, it acknowledged producing over 700 million printed pages every year (2005 figures). The cost of printing documents in its New York and Geneva offices along was over 250 million dollars a year.
And major international conferences convened by the UN have seen a splurge of paper – both official documents and many that are simply self-promotional of various participating national delegation, development agencies or companies. When such events end, literally tons of paper are left behind convention sites.
Environmentalists have been urging the UN to go easy on paper for many years, both to save trees pulped to make paper, and to reduce chemicals use and carbon emissions in printing or copying.
The message is finally being heeded. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro is the first major UN event to reduce paper use – and it shows.
The entire meeting process is using less paper, and more electronic means for generating and sharing information. It’s the result of a new initiative called PaperSmart.
The vast Rio Centro convention centre, where the main inter-governmental meetings and major groups’ discussions are being held, is surprisingly paper-free.
So is the media centre, the operations base for hundreds of journalists from all over the world covering dozens of parallel sessions and events. In the past, this was a favourite ‘dumping ground’ for paper based materials.
At Rio+20 this week, only a handful of non-governmental organisations, academic bodies and activist groups still peddled paper. Most others had cut back on indiscriminate distribution of publications, posters, postcards and other materials.
Of course, the UN system loves to belabour the point. A dedicated website (http://papersmart.un.org) explains the underlying thinking and mechanics. PaperSmart is based on four principles: sustainability, efficiency, accessibility and knowledge management.
Switching from atoms to electrons has not been easy or smooth. Some participants – including web-savvy journalists – have been struggling with the complicated Rio+20 website and related online UN information services.
It’s still a work in progress, but PaperSmart is definitely a positive development to be cheered.
“After decades of sanctimonious preaching about the environment, the United Nations is taking a step in the right direction,” says Thalif Deen, the UN Bureau Chief of the developing world’s news agency, Inter Press Service (IPS).
Deen is a veteran of many UN conferences and processes who has seen how telexes and teleprinters gave way to instant global communications with Internet-enabled laptops and smartphones.
He recalls: “I was on the reporting staff of the first conference newspaper IPS published during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio where the UN’s carbon foot print was all over the conference centre: reams and reams of reports and documents and thousands of UN staffers flying in from UN offices the world over.”
Deen hails Rio+20 as “a major breakthrough for a global institution long accused of extravagance and conspicuous consumption”.
A few years ago, Deen asked Shashi Tharoor, then UN under-secretary-general for public information, on when the paperless office might finally arrive at the UN Secretariat.
The digitally savvy Tharoor admitted the UN’s track record was not a good one. He then offered a comparison: “The amount of paper we use in a year to produce every single UN document, in all six official languages, is equivalent to what the New York Times consumes to print a single Sunday edition.”
Things have evolved a bit both in the newspaper industry and the UN bureaucracy since that remark was made in 2005. Newspapers in the west are now selling less, especially in paper editions.
Simply stamping out paper use can be misleading unless the total energy and resource uses are factored in. In recent years, concerns have been raised on the carbon emissions of massive internet servers.
Of course, these are dwarfed by the amount of planet-warming gases spewed out by delegates flying long distances to be in the same crowded conference with thousands of others.
As at June 20 evening, Rio+20 had close to 40,000 officially registered participants in various categories. Many unofficial events attract more.
Environmentalists, relieved by the reduced use of paper, would also be quick to point out growing problems of electronic waste.
It seems there is no such thing as an impact-free communication!
Text of my news feature published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 22 June 2012
Severn Cullis-Suzuki addressing Earth Summit in Rio, June 1992
Next Election or Next Generation? By Nalaka Gunawardene in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Twenty years ago, a passionate young girl addressed – and challenged – the world leaders gathered at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
They called it the speech that stopped the world for six minutes. All the platitudes and rhetoric of heads of state are long forgotten, but this speech endures. It has been viewed million of times online.
Her speech was uncluttered and sincere. “I am only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realize neither do you…If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”
Her name was Severn Cullis-Suzuki, and she was 12 years old. The young Canadian environmental activist closed a Plenary Session with her powerful speech that received a standing ovation.
Raised in Vancouver and Toronto, Severn is the daughter of writer Tara Elizabeth Cullis and environmental activist turned TV personality David Suzuki. When she was 9, she started the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues.
They did various local projects and in 1992, raised enough money to go to the Rio Earth Summit. Their wanted to remind the world leaders that the future of all children – indeed, all future generations – were going to be impacted by decisions made at the Summit.
Listen to the memorable speech at the Earth Summit by Severn Cullis-Suzuki:
Two decades on, another young girl from the Asia Pacific earned her chance to address Rio+20, the follow up to the original Summit, this time with the theme ‘The Future We Want’
As it opened on the morning of 20 June 2012, Brittany Trilford, a 17-year-old school girl from New Zealand, spoke truth to power.
Brittany Trilford at Rio+20 conference on 20 June 2012
Addressing over 130 heads of state from around the world, assembled in Rio Centro conference centre, she said: “Please ask yourselves why you are here. Are you here to save face? Or are you here to save us?”
Brittany won an international competition to earn her five minutes of fame. The ‘Date with History Contest’ was a global online search for a person under 30 to represent youth and future generations at Rio+20.
Organised by the Global Campaign for Climate Action, Climate Nexus and the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), contest participants were asked to upload a 2 to 3 minute short video speech about the future they wanted.
After entries closed in early May 2012, online voting was allowed for 22 finalists – which included at least 3 from each region of the world. The final winner was chosen by an international panel that included environmentalists, UN officials and celebrities such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
Brittany Trilford addresses world leaders at the UN Earth Summit
Brittany is a final year student attending school in Wellington, New Zealand. In her winning entry, she wished for more innovation and imagination.
“One solution would be to change our education system to embrace creativity and innovation. To tackle our problems there are definitely out there. Our leaders have to listen, be open-minded and persistent enough to give these ideas a chance,” she said.
As she ended the speech: “I want a future where education encourages innovative thinking, creativity and entrepreneurship. I want a future where we run with natural processes and not against them. I want a future where leaders will stop talking and start acting. I want a future where leaders lead.”
Her video was filmed at home with basic camera equipment. As she explained, “I entered to show solidarity with youth around the world, demanding that our leaders remember we are all their children and they owe us a fighting chance at a future we want to inherit.”
In a poignant media event hours before the Summit opened, the star of 1992 Severn Cullis-Suzuki joined the winner of 2012, Brittany Trilford.
Severn is now a writer and activist on culture and environmental issues, as well as the mother of two young boys.
“I have grown up a lot these 20 years but those six minutes of speaking to the UN two decades ago remains the most powerful thing I have ever done in my life to affect people,” she said wistfully.
Shortly after arriving in Rio – her first time since 1992 – Severn addressed a group of young delegates working with Green Cross International, the global environmental group created by Mikhail Gorbachev.
Severn’s message today remains the same, but now she also thinks about the future of her own children. She returned to Rio on their behalf to appeal for solutions to issues like global climate change which she called an “inter-generational crime”.
The world’s children have spoken loud and clear, twice over. But will they be heard by the world’s governments – preoccupied with multiple crises and more concerned about staying on in office.
Will the next generation prevail over the next election?
Text of my news feature published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 21 June 2012
Hemantha Withanage in Rio de Janeiro
Ensure Good Governance and People’s Rights for a Sustainable Sri Lanka, urge civil society in Rio
By Nalaka Gunawardene in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
As world leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, 50 Lankan civil society organisations (CSOs) have issued a joint statement calling for good governance and respect for people’s rights in Sri Lanka.
Mere economic growth – by raising per capita Gross National Product (GNP) — can be a highly misleading indicator of development, the statement said.
“Better governance is a must for a sustainable society. Better environmental governance and environmental justice should be ensured for sustainable living,” it added.
The 15-page document is signed by 50 people’s organisations working on environment, development and human rights issues at the grassroots level. It urged the government of Sri Lanka to “follow the middle path in development as we proposed in 2002 for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)”.
The statement has been released on the web and is being distributed to over 40,000 participants attending the major UN conference, also known as Rio+20. (Full text at: http://tiny.cc/SLRio20)
The government of Sri Lanka was also due to release its official report for the conference, but copies of it were not available. There was also no mention of it anywhere on the Ministry’s official website.
CSOs underlined the need to respect the basic rights of people while ensuring environmental safeguards and maintaining a slow growth. It emphasized that sustainable development and good governance were inseparable.
The statement called for greater media freedom, right to freedom of expression and right to dissent as articulated in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in Agenda 21, an action plan for sustainable development that countries adopted at the original Earth Summit in Rio in June 1992. Sri Lanka has committed itself to both.
“It is very well known that without access to information, public participation, accountability, rule of law and predictability — which are the basic pillars of good governance — you cannot achieve sustainable development,” said Hemantha Withanage, the statement’s principal author in an exclusive interview.
“The sustainable development principles agreed at the Earth Summit in 1992 had environment, social and economical pillars. But today, we know that without a political pillar, sustainable development cannot be achieved,” added Withanage, Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Justice in Sri Lanka.
“The space for CSOs and recognition of their role in development is vital,” the statement noted, calling for greater civil society involvement in policy formulation in all areas of development.
The statement mentions a wide array of issues and concerns raised by ordinary Lankans who were consulted during its preparation. These range from local and national to global, and cover sectors such as agriculture, water, livelihoods, energy, public health, disaster management and biodiversity conservation.
“The world needs to move towards a simultaneous action at local, national, regional and international level to confront the social, economic and ecological crises which the present development model has caused,” it notes. “What we need instead is to defend our commons and total transformation towards sustainable consumption and production patterns.”
It explicitly called “to stop all kinds of corporate control, capture and monopolisation of natural resources.”
“Our demands are not only for Rio+20. After all, this is just another meeting of the world nations under the UN flag. We should not treat this as an end of everything. It is an on-going process,” Withanage said.
He recalled being involved in the ‘Citizens Report on Environment and Development’ that Sri Lanka civil society organisations collectively prepared for the Earth Summit in 1992. Many of its aspirations were never met, he lamented.
“Meanwhile, we have seen more deterioration of the social and environmental rights over the past two decades,” he said.
CSOs also called for an assessment of environmental and social costs of Sri Lanka’s prolonged civil conflict that ended in 2009. Its impact on natural resources remains little understood even as economic development projects are being rolled out in conflict affected areas, the statement said.
The CSO statement was produced at the end of Sri Lanka Civil Society Dialogue on Rio+20 held in Negombo on 17 – 18 May 2012. It was convened by the Centre for Environmental Justice/Friends of the Earth Sri Lanka, National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) and the Sri Lanka Nature Group.
A scene from The Anthropocene film
In March, I wrote about the high impactful short film called Welcome to the Anthropocene that launched the Planet Under Pressure conference, London 26-29 March 2012.
It is a three-minute blast through the last few centuries of Earth’s history, starting in 1750 and finishing at the Rio+20 Summit. It graphically depicts how one species has transformed Earth and shows why many scientists now say we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.
Produced by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and partners, it opened the United Nations Rio+20 summit today in Rio de Janeiro.
This information is found in a media notice released by IGBP today:
The data visualization, which is already an online viral hit with over 700,000 views, demonstrates that while we have had a dramatic impact on Earth for many thousands of years, it has only been since the 1950s we have grown into a colossal global force.
“The Anthropocene changes our relationship with the planet. We have a new responsibility and we need to determine how to meet that responsibility,” says co-director of the film, Owen Gaffney, director of communications at the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), based in Stockholm.
“The Rio+20 summit is the largest UN event ever held and the first major international gathering on global sustainability since the concept of the Anthropocene was first popularised,” added Mr Gaffney.
The film opens at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. As the camera swoops over Earth, viewers watch the planetary impact of humanity: cities, roads, railways, pipelines, cables and shipping lanes until finally the world’s planes spin a fine web around the planet. The film is produced as part of the world’s first educational portal on the Anthropocene.
The film was co-directed by Canadian data visualization expert and anthropologist Felix Pharand-Deschenes from the education organization GLOBAIA.
Pharand-Deschenes said: “Data visualization is a powerful tool to help us view the world and our place in it and to help foster the global awareness needed to support global sustainability and governance. Science can make use of these tools to help bring research to more people.”
The film was commissioned for a major international science conference, Planet Under Pressure, held in March 2012. The conference was designed to provide scientific leadership in support of the Rio+20 summit.
Conference co-chair Dr Mark Stafford Smith from CSIRO in Australia, said: “The film picks up the main theme of the Planet Under Pressure conference: the risks we face are global, urgent and interconnected. Our search for solutions must take this into account.”
The film was produced by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and Globaia. It is part of the website, Anthropocene.info which is co-sponsored by IGBP; Globaia, CSIRO, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm Environment Institute, International Human Dimensions Programme.
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 17 June 2012
I have a confession to make: I was once an environmental journalist.
With all good intentions, I thought I could help save the planet through my reporting, analysis and opinion writing in the media. I spent several years of my youth sincerely, passionately chasing stories about environmental problems – and solutions.
Luckily for me, and my readers, I realised my mistake after a while. I’ve been striving to see – and show – the bigger picture ever since.
As the UN Conference on Sustainable Development culminates in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the coming week, it is a good time to reflect how we got here, and what happens next. The collective journey thus far has considerably shaped my own career – even though I didn’t always follow the pack…
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 