Friday, January 15, 2010

A Copenhagen Dictionary

by Herve Kempf

Le Monde (December 19 2009)


Activists: the word sounds better than "militants".

Africa: is unsure of itself.

American way of life: outmoded, disgusting or decadent?

Banks: are doing very well, thank you.

Bike Bloc: funny, nonviolent, fine, insurrectionary. Long live the Cyclution!

Camel: "passes more easily through the eye of a needle than does a rich man enter Heaven", according to Jesus Christ as reported by Hugo Chavez, reader of books.

Capitalism: designated by some as the cause of climate change.

Carbon Market: has lead in its wings.

China: hurtling down a course with no outlet. To brake before the catastrophe.

Christmas: Merry Christmas to all, from the bottom of my heart.

Climate Change: aspect of the global environmental crisis.

Climate Justice: unites environmentalists, those who seek to create another world, and the autonomous.

Collapse: obvious way out for an individual or civilization caught in a prolonged double bind (cf "Double bind").

Consumption: addiction.

COP 15: 15th conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Frenetic.

Danish Police Laws: a step towards soft dictatorship. Or: degeneration of the democratic spirit.

Denmark: comfortable.

Double Bind: or contradictory directives. Example: simultaneously wanting to obtain economic growth and decreases in greenhouse gas emissions (cf "Collapse").

Economic Recession: best way to prevent climate change in the absence of combined environmental and social policy.

Environmental Footprint: questionable measurement method, but far less questionable than GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Europe: like Barroso; right leaning, flabby, in tow to the United States

Future: better it should be taken over by citizens rather than by leaders selected by the oligarchy.

Hope: naturally!

Kyoto Protocol: valid until 2012. Valetudinarian?

Little Birds: the environment is also the little birds.

Pachamama: Mother Earth: An Evo Morales idea. To be studied.

Sustainable Development: an ever-more-deflated spare tire.

Third World: replaced by the couplet "Emerging countries - poor countries".

Unions: when are you going to wake up??

United States: see "American way of life" and "capitalism".

Voluntary Simplicity: it's like riding a bicycle; it can be learned. Not easy in the beginning.

Youth: is interested in policy, what do you think? Has trouble freeing itself from twenty years of advertising and televisual indoctrination. Should succeed.

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Translation by Truthout French Language Editor Leslie Thatcher.

http://www.truthout.org/1223091


Bill Totten http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/index.html

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