Enjoy what’s left

Hi Friends,

I have been following the climate summit in Copenhagen via Democracy Now! and other outlets. It is my feeling that climate justice continues to block the way of real progress. As sometimes happens, people come with very old agendas. (there are actually NO indigenous peoples of the new world….we are all recent immigrants and the immigrants drove sloths and other large mammals extinct tens of thousands of years ago…see “Blood Rites” by Barbara Ehrenreich)

There is important business to be taken care of regarding rainforest preservation and it is being sidetracked due to the demands for reparations…which is simply not going to happen and maybe should not if it means that the undeveloped nations will develop.

The same people demanding reparations are also talking about community and I tend to think they would have done better to have stayed home and organized ala www.sbfoodnotlawns.org or in line with Aristide’s Poverty with Dignity. Instead they fly to Copenhagen, probably the most environmentally destructive thing they could do,

http://vodpod.com/watch/42191-george-monbiot-speaks-about-air-travel-and-love-miles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/21/travelsenvironmentalimpact.ethicalliving

I have lived in communities like Totogalpa, NIcaragua where the people would be classified as poor but have strong community and live lives with dignity…the dignity of belonging and sharing that we sometimes miss in the “developed nations”.

Today, I walked up through a gated Malibu neighborhood to the Serra Retreat AA meeting and I passed through tropical compounds and estates replete with tennis courts and swimming pools that were being maintained by people from the tropics…mostly here illegally and living in the shadows. Peering over a wall near the Franciscan Retreat, in the most expensive neighborhood, I was looking at an eleborate tennis court and swimming pool and between the two were raised beds, recently constructed, planted with lettuce, beans and tomatoes. Even those who don’t need the food are growing their own.

In solidarity, Lane Anderson