Will a barefoot politician please step forth?

Nick Kettles

It’s quite possible the Copenhagen Climate Change summit is doomed to failure before it has even begun but not for the reasons everyone expects. 

Copenhagen will fail for the simple reason that none of the delegates from the 192 countries represented will truly be able to represent the interests of the earth.  Even if the delegates are genuinely concerned about climate change, their overriding and narrow objective will continue to be how to leverage as little negative economic impact on their own country as possible.

The fact remains that having a concern about the facts of climate change, doesn’t always translate into a deep and lasting concern for the continuity of all life on earth.

It’s true that intellectual discourse can provide the basis for a deeper awareness of our intimate connection with nature, as Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Carpets, eco-epiphany clearly shows.  Ray Anderson claims the impact of reading Paul Hawken’s “The Ecology of Commerce” literally felt like a “spear to the chest” and awoke him to the urgent need to set his company on a new course toward sustainability.

But there is no guarantee that it will always be so.

Abstract concepts based on data sets and statistical analysis, are just too easy to disconnect from the world they represent.  If scientific facts could emotionally move politicians sufficiently to take decisive action, then they would have already taken such action a decade ago. 

What kind of action might the delegates at Copenhagen take if they felt as deeply about the planet as the indigenous tribes people, who met in Anchorage earlier in 2009, to make their own declaration on climate change?

“We reaffirm the unbreakable and sacred connection between land, air, water, oceans, forests, sea ice, plants, animals and our human communities as the material and spiritual basis for our existence.”

Of course we hear of Obama and Gordon Brown ‘growing their own’ in the gardens of the White House, and 10 Downing Street, but just how often do they actually get on their knees and get their own hands dirty to till the soil?  Or harvest the fruit of their labour with their own hands, and then prepare it for their family to eat? 

What’s more likely is that they are like the vast majority of the human race, who environment writer David Nicholson Lord suggests spends less than one day in a lifetime in sensory contact with Nature.  If this is the case, then it’s likely these forays into the garden, are little more than PR exercises designed to mollify the green lobby they hope will keep them elected.

Politicians, mostly male, middle class, wearing their immaculately groomed uniform of suit and tie spend most of their time disconnected from the earth, gathered around synthetically made conference tables, sitting on pump chairs, in largely synthetic environments, where the air, according to German Chemist, Michael Braungart, co-founder of cradle to cradle design, is likely to be more toxic than a smog filled city.

Will the conference centre in Copenhagen be any different, or are we more likely to get more sick solutions from men in sick buildings? 

The fact is that we desperately need our politicians and leaders to get out more.  We desperately need them to forge a deeper and more authentic relationship with the earth, because it’s clear that when they do, they act decisively. 

It’s claimed that after camping in the open air in Yosemite Valley with naturalist John Muir, in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt was more receptive to addressing the state mismanagement of the valley and rampant exploitation of the valley's resources.  Snow fell on them the night they camped there near Glacier Point.  It was, according to President Roosevelt, the greatest day of his life:  “There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”

Being emotionally moved by nature’s beauty, can awaken the same instincts to nurture and protect that we might feel for an infant or a child.  This is the kind of instinct that is infinitely harder to deny, than the rationale of hard science.

Living in mud huts and wearing hemp trousers is not my personal vision of what a sustainable society might or should look like, but when it comes to our world leaders and Copenhagen delegates, this might not be a bad thing in helping them develop a more authentic relationship with the earth.

What kind of discussions might unfold when if Barack, Gordon and other members of the G8, gathered round the camp fire they’ve made themselves? 

An end to oil as soon as humanly possible?  The radical transformation of urban landscapes into green sustainable cities? The possibility that we might frame our sense of well-being, by the depth of our relationship to the earth and all its creatures?

What chance an eco-epiphany at Copenhagen?  Will a bare footed politician please step forth to lead the way?

Nick Kettles is a freelance writer and co-founder of Plan C.

Comments

[green gal]

Fantastic Nick! Couldn't agree more. Have you seen this speech by the Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon (http://www.boliviaun.org/cms/?p=1350)? It is introducing a draft resolution to the UN called 'Harmony with Mother Earth' which seeks the recognition of the earth as a WHOLE - not just a circle. This kind of thinking should be the starting point for discussions and decsions by our world 'leaders' at Copenhagen.

[andy denne]

NIck
I was stimulated by some of the message. Perhaps you will find your barefoot politicians/leaders at www.forthenext7generations.com

Good luck with the adventure of change from the inside out

[Liberto Pereda]

Thanks for this Nick. It's really focusing what's going on with humankind. Not just with politicians, but with almost every single human being. We all agree that there's a need, urgent need, to change our habits and behaviors, and most of the times, most of the people do little or nothing.

To me is not about "they", but "us".

Henry Kimsey-House, in ocassion of the International Leadership Graduates Conference in NYC last October, said "whenever we say they, we may put ourselves in the victim role".

We are the politicians, we are who elect them, we are who are destroying the planet, we!

So yes, it's important that our representatives, our politicians, accept to take bold steps, and yet it's even more important that we, citizens, take bold steps as well.

What you are doing here is an example of the kind of epidemy that needs to be created, more and more people taking bold steps, raising our voices, claiming our space and walking out talk.

Thank You!

Liberto

[David Key]

This is great Nick, totally agree... Ha! I would! Designing and leading these types of experiences for leaders has been my life's work since 1996.

It's getting access to these people that's the problem - delivering the eco-epiphany is relatively easy once you get them to the wilds.

[Corrina Gordon-Barnes]

Excellent piece, Nick. I saw Tony Juniper, the Cambridge Green Party parliamentary candidate, speak the night after reading this and I recognised in him this authenticity and personal connection with the Earth. He's the kind of barefoot politician I feel you're talking about - and that we need - and I'm excited at the prospect of him representing us here in Cambridge.

http://www.tonyjuniper.com/