Laying It On Thick

Some people are having fun at the summit. A bullshit award for sustaining poverty was constituted and guess who was the first recipient? Van...

Some people are having fun at the summit. A bullshit award for sustaining poverty was constituted and guess who was the first recipient? Vandana Shiva.

8216;8216;In a closely run race, the winner was chosen for her important contribution to sustaining poverty around the world, in her role as a mouthpiece of western eco imperialism,8217;8217; read a plaque mounted with cow manure at a rally of Indian and South African farmers.

The other nominees were Greenpeace International, BioWatch and the Third World network. The award was bestowed on behalf of the Indian farmers by Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute in New Delhi, an NGO which Sharad Joshi is associated with.

According to the farmers, Shiva deserved it because she insists that modern agricultural techniques to improve productivity are too dangerous for Indian farmers. These farmers in turn argue that it is they who should be making this choice, not 8216;8216;eco-imperialists8217;8217; like Shiva.

Making Peace With Big Money

Steve Sawyer, head of Greenpeace International, began his speech at a press conference by saying that 8216;8216;I will not attack the other members on the panel, try and freeze their accounts or have them arrested.8217;8217; The reason for this unusual statement: a rare marriage of convenience. Greenpeace International and World Business Council on Sustainable Development put aside their differences and shared a platform for the first time, saying they wanted to get the Kyoto protocol on climate change ratified.

The business representatives said they wanted to tell heads of state they are not waiting for businesses to make progress on climate change, rather, businesses are waiting for them and that they were sharing a platform with Greenpeace showed how desperate they were to push this! Talk about strange bedfellows.