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Journalism of Courage
If you8217;re a mineral water junkie, Johannesburg may not be the place for you. The minute you get past customs at the international airport, an empty plastic bottle is shoved in your hand. A second look reveals the message on the bottle: its label reads: 8216;clean, pure and safe8212;tap water in Johannesburg8217;. For, Johannesburg is one of the few cities in the world where you can actually drink tap water from just about anywhere and not end up clutching your stomach at the end of the day. But if the World Summit on Sustainable Development WSSD has managed to rid itself of that ugly mineral water bottle, it hasn8217;t managed to clean up its act entirely. It8217;s estimated that this massive gathering of talking and working heads to debate the health and future of the planet will generate a lot of gas8212;500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, to be precise. Again, the city8217;s powers that be have found a smart way out: they8217;re selling 8216;climate legacy statements8217; that work like bonds, and could raise up to 50 million Rands to support South African projects that hope to permanently reduce carbon emission. Already, corporates like Shell, Eskom and Dow Chemicals and the World Bank, the WWF NGO as well as the Swedish, Canadian and British governments have sink their money into these statements.
Tale of Two Inaugurations
Ubuntu Shows You Can
There are nearly 150 parallel events to the main conference, but one of the most endearing is the Ubuntu village exhibit, which showcases art and craft from around the world that supports sustainable development. It8217;s called the 8216;Window to the Summit8217;, and one reason could well be that it8217;s the only venue you can visit without an entry pass. Boxed within the 11,000 square metres are aprons to buildings designed out of recycled cans, food prepared in solar cookers and eco-friendly craftwork. But its biggest draw is a restaurant that has been built using soft drink cans, an idea that came from houses in Lesotho where cans are the building bricks for shacks.
