Bali: winding down and winding up
Yesterday was crazy - after the usual morning meetings I bolted to the conference centre to catch the beginning of negotiations. i was holding a bag of squishy stress balls shaped like the earth and bearing the words "The other US is with you." The idea was to encourage the other countries to stand strong and ignore the US's obstructionism, as well as thanking them for their work so far. We needed to communicate that the delegation here wasn't representative of the US people, and that we needed strong, decisive action. It was really fun - I squishy balled representatives of Tanzania, Lebanon, the Seychelles, Bangladesh, Angola, Egypt, France, China, and the Prime Minister of Norway.

Once I had run out of squishy balls I went to see my friend (and current head of SustainUS) speak on a Climate Action Network press conference panel with the head of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Carl Pope. There was a great moment when a reporter asked, "Do you feel embarrassed by the way your government is acting in the negotiations?" "Yes," Erin replied. There was a long pause as the obviousness sunk in before she added, "Oh, do you want me to say a few more words about that?"

Afterwards we ran into the US delegation, who were holding their press conference after the US Climate Action Network (the panel Erin was speaking on). They all ignored us until Dominic and I started talking to someone from the International Chamber of Commerce, when they came over to say hello. Just seeing them there made me so angry. They're doing so much to destroy the negotiations - throwing in language that gains them nothing but breaks a consensus that 180 other countries had struggled to reach, insulting other delegations (and the world), and generally acting like a two ton idiot bull in a china shop. In the CAN Press Conference, Carl Pope pointed out (very slowly and clearly) that the administration has accepted the IPCC fourth assessment report, and delegation representatives have given presentations showing that they accept the science and not only that, they recognize the action we need to take to stop disaster. "They cannot be forgiven because they know exactly what they're doing."

Infuriated, I stalked out of the conference centre to eat lunch, only to find that I was sitting opposite Hilary Benn, the UK minister for the Environment. He got a squishy ball too. It made me feel better. So did facilitating a meeting to plan the youth caucus' last few actions, as well as singing our song at the Fossil of the Day presentation.

But the highlight of the day was a speech from Al Gore. He was AMAZING - really honest and emotive and wonderful and prophetic. It's really hard to try to describe the effect it had on me. It's not like he was saying anything particularly new - he was simply speaking from his heart, exhorting the delegates to take action and, more importantly, move around the roadblock of the United States. But I needed it so badly, I needed someone to urge the world to move forward because we don't have time to waste, US government be damned. I needed a champion. I needed the truth.

"In our country's darkest hour, our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, said 'The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. . . . We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.'"