2nd Day Climate Change Conference – Tuesday 30th November
Cancun Messe
Half the delegation went to Cancum Messe, the exhibition and workshop center where the Brahma Kumaris have a stand. The afternoon was spent speaking to various people and exploring the area, where Governments, UN secretariat, UN agencies and NGOs are exhibiting together. Some of the governments have large exhibitions and Brazil has particularly wonderful stand, which as you enter, it is as if you are exploring the Amazon jungle full of sights and sounds. Later in the afternoon some of us took the 15 minute shuttle bus ride to the Moon Palace Hotel where the Government delegates were negotiating the main documents on mitigation, adaptation and finance.
The hotel is huge, and has about 1,000 bedrooms where the delegates are staying and many meeting rooms where they are working. The main plenary hall seats, what looks like, over 2,000 people. When we were there, the representative from Bangladesh was speaking and the person sitting next to him was a scientist who that afternoon had visited our stand.
KlimaForum
Both the atmosphere and number of people at KlimaForum had picked up since yesterday. Three different workshops in different tents were happening simultaneously and there were a few hundred, mostly young, people exploring ways to contribute towards a sustainable future.
In one of the tents as the afternoon wore on and the sun filtered through canvas, the tent filled with heat as well as about twenty five participants who came to a small panel discussion hosted by the Global Peace Initiative. As was mentioned yesterday, this American based organization had invited a group of Religious Leaders to highlight the Inner Dimension of Climate Change. Joining the panel along with BK Lucina Ferraz, Richard Cizik, founder of New Evangelicals USA, and Sister Joan Chittister, Benedicte nun and renowned author, were two other religious leaders; Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell and venerable Chang Ji, Dharma Drum, USA.
Luciana Ferraz from Brazil spoke of the connection between 'inner nature' and 'external nature'. Both are made of energy, she explained, energy that is never created or destroyed, but goes through transformation. The quality of energy depends on human thoughts which are the seed of everything we see around us. When thoughts are of oneness and balanced, the tree of human existence will be accordingly. Today what we see in the world is the expression of divided and conflicted thoughts.
Dr. Rev. Joan Brown Campbell shared about this being a world of specialists and that we have to work to create a world of unity. Ven. Chang Ji Dharma Drum continued on the same note, sharing her Buddhist perspective of first looking inside to see how our thoughts, become our actions, creating our habits and character, indeed our life and our destiny, and therefore the destiny of the planet and humankind. To change our thoughts we have to be mindful in whatever we do, when eating and doing our actions. She then, to illustrate her point, took out a set of steel cutlery she carries wherever she goes to avoid wasting plastic cutlery.
Chang Ji and Luciana were then interviewed by the journalist Adriana Varillas from the local newspaper El Periodico.
Then in tune with the culture of the KlimaForum our visit ended with a powerful circular dance lead by BK Kitzia Wiess from Mexico. She gathered a big group of people, young and old, getting them moving in circles and doing different steps in co-ordination with each other – a practical example of co-operation and staying tuned to each other and nature.
- For more news and resources,
please visit: www.environment.brahmakumaris.org
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