Back Onto Water
I'm coming to the end of the 17-day middle phase of my 43-days-or-longer climate justice fast. During this middle phase I've consumed fruit juices and liquid veggie soups. It has been significantly easier than the first two weeks on water-only. If it weren't for the fact that my doing so has allowed me to finish the manuscript of my second book, Love Refuses to Quit: Climate Change and Social Change in the 21st Century, available to read at http://www.tedglick.com/book/html, and do other climate organizing as part of my day job, I'd feel very mixed about if I did the right thing.
But on Monday morning I'll be back onto water-only and will continue on it through at least the end of the Copenhagen conference. I know from my experiences on water the first two weeks that it is going to be a daily struggle to keep up my energy, but I also expect the fact that I'm doing this while the conference is taking place, and knowing my compatriots will be inside the conference as visible witnesses of why serious action on climate change is needed, will definitely help my spirit.
I do have hopes for Copenhagen, but it's not hopes for a strong agreement by the world's governments, either a legally binding agreement (which looks impossible) or what some have called a "politically binding" agreement, which was described by the head of the African Union as an oxymoron.
My hope is that a combination of this fast, thousands of people taking action outside in the streets demonstrating, nonviolent civil disobedience, and firm demands from the countries of the Global South, the developing and formerly colonized countries of the world, in combination with, hopefully, some allies from the governments of the Global North, will bring about something like what happened for the global justice movement as a result of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle 10 years ago.
"Seattle" galvanized a global justice movement that already existed before that WTO meeting but which really took off afterwards. It did so in large part because of the basic justice of what it was against and what it was calling for, and it did so despite the opposition of powerful governments and corporations. It was a situation with many analogies to our situation going into the Copenhagen climate conference.
So as I go through each day next week on water, as I continue to send my love and solidarity and best wishes to those who will be in their fifth and sixth and the beginnings of a seventh week on water only, I will also be praying as hard as I can for this kind of result.
The world needs to see countries and peoples and movements and organizations from all of the countries of the world standing together for climate justice. We saw it on October 24th, and we need to see it again and again and again. I don't think anyone knows exactly what something like this might look like in Copenhagen as everything unfolds over the next two weeks, but I sure know that it's desperately needed. That's why we are fasting.
