date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 18:50:38 +0100 (BST) from: "B.J.Matthews" subject: The Drowning Village: (about global climate change negotiations) to: titus.alexander@mcr1.poptel.org.uk Dear Climate colleagues, I thought you might like this story from Titus Alexander (please accept my apology if you get this message more than once) Ben ***************************************************************** The Drowning Village An allegory about global climate change "I don't want to frighten you" said Ipsee, the village seer, "but if we don't act now the village will be flooded. Spent Carbon Water is seeping into the soil. The ground water is rising and one day floods will force people from their homes and fields." "That can't be true," said Uncle Sam, self-appointed village headman. "Our life depends on Carbon Water. We can't possibly live without Carbon Water!" And so it was in Annex One, the district where the rich people lived. "Why is Carbon Water bad?" asked little Bird Sam, the boy who knew everything about competitive baseball and always wanted to do the right thing. "Carbon Water is wonderful! Our life depends on it" explained General MacSam, Uncle Sam's powerful brother. "It is a magical fluid full of energy that comes from deep wells in the ground. We use Carbon Water to heat our homes, drive our cars and make ever ything we want. Carbon Water is like liquid gold." General MacSam and his friends Olly Pec and Bull Carson owned most of the Carbon Water wells in the village. "Look son" said Uncle Sam, "Carbon Water helps us win at baseball." "And spent Carbon Water?" asked Little Sam again. "What is that?" "Oh, some nonsense Ipsee made up to cause trouble" snorted the General. "You can't believe everything the old seer says." "Spent Carbon Water is what's left when you use Carbon Water" explained Ipsee patiently. "It runs straight out into the ground and there is nothing we can do to catch it." "It can't be true!" said Uncle Sam again. "What can we do?" "More than half of all the Carbon Water is used by the fifteen families in Annex One. You could stop using so much Carbon Water" said Ipsee. "We can't do that!" said General MacSam. "We'll go bust if we stop using Carbon Water." "You could plant more trees," said Ipsee. "Trees soak up spent Carbon Water through their roots, but planting trees is not enough." "Aha! The trees!" cried Uncle Sam. "That's the real problem. Everybody knows that the Brazza boys down the road are cutting down too many trees, and the Mala mob on the other side of the village. We'll get them to stop cutting down trees and save the vill age!" "With respect" said Ipsee, who was always terribly polite. "These families are only cutting down the trees to sell you the wood and make fields for your cattle. Only a third of the Carbon Water is used by the 77 poor families who live outside Annex One." "Go away and do more studies" said Uncle Sam to Ipsee, and went to find other seers who would tell him Carbon Water was wonderful and there was no danger of flooding. The Sam clan had many magicians, soothsayers and spin doctors who had many clever ways of telling people what they paid to hear. Pearl River Sam was a glamorous honey-tongued soothsayer in the Sam clan who mingled stealthily among the villagers, telling them whatever MacSam paid her to say: "Carbon Water is not a problem" she whispered huskily. "Ipsee is just guessing. If you stop using Carbon Water you will be ruined." She visited families in their homes with shiny charts and numbers to show them that using less Carbon Water would make them poorer. She courted the rich uncles outside Annex One with flattery and charm. "Just as you are doing do so well, they are trying to make you give it all up. Don't be panicked. Don't do anything hasty. Something will come up. Don't stop using Carbon Water just because old Ipsee scares you" she soothed. Fraser Gold Sam wasn't a soothsayer but a tough backwoodsman who didn't like what Ipsee said one little bit. "Its a leftist plot to take over the village, you all watch out" he warned his fellow clansmen. "Them folks outside the Annex want what we've got, an' we worked damn hard for what we got. They just want to take our Carbon Water and tell us what to do here in our very own homes. That Carbon Water scare is nothing but a dangerous plot to take over the village, you all watch out!" But the frightening rumours about floods of Spent Carbon Water spread amongst the villagers. "Is it true that Ipsee has warned of terrible floods?" they asked. "What are we going to do?" "We must stop using Carbon Water!" said Greasy Eye, an artist who lived in Annex One. "Save the forests!" he cried. But few listened. "The Carbon Waters are rising" repeated Ipsee to all who would listen. "We must use less Carbon Water or one day the village will flood." "Call a village summit" said the Strong Man in Annex One. "There are many problems we must deal with together. The forests are dying, the fish are disappearing and Carbon Waters are rising. We must make a plan for the whole village to look after our envir onment." "What about the poor people!" said Lou Brazza, speaking for the seventy seven families outside Annex One. "All you care about is the environment. Many of us do not have enough food to eat. We do not have enough clean water to drink. Some of our people are starving. Look at our poor shacks around the village. We also need to talk about poverty." The 77 families lived on the edge of the village, cultivating fields, digging the mines or just struggling to survive. Many proud, ancient families lived outside Annex One, suffering the indignity of poverty. Here lived the beautiful Indira with her large and argumentative family, the boisterous Brazza brothers and many others. The elegant Mr Chin had the biggest family of all, making one in five of the villagers. Mr Chin's extended family usually kept to themselves in their large walled garden, but they too were worried about the rising Carbon Waters. "Let us talk about all these problems together" said the Strong Man. "Rich or poor, we are all in trouble if the Carbon Waters rise. Where can we meet?" And so the Brazza brothers invited one person from every family to the Rio Restaurant on the riverside to talk about poverty and the environment. There the villagers wrote a long list of things to do, which they called Action 21. Everyone agreed that the danger of flooding from Carbon Water was the number one problem. Ipsee explained the problem very clearly. "When we use Carbon Water for energy it spreads over the village like dew. The trees soak some of it up and some flows away in the river, but most of the spent Carbon Water stays in the ground. Soon the water will form puddles in the low lying areas. "For every twenty thousand buckets of Carbon Water, the water could rise about an inch. Every year the village uses over six thousand buckets. That means a foot of water every forty years, even if we only use the same amount of Carbon Water as today. The only way to stop the floods is to use less than one thousand four hundred buckets a year." "Less than one thousand four hundred buckets! You must be crazy" shouted General MacSam, Uncle Sam's powerful brother. "We use more than that in half a year." "That is the problem" said Ipsee. "More than half the Carbon Water is used by 15 families in Annex One. Boris and his former family uses nearly a thousand buckets. The 77 families use just two thousand buckets between them, but they are digging new wells because they also want to be rich." "And what's wrong with that!?" shouted Mat Mala. "Uncle Sam and his fat friends have hogged the Carbon Water to themselves for far too long. Now it's our turn." "I am just a humble seer," said Ipsee. "My task is to present the problem, not to blame anyone or tell you how to solve it. Nobody in the village can escape this problem. Everybody is using more Carbon Water. The ground water is rising, the river is burst ing its banks. If the village carries on like this it will be under three feet of water in a century." "You can't scare us with stories about floods a 100 years from now, old man" said General MacSam. "We can live with that." "Maybe you can, up on your hill, but your fields in the valley will all be under water. And all the families living along the river bank will have to move up the hill with you." After Ipsee spoke everyone was silent. It was terrible news. Worse than any nightmare. The wonderful, magical golden Carbon Water was slowly drowning their beautiful village. "We will stop the Carbon Water flowing any faster" agreed all the rich families from the Annex One. "We will also give more money to the poor. And we will meet again every year to work on this terrible problem together." But the Carbon Water kept on flowing. It was such a wonderful liquid, everyone wanted it. "We can't do without it" people said in Annex One. "We need more Carbon Water to end our poverty." said the 77 poor families. "The rich families in Annex One caused the problem. They should solve it." And so the argument went on, year after year. One person from each family met every few months at a different place - at the Berlin Bar, Hotel Geneva or the Bonn Bordello. But still the Carbon Water kept on flowing. Everybody wanted more magic liquid, and the rich families did not want to give money to the poor. "They will only spend it on food and fast cars" said Uncle Sam. Ipsee came again and said, "Friends, the flood waters are still rising. If we do not stop using Carbon Water our fields will all be under water and that will be the end of this story." The Aosis family lived on the banks of the river at the edge of the village. Every year the spring floods rose a little higher. Some fields were already beginning to disappear. One day their homes would go too. They wrote a solemn petition to the village meeting, pleading with the 15 families of Annex One to use less Carbon Water. "If the waters rise, we'll move you little guys somewhere else" said Uncle Sam. "The Sam clan would go bust if we stop using Carbon Water. - Let's be reasonable. A little flooding is not so bad. It could even make your crops grow better. It would be much easier if we just put sand bags round our houses." "Its alright for you," said Johnny Aosis, "Annex One is rich and up the hill. We can't even afford sandbags." "If you used more Carbon Water you could buy more sandbags" said Uncle Sam. "And my brother does a good line in second hand sand bags." "You're crazy" said Greasy Eye, pointing a finger in his face. "If a single member of the Aosis family goes under you'll be done for murder." "We run the police round here" said Uncle Sam, with just the slightest hint of menace. "But this is a time for rational debate, my friend. We're very sympathetic to the Aosis family. Tell you what, we'll give them second hand sand bags at half price." Then General MacSam discovered a wizard to solve the problem. Captain Dave was a clever Economagician who made problems disappear in a cloud of magic numbers. "If the village stopped using Carbon Water it will cost ten million Bucks a year" said Captain Dave gravely, pulling out scrolls of paper covered in tiny figures. "But if we let the waters rise it will cost a million Bucks in damages. Now that's about the same price as sandbags round every single house and field and more...." "See. The solution's simple" said MacSam. "We buy enough sandbags for everyone and save nine million Bucks a year. Its a win-win solution, folks." "Hang on a minute" said Greasy Eye. "How did you work out those costs, Captain Dave? Let me see those figures" Greasy Eye grabbed the scrolls. "Rude boy" scowled Captain Dave. "Who let that madman in here?" "Peer View means that everyone can look at the figures" said Ipsee. "Its an ancient village custom." "Look!" shouted Greasy Eye. "The conniving Captain has costed the damages in Annex One fifteen times more than everyone else. No wonder it looks cheaper to buy sandbags. But if the damage costs are equal across the village, they work out at more than twel ve million Bucks a year." "Is that true!?" demanded Mr Chin. "Well, everything in Annex one costs fifteen times more than everywhere else, so obviously the damages are higher there." "What scoundrel!" said Mat Mala. Uncle Sam never mentioned Captain Dave again and the discussions dragged on as before. The 77 families were getting more and more angry with the 15 families in Annex One. "Everyone in the Sam clan uses five buckets of Carbon Water every single day. We just get half a bucket a day. That's not fair" said the Brazza brothers. "But there are more of you" said Uncle Sam. "We're all in this together. We'll use less Carbon Water if you use less." "That's right" said Little Bird Sam. "Me and my pals wont let Uncle Sam do anything that will stop us winning at baseball. If we use less Carbon Water and you lot carry on using it, then all our best baseball players will move out of Annex One." "See. My family are very stubborn. They won't use less Carbon Water until everyone in the village agrees that they will also use less. We won't agree to anything until everyone agrees to everything." "Its almost too late" said Johnny Aosis. "Some of our fields are under an inch of water." "Grow rice!" exclaimed MacSam, who always saw an opportunity where others saw problems. "Grow up!" snapped Greasy Eye. The arguments went on for days and weeks and years without any end in sight. Every year the waters rose a little higher, and every year the voices rose louder too. The fifteen rich families in Annex One lived safely, enjoying everything that money can buy, made with the magical powers of Carbon Water. They really didn't want to know anything about floods or the poor outside their district. They built flood barriers, hired more armed guards and put higher fences round their houses. The poor could only come in if they had a pass to work as a servant - or if they were very rich, like Olly Pec, who lived outside Annex One but owned the biggest Carbon Water well of all. But the 15 families also argued among themselves. Mrs Eura wrung her hands and said "We've got to do something" over and over again, without actually doing anything, of course. John Bull Eura sacked one of his water carriers. That slowed the flow slightly , but then he let Bull Carson start digging new wells in Atlantic Pond behind his house. Old Boris had a heart attack, so he stopped fetching Carbon Water, but his crooked sons were soon in business selling the stuff cheap to Uncle Sam. The polite Mr Jay said little but his family invented lots of gadgets which used less Carbon Water. "More g adgets, less Carbon Water" they said softly, but used just as much as everyone else in Annex One. Many children in Annex One didn't like what the grown-ups were doing and tried to stop people using Carbon Water by planting green peas round the wells. General MacSam and Bull Carson hated green peas, but they were more of a nuisance than a threat. Bull Carson hired armed guards to chase the children away from the wells, but they just kept coming back planting more and more green peas. Uncle Sam came up with lots more clever scams to make the problem disappear without doing anything about it. His favourite scam was called Join In, - J.I. for short. "Its all very simple and very very smart" said Uncle Sam. "Listen guys, everybody wins when you all Join In." Uncle Sam was always so positive and friendly people always listened. He was also head of the richest and most powerful family in the village, so it was hard to argue with him. "Join In works like this. We carry on using Carbon Water, but we pay you guys to plant trees anywhere you like. You get the trees and we get to use the Carbon Water. The trees soak up the Carbon Water, so that way they cancel out. Win-win all round." The 77 families looked at Uncle Sam as if he was stupid. "Am I being too smart for you?" said Uncle Sam. "Listen guys, you can sell the wood from the trees later" he winked. A few friend of Uncle Sam outside Annex One agreed to Join In, but most people in the village saw it for what it was, a scam to divert att ention from the main problem. Little Bird Sam sang "There were ten in a bed and the little one said, 'Win win, win win, and they all win-won and one fell out, and the little one said - " "Hey, that's leverage" said Pearl Sam, smiling like a toothpaste advert. "Smart kid. Loads brighter than those green pea nuts messing up our Carbon Water wells." The 77 families also argued between themselves. Olly Pec had the biggest Carbon Water well in the whole village. It made him very rich and he didn't want to loose out. "All I want is compensation" said Olly Pec. "If the village decides to use less Carbon Water, then the village should pay us to keep it in the ground." "What about compensation for my fields?" asked Johnny Aosis. "That's an act of nature" smiled Pearl Sam, appearing mysteriously beside Olly Pec. "The rich families must lead the way" insisted Father Chin. "He who fouls the nest, must clean it." The large and venerable Chin family were very worried about the rising water, but they were also very poor and wanted more Carbon Water to make life easier . "The families outside Annex One must be allowed to use more Carbon Water." And so the arguments went on year after year and the water kept rising, inch by inch. More and more children planted green peas round the wells. They tried to stop Bull Carson from digging wells . "The families in Annex One should cut the amount of Carbon Water used by one tenth in five years" suggested Mrs Eura. "Impossible!" said Uncle Sam. "Not enough" said Lou Brazza. "Look at the way the stuff is flowing as if there will be no tomorrow." "At this rate there will be no tomorrow" sighed Greasy Eye. "Annex One must make a solemn oath to cut its use of Carbon Water by ten per cent in five years" said Mrs Eura again. "And twenty per cent in ten years." "That looks good" said Lou, "but that still means you can use more than two thousand buckets a year in ten years time. Where does that leave us outside Annex One? The flood waters will rise and your solemn oath means that you don't need to cut any more, s o all of us outside Annex One will have to cut down on Carbon Water even more." And so the arguments continued in bars and hotels around the village. The Carbon Waters kept on flowing, Bull Carson dug more wells and slowly puddles of floodwater continued to rise. In desperation Greasy Eye painted a big picture of the village drowning under spent Carbon water. He painted one person from each family with a bucket showing the amount of Carbon Water each person used. At one end stood Lady Indira, Mr Chin and most of t he village with less than one bucket each. At the other end stood the rich from Annex One, with Uncle Sam balancing six buckets on his head. Looking at this picture gave Mrs Black an idea for a new way forward. "My friends, we all suffer from the rising water. The longer we argue, the more it will rise. My family is one of the poorest in the village. Our crops are drowning and disease is sprea ding. We hardly use any Carbon Water, less than half a bucket each. We would like more Carbon Water and be rich like the people of Annex One, but we must find another way to meet our needs so that the whole village does not suffer. We did not cause this p roblem, but it hurts us most. We cannot wait for the rich families in Annex One to agree among themselves. We need action now." Mrs Black paused. Everyone looked at her. Uncle Sam bent down to tie his shoe laces and pretended not to hear. "We believe that each person in the village is equal. This magical Carbon Water is a gift of nature. It belongs equally to us all. We should therefore have equal rights to use Carbon Water." "Outrageous" muttered General MacSam. "Bravo" called Lady Indira, who had been silent for a long time. "Let me continue" said Mrs Black. "Uncle Sam says that the Sam clan won't agree to use less Carbon Water until every family agrees to use less. Very well then. Let us agree that every person should have the same right to draw an equal amount of Carbon Wat er from the wells. Our wiser seer Ipsee has said that to protect the village from flooding we must not use more than 1,400 buckets of water a year. That is about one bucket a day for every person in the village." "Well said!" said Mr Chin. "Spot on!" said Toni Brazza. "We want equal rights to use Carbon Water. One bucket per person is only fair." "Outrageous" growled General MacSam, his voice rising. "We can't live on less than four buckets a day!" "Sssh" hissed Uncle Sam at his brother. "We need to think this one through carefully." "It's robbery" growled the General. "They want to steal our Carbon Water." "One bucket of water a day for every person" continued Mrs Black. "If General MacSam wants to use more, he can buy it from us. We will use the money to improve our land in other ways. We can use the money to buy gadgets from Mr Jay." "At last!" said Johnny Aosis. "Maybe now we will get some action." When the village summit met again at Kyoto Cafe Mrs Black presented a solemn petition before them. Each person would have an equal right to one bucket of Carbon Water a day. If people wanted more, they could buy it from someone else. If people used more without buying it they would pay a heavy fine. "Its almost too late" said Johnny Aosis. "Some of our fields are under two inches of water." "We don't like it" said General MacSam, "we could make more money selling sandbags." "Where's the leverage?" said Pearl Sam, smiling as if her life depended on it. "I warned you" screamed Fraser Gold Sam. "They're taking over the village. Just you wait. Soon they'll want elections for the village Council. One bucket, one vote, mark my words." "Rising water affect us all" sighed Uncle Sam. "You can't argue with nature, Fraser." "Win-win, too-win, too-woo" wittered Little Bird Sam, snuggling up to his dad in anxiety. "Its a tough deal" confessed Uncle Sam. "You got what you wanted" snapped the Brazza brothers. "We've all agreed to use no more than a safe amount of Carbon Water." "Ok, Ok. We'll pay you to look after your trees in exchange for the right to use some of your Carbon Water." "That's not enough" said the Brazza brothers. "We want you to help us build a decent homes for all our family, so that we can live in peace and cook with solar power." And so this chapter in the story ends with rich and poor families helping each other to create a village safe from flooding. Let us make sure that the Climate Change negotiators learn the lesson of this little fable before it is too late. Copyright 1997: Titus Alexander, 32 Carisbrooke Road, London UK, E17 7EF Please send comments to titus.alexander@mcr1.poptel.org.uk Non-profit organisations are free to circulate this story on the internet or in magazines for campaign purposes, provided credit is given and the following background notes and action points are included. Where writers are normally paid, please pay the us ual rate to Titus Alexander. This material can also be adapted for use as a play or street theatre. A cartoon version will be available. Background note: interpreting the story Global warming is the most serious threat ever faced by humanity. It is potentially more dangerous than World War 2 or the cold war. To avoid dangerous climate change, we need to devote at least as much effort to using less fossil fuels as went into defen ce over the past 50 years. This story is a lose analogy of the climate change crisis and global negotiations that have continued for ten years without cutting any greenhouse gases. None of the characters represent real people, but the following may provide an insight into the compl ex issues involved. The IPCC ("Ipsee") is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of over 2,000 scientists who have provided evidence of global warming and have warned that greenhouse gases must be cut by upto 60% to prevent dangerous climate change. A major cause of i ncreased global warming is man-made greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, which is a by-product of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. These are loosely represented in the story by Carbon Water and CO2 as spent Carbon Water. CO2 is absorbed by trees, plants, ocean plankton and other natural sinks, but more CO2 is being produced than can be absorbed. Like the rising flood waters, carbon is accumulating in the sky and trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere, thus causing global warming. More than half of all CO2 is produced by the industrialised countries of the West and former Soviet block. These countries are listed in Annex One of the Climate Change Convention. In 1992 they agreed at the Earth Summit in Rio to cut CO2 emissions to 199 0 levels by 2000. So far emissions continue to rise, apart from Britain (due to the closure of the coal industry) and the former Soviet Union. The West has fifteen percent of world population, loosely represented by the 15 rich families in the story. During the negotiations some Western economists calculated that the cost of damage due to dangerous climate change would be roughly equal to the cost of measures to protect against its effects (the sandbags), using calculations that valued the death of on e person in the West as 15 times greater than a person in developing countries. The United States has been very reluctant to commit itself to cutting CO2 emissions unless developing countries also do so. This campaign has been led by the fossil fuel industry, caricatured in the story as General MacSam, assisted by professional lobbyi sts such as Don Pearlman and Charles River Associates, and supported by Senator Byrd in Congress. The Fraser Institute, Sovereignty International and other US organisations deny global warming is a problem or see the Climate Change negotiations as a plot to set up world government, or both. The US is also very keen on Joint Implantation (or JI) which involves projects to cut CO2 emissions or plant trees in developing countries to off-set emissions in the US. The US also want to set up a system of emissions trading, so that countries with low emissions can sell 'emissions rights' to countries with high emissions, like the US. Developing countries make up over 75 per cent of world population and emit less than half of all CO2, although emissions from newly industrialising countries are rising rapidly. Developing countries have presented joint positions as the G77 plus China. Teams of negotiators from almost every country in the world have met at least four times a year to hammer out proposals for cutting CO2 emissions, but process is painfully slow. The next big meeting is in Kyoto in December 1997. The Global Commons Institute has argued that the fairest way of dealing with the problem is to set a global ceiling on permissable emissions and the allocate emissions rights on an equal per capita basis. This is equivalent to the one bucket per person in the story. Under the GCI proposals, the global ceiling on CO2 emissions would gradually come down and per capita emissions would coverage towards an equal per capita limit of about one tonne of carbon per person per year at a specific date in the future. We see climate change is an equal rights issue about the use of the global commons. For more details, see the GCI web site at http://www.gn.apc.org/gci Action points Use the story to encourage people to talk and find out more about global warming. It can be reprinted or serialised in school and university magazines. It can be used as a basis for drama improvisation in youth clubs, schools, drama societies or street th eatre. Science and drama teachers might be persuaded to work together on this topic. As a play, you could develop the story to involve the audience in a discussion about the issues and ways of reducing use of fossil fuels. Use the story to campaign for your workplace, university, school or town to use less fossil fuels. This could fit it with Local Agenda 21. Get people to write to their MP and Robin Cook (Foreign Secretary) John Prescott (Environment Secretary) and Tony Blair (Prime Minister) to • declare climate change to be a global security interest • support proposals for a global limit on CO2 emissions and equal per capita CO2 emissions rights as the basis of an agreement at Kyoto • support the government's proposal for a minimum 20% cut in emissions by 2010 • urge the government to bring in measures to cut CO2