Vergonha de ser canadense ou vergonha de ser humano?

                  colagem de Joana Cocarelli

A semana toda eu abro os jornais, ligo a TV e é Rio+20 pra cá, Rio+20 pra lá. Confesso que eu acho que todas essas reuniões não vão dar em nada, mas ao mesmo tempo penso ser de extrema importância levantarmos questões e discutirmos soluções para os novos (e velhos) desafios que o mundo nos impõe.

E dando minha zapeada diária pela internet achei a matéria abaixo onde li "I apologize in advance, but I'm from Canada."

At Rio+20, I find myself ashamed of being Canadian

By Leehi Yona, Special to The Gazette June 21, 2012

Rio de Janeiro – “I apologize in advance, but I’m from Canada.”

That’s the way I’ve been introducing myself in recent days at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. I am greeted with pity.

It is with a heavy heart that I find myself feeling – along with several other youth and non-governmental-organization delegates here at the conference – ashamed to call myself Canadian.

The pride I wish I had for my country has vanished among repeated failures on the part of Canada to play an active role in climate negotiations.

At the last Conference of the Parties (the United Nations Conference on Climate Change), held in Durban, South Africa, in 2011, Canada won so many “Fossil of the Day” awards that it was given a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Now, in Brazil, Canada is again in the international spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

On Sunday, Premier Jean Charest presented his Plan Nord – a “new global model for sustainable development,” as he called it. He talked about the social and environmental benefits of exploiting the natural resources of an area of boreal forest the size of France.

Is this, as the Rio+20 slogan goes, “the future we want for ourselves and for our children”?

Is this the direction our society is headed? Where is the realization that our resources are finite and need to be protected?

Our negotiators on the international stage have the power to change the way we manage the environment in order to protect it. Yet the Canada I see now is a Canada that has no intention of progressing in terms of environmental issues.

Instead, I see myself living in a country that is regressing, withdrawing from its previous commitments and subsidizing polluting industries such as the oilsands to the tune of billions, all the while cutting environmental programs.

One may argue that economic development is needed to avert an economic crisis. But what about our growing global environmental crisis? As a young adult, I am beginning to get the sense that our elected officials are not representing our best long-term interests and are not caring for the well-being of our country and the global environment beyond the next election.

As a community organizer and environmental advocate, I dedicate most of my free time toward making our world a better place in which to live. But where is the leadership at the governmental level?

Our leaders need to realize that the time to act is now, and that if nothing is done, this Rio+20 conference will go down in history as a failure.

Climate change is not an issue that can be dealt with sometime later.

I sincerely hope I can be proud to call myself a Canadian again, although I somehow cannot bring myself to believe that this will be anytime soon.

Leehi Yonaof Dollard des Ormeaux is a student at Marianopolis College and a youth delegate at this week’s United Nations Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Após a leitura fiquei pensando: será que os canadenses são os únicos que precisam se desculpar? Ou é o mundo todo que está em falta com o meio ambiente? Será que o problema são os políticos? Mas quem elege os políticos?
Talvez eu escrevesse: I apologize in advance, but I'm human. And despite everything I've been done so far, I'm willing to change my attitude towards a better world for me, for us and for the future generations.

Bisous!