Tibet’s exiled Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama entered the climate change debate yesterday, urging governments to take serious action and put global interests ahead of domestic concerns.
Australia’s government is struggling to have its key climate change policy, a carbon emissions trading scheme, passed by a hostile upper house Senate this week ahead of UN climate talks in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 to Dec. 18.
In Sydney for a series of talks, the Dalai Lama called for individual and collective action to tackle climate change.
“In my own case I never use bathtub, only shower. Whenever I leave my room I always put off my light,” the Dalai Lama told a news conference.
“Taking care of the environment ... [is now] part of my life. Taking care of the environment should be part of our daily life,” he said.
Some Australian politicians skeptical about the causes of climate change have dumped a deal to back the government’s carbon trade scheme.
If defeated in parliament for a second time this week, the deal could allow Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to call an early election next year on the issue of climate change.
The skeptical climate change views of some Australians are being echoed in other countries, like the US, as they seek to reach agreement on climate policy ahead of Copenhagen.
The Dalai Lama urged governments to act in the global interest in dealing with climate change.
“The elected government, sometimes their No. 1 ... priority is national interest, national economy interest, then global issues are sometimes secondary,” the Dalai Lama said.
“That, I think, should change. The global issue should be No. 1. In some cases in order to protect global issues, some sacrifice of national interest [is needed],” he said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
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