Faces

Copenhagen, Denmark
December 8, 2009

I have now been in Copenhagen for a day. It has taken me this long to collect my luggage, my hostel key, my UN delegate identification badge, and my thoughts.

The first thing one sees upon exiting the plane in Copenhagen is a massively coordinated environmental advertising campaign. Posters for products meet you before you even enter the terminal – large, glossy, and harshly green. Coca-Cola has signs everywhere declaring “Hopehagen,” featuring modern interpretations of stems and leaves growing from coke bottles. The WWF has advertisements with the archetypal lonely polar bear. And every Danish business would like the thousands of international visitors for this conference to know how well and how long they have been environmentally conscious. But probably the most interesting campaign is a series of politicians’ faces, black and white, enlarged to the point of repulsiveness. In their huge, staring visages, thick cheeks and fleshy noses and dully gleaming eyes, somehow there is displayed all human greed and selfishness. It is grotesque.

I don’t know how to do it, what trick of photoshop or a digital camera can dehumanize a face so, make it so monstrous, but these images scattered throughout the airport are perfectly manipulated to express a concept that people despise. Maybe there is a way to draw out the pouting self-assuredness in the lips, or a technique to make the skin pale and glossy like fat. World leaders all over the airport, their names inscribed beside them in case you can’t recognize them. And by each face is something along the lines of “Sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic environmental change. But we didn’t.”

Those portraits and those words flash in my mind each time I blink my eyes. These men (for they are exclusively men) seem utterly evil. Perhaps, I thought, I need to enter the field of environmental policy, to pit myself against such dangerous and heartless forces. With that in mind, I attended my first meeting of the UN. Now to be clear, this was not a UN side event, the lectures and discussions which will fill the majority of my time here. This was the opening, plenary session of the UN Climate Change Conference. Leadership was elected. Opening remarks were made. Coalitions began to form. And I began to fall asleep. It was like watching curling, or an underwater fight scene. I knew something was going on, and that important moves were being made, but I wasn’t quire sure how or when. Everything was slow and calculated, prepared and choreographed. It was alien and impractical, and gave the feeling of a complete lack of motion. Sudan would like to state its agenda on behalf of the Group 77 nations. Sierra Leone would like to endorse those sentiments, but add that additional consideration be given to funding for reforestation programs. And so on, and so forth. I couldn’t stand more than an hour of it. I had to leave

My muscles are sore. I ache from stored-up energy, from carrying luggage for days and days, from airplane seats and hostel beds. I am still unfocused, still find myself constantly on the edge of nodding off. Even as I write, if I close my eyes for a few seconds, start to sway, then jerk suddenly back up to keep from falling out of my chair. I woke up at 6:30 this morning. Now it’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the sun has already set. The sky beyond the glass roof of the Bella Center is absolutely black. I look out at the sea of humanity that has showed up for this conference, over 15,000 delegates from dozens of countries all wandering around, checking emails, talking and laughing, preparing presentations, eating local organic apples sold by a man who rides through the hallways on a bicycle. I see their faces through dirty glasses and squinted eyes. But from here, from this green, carpeted bench under the transplanted trees filling the main hall, here in the most important spot in the world right now, here where I am told evil men hold my very future in their soft, stubby hands, they all seem beautiful.

The people I have met in the last twenty four hours have all had very different faces. Volunteers and students, scientists and politicians, CEOs, lobbyists, and activists. Faces passing by are of every color and shape. Some are lined with worry, others shining with optimism. Their laughter is genuine, their frowns are thoughtful. Nowhere do I find the looming, terrifying face of the men on the posters, the face of Machiavelli or Ebenezer Scrooge. I find human beings, with human thoughts and human motivations. They have greed, yes. And lust. And hatred. But there is selflessness, too. The desire to do good permeates this place – it flows through the hallways and washes over the faces of all who come here. Perhaps that is what is so horrible, so inhuman about those black and white giants. Nowhere in their eyes is there the dimmest bit of hope, which is the single most alienating thing imaginable.

I am so glad such monsters do not exist, or if they do exist, they are not here. The sheer weight of humanity in this city, in this world has pushed them out. Those faces, the evil ones that spring so easily to our minds, are nothing more than excuses and scapegoats. If we cannot achieve change, it simply must be because of a powerful man in a back room whose power and lack of caring are infinite. I no longer believe in that. If there is failure in Copenhagen, will not be because of soulless leaders and policymakers. No, the face of that failure will be mine and yours.

-Josh