Can You Hear the Who?

[Johannesburg, Aug 30] "We have to recognize that these issues affect people's lives," US Congressman Dennis Kucinich declared emphatically to a small group of journalists on the fourth day of the UN World Summit for Sustainable Development. No other country’s delegates would have dreamed of letting a statement like that drop. But coming from an American, the country that seems to need to remind itself and the rest of the world that it does recognize the existence of people in the world, it seemed almost a welcome respite.

Perhaps the implications of this comment struck a more raw nerve because of an accumulation of shocks to my American system. At the dinner table a few nights earlier, an artic chill had shuddered through my small frame. "It could be one of the most perverse occurrences," one of my knowledgeable companions commented, "but global warming might actually benefit America. You see, America could end up with two growing seasons in areas where they currently have one...." The scientist continued with scenarios, statistics, possibilities but I wasn't listening any more. The table was swimming, and it wasn't the South African wine with its bouquet of gooseberries and wild fig. "Hey," I stammered. My friends looked at me blankly, not clear why I had gone so pale. "No wonder sustainable development is not only not an issue now in the States, but may continue not to be. We could, from a certain point of view, at least in the short term, actually benefit from the effects of unsustainable development. Sure there'd be floods, hurricanes, spots of severe weather. But not the devastating drought, agricultural failure, and everything else that the southern countries will experience." The chill began to spread around the table.

Wrapped in its elephantine skin, America, geographically and intentionally isolated from the realities of life in countries around the world, slips from year to year, its warm hearted people growing weary of the weak and unsubstantiated pleas that squeak through about climate change, drought, poverty, the AIDs pandemic, water scarcity, lack of sanitation. Unaffected and sheltered, the nation continues to bask in an economic prosperity that is becoming increasingly rare in this ever more strained world.

Some independent Americans have come to make their voices heard above the well-orchestrated message of the official US/Bush delegation. Governor Jerry Brown explained why he had come to Johannesburg along with congressmen, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Ed Blumenauner (D-OR), and George Miller (D-CA), "Our goal is to push the United States position to a greater commitment to the environment and to the alleviation of poverty. We want a more progressive position out of the US delegation.... They keep us out of the [negotiating] sessions. We're part of the people here, we're with the People's Summit." Kucinich echoed, "We are here to talk about the moral responsibility that America has. And to say that the people of America feel that responsibility."

But it was Day Four of this gathering of 106 nations, seemingly countless NGOs, 3900 representatives of the press, and so far the issues had not been highlighted on mainstream American television news. The content being addressed at the World Summit for Sustainable Development, it appeared, had yet to reach the newsworthy proportions of sports and child kidnappings. Even with Governor Brown's colorful profile, few cracks had appeared in America’s thick skinned hide.

In the great classic of children's literature, Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who, Horton, a large elephant, hears a noise coming from a tiny dust speck. The noise, it turns out, was the people of
Whoville, calling for help for their planet in peril. Horton cradles the dust speck and its world of inhabitants on the tip of his trunk and gallops from town to town to save the Who. “Can you hear?” he asks, “can you hear the Who?” At first no one else stops to listen. They think poor Horton's gone mad. As with all Dr. Seuss stories, there is evolution of character. It is Day Four at the Summit, with six more to go for America to start to hear.