Climate Summit
by Steven Mayers
A wake
of smoke, across
the Atlantic/Pacific behind
them, the World Leaders are
flown in, on Royal British Airways,
while workers stay on a super-spreader
cruise missile/ship on the Clyde to discuss not
only the future of the world they lead, but more
urgently the future of those outside the summit fortress.
Only those invited can attend the summit, the twenty-sixth
RoundUp© Conference of the Parties, while the rest
of us gather in the parched/rainy
streets.
World
Leaders speak of
Partnerships, their Commitment to
the “most Sustainable COP ever,” a COP
of all COPs to out-cop all others, an all-out COP out.
Boris wants to “secure a brighter future for children” inside/
outside the summit fortress
surrounded by
cops.
Joe
wants to
“build back better”
“green economy, and make trillions of greenbacks
selling green energy to us below—“God willing and with goodwill of neighbors.”
Xi may or may not attend the Summit, sending apologies
for emissions, and sends his greetings to
Trump.
Crown
Prince promises to be
“carbon neutral” by a date before he’s dead.
Pope (Francis) has decided that maybe the Earth
is sacred after all, a sister (not
mother and certainly
not Father) and not
machine.
(He says nothing about children.)
The United
Conference Centre
on the Summit© commands stunning
views of the parched/drenched fields that
surround the city’s smokestack from atop the granite cliffs—Those
on the outside of the pay-wall tread water in the mote, our signs depicting flames.
Inside the Conference Centre on the Summit©, the language is difficult to decipher,
the carbon calculus complex—Leaders will be “delivering,
goals,” “securing net-zero degrees
is within reach,” drafting
questions that are
hard to say no
to.
Outside
the walls of
the Conference on the Summit©, the rest
talk about air, about water, about soil, about
fire, about floods, about drought, about land we want back.
Inside, “every company, every financial team, every bank, every
investor, every Leader will need to manage the increasing
impacts of climate change—A win-win will
be negotiated among the
Leaders.
Outside,
we will burn,
drown, scream in silence.
Solito2Solidarity 