Camino a Copenhague – PNUMA estrenará película de Bob Dylan em Copenhague

26 – 11 – 09 - El Programa de la ONU para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA) estrenará una película producida por Bob Dylan que aborda el tema del cambio climático en la víspera de la Conferencia de Copenhague, que se celebrará del 7 al 18 de diciembre próximo.

El filme estará disponible en DVD una vez que sea presentado, combina una serie de grabaciones del músico estadounidense interpretando en vivo su canción “A hard rain´s a-gonna fall”, con fotografías sobre los efectos del cambio climático.

Asimismo, contiene comentarios sobre el estado del planeta y la población mundial en este momento crítico desde el punto de vista ecológico.

El trabajo cinematográfico muestra las pocas opciones que tiene el mundo para resolver uno de los problemas más graves que afronta en la actualidad y plantea la urgencia de implementar políticas que detengan el cambio climático y cambien radicalmente el enfoque del aprovechamiento de los recursos naturales y el desarrollo económico de todos los países.

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Camino a Copenhague - Cambio climático amenaza seguridad alimentaria en el Pacífico, afirma la FAO

26 – 11 – 09 - El cambio climático tendrá un fuerte impacto en la agricultura, la silvicultura y la pesca en las islas del Pacífico, lo que llevará a un incremento de la inseguridad alimentaria y la desnutrición en la región, alertó hoy la FAO en vísperas de la cumbre de la ONU sobre el cambio climático en Copenhague.

El organismo urgió a los gobiernos y los donantes a que comiencen a implementar de inmediato planes consistentes y proactivos de adaptación al cambio climático en todas esas islas.

La elevación del nivel del mar, el calentamiento y la acidificación de los océanos, los cambios en el régimen de lluvias y el incremento de la frecuencia de eventos climáticos extremos, tales como ciclones tropicales y sequías, fueron mencionados entre los efectos.

Muchos de estos impactos podrían tener efectos acumulativos y adversos en los rendimientos agrícolas y pesqueros y en la seguridad alimentaria, sostuvo la FAO.

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Road to Copenhagen - Hard Rain Film Released on Eve of Key UN Climate Talks

11 – 26 – 09 - Bob Dylan's powerful, prophetic song, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, is set to become the unofficial soundtrack to the Copenhagen climate talks.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark. - Hard Rain: Our Headlong Collision with Nature by Mark Edwards and Bob Dylan will be released on DVD at the opening of the Hard Rain exhibition in Copenhagen on 6 December - the eve of the United Nations Climate Conference.

The film, released in partnership with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), combines a rare live recording of Bob Dylan performing A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall with the photographs from Hard Rain and an extended illustrated commentary, in a moving and unforgettable exploration of the state of our planet and its people at this critical time.

The global issues highlighted in Hard Rain are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that define the 21st century. While each problem is understood to some degree by decision-makers, they are typically addressed as separate issues. Hard Rain puts the pieces together and shows that the world has little chance to solve any one of them until we understand how they all connect by cause and effect.

The DVD is accompanied by a specially commissioned essay by Lloyd Timberlake. The Urgency of Now cuts through the muddled thinking and failed policies that have delayed a radically new worldwide approach to climate change, poverty, the wasteful use of resources, population expansion, habitat destruction and species loss. The essay title was inspired by a response to Hard Rain from the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"If Hard Rain is a photographic elegy," said Mr Brown, "it is also an impassioned cry for change. Forceful, dramatic and disturbing, it is driven by what Martin Luther King called 'the fierce urgency of now' - and I believe the call for a truly global response to climate change is an idea whose time has finally come."

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "The dark and evocative lyrics of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall echo the kind of impacts the world faces if climate change continues unchecked. But Bob Dylan had another song. One that reflects a strong and positive Copenhagen outcome that puts the world on a low-carbon path - The Times They Are A-Changin'."

Lloyd Timberlake's essay focuses on a key dilemma facing the climate negotiators. "Right now," he writes, "we have two huge challenges to life on earth. One is living and consuming within planetary means. The other is helping billions of people toward safe, fulfilled and dignified lives, meaning that many people need to consume more, not less, to have a reasonable standard of living. These would seem to be contradictory goals. Yet we must manage both, and we cannot manage one without managing the other. Poor countries will not accept a climate change treaty that prevents them from developing."

"We have to give governments a constituency to reinvent the modern world so that it's compatible with nature and human nature," says Mark Edwards. "Political change comes only when people form a movement so large and inclusive that governments have no choice but to listen - and act. The last verse of Dylan's song begins 'What'll you do now?' It's a question that cannot be left hanging when the Copenhagen talks come to a close."

Do Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente
Oficina Regional para América Latina y el Caribe