http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/19/copenhagen-blame-game
Rich and poor countries blame each other for failure of Copenhagen deal
Wealthy nations accused of bullying tactics to get developing countries to sign 'death warrant'
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 19 December 2009
Bolivian President Evo Morales said the Copenhagen deal was a failure because of the 'lack of political will by a small group of countries led by the US'
The blame game over the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks started last night with countries accusing each other of a complete lack of willingness to compromise.
The G77 group of 130 developing nations blamed Obama for "locking the poor into permanent poverty by refusing to reduce US emissions further."
"Today's events are the worst development for climate change in history," said a spokesperson.
Pablo Solon, Bolivian ambassador to the UN, blamed the Danish hosts for convening only a small group of countries to prepare a text to put before world leaders. "This is completely unacceptable. How can it be that 25 to 30 nations cook up an agreement that excludes the majority of the 190 nations."
But rich countries said that developing countries had wasted too much time on "process" rather than the substance of the talks. An epic stand-off over whether to ditch the Kyoto protocol's legal distinctions between developed and developing countries and their obligations to cut their emissions caused a huge delay to the negotiations.
But Martin Khor, director of the South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank for developing countries said, "Developing countries are very disappointed because they've invested a lot of time in the documents they're negotiating here."
Politicians from all corners of the world were blamed widely for not setting ambitious enough targets to counter climate change. "They refused to lead and instead sought to bribe and bully developing nations to sign up to the equivalent of a death warrant. The best outcome now is no deal," said Tim Jones, climate policy officer from the World Development Movement.
China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, blamed a lack of trust between countries: "To meet the climate change challenge, the international community must strengthen confidence, build consensus, make vigorous efforts and enhance co-operation."
But indigenous Bolivian president Evo Morales blamed capitalism and the US. "The meeting has failed. It's unfortunate for the planet. The fault is with the lack of political will by a small group of countries led by the US," he said.
Even veterans of previous environmental negotiations were disappointed. "Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark," said John Ashe, chair of the Kyoto protocol talks.
Showing posts with label Copenhagen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Copenhagen. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Copenhagen climate summit 'Danish text' leak
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text
Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."
Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."
The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.
Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.
Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."
Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."
The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.
Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Why Chicago Failed To Win The Olympics
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113468287
Why Chicago Failed To Win The Olympics
by Howard Berkes
October 3, 2009
Actually, it's not Chicago's fault. Nothing more could have been done. Nothing legal at least.
Olympic insiders praise the city's 2016 Olympic bid as completely solid. The plan was sound. The anticipated venues were stunning and compact. The ambitious funding projections were reasonable, given the kind of corporate and American television revenue an American Olympics can generate.
Blame politics unusual.
Chicagoans may not like to admit it, but there's no American city with a better track record of working a room, peddling influence, counting votes, buying loyalty, playing hardball and cultivating corruption.
So, neither the practiced politicos in Chicago nor in the White House could wine and dine, glad-hand, lobby or perform the most basic function of any campaign: count potential votes. They couldn't poll and then shift strategy based on the polling results. They could only guess at who would vote which way, and even then, there was very little they could do about it.
All that worked wonderfully in the past for cities so desperate to host the Olympics that they plied the votes of members of the International Olympic Committee with college scholarships for the kids, all-expenses-paid vacations, lucrative real estate deals, luxury bathroom fixtures, surgical procedures, laptop computers, skis and skiwear, rent-free housing, shotguns and more. To be fair, that culture of Olympic corruption was due as much to the greedy demands of IOC members as it was to the complicit desperation of bidding cities.
It was a culture that played to the strengths of a bidding city like Chicago. Imagine the results if the gold medalist for patronage and political corruption could have applied its considerable skills to that atmosphere.
It would have been politics as usual for Chicago.
The scandalous behavior of IOC members and Salt Lake City Olympic bidders in the 1990s triggered reform that effectively banned the gifts and favors. The reform effort also made it difficult to apply legitimate politicking to the bidding process. This not only hogtied the savvy political operatives in Chicago, it also minimized the role of President Obama, the Olympic bidder-in-chief.
The tough bidding rules established after the Salt Lake City scandal made it impossible to conduct even the most fundamental political campaign. IOC members are not permitted to visit bidding cities and even meet with the bidders, except under very limited and controlled circumstances.
So, neither the practiced politicos in Chicago nor in the White House could wine and dine, glad-hand, lobby or perform the most basic function of any campaign: count potential votes. They couldn't poll and then shift strategy based on the polling results. They could only guess at who would vote which way, and even then, there was very little they could do about it.
Those who were certain that the president went to Copenhagen because the result was predetermined know nothing about Olympic politics and IOC members. The balloting for host cities is secret, and IOC members are famous for not talking about their votes, before or after the voting. Trusting those who do talk is risky because there's no accountability in a secret vote.
Chicago also suffered from Olympic politics completely beyond the control of its bidders. Rio de Janeiro had the strong emotional appeal of finally staging an Olympics in South America. It's a new market for what the IOC likes to refer to as "Olympism," which includes the spreading of Olympic ideals and tapping new corporate and television revenues.
Also, the U.S. Olympic Committee seemed to go out of its way to put obstacles in Chicago's path. IOC members are not generally fond of the United States because (choose one or select all):
1. American corporate sponsorships and television contracts are the single-biggest source of Olympic funding. This is viewed by some as Olympic imperialism.
2. The U.S. is viewed as an arrogant and dominating world power generally.
3. The Olympic bribery scandal involved an American bid and resulted in humiliating hearings in the U.S. Congress (in which then-IOC-President Juan Antonio Samaranch was forced to empty his pockets at a metal detector) and a failed but embarrassing prosecution by the Justice Department.
The U.S. Olympic Committee helped fan any lingering anti-American flames by announcing a U.S. Olympic television network, despite the IOC's insistence that more discussion and negotiation was necessary first. A truce helped ease simmering resentment over the USOC share of Olympic revenues, but that came late in the bidding process. And the USOC's ongoing senior leadership crises and changes left the group unprepared to do the networking and bid marshalling that IOC members expect.
Finally, Chicago politicians defied their reputations for political acumen by failing to guarantee Olympic funding until a few weeks before the voting. This is the most basic element of Olympic bidding: Don't leave the IOC on the hook if you don't raise enough money to pay all the Olympic bills. The failure to provide the guarantee earlier could have been viewed as classic American arrogance, as in "we like to do things our way."
Chicago and President Obama were only able to muster 18 of 94 votes. That's a pathetic 19 percent, proving the bidding for the 2016 Olympics was anything but politics as usual.
NPR's Howard Berkes has covered six Olympic Games and two Olympic bids, including the Salt Lake City Olympic scandal.
Why Chicago Failed To Win The Olympics
by Howard Berkes
October 3, 2009
Actually, it's not Chicago's fault. Nothing more could have been done. Nothing legal at least.
Olympic insiders praise the city's 2016 Olympic bid as completely solid. The plan was sound. The anticipated venues were stunning and compact. The ambitious funding projections were reasonable, given the kind of corporate and American television revenue an American Olympics can generate.
Blame politics unusual.
Chicagoans may not like to admit it, but there's no American city with a better track record of working a room, peddling influence, counting votes, buying loyalty, playing hardball and cultivating corruption.
So, neither the practiced politicos in Chicago nor in the White House could wine and dine, glad-hand, lobby or perform the most basic function of any campaign: count potential votes. They couldn't poll and then shift strategy based on the polling results. They could only guess at who would vote which way, and even then, there was very little they could do about it.
All that worked wonderfully in the past for cities so desperate to host the Olympics that they plied the votes of members of the International Olympic Committee with college scholarships for the kids, all-expenses-paid vacations, lucrative real estate deals, luxury bathroom fixtures, surgical procedures, laptop computers, skis and skiwear, rent-free housing, shotguns and more. To be fair, that culture of Olympic corruption was due as much to the greedy demands of IOC members as it was to the complicit desperation of bidding cities.
It was a culture that played to the strengths of a bidding city like Chicago. Imagine the results if the gold medalist for patronage and political corruption could have applied its considerable skills to that atmosphere.
It would have been politics as usual for Chicago.
The scandalous behavior of IOC members and Salt Lake City Olympic bidders in the 1990s triggered reform that effectively banned the gifts and favors. The reform effort also made it difficult to apply legitimate politicking to the bidding process. This not only hogtied the savvy political operatives in Chicago, it also minimized the role of President Obama, the Olympic bidder-in-chief.
The tough bidding rules established after the Salt Lake City scandal made it impossible to conduct even the most fundamental political campaign. IOC members are not permitted to visit bidding cities and even meet with the bidders, except under very limited and controlled circumstances.
So, neither the practiced politicos in Chicago nor in the White House could wine and dine, glad-hand, lobby or perform the most basic function of any campaign: count potential votes. They couldn't poll and then shift strategy based on the polling results. They could only guess at who would vote which way, and even then, there was very little they could do about it.
Those who were certain that the president went to Copenhagen because the result was predetermined know nothing about Olympic politics and IOC members. The balloting for host cities is secret, and IOC members are famous for not talking about their votes, before or after the voting. Trusting those who do talk is risky because there's no accountability in a secret vote.
Chicago also suffered from Olympic politics completely beyond the control of its bidders. Rio de Janeiro had the strong emotional appeal of finally staging an Olympics in South America. It's a new market for what the IOC likes to refer to as "Olympism," which includes the spreading of Olympic ideals and tapping new corporate and television revenues.
Also, the U.S. Olympic Committee seemed to go out of its way to put obstacles in Chicago's path. IOC members are not generally fond of the United States because (choose one or select all):
1. American corporate sponsorships and television contracts are the single-biggest source of Olympic funding. This is viewed by some as Olympic imperialism.
2. The U.S. is viewed as an arrogant and dominating world power generally.
3. The Olympic bribery scandal involved an American bid and resulted in humiliating hearings in the U.S. Congress (in which then-IOC-President Juan Antonio Samaranch was forced to empty his pockets at a metal detector) and a failed but embarrassing prosecution by the Justice Department.
The U.S. Olympic Committee helped fan any lingering anti-American flames by announcing a U.S. Olympic television network, despite the IOC's insistence that more discussion and negotiation was necessary first. A truce helped ease simmering resentment over the USOC share of Olympic revenues, but that came late in the bidding process. And the USOC's ongoing senior leadership crises and changes left the group unprepared to do the networking and bid marshalling that IOC members expect.
Finally, Chicago politicians defied their reputations for political acumen by failing to guarantee Olympic funding until a few weeks before the voting. This is the most basic element of Olympic bidding: Don't leave the IOC on the hook if you don't raise enough money to pay all the Olympic bills. The failure to provide the guarantee earlier could have been viewed as classic American arrogance, as in "we like to do things our way."
Chicago and President Obama were only able to muster 18 of 94 votes. That's a pathetic 19 percent, proving the bidding for the 2016 Olympics was anything but politics as usual.
NPR's Howard Berkes has covered six Olympic Games and two Olympic bids, including the Salt Lake City Olympic scandal.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Obama’s Olympic Error
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/obamas-olympic-error_b_302025.html
Obama’s Olympic Error
By Dave Zirin
President Barack Obama is now en route to Copenhagen in an effort to sell Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the process, he may be selling Chicago down the river. Obama is joined arm-in-arm with his wife Michelle on one side and Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago political machine on the other. Michelle Obama says, "My father was disabled, and I think what it would have meant for him to see someone in his shoes compete. Kids need to see that and that needs to be celebrated just as much, if not more." This seems more like an argument to support the Paralympics (a tremendous event) but that's beside the point. Michelle Obama should perhaps realize that if the Olympics had come to Chicago when she was a young girl on Chicago's working class south side, her home may have been torn down to make way for an Olympic facility. No word on how being out of house and home would have helped her disabled father.
Mayor Daley, rocking a 35 percent approval rating, says that the Games would be "a huge boost to our economy, raising it to a new level. The Games will help us recover sooner from the recession that still grips our nation and enable us to better compete in the global economy."
There is only one problem with this argument: the history of the Olympic Games almost without exception brands it as a lie. As Sports Illustrated's Michael Fish - an Olympic supporter - has written, "You stage a two-week athletic carnival and, if things go well, pray the local municipality isn't sent into financial ruin."
In fact, the very idea that Chicago could be an appropriate setting for the Olympics might have been hatched by Jon Stewart for a four-year supply of comedic fodder. To greater or lesser degrees, the Olympics bring gentrification, graft and police violence wherever they nest. Even without the Olympic Games, Chicago has been ground zero in the past decade for the destruction of public housing, political corruption raised to an art form, and police violence. Bringing the Olympics to this town would be like sending a gift basket filled with bottles of Jim Beam to the Betty Ford Clinic: over-consumption followed by disaster.
It's also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this will help their pocketbooks, given that Daley pledged to the International Olympic Committee that any cost overruns would be covered by taxpayers.
This is why a staggering 84 percent of the city opposes bringing the Games to Chicago if it costs residents a solitary dime. Even if the games were to go off without a hitch - which would happen only if the setting was lovely Shangri-La - not even half the residents would support hosting the Games.
The Obamas, former Chicago residents, should be standing with their city. Instead, we have the sight of Barack, Michelle, and Oprah trying to outmuscle Pele and Brazil for a place at the Olympic trough. The question is why. Maybe Obama wants the Olympic fairy dust enjoyed by Ronald Reagan at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles or Bill Clinton at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Or perhaps he is returning favor to the developers and other sundry connected people in the Windy City who will make out like bandits once the smoke has cleared. But his intentions are clear: he wants the glitz, glamour, and prestige of the games and he wants it for the Daley machine. What the people of Chicago want doesn't seem to compute.
But we shouldn't be surprised at this point that Obama is tin-eared to the concerns of Chicago residents. As Paul Krugman wrote Sept. 20 on the banker bonuses, "the administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it's giving taxpayers' hard-earned money away to Wall Street." Shoveling taxpayers' money into the Olympic maw is no better, especially in these tough times.
No Games Chicago organizer Alison McKenna said to me, "I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because instead of putting money toward what people really need, money will be funneled to real estate developers who will be tearing down Washington Park and other important community resources. I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because the nonprofit child-welfare agency that I work for had to sustain budget cuts and layoffs, while Chicago has spent $48.2 million on the 2016 Olympic bid, as of July 2009."
There is an urgency to building resistance to these kinds of priorities. Right now, the right wing is shamelessly adopting populist rhetoric and the power of protest to sell an agenda of racism and fear wrapped in taxpayer protection. The big public voice against Obama's trip to Copenhagen has been the repellent RNC chief Michael Steele who believes, and this is hilarious, that "At a time of war and recession" Obama needs to stay home. It shouldn't be a scoundrel like Steele who represents a party of privatization and occupation who delivers that message. Now is the time to build a pole of attraction on the left for people furious at corporate greed amidst a recession. This needs to happen, and not just for the Windy City. It's about building a vibrant protest movement that believes in social justice not the rank divisiveness of the right. Obama likes to say that change comes from "outside Washington." It's time to take him at his word.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
Obama’s Olympic Error
By Dave Zirin
President Barack Obama is now en route to Copenhagen in an effort to sell Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the process, he may be selling Chicago down the river. Obama is joined arm-in-arm with his wife Michelle on one side and Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago political machine on the other. Michelle Obama says, "My father was disabled, and I think what it would have meant for him to see someone in his shoes compete. Kids need to see that and that needs to be celebrated just as much, if not more." This seems more like an argument to support the Paralympics (a tremendous event) but that's beside the point. Michelle Obama should perhaps realize that if the Olympics had come to Chicago when she was a young girl on Chicago's working class south side, her home may have been torn down to make way for an Olympic facility. No word on how being out of house and home would have helped her disabled father.
Mayor Daley, rocking a 35 percent approval rating, says that the Games would be "a huge boost to our economy, raising it to a new level. The Games will help us recover sooner from the recession that still grips our nation and enable us to better compete in the global economy."
There is only one problem with this argument: the history of the Olympic Games almost without exception brands it as a lie. As Sports Illustrated's Michael Fish - an Olympic supporter - has written, "You stage a two-week athletic carnival and, if things go well, pray the local municipality isn't sent into financial ruin."
In fact, the very idea that Chicago could be an appropriate setting for the Olympics might have been hatched by Jon Stewart for a four-year supply of comedic fodder. To greater or lesser degrees, the Olympics bring gentrification, graft and police violence wherever they nest. Even without the Olympic Games, Chicago has been ground zero in the past decade for the destruction of public housing, political corruption raised to an art form, and police violence. Bringing the Olympics to this town would be like sending a gift basket filled with bottles of Jim Beam to the Betty Ford Clinic: over-consumption followed by disaster.
It's also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this will help their pocketbooks, given that Daley pledged to the International Olympic Committee that any cost overruns would be covered by taxpayers.
This is why a staggering 84 percent of the city opposes bringing the Games to Chicago if it costs residents a solitary dime. Even if the games were to go off without a hitch - which would happen only if the setting was lovely Shangri-La - not even half the residents would support hosting the Games.
The Obamas, former Chicago residents, should be standing with their city. Instead, we have the sight of Barack, Michelle, and Oprah trying to outmuscle Pele and Brazil for a place at the Olympic trough. The question is why. Maybe Obama wants the Olympic fairy dust enjoyed by Ronald Reagan at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles or Bill Clinton at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Or perhaps he is returning favor to the developers and other sundry connected people in the Windy City who will make out like bandits once the smoke has cleared. But his intentions are clear: he wants the glitz, glamour, and prestige of the games and he wants it for the Daley machine. What the people of Chicago want doesn't seem to compute.
But we shouldn't be surprised at this point that Obama is tin-eared to the concerns of Chicago residents. As Paul Krugman wrote Sept. 20 on the banker bonuses, "the administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it's giving taxpayers' hard-earned money away to Wall Street." Shoveling taxpayers' money into the Olympic maw is no better, especially in these tough times.
No Games Chicago organizer Alison McKenna said to me, "I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because instead of putting money toward what people really need, money will be funneled to real estate developers who will be tearing down Washington Park and other important community resources. I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because the nonprofit child-welfare agency that I work for had to sustain budget cuts and layoffs, while Chicago has spent $48.2 million on the 2016 Olympic bid, as of July 2009."
There is an urgency to building resistance to these kinds of priorities. Right now, the right wing is shamelessly adopting populist rhetoric and the power of protest to sell an agenda of racism and fear wrapped in taxpayer protection. The big public voice against Obama's trip to Copenhagen has been the repellent RNC chief Michael Steele who believes, and this is hilarious, that "At a time of war and recession" Obama needs to stay home. It shouldn't be a scoundrel like Steele who represents a party of privatization and occupation who delivers that message. Now is the time to build a pole of attraction on the left for people furious at corporate greed amidst a recession. This needs to happen, and not just for the Windy City. It's about building a vibrant protest movement that believes in social justice not the rank divisiveness of the right. Obama likes to say that change comes from "outside Washington." It's time to take him at his word.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
Monday, February 4, 2008
Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707379,00.html
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building
By Leo Cendrowicz
For devotees, Monday sees the 50th anniversary of an event in Copenhagen that transformed toys and revolutionized childhood itself.
It was at 1:58 p.m. on January 28, 1958, that then-Lego head Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for the iconic plastic brick with its stud-and-hole design. Since then, the company has made a staggering 400 billion Lego elements, or 62 bricks for every person on the planet. And if stacked on top of one another, the pieces would form 10 towers reaching all the way from the Earth to the Moon.
But Lego's legacy lies less in numbers than in its creative influence. The colorful bricks have littered playroom floors for generations of families. But they have also spurred ingenuity among children that few toys can claim before and since. The company has always emphasized the importance of free-form play, and Lego's popularity can be attributed to the amount of imagination children use to build with the bricks.
The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund who had a sideline in wooden toys. He named the company after an amalgamation of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which means "play well."
The basic eight-stud red Lego brick was first sold in Denmark in 1949. But it took a further nine years for Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred Kirk, to file the patent for the versatile "Automatic Binding Brick" with its interlocking 2x4 studs. The plastic bricks are part of a unique system: tiny tubes inside give the knobs on top of other blocks more places to grip. They hold together well but can be taken apart easily by a child. And consistency has been key: the bricks produced today have the same bumps and holes, and can still interlock with those produced back in 1958. Fifty years on and the Lego Group is the world's fifth largest toymaker in terms of sales, after Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai and MGA Entertainment.
Over the years, the Lego group has built up the brand. It developed the larger Duplo series in the 1960s for younger children who had trouble handling the original tiny Lego bricks (Duplo is still going strong too). In 1968, the company opened its first Legoland theme parks, near its Billund birthplace. Parks in Windsor, England, Carlsbad, California and Günzburg, Germany followed, each using around 50 million bricks to create replicas of monuments and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Sydney Opera House. Each park receives around 1.4 million visitors per year.
But over the past decade, the group has struggled to keep pace with changing toy trends: the basic plastic bricks find it particularly tough to compete with games consoles like XBox and PlayStation to attract kids' attention. After years of eroding sales, the company posted its first-ever losses in 1998.
Radical remedies were needed to restore the brick's reputation. Tie-ins helped: the company's link-up with Star Wars revived the brand, and even led to its own video games: Lego Star Wars II sold 1.1 million units in its first week of release in 2006. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, it would seem.
In recent years, a series of brutal job cuts, asset sales and cost-cutting measures have pruned the company down. Staff numbers have fallen from 6,000 in 2004 to some 4,500 today. The Legoland parks were sold in 2005 to Merlin Entertainments, part of the Blackstone private equity group, which owns Madame Tussauds and Sea Life. And critically, distribution, packaging and production has been outsourced to Eastern Europe and Mexico. As a result, the Lego Group turned a $374 million loss in 2004 into a $281 million profit in 2006.
The group itself is only planning low-key celebrations of the patent anniversary: a special-edition of its 1950s-style Town Plan set with three gold bricks, and a worldwide building contest with a grand finale at Legoland Billund. And for most Google users — itself a website which keeps building and growing in size — the homepage spelling of the company name in Lego blocks Monday will come across as just another of the web giant's quirks. But for the millions who grew up on the brick — and the millions more still fitting them together — that lunchtime visit to the patent office proved priceless.
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building
By Leo Cendrowicz
For devotees, Monday sees the 50th anniversary of an event in Copenhagen that transformed toys and revolutionized childhood itself.
It was at 1:58 p.m. on January 28, 1958, that then-Lego head Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for the iconic plastic brick with its stud-and-hole design. Since then, the company has made a staggering 400 billion Lego elements, or 62 bricks for every person on the planet. And if stacked on top of one another, the pieces would form 10 towers reaching all the way from the Earth to the Moon.
But Lego's legacy lies less in numbers than in its creative influence. The colorful bricks have littered playroom floors for generations of families. But they have also spurred ingenuity among children that few toys can claim before and since. The company has always emphasized the importance of free-form play, and Lego's popularity can be attributed to the amount of imagination children use to build with the bricks.
The Lego company was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund who had a sideline in wooden toys. He named the company after an amalgamation of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which means "play well."
The basic eight-stud red Lego brick was first sold in Denmark in 1949. But it took a further nine years for Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred Kirk, to file the patent for the versatile "Automatic Binding Brick" with its interlocking 2x4 studs. The plastic bricks are part of a unique system: tiny tubes inside give the knobs on top of other blocks more places to grip. They hold together well but can be taken apart easily by a child. And consistency has been key: the bricks produced today have the same bumps and holes, and can still interlock with those produced back in 1958. Fifty years on and the Lego Group is the world's fifth largest toymaker in terms of sales, after Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai and MGA Entertainment.
Over the years, the Lego group has built up the brand. It developed the larger Duplo series in the 1960s for younger children who had trouble handling the original tiny Lego bricks (Duplo is still going strong too). In 1968, the company opened its first Legoland theme parks, near its Billund birthplace. Parks in Windsor, England, Carlsbad, California and Günzburg, Germany followed, each using around 50 million bricks to create replicas of monuments and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Sydney Opera House. Each park receives around 1.4 million visitors per year.
But over the past decade, the group has struggled to keep pace with changing toy trends: the basic plastic bricks find it particularly tough to compete with games consoles like XBox and PlayStation to attract kids' attention. After years of eroding sales, the company posted its first-ever losses in 1998.
Radical remedies were needed to restore the brick's reputation. Tie-ins helped: the company's link-up with Star Wars revived the brand, and even led to its own video games: Lego Star Wars II sold 1.1 million units in its first week of release in 2006. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, it would seem.
In recent years, a series of brutal job cuts, asset sales and cost-cutting measures have pruned the company down. Staff numbers have fallen from 6,000 in 2004 to some 4,500 today. The Legoland parks were sold in 2005 to Merlin Entertainments, part of the Blackstone private equity group, which owns Madame Tussauds and Sea Life. And critically, distribution, packaging and production has been outsourced to Eastern Europe and Mexico. As a result, the Lego Group turned a $374 million loss in 2004 into a $281 million profit in 2006.
The group itself is only planning low-key celebrations of the patent anniversary: a special-edition of its 1950s-style Town Plan set with three gold bricks, and a worldwide building contest with a grand finale at Legoland Billund. And for most Google users — itself a website which keeps building and growing in size — the homepage spelling of the company name in Lego blocks Monday will come across as just another of the web giant's quirks. But for the millions who grew up on the brick — and the millions more still fitting them together — that lunchtime visit to the patent office proved priceless.
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