Tugging At Heartstrings To Force Action On Climate Change: A Poet And Desmond Tutu

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner recites her poem at
the United Nations Climate Summit this week.  

Policy wonks and activists don't seem to be getting terribly far with gaining action on climate change.

So the next try is tugging at heartstrings, I guess. It's worked before (See weepy ASPCA) ads).

You have to market the importance of climate change, like it or not. And any good marketer will appeal to your emotions as well as your logic.

That's what seems to be going on.

At the United Nations climate summit this week, we have the release of two videos designed to hit your emotions  spur action like the Sarah McLaughlin "Angel" pet adoption commecials do, only less maudlin.

According to Eric Holthaus, writing in Slate, the first video is a poem, written and performed by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner. She's a 26-year-old mother from the Marshall Islands, which are terribly threatened by climate change because the low-lying islands would be submerged amid rising sea levels.

Says Holthaus:

"After her recitation in front of 120 heads of state, her daughter and husband joined her on stage, to a standing ovation. An official U.N. Twitter account said many world leaders were moved to tears, evoking memories of a stirring speech from the Philippines representative Yeb Sano during the last major U.S. meeting on climate change, held just days after Typhoon Haiyan."

Here's the video accompanying Jetnil-Kijiner's poem. It's the version with scenes from the UN this week. After the video, scroll down a bit for some thoughts from Archbishop Desmond Tutu.


 

I surprised myself by actually being a bit moved by this video by Archbishop Desmond Tutu's thoughts on climate change.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has some
good thoughts on climate change.  

The whole video is worth watching (see it at the bottom of this post.) ButTutu saves the best line for the end:

"There is a word we use in South Africa that describes human relationships: Ubuntu. It says: I am because you are. My success and my failures are bound up in yours. We are made for each other, part of one family, the human family, with one shared earth."

H/T to Bill McKibben via Twitter for sharing:

Here's the video: