I quattro pilastri di Obama

Ieri il presidente Barack Obama ha tenuto uno storico discorso all'assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite.

Dopo aver elencato i non pochi achievements ottenuti in soli nove mesi di governo, Obama ha delineato quattro pilastri «fondamentali per il futuro che vogliamo per i nostri figli: non proliferazione e disarmo, promozione della pace e della sicurezza, conservazione del nostro pianeta ed un'economia globale che dia opportunità a tutti i popoli.»

Qui di seguito riporto la parte relativa all'ambiente, che è in linea con gli argomenti del blog. Si tratta di affermazioni nette e coraggiose, dopo 8 anni di menzogne e immobilismo.

Vi invito però a leggere il discorso in versione integrale; in esso vi si riconoscono echi di Martin Luther King, il che è una bella boccata di ossigeno in un mondo in cui sembra che nessuno si occupi più del futuro. Qualcuno forse pensa che si tratti di propaganda. Io invece penso che Obama sia un uomo sincero e trasparente e forse per questo potrebbe riuscire dove altri hanno fallito.

Leggetelo, quindi, così vi accorgerete che mentre in Italia si parla solo delle folli imprese del re nudo, qualcun altro per fortuna sta facendo la storia...

«Third, we must recognize that in the 21st century, there will be no peace unless we make take responsibility for the preservation of our planet.

The danger posed by climate change cannot be denied, and our responsibility to meet t must not be deferred. If we continue down our current course, every member of this assembly will see irreversible changes within their borders. Our efforts to end conflicts ill be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources.

Development will be devastated by drought and famine. Land that human beings have lived on for millennia will disappear. Future generations will look back and wonder why we refused to act – why we failed to pass on intact the environment that was our inheritance.

That is why the days when America dragged its feet on this issue are over. We will move forward with investments to transform our energy economy, while providing incentives to make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. We will press ahead with deep cuts in emissions to reach the goals that we set for 2020, and eventually 2050.

We will continue to promote renewable energy and efficiency – and share new
technologies – with countries around the world. And we will seize every opportunity for progress to address this threat in a cooperative effort with the whole world.

Those wealthy nations that did so much to damage the environment in the 20th
century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there.
While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth.

And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change has already wrought – and travel a path of clean development – will not work.

It is hard to change something as fundamental as how we use energy. It’s even
harder to do so in the midst of a global recession. Certainly, it will be tempting to sit back and wait for others to move first. But we cannot make this journey unless we all move forward together. As we head into Copenhagen, let us resolve to focus on what each of us can do for the sake of our common future.»