Presenter at Climate Bottom, hosted by the “free town” of Christiania where cars are forbidden

Note: Just after I wrote this post today at 6:30pm EST, I received an email from Christiania saying that police in full riot gear had descended on the eco-village with tear gas and were not allowing residents to freely enter or leave without being searched.  The police arrived just after an audience of a thousand had heard Naomi Klein and Michael Hardt speak.
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As representatives from nations across the globe produced volumes of carbon dioxide arriving in Copenhagen for COP15 aboard private jets, the “free-city” of Christiania began hosting The Climate Bottom Meeting, a “base meeting” to voice their opposition to the COP15 format, where “an exclusive group of world leaders, experts, and powerful global institutions will make decisions behind closed doors. Christiania’s Climate Bottom Meeting is an event that invites all people to participate in finding solutions to the world?s climate issues. Our goal is to be a grassroots forum for those who are not heard elsewhere.”

The meeting, which runs through December 18, has been hosting a number of cultural and art events across the city, including an appearance by Hopi Indians, concerts, and a storytelling yurt.

While sharing saunas and eating organic, locally grown food, attendees of the fringe Climate Bottom Meeting have been exploring the root of environmental problems through workshops and lectures, engaging in discussions in the warmth of unheated tents, and holding a “funeral of the day” to bury “linear thinking.”

A polar bear sits above Mother Earth