Climate instability, climate change, climate stress, global warming - call it what we will- its here to stay and its killing us, our earth, our plants and our animals. A world event organized by the UNEP is just - a world event. No more - and no less. It helps to highlight certain things but its impact - like all "UN days" are insignificant actions of insignificant organizations and help only - if it helps at all - in back patting and self congratulations.

Climate change is not a phenomenon that can be addressed it this way. It requires to entire peopled earth to act positively - eschew exploitation, waste and sloth - and change the way in which they define civilization, how civilized people live and how civilized people think development and sustainability can be achieved and measured.

For the GMSL, the day is just a day. However, our actions to counter the effects of climate change has been ongoing for the last 10 years. So, through ten years of environment days pleading with people to get with it - without - we might add- much success, we were not all that hopeful that this year, this critical year for mankind and the planet - things would be at least a tad different. Sadly, this was precisley the case. Our people had other things to worry about. Like a bomb going off in a train in the morning. Like the horror floods that were starving Kalutara and Galle districts. Like the horns that were being blown by the opposition in oppostion to the rising costs of fuel. Floods resulted from climate change, oil was causing it while war was compouding the problem. Whoa!

No wonder that apart from the politicians, speach makers, organizers and stall-holders - very few people had even the faintest desire to come in for - yes - an EXHIBITION.

To give the organizers some credit, they were not blessed with ESP so they wouldn't have been able to do much about the floods or the bombs. However, if climate change was the theme, climate instability SHOULD have been anticipated. If reaching the people was the goal, then alternative to tried, tested and failed mechanisms such as exhibitions SHOULD have been considered.

We did. While our exhibition did not attempt to highlight the problem too much but rather, was used to give solutions based on securing our food supply despite all indications that it is currently unstable. We gave some idea to the few who won through their own fears to come to the Vihara Maha Devi park on how to make the most of the least and how to understand the existence of food abundance right in front of their noses. That, for us, was the exhibition. Yes, we had our parades, we had our street drama troupes, we had or share of chest thumping but it was less for the people and more for the simple idea of showing solidarity and participation. Nothing more was expected. However, we thought beyond - since we had thought before. So, we will have a film show at the Mahaweli centre as a parallel boost for the general public viewership. Additionally, and more importantly, we decided that the best way to highlight our howls of warning was through the press and through TV. Derana TV championed our cause and they will run a series of advertisements over the nest few weeks with our message on it. The newspapers with run our features. We will "cover" WED-2008 despite the fact that our actions to combat climate change started yonks ago and will continue into the future. Thoughtfully. Carefully. With our planet at stake, we cannot afford to waste resouces in useless exercises.