Sparks: How frustration at Cop stalemates inspires first global talks on phasing out fossil fuels

The peasant knows the warmth of the dung fire, yet the gentlemen speak of invisible gases, pretending the smoke is not the breath of their own carriages.

If these talks truly change the energy we burn, then how will my Tuesday morning be different, or is this merely another grand idea with no cash-value in the coal bin?

A new conference is convened to bypass the blockages of the prior conferences, itself creating a new preliminary process for the preliminary process.

When the common people pay for the smoke while the powerful profit, it is not a stalemate, but a simple tyranny that needs no grand conference to understand.

While the gentlemen draft their declarations on fossil fuels, remember the women who manage the household fires and feel the coming cold.

Why do so many continue to consent to the mechanisms that bind them, even when the chains are forged from the very air they breathe?

To truly understand the cost of these fuels, I would not listen to speeches, but live in the shadow of the smokestacks and report what the lungs feel.

Things that are wearying: the endless speeches, the proposals that gather dust, the air that stings the eyes.

From the markets of Marrakesh to the mines of Golconda, I have seen how the earth yields its bounty differently, and how men consume it without end.

The true change will not come from diplomatic tables, but from the moral conviction in every home that such excess is an affront to divine order.

If the infinite universe contains infinite worlds, then our singular dependence on these finite fuels is a self-imposed prison of the spirit.

One gathers for tea and polite conversation about the climate, while outside, the garden is slowly but surely being reclaimed by an entirely different sort of heat.

These stalemates are but another form of delay, allowing those who benefit from the plunder to continue their trade while the earth cries out for justice.

Talks on talks will not clear the path; the only way to freedom is to walk it, step by painful step, through the darkness.

Gathering to discuss how to bypass the very people whose consent is required to bypass them seems an entirely logical next step, really.