“Another Kind of Combat in the Bush”: Get a Life and Gordimer’s Critique of Ecology in a Globalized World

Abstract

How necessary it is to read environmental issues, national agendas, and international competitiveness in relation to each other is illustrated by a recent climate change conference held in Bali, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 3-14 Dec. 2007. Meant to supply only a guide to negotiating an international treaty in Copenhagen in 2009, the conference nonetheless involved intense “wrangling” accompanied by feelings, in some participants, of anger and disappointment (Jowit 2007). Its conclusion a day later than scheduled “despite several night-time sessions” suggests how difficult negotiations were among national representatives seeking to address global environmental concern  without losing economic advantage for their home countries or opportunity for economic gain (Jowit 2007). The main blocs formed among ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations, to use the prevalent terminology, with a major split within the ‘developed’ bloc between the European Union and the United States. Such terminology, of course, is problematic not least for how it masks enormous differences in actual conditions (China and Rwanda, for example, both claim status as ‘developing’ countries).