Author and journalist Naomi Klein reveals Monsanto as the winner of the 2009 Angry Mermaid Award for the worst corporate lobbying group. She, along with Paul de Clerck from Friends of the Earth International and Dorothy Guerrero from Focus on the Global South, discuss the affect of corporate lobbying on the global climate debate.
Bio
Paul de Clerck
Paul de Clerck is a corporate campaigner for Friends of the Earth International, a grassroots environmental network that campaigns on today's most urgent environmental and social issues.
Dorothy Guerrero
Dorothy Guerrero is a senior research associate at Focus on the Global South, a non-governmental organization that works in Thailand, the Philippines and India to generate critical analysis and encourage debates on national and international policies related to corporate-led globalization, neo-liberalism and militarization.
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, author, and filmmaker. Her first book, the international bestseller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, was translated into twenty-eight languages and called "a movement bible" by The New York Times.
She writes an internationally syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian and reported from Iraq for Harper's Magazine. In 2004, she released The Take, a feature documentary about Argentina's occupied factories, co-produced with director Avi Lewis.
She is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws degree from the University of King's College, Nova Scotia.
Any attempt by a group or individual to influence the decisions of government. The term originated in 19th-century efforts to influence the votes of legislators, generally in the lobby outside a legislative chamber. The effort may be a direct appeal to a decision maker in either the executive or legislative branches, or it may be indirect (e.g., through attempts to influence public opinion). It may include oral or written efforts of persuasion, campaign contributions, public-relations campaigns, research supplied to legislative committees, and formal testimony before such committees. A lobbyist may be a member of a special-interest group, a professional willing to represent any group, or a private individual. In the U.S., the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act (1946) requires that lobbyists and the groups they represent register and report contributions and expenditures.
"Just" to whom? Who has defined this "justice?" Ms. Klein, in my estimation, is neither a deep thinker nor keen intellect. That's just one man's opinion. She is just another leftist problem reporter.
May I assume she lives in a solar or wind powered home? Either rides a bicycle for transportation or walks? Swam to Copenhagen? Gives a large amount of her income to charity voluntarily?
These people are so arrogant it's staggering! "Climate criminals!" "A diversity of tactics?" My how the left over the years have come up with some amazing euphemisms for Capitalism! Could they not have nominated Hugo Chavez, whose regime survives purely through selling oil? How about Saudi Arabia?
The United States Congress is the biggest obstacle to a "good agreement" at this event? Blaming a democratically elected body whose obligation is to the Constitution of the United States and the defense of the individual liberty of its citizens? Compared to what? These folks' thinking is so illogical, shallow and morally confused as to make it unworthy of serious consideration.
Naomi Klein alluded to indigenous people and people in developing countries "living green." She admires them, but does anyone ask them if they would like safe running water, reliable electricity, air conditioning and heating, roads and automobiles? It sounds like yet another group of wealthy Western leftists expressing their trademark "let them eat cake" mentality toward the world's poorest, and darkest skinned people.
I have attempted to watch as many of these COP15 speeches on Fora.tv as possible and here are the lessons I have learned.
-The pantheistic "environmental movement" is the new home for Marxists now that the Soviet Union is gone.
-Post-Christian European states are weak, arrogant, decadent and are counting down to their demise.
-"Environmentalists" have never met a totalitarian dictator they didn't love.
-"Environmentalists" have no qualms about millions of little black children dying of malaria as long as the "earth" is safe and their sense of self importance is maintained. DDT, made by an evil chemical corporation could save more lives than any of these self appointed saviors ever will hope to.
-The left loves to anthropomorphize. "Corporations" are fictions. If you own a Mutual Fund, YOU are a "corporation." You own the company. I would love to ask Ms. Klein about her investment portfolio - or is she just going to demand welfare from her fellow Canadian citizens?
This event has damaged the image of the "environmental movement," by showing them to be a morally confused, spiteful, envious, shallow group of people who have no love of life or progress or people.
@glennd1 - "Smart conversations don't care who start them" - there is NO academic pedigree necessary when we talk about justice. All of Ms. Klein's comments are rooted in her work as a journalist, perhaps Seymour Hersh of the New York Times should not comment on the US military occupation of Iraq because he does not possess the requisite training from West Point?
Somebody please shut Naomi Klein up. As a college dropout with a record of very weak thinking (she has a record of spewing very strong hysterical progressive rhetoric though) she has no standing as an intellectual to comment on climate, or any other topic for that matter.
@RMarkey, civil disobedience is to practice peaceful protest. Not sure how the title is misleading? Referring to the COP15 protests, Klein herself says: "this is an act of non-violent civil disobedience."
The title "Naomi Klein Urges Civil Disobedience at COP15" is SOOOO disingenuous. Shame on FORA.TV for mislabeling this. Naomi Klein CLEARLY( stated, and underlined the NON-violent, NON-confrontational demeanor of the protests. The goal is to FOCUS ON THE ISSUES and NOT to trivialize the important messages which have not been given voice, by police truncheons and the daily newsbyte.
Please fix this title!!!!
member. 
