October 24th was a day plenty of good discussions for me. I spent all day in a vintage store recording a program for the Brazilian MTV. A group of 10 aged 20 to 30 were invited to a debate on development and sustainabilty. The final goal is to write a document entitled “MTV Social Agenda”. Politics, Economics, Globalization, Green Tech, Education, Health, and Copenhagen,for sure, were the main themes.

(I promisse to post by mid-November the videos of all eight programs and comment on, as soon as possible). This is my contribution on Climate Action Day, promoted by 350.org

A full vintage store was the program scenario. It was planned to impact the audience: such a place is in itself an icon of waste, exaggereted consumption and unsustainble life. And this was the motto for the first round of discussions. Five of the young fellows talked about traffic jams, food waste and contemporary culture.

It was consensual that São Paulo´s biggest problem is the daily traffic jams. Air pollution, health problems, waste of time are just some of the consequences. State (and Federal) government must invest in public transportation systems: bus and subaway lines. Most of the participants also claimmed for bike tracks ion the streets.

Politics was the second topic – that´s when I came into the discussion.  We agreed that changes needed to fight global warming must start with public policies: transportation systems, education, prevention of food waste. However, in Brazil there is endemic corruption. We must reform our political system –  this includes a discussion on mandatory voting.

Lack of transparency is a huge problem in Brazilian politics. This issue starts with campaign financing, but other issues are involved  such as public construction contracts. An estinated 25% of public resources are drained by corruption schemes. Due to this problems, the youth has little or no interest in politics. We must overcome party politics and realize that politics is an encompassing issue affecting our daily life.

The last part of the MTV program focused on good and bad impacts of globalization for the sustainabilty. We remembered anti-globalization movements in 1999, that were scheduled via the Internet. Ironically, the Internet nowadays promotes globalization and allow us to know different points of view about worldly affairs.

We all agreed that Copenhagen (will we have a deal?) is a product of a globalized world. And we reinforced the importance of using the Internet to plan and execute mobilizations to face the challenge of climate change. We have the responsibility to use blogs, forums, Twitter and all available tech tools to spread informations and build a new global conscience on this topic.