It took them fifteen days and I have no idea how many hundreds or thousands participants, advisors, kings, presidents, prime ministers, ministers and I’m not sure what else to realize that in the year 2009 everything about the environment is political. Of course the distraction of the environment is real but who cares for the details!

Did I have any expectations? Well, I’m sorry to say but no, I didn’t have any expectations from anybody especially after I realized that the scientists were not part of the decision making but they were standing in the hall ways; the advisers and the lobbyists were occupying all the seats even in the hall way!

I grew up in a totally different Athens from what you see today, there were parks and there were trees, there were places for us kids to play and when I say play I mean out in the streets. From my house we could see far away the sea, the port of Piraeus and we could see the mountains, Hymettus and Parnitha, a few years ago when I visited my old house the only thing I could see was a concrete balcony cross a very busy road and a forest of antennas; any kind of antennas, telephone, television and anything else you can imagine. Then the Athenians and especially the Greek politicians were talking about progression, they actually dared to call it modern civilization. Today they call it suffocation. I used to play football in the back streets and the empty spaces, the kids today watch DVDs and exercise or play football with simulators in their game boy. We used to be healthy and active today kids are suffering from diabetes, obesity, heart problems, and asthma!

Probably I was wrong and they are right. This is civilization after all. Do we need the forest? Why? To destroy our new loafers? Who needs California, is full of all these Hollywood stars and their obnoxious life style. Let them drown! After decades of fear from the big earthquake they are going to go down with a tsunami, what an irony! What about China? Well obviously their leadership thinks that there are millions to spare in the coast line. And Holland? Who’s going to miss some windmills, after all we have them in DVD nowadays! And no worries, our kids will be able to see how a cow looks like in a virtual reality program; they will even have the feeling that they can touch a cow, so advance is our civilization.

I don’t feel writing anything more but a few days ago a friend contributor Professor Emanuel Paparella send us a mail with a comment and a photo, apologizing to him because I was late to react to his mail, I like to add here his comment and the photo from his wonderful granddaughter, Sophia:

"I’d like to follow-up on the comment posted under the Ovi-Team Copenhagen Report of December 9, 2009. If I were to be asked: and what gives you hope that humankind will come out of the predicament in which it has placed itself, I would simply reply: children and the potential that we retain to become like them without becoming childish, accepting the mystery of existence and the world unconditionally and unreservedly.
 
To illustrate what Chesterton means with this finding of the extraordinary within the ordinary, here is a picture of a little two year old child whose name is Sophia in a striking gesture of unconditional acceptance of the world with all its problems and heaviness.

She happens to be my first grandchild, but were she not she would still be an inspiration for Christmas for she would remind us all that unless we become like children, without becoming childish, all our sophisticated cynical enlightenment and rationalizations will do us little good. A picture is worth a thousand words: so here is her picture and Merry Christmas to all with Sophia and all the other children of the world."

Seen the photo of Sophia and my five-years-old daughter who has so many questions about everything nowadays I cannot stop my self of feeling really sad, disappointed and wandering how Mr. Obama feels tonight when he sees his …Sophia, how does he sleep tonight?

Can we say tonight to Sophia and Daphne, don’t worry, there is nothing to scare you …we are here when we are so scared?