For
People's
Climate March,
UN a Backdrop
for
Corporations,
illUmiNations
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 20
-- The night
before the
People's
Climate March,
the UN
buildings on
First Avenue
will be lit up
with photos
and footage of
trees and fish
and, it seems,
written
messages.
It is called
"illUmiNations."
Inner City
Press late on
September 19,
after covering
the Ukraine, Iraq, Ebola
and Iran
nuclear
meetings inside
the UN,
went out and
found a sort
of trial
run for the
screening
taking place
on First
Avenue,
already lined
with NYPD
cement blocks.
Photo
here.
Looking back
at the UN's
press release
for the
upcoming "VIP
Press
Screening" --
hard to know
how they could
exclude
non-VIPs from
it, or why
they would
want to --
there were
laudatory
quotes about
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon, and:
Obscura
Digital
has staged
similar
large-scale
architectural
mapping
projection
events on the
Sydney Opera
House, the
Guggenheim
Museum, and
the Sheikh
Zayed Grand
Mosque. For
examples of
previous work,
please visit
the following
link http://wdrv.it/1tx7Emd.
In
that video
compilation,
well worth
watching,
there are also
corporate
projects for
Coca-Cola and
YouTube owned
by Google,
with history
at the UN.
A message
Inner City
Press photographed
on September
19, here,
was "In
nature's
economy, the
currency is
not money but
life." Is this
true of
Coca-Cola?
There are
questions
about the UN's
UNcritical
approach to
corporations
and corporate
"partnerships."
In the run up
to the UN's
September 23
Climate
Summit, the UN
put out a
media advisory
promoting the
participation
of 14
corporations
ranging from
Saudi Aramco
through Cargill,
McDonald's and
Walmart to Bank of America and
Credit
Agricole.
Inner City
Press on
September 16
asked Summit
promoter
Robert Orr how
these 14 were
selected for
listing in the
media
advisory, and
if the UN had
reviewed their
wider record.
For example,
the recent court
decision
involving
Cargill and
child slavery
in Cote
d'Ivoire,
or Saudi
Aramco not
allowing
employees in
Saudi Arabia
to protest.
Orr mentioned
a luncheon
during the
summit about
carbon pricing
and the UN
Global
Compact, a
branch of the
UN which
repeatedly
says it does
not enforce
substantive
standards,
only
encourages
reporting and
dialogue.
Well,
Saudi Aramco
did not
respond to
the complaint
about
“employees
allegedly
dismissed
after being
detained for
participation
in civil
rights
protests in
Saudi Arabia.”
And what of
the
environment?
Bank of
America has
been the
number one
funder of
mountain-top
removal coal
mining, but
Ban Ki-moon
made it
chairman the
chief of his
Sustainable
Energy for All
initiative.
On behalf of
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
Inner City
Press asked
that those
making
commitments,
like the 14
corporations
named, hold
question and
answer
sessions
during the
summit. We'll
see.
, 
