Rubber Ducks Upstage Bush Team
Goaded by its neighbours, its mayors, its
former president and some rubber ducks, the US finally agrees to
dialogue
The turning point, history may record, was the duck moment. It was around midnight on Thursday at the crucial United Nations climate talks in Montreal, Canada, when the chief United States negotiator, Harlan Watson, threw a wobbly.
Fearing that a Canadian proposal for an international dialogue on combating global warming was really a covert attempt to drag the US into binding negotiations, he walked out. But not before making the memorable retort: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
That prompted an imaginative piece of direct action by Phil Clapp, the president of the US National Environmental Trust. On Friday morning his team scoured Montreal shops for rubber ducks, and within hours the little yellow creatures were ubiquitous in the conference centre.
They were paraded by environmentalists, popped up in ministers’ top pockets, and even made an appearance on the US delegation’s table. The Americans, after being harangued and vilified all week, were finally embarrassed.
There's a lot more to the article; but, this certainly is the funniest bit. I'll trust Bush's flunkeys to show up for non-binding negotiations when and if they really do.
Posted: Sat - December 10, 2005 at 08:25 PM