Blog.

Hope to Cope

Written by Kieran Battles. 26 November 2009

It’s official - President Obama will attend the Copenhagen Climate Summit - the first US President ever to do so.

What we achieved together with the #Hope2Cope twitterstorm was impressive, pioneering and something we can feel proud of. And it’s certainly convention on occasions like this to claim a victory. Yet, rather than feeling victorious, I feel troubled.

Not just because of the ‘green photo op on the way to the Nobel photo op’ nature of Obama’s visit to the talks. But because in this instance I feel it is hard to be certain about how much our actions effected Obama’s decision. And while I remain troubled by this, I have come to a conclusion.

If truth be told, there is very rarely certainty in our action.
But there is perilous certainty in our inaction.

So, whether we can take the credit for his attendance or not, we can take credit for what we did. We did something, and that really is something. We raised our voice. We did not watch passively as history and our future passed us by.

Nothing gets nothing but we had the heart, brains and balls to do something. And something gets something. Whether it will always get what we want or need, comes with no guarantee - but it does come with hope. So we may never know whether we got Obama to the talks. But I know this much – we got Hope to Cope.

And, whilst writing this I may have little faith in what President Obama will achieve while at Copenhagen, I also know this. I have faith in us. So on behalf of everyone at BeThatChange, thank you.