This week (April 19th to 22nd to be exact) sees Cochabamba hosting the officially entitled "People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth", a conference set up by Dr. Evo Morales after the world class snafu Copenhagen climate conference dissolved into stupidity. To get a bit of background, here's the Beeb en Inglés:
Delegates are gathering in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba for a grassroots alternative to last year's UN climate change summit in Copenhagen.
The meeting will also celebrate the rights of Mother Earth on 22 April.
Bolivian President Evo Morales was one of several leaders who refused to sign the Copenhagen climate change deal.
He is set to use this week's talks to propose a world referendum to ask up to two billion people their views on how to tackle climate change. (continues)
Thing is, the whole conference has snwballed into a major event. Cochabamba was chosen because it's an area of Bolivia that has been hit especially hard by Climate Change (yes dumbasses, it exists....just leave the world temperate zones and find out for yourselves instead of listening to XOM-sponsored crap) but the city only has hotel space for 1,500 visitors at any given moment. The conference has grown and grown and now over 18,000 people are expected to attend. 100 large tents have been set up in the nearby town of Tiquipaya to host meetings and conferences, but the way things are going they may have to double as night-time sleeping quarters. In fact 129 countries have delegates attending, no mean feat for a little dot on the map like Bolivia, so it's going to be a bit of a squeeze, but that just points to the enormous grassroots interest there is in the issue, far away from the normal MSM idiocy you're fed up North.
A final word. Long-established (and pretty big) altwebsite Rabble has several bloggers on the scene and is promising full audio-visual-textual coverage of the four days. Check out that site via this link here.
UPDATE: Paul notes in the comments section (ty dude) that Jim Schultz of The Democracy Center (based in Cochabamba, so no probs for a bed tonight) will be covering the event closely, too. Here's the link.