“Massive” Civil Society Walkout at Warsaw Climate Conference Not So “Massive”

The activist groups who flock annually to the United Nations’
annual climate chang confereces are pleased to style themselves as
“civil society.” These self-chosen representatives of the planet’s
people, frustrated that they are not being allowed to reorganize
the entire world’s energy economy yet, staged a walkout today at
the Warsaw conference. From the Greenpeace press release:

In regards to the massive NGO walk-out today  from the UN
climate negotiations, Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace
International said:

“The Polish government has done its best to turn these talks
into a showcase for the coal industry. Along with backsliding by
Japan, Australia and Canada, and the lack of meaningful leadership
from other countries, governments here have delivered a slap in the
face to those suffering as a result of dangerous climate change.
The EU is being shackled by the Polish government and its friends
in the coal industry, and must resume leading on the climate agenda
if Paris is going to deliver a treaty that matters.” …

“We believe in this process. We will never give up on it,
because people around the world desperately need a global treaty on
climate change. But a new treaty must also be meaningful. Warsaw
has simply not been good enough. As civil society, we will be back
next year with still more voices behind us, with more determination
and with more ambition to succeed. We expect governments to do the
same.”

Setting aside Naidoo’s grandiloquence, can a walkout of perhaps
100 white t-shirted people truthfully be characterized as
“massive”?

The number of journalists covering the event very likely equaled
the number of perambulating activists. Still, I expect Naidoo and
his colleagues for fulfill their threat to return in higher numbers
when the next climate change meeting convenes in Lima in 2014.