Abalingua at the COP25
We have just entered a very busy couple of weeks, where we have 2 massive events working at the same time, in different continents. We are right now on our way to the US, where we will be providing our equipment and interpreters for a large event in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The other massive event, and one that has a special meaning to us, as we feel we are providing our services for a truly global interest, is our participation organizing the COP25 (UN Climate Change Conference) in Madrid. The venue is IFEMA, venue we know inside-out. This summit had been in preparation for many months and it was supposed to be held in Chile. But social unrest and brutal repression by the security forces made it impossible for the summit to be held there, and it was then when Spain offered its capital Madrid to hold the event, just a month later.
It has been a hectic month, we had to stretch our muscles and prepare equipment and technicians for a massive event we hadn’t been aware just a month ago. This has also been a chance to prove we can provide equipment for any kind of event, and we have proved we can do it in a short’s time notice. It obviously is better to have more time to prepare, but we can adapt to our clients’ needs whatever they are. In the past, we have already cooperated with the organizers of the COP25, and when they found themselves in a bit of a pickle they decided to place their trust on us once again. We didn’t disappoint and we were ready for whatever needs they came up with.
Equipment-wise, we provided the meeting with 31 double interpreting booths, all ISO 4043 compliant. 6 triple interpreting booths, 80 interpreting desks, 74 infra-red radiators, 400 conference microphones, 4,500 infra-red receivers with headsets, 12 55” monitors, 4 32” monitors and 3 robotic DOMO Bosch cameras.
We have also been ready for any last-minute needs from our clients (and there have been many last-minutes) having to move equipment that had already been set due to UN’s changes on-site, having to suddenly provide kilometers of cabling that hadn’t been requested, extra equipment, etc. All needs have been satisfied.
Special mention needs to be made to our technicians on-site. None of this would have been possible without the extra effort they are doing. Days with long hours, as always the first to be on-site and the last ones to leave. They proved they can set an event of this magnitude, we are lucky to have the technicians we have. If you ever need simultaneous interpretation for any kind of meeting, congress, summit, symposium, European works council… don’t hesitate and get in touch with us. Let us know what your event needs are and we’ll design a service made to suit your requirements. You can drop us a line at clients@abalingua.com, we’ll be delighted to study your project and explain the solutions we can provide for it. Try us!
Now that all the equipment has been set and what remains to be done is to be there to make sure everything works without a problem and to solve any last second needs from our client, it comes the time for polititians to start doing theirs. We hope our effort will not be fruitless and that polititians will rise to the occasion and take the necessary steps so that we don’t need to be blamed by our descendants on how irresponsible and short-sighted our generation was, when we allowed our leaders to put short-term economic profit above future generations’ global interests. The Earth can easily live without us has has done in the past, but we clearly can live without the Earth. We better take care of it and make sure future generations can enjoy this planet tha same way we have so far.
The famous astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist and science divulgator Carl Sagan was involved in the Voyager 1 and 2 programs. These probes were launched on 1977, visiting several planets on our solar system and having the final goal to exit the system and to go beyond, to outer space. It was Carl Sagan who in the year 1990, when Voyager 1 was about to break free from our Sun’s gravitational pull at 6,000,000,000 kilometers from the Earth suggested to turn the cameras of Voyager 1 towards the Earth and to take a final picture of our planet. The picture that Voyager sent back is the following:
That small spec, that’s earth seen from the limits of our solar system, that’s us. After the picture was received, Carl Sagan made a speech that resounds louder than ever nowadays, Carl Sagan said:
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Let’s hope our polititians make sure we can preserve our precious pale blue dot so that we can hand it over in good condition to future generations.