8/9/11
We.
Our generation is unique. Not just because of the internet, not just because of the pressing unemployment and civil unrest we have seen globally, and not just because of the threat to our future posed by climate change.
Expressing what is unique about our generation is really difficult. It is something that has recently become a bit of an obsession of mine. We grow up in different cultures, different economies and under different political situations. So when I asked 9 young people from different countries to videoblog about their passion for climate activism, I got a multitude of ideas and creativity, but there was a common feeling. There was an elastic band binding these people together, though they had never met.
Why? What is this feeling I have that we share something? I think if I try to answer this question all I will produce is a rectangle of text which will sit losing water, passively evaporating. But if I gave people the space to share their thoughts, and connected them in an international conversation, what would they say? They might just leave behind a few residues that could react.
A spark.
That’s why I’m going to start work on a new video series. Because I want to find my voice, and I want to make sense of the multitude of voices and shared experience that forms our generation.
I’m looking for people. If you’re passionate and have something to say, get in touch.
Young people express their sense of being connected at the UN Climate Talks in Cancun.
20/05/2012
Look at this Wall of Post-it Notes…
Look at this wall of Post-it Notes….
Those luminous sticky yellow squares contain everything that needs to happen in the next four years to prevent climate change. It was put together this afternoon in Bonn, Germany by a group representing a worldwide coalition of 700 NGOs.
Two things strike me about this picture:
Firstly, that there are only 4 years to get this right. The way negotiations are being shortened at the moment, that’s only about 100 days of formal negotiations. At the negotiations last year in Durban, countries agreed that they would deliver a global climate deal in 2015. If we are serious about preventing the worst effects of climate change, then that deal has to be very ambitious: rapidly cutting damaging emissions in richer countries and investing in renewable energy.
The post-it notes also explain how it can be a fair deal- reflecting that those who have polluted the most in the past must be the first to rapidly cut their emissions and help poorer countries deal with the effects of climate change. Four years may sound like a very short period of time to deliver a global deal on climate change. But many of the solutions and elements of the final deal are already there- they have been developed over the last 20 years.
The second thing that really strikes me about this wall of post-it notes, is that there are so few post-it notes on the wall. We know exactly what countries need to do, many of the elements are simple enough to be written on post-it notes, and there really are not that many of them. This four years is all about finding the right political motivation to turn this wall into a reality.
Take a look at the picture again.
Let it imprint itself onto your memory.
This is all we need to do- so let’s start pushing.
