Youth Action on Climate Change
Dec. 7 was an international day of action on climate change and while there were events taking place all across this country of ours, there was no sign of activity in Manitoba - up until the very last minute that is.
With less than a week's notice, a few of us from the youth network and our friends found ourselves in the food court of a busy mall, wearing Santa hats and nervously clearing our throats. When we launched into:
Oh, you better reduce your greenhouse gases
You better educate the public masses
Climate change is coming to town!
sung to the tune of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", some people sitting around us seemed determined not to acknowledge our presence. But others smiled and engaged us in discussion afterwards, when we handed out information on the international climate negotiations taking place in Poland and how Canada was blocking progress.
Having not been kicked out by mall security, we decided to repreat our performance a little further down the food court. We gained confidence with each song and were soon caroling up and down the length of the mall!
Once we'd exhausted our supply of handouts, as well as our vocal chords, we decided to call it a day. We agreed that the action had been a fun and upbeat (and easy to organize!) way of raising awareness about what can be a pretty gloomy topic. I hope we'll do this sort of thing more often.
The meetings in Poland are now over. There was little, if any, meaningful progress made towards a post-Kyoto agreement. Industrialized countries failed to take responsibility for fighting climate change and supporting adaptation measures in the Global South. Canada was recognized as the country that did the most to obstruct the negotiations and was presented with the "Colossal Fossil" Award by the Climate Action Network International. Check out some of these blogs for more on what happened in Poland: www.cydpoznan.org, www.itsgettinghotinhere.org, www.sierraclub.ca/climatecrisis.
Back at home though, I saw hopeful signs in the youth who attended Climate Change Connection's youth conferences on Dec. 5th and 7th. Both days allowed the participants to learn new tools and make plans for addressing climate change in their schools. Ideas ranged from installing solar panels, to creating rooftop gardens, to lobbying for vegetarian options in the cafeteria. I see lots of potential for youth from different schools to work together on these projects. I hope that the types of ideas that were sparked and connections that were made at the youth conference will continue to happen through this website. Keep up the good work!
With less than a week's notice, a few of us from the youth network and our friends found ourselves in the food court of a busy mall, wearing Santa hats and nervously clearing our throats. When we launched into:
Oh, you better reduce your greenhouse gases
You better educate the public masses
Climate change is coming to town!
sung to the tune of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", some people sitting around us seemed determined not to acknowledge our presence. But others smiled and engaged us in discussion afterwards, when we handed out information on the international climate negotiations taking place in Poland and how Canada was blocking progress.
Having not been kicked out by mall security, we decided to repreat our performance a little further down the food court. We gained confidence with each song and were soon caroling up and down the length of the mall!
Once we'd exhausted our supply of handouts, as well as our vocal chords, we decided to call it a day. We agreed that the action had been a fun and upbeat (and easy to organize!) way of raising awareness about what can be a pretty gloomy topic. I hope we'll do this sort of thing more often.
The meetings in Poland are now over. There was little, if any, meaningful progress made towards a post-Kyoto agreement. Industrialized countries failed to take responsibility for fighting climate change and supporting adaptation measures in the Global South. Canada was recognized as the country that did the most to obstruct the negotiations and was presented with the "Colossal Fossil" Award by the Climate Action Network International. Check out some of these blogs for more on what happened in Poland: www.cydpoznan.org, www.itsgettinghotinhere.org, www.sierraclub.ca/climatecrisis.
Back at home though, I saw hopeful signs in the youth who attended Climate Change Connection's youth conferences on Dec. 5th and 7th. Both days allowed the participants to learn new tools and make plans for addressing climate change in their schools. Ideas ranged from installing solar panels, to creating rooftop gardens, to lobbying for vegetarian options in the cafeteria. I see lots of potential for youth from different schools to work together on these projects. I hope that the types of ideas that were sparked and connections that were made at the youth conference will continue to happen through this website. Keep up the good work!
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Comment by Scott Harrison on December 18, 2008 at 3:50pm -
Way to go Erica. Hope to come to another event planned by this group.
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