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This week, I taught my mother to switch from the phrase “global warming” to “climate change” – the second being a more accurate description of the phenomenon in general, which doesn’t allow people to dismiss it off-hand when they look out at the 21 inches of snow in their front yards. It also alludes to the sort of meteorological mood swings that lead to 50 degree days in late December, following those 21 inches of snow, which then lead to me spending a day pulling up the carpet in the flooded basement of my parents’ house. Climate change and I are going to have a talk.
To cheer myself up a bit and take my mind off things, I’m going to tell you about another sort of house, one which is much more ecologically friendly and, as I understand it, dryer. Passive houses are taking off in Europe, and particularly in Germany, where companies like the Passivhaus Institut have been constructing these types of homes for the last 12 years.
Passive houses use thick insulation and specially designed doors and windows, and have an airtight seal that prevents warm air from escaping and cold outside
A thermogram compares the heat escaping from a passive house (on right) as opposed to a traditional building (on left).
air from coming in. Rather than a furnace, the houses employ a heat exchanger and the kind of ventilation system that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but would make my engineer friends pretty excited. So far, about 15,000 have been constructed. Most of them are in Europe, particularly Germany and the Scandinavian countries, but they are beginning to slowly make their way to America. Since the heat exchangers and other specialized parts are not readily available in the States yet, the price of construction is higher here so far, but eventually the cost would drop to only 5 to 7 percent higher than traditional construction (the current rate in Germany).
Hopefully, this trend will keep rising and spreading, and we’ll see many, many more of these houses in the USA. My only warning would be that, if they’re building in Michigan: I recommend linoleum in the basement. Trust me.
This post was compiled from a number of blogs from the international youth climate movement and edited by Casie Reed. It was originally published at sustainus.org/blog.
I have to say, I’m pretty disgusted with many of the developed countries speaking. They are more than willing to talk about progress and how much they care – and then block text necessary for the survival of entire countries. Countries are essentially trying to decide if the most vulnerable countries are worth saving at this point. For some countries, such as Australia, Canada, Japan, and the US, Christmas bonuses for multi-millionaires and bailing large corporations out of debt seem to be more important.
As one minister from a small island put it this morning, we are talking about mass murder here. Mass murder of nations, peoples, and cultures. Again, as another minister put it, we are asking small island states to sign onto a suicide pact with the way negotiations are currently proceeding. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to put everything I have into reshaping the political landscape over the next year so that we leave no one behind in this process. Survival is non-negotiable.
Negotiations are moving slow here, which is bad. We have less than a year at this point to get an incredibly strong international climate agreement -
Youth Demonstrate in Support of the Survival of All Countries and Peoples
that is not a very long time. Especially with the level of ambition many developed countries have. But there is hope!
As negotiators hide behind technicalities and acronyms, youth are uniting around a strong shared vision for an equitable climate treaty. We need to make sure Poznan and the year leading up to Copenhagen are both successful. We need leadership and a commitment by parties to the survival of all countries and peoples.
Yesterday, international youth launched a new campaign – the Survival Campaign. The international youth delegation is asking all countries to commit to ’safeguard the future of all countries and peoples’. Committing countries to negotiating based on this principle means they have to do more, faster. That would mean, for example, taking responsibility to prevent small island nations, sovereign under the UN process but weak politically and economically, from slipping beneath the waves.
This is especially important for developed countries who must reduce emissions at least 40% by 2020 compared to 1990, with an overall global goal of reducing CO2-e concentrations below 350ppm. Developed countries must also massively increase financial and technological support for both adaptation and mitigation to help achieve this global goal in an equitable manner. Young people have laid out a clear challenge to these countries: take immediate action to safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples.
To ensure the principle is formalized we are meeting with a number of countries and asking them to support our message. We are asking countries to support this text:
I, the undersigned, commit my delegation to a global climate treaty that: safeguards the survival of all countries and peoples.
Climate change threatens the very survival of island nations and other impacted communities.
Join international youth to ensure that a global climate treaty includes the principle of safeguarding the survival of all countries and peoples.
We need a successful outcome from Poznan. Reassure the world you are committed to a climate agreement that protects the most vulnerable among us.
Ninety countries (and counting!) have committed. We also printed out placards that read “Survival” on one side and “safeguards the future for all countries and peoples” on the other for delegates to have with them at their tables during the ministerial high level segment. Unfortunately the UNFCCC doesn’t allow delegates to have unapproved things on their tables, so security took some away.
Youth Demonstrate in Support of the Survival of All Countries and Peoples
Despite this, Uganda, Sweden, and Iceland placed the sign prominently in front of them during their speeches. Solomon Islands, Venezuela, Djibouti, Madagascar, Maldives, Costa Rica, and Papa New Guinea also displayed their Solidarity placards next to their own, displaying solidarity in the commitment to the survival of all countries and peoples. While not all countries have signed on (countries like the US, for example), we have received incredible support from almost every delegation.
The youth movement here is absolutely inspirational. That’s the only way to describe it. We are transcending our national boarders and working together for our common future. We are determined to remove the brackets that have been placed around our planet. We are uniting to safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples. We need all of your help. That means telling everybody we know about the issue and doing everything we can in terms of lifestyle, as well as political action, to stop catastrophic climate change.
If we wait any longer, it will be too late. Join us: www.350.org/survival
By Chris Detjen, SustainUS COP14 Delegate. Originally published at sustainus.org/blog
On the day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly announced that she would block needed reforms to the European Union’s climate package, a crowd of 200 people from more than 20 countries loudly called her and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to task outside the prime minister’s residence in Warsaw. The rally began less than two hours after Merkel entered the building to meet with Tusk about the EU package.
For their threats to halt EU-wide emission reductions of 20 percent by 2020 unless given the option to hand out extra emission allowances to big German and Polish polluters, Merkel and Tusk both received Fossil of the Day awards. Avaaz.org delivered 126,000 petition signatures to the two leaders from people around the globe, and activists from Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund gave powerful speeches demanding that Merkel and Tusk rescue the economy and the climate simultaneously through green jobs and strong climate protection targets.
But it was young people who made the event possible (a huge majority of those in attendance were in their 20s), and who gave the rally its considerable energy. Anna Keenan of Australia, Sandra Guzman of Mexico, and Hannah McKinnon of Canada, three passionate and inspiring young leaders, brought the rally to a fever pitch with their remarks.
“By the time I retire in 2050,” Anna said, “we will need to have reduced emissions by 95% if the planet is still going to be inhabitable.”
“How will we get there if Merkel isn’t willing to start reducing emissions today?”
The youth who rallied in Warsaw today came, by and large, from the conference in Poznań. The geographic composition of the group was about as lopsided as it has been throughout COP 14. But five young leaders from Nepal, Mexico, and Cameroon did rise to speak of the inequalities associated with the global north’s inaction on climate change.
“The struggle to end global poverty and the struggle for climate justice are two sides of the same coin,” said one. “We are here to say, ‘Enough with the nice words. Enough with the nice declarations. This is the time for action.’”
The five speakers had tough words for Merkel and Tusk.
“We ask the leadership of the European Union to look us in the eye and tell us, ‘If 50,000 people were dying every single day in Europe and North America, as they are in the developing world right now, would your response be as timid and lacking in courage as it is now?’”
One of the rally’s recurring themes was the interdependence of our political leadership, and the way in which actions like the ones Merkel and Tusk have taken in the past week give other world leaders places to hide. Yuliya, a young person from Ukraine, told me after the rally that Ukrainian leaders look to Europe for examples. As Ukraine sorts out its own climate protection targets and emissions baselines, which are complicated by the fact that emissions there have declined by 50% since 1990 as a result of economic stagnation, Merkel and Tusk’s cowardly actions could create dangerous political ripple effects.
Özlem, from Turkey, said this truth applies to her country as well, but at the level of the UNFCCC:
“Turkey has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. If this EU package is blocked, it will give Turkey another excuse to go on without ratifying it.”
Of course, cowardice often comes with a price. Marlon, from Germany, knew exactly what to say when I asked him what he would do if Merkel continued to obstruct climate progress:
“All I know is that I would never vote for her again.”
Changes to the EU climate package have not yet been agreed upon, and it is not too late for Angela Merkel and Donald Tusk to re-emerge as principled leaders. Today the international youth climate movement demanded this leadership from them in the clearest possible terms.
If you haven’t yet spent two hours of your holiday season watching Quantum of Solace, I’m about to ruin a nice little plot twist for you. Watch out.
In addition to all the regular trappings of a James Bond thriller – car chases, one-liners, beautiful women dying in interesting ways – the film introduced to the masses the wisdom long held by environmentalists and NGO workers: water is the new oil. When the bad guy, Dominic Greene (scheming, evil, and possibly French) demands that the soon-to-be-new-dictator of Bolivia grant him ownership of a barren stretch of desert, the General, the CIA, and of course the viewers assumed that he had secretly found oil there. Ha ha, not so fast! In fact, as Bond and the girl of the week discover, there is a massive underground lake. The moment he has the paperwork signed, Greene then turns around and offers the government a contract to supply water to the country at extortionate rates. Sneaky, non?
If only it were fiction.
The issues of access to water and water privatization were introduced to AID’s Global Scholar students this past summer by the Common Language Project, a group of journalists who work in association with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. CLP journalists have been reporting on water for some time, with a focus in eastern Africa. They’ve watched Lake Victoria’s water level drop, walked for miles with local women to find water each day, and seen residents of Kenya’s Kibera slum spend upwards of 5% of their income on water. (To put that in perspective, an average American family would be spending over $2500 each year on water, if the cost were proportional.) And that’s the good rate, without rationing or vendors collaborating to block the supply and up the price.
Look at Zimbabwe, where the government has shut off the water supply to the capital city in a last-ditch effort to contain a cholera outbreak that has claimed at least 560 lives. Take a moment and try to imagine yourself in that situation: desperately searching for water that, even if you find it, may kill you. What would you do? What could you do?
(On a less dramatic domestic level, look at companies like Nestle who are bottling groundwater in communities like my friends’ home in Michigan – yes, Ice Mountain water is actually School Section Lake.)
The Common Language Project’s great work on the water wars is showcased on the Pulitzer Gateway, where you can read and watch their stories and interact with students around the world sharing their experiences and opinions on water.
Also, check out the movie FLOW, soon to be on DVD, which digs into all of these water issues and more.
Then, take action.
That should keep you busy until 2010, when Bond will crash three Aston Martins in the name of fair trade…
Then consider attending the University of New England or Ripon College, who are combating global warming (and small parking lots) by providing their incoming freshmen with a free bicycle. The bikes come with the condition that students do not bring a car to campus – and that’s essentially it. The bike is yours to use as long as you like, and when you graduate or get tired of it, you can even sell it and make some money off the deal.
How cool is that?
Ripon calls it a Velorution, a “global social movement wherein the bicycle is part of the solution to problems of obesity, traffic congestion, fuel consumption, pollution and the erosion of communities to urban sprawl.” That’s a pretty remarkable array of things to be able to fight all at once. And did I mention that you get a free bike?
Want to join the movement? Bring this idea to your campus! Tell your administration that your school should be clean, green, socially responsible and fun, too. Worried about the numbers? Ripon put down an investment of $50,000 to start their Velorution – that’s eight students’ tuition at an average public university. Two students at a private college. So, grab one to seven friends and go tell your administration that you want a free bike, please!
As Laura mentioned in her most recent post, this week I got the chance to hear Dr. Dalia Mogahed speak at Goucher College to present some of Gallup’s findings in their recent Poll of the Muslim World. While some of her presentation simply seemed to reinforce what I already knew (or believed), other points took me more by surprise.
When she mentioned poll results which showed statistics like 75% of Saudi men believe that a woman should be allowed to hold any job for which she is qualified, I was a little bit skeptical – remember, in Saudi Arabia it is currently against the law for a woman to drive a car. It reminded me of reading recent media speculation on the “Bradley Effect,” the tendency of (white) American voters to tell a pollster that sure, they have no problem voting for an African-American candidate…when, in fact, they really do, and it affects their decision on election day. Americans don’t want to appear racist. Isn’t it fair to believe that Saudis don’t want to appear sexist? And when that’s the case, how can you trust these numbers?
I put this question to Dr. Mogahed during the Q&A session of her presentation, and her answer was: well, you can’t completely. There are a certain number of people who are giving the answer they think they should, rather than the one that’s true. But, even if the numbers aren’t completely accurate, the responses at least indicate the number of people who believe that that’s the desirable answer. It’s called an espoused value: the positions or beliefs that a society aspires to, even if we’re not yet there.
In my mind, then, numbers like these become a way to measure society’s potential. Our hope for the future. If 3 out of 4 men in Saudi Arabia at least feel that they ought to feel that women should have equal opportunities to men, then it paves the way for progress.
(Although how we’ll get an accurate measure of that progress, I certainly don’t know.)
