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Dickinson to Durban » Entries tagged with "Greenpeace"

CAN Updates-Day 3

Each day at 12:30, a group called Climate Action Network International (or CAN) holds press (and public) briefings on the state of the negotiations. Here are a few of their highlights: Going into COP17, there are “big political problems that need to be resolved.” (Georgiana Woods, CAN Australia) These are mostly technical issues about how the negotiations will work and how to proceed with this COP. Unfortunately, it may be that the delegations cannot quite do this. Rather, next week, once many of the political leaders join the conference, they will be able to decide what is realistic for the negotiations, and how to move forward. According to Woods, “This meeting is a turning point for negotiations. We’ve gone as far down the road of deferring action as we can.” This is … Read entire article »

Filed under: Carbon Markets, Climate Change, Conservation, Consumption, Environmental Justice, Environmental Politics, Featured, Key COP17 Issues, Mosaic Action, Student Research

Only Collectivism Can Save the Climate

What can each of us do in our daily lives to reduce environmental harm? For many years now, the environmental movement has dedicated itself to providing answers to this question: recycle, drive less, plant a tree, and the list continues. Greenpeace has even put together the handy guide “How to Save the Climate”, which provides a large range of actions one can take to make your contribution. If everyone just did their own part, we could save the planet. Right? Not quite. While recycling and planting trees are definitely activities we should encourage, they will not save the planet. All of these actions are ways for an individual to reduce the harm he or she causes to the environment – the problem, however, is that individuals are not killing the planet, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Climate Change

Do the Little Actions Matter?

I have always operated under the belief that the actions of individual people can amount to global change. After all, society is the product of every individual’s way of life. Thus, society will only be altered when enough people believe change is necessary and act on those beliefs. Our society has caused the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change to occur, so as Greenpeace argues, we should be able to slow climate change through our actions on a personal level. In Greenpeace’s article, How to Save the Climate, they list changes individuals ought to make to their everyday lives in order to live more sustainably. When each person reduces their annual carbon dioxide emissions to 1.3 tons, climate change will not continue to amplify (Greenpeace, 6). After reading this article, I … Read entire article »

Filed under: Climate Change

Climate Action in an Individualistic Age

Can one save the world by planting a tree? Riding a bike? Recycling? Harnessing solar and geothermal energies? What does it take to avoid disastrous climate change? Bill McKibben, a famous climate change activist and author of the book Eaarth, even argues that the world we live on now is a completely different place than it was fifty, even thirty years ago. It is a new “Eaarth,” to what used to be “Earth.” By presenting this new idea of Eaarth, McKibben shows how already, climate change has altered our world, and now, we face the challenge of mitigating and ultimately, adapting to this change. In its paper, “How To Save the Climate,” Greenpeace cites the Stern Report, which says that action to reduce anthropogenic contributions to climate change must be a … Read entire article »

Filed under: Climate Change, Key COP17 Issues