{"id":2110,"date":"2011-12-29T01:46:47","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T01:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/?p=2110"},"modified":"2011-12-29T01:58:04","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T01:58:04","slug":"the-privilege-to-act-for-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/2011\/12\/the-privilege-to-act-for-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"The privilege to act for climate."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Distributing clothing items.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Emily Bowie ’14<\/p>\n

The last Wednesday we were in South Africa the thirteen of us were asked by Makaphutu to perform holiday deliveries to local communities of excess food and clothing that the orphanage had to spare. As we stood behind the vans holding boxes of shoes and handing individuals bread and samp each one of us experienced different, yet similar, moments of shock, reality, empathy and humility. We realized how much we have compared to the rest of the world, how much we take advantage of and how much we have to give.<\/p>\n

After two weeks in Durban I had learned a lot about climate change, about how it is affecting people in vulnerable countries and also why countries have a hard time agreeing. It was discouraging to me, yet not unexpected, that little emerged from the conference itself. I knew going in what disagreements there would be and the gridlock they would cause. But it wasn’t until that Wednesday that I felt that discouragement. I found myself looking around and asking, when people are living like this how can we expect to prioritize our environment? Suddenly environmentalism felt pretentious to me, like it was an issue that affluent people had the privilege to worry about.<\/p>\n

But then I thought back to the conference, to the words of the Minister of the Maldives, to the words of the Kenyan and Ethiopian citizens I spoke to; I thought back to what I learned this semester, to the videos of Himalayan flooding, to the research I did on failing agriculture in India, to the plight of Native Americans who are losing to climate change. That was when I realized that the poverty that was surrounding me is exactly what is preventing climate action:\u00a0it is the primary, more immediate, priority \u2013 but it is also exactly why climate action is necessary.<\/p>\n

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The line at the distribution spot.<\/p><\/div>\n

If we don’t do something about climate change this poverty will be more prevalent and uncontrollable, it will get worse instead of better.\u00a0There will be a new sector of refugees: those from climate related disasters. Climate change includes all sectors of human suffering, which is exactly why it is hard to tackle and exactly why it is necessary; and for this reason, climate change has become \u201cmy issue,\u201d what I now strive to educate people of and mobilize people for. I will advocate for climate justice for those who cannot fight for it themselves precisely because I have the privilege to do so.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emily Bowie ’14
\nThe last Wednesday we were in South Africa the thirteen of us were asked by Makaphutu to perform holiday deliveries to local communities of excess food and clothing that the orphanage had to spare. As we stood behind the vans holding boxes of shoes and handing individuals bread and samp each one of us experienced different, yet similar, moments of shock, reality, empathy and humility. We realized how much we have compared to the rest of the world, how much we take advantage of and how much we have to give.
\nAfter two weeks in Durban I had learned a lot about climate change, about how it is affecting people in vulnerable countries and also why countries have a hard time agreeing. It was discouraging to me, yet not unexpected, that little emerged from the conference itself. I knew going in what disagreements there would be and the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":837,"featured_media":2111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19448,19446,42301],"tags":[1301,34297,34192,25625,42723],"class_list":["post-2110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-2","category-environmental-justice","category-climate-change-mosaic","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-justice","tag-cop17","tag-emily-bowie","tag-makaphutu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}