Understanding Climate Change Communication

Here's another Grist article explaining why developing a legal-binding agreement (in comparison to a politically-binding agreement which does nothing) in Copenhagen is so crucial for developing countries. Unfortanetly it doesn't appear to be moving that direction largely due to the lack of speed put forth by the US.

To address the slowness of dealing with climate change (and on a more basic level, simply getting the general public to understand it), the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions recently released a comical manual outlining how to communicate climate change to others, and what goes on inside people's head to better understand the problem. Click here to download the manual - I'm reading through it now and will post interesting thoughts from it later.

Problems ahead for Copenhagen

As explained in a recent Grist post, the unfortunate reality is that it's not looking likely that the hoped-for treaty will come about from the Copenhagen talks this December. This is mostly due to the lack of progress made by the UN negotiations and failure to pass a climate bill in the US.

Instead, negotiators are hoping to at least agree upon a politial framework to approach the climate issue. German Chancellor Angela Merkel commented: “Copenhagen was supposed to be a post-Kyoto regime. Now we are talking about a political framework, and negotiations will drag out longer until we get a treaty.”

Denmark has forged ahead and begun drafts of their own proposed text for the conference. We'll have to stay tuned to see what will ultimately emerge from the talks in just a few weeks.

Leah Visits: Day 1 and 2

So two weekends ago, Leah went out of her way (by roughly 4000 miles) to come visit me in Karlskrona for a few days. She was on the plane for nearly as long as she was here, but it was definitely worth it. While here, the two of us walked almost non-stop for four days, getting the most out of our short trip together. Needless to say it was quite the adventure, here's just a few of the stories...

Day 1:

Today Leah arrived by train in Karlskrona around noon. After a long journey, we went back to my apartment to unload her luggage and get some food. As we were walking into my bedroom (no more than 30 minutes has gone by since arriving in Karlskrona) Leah managed to trip through my doorway. It's good to see that things haven't changed much since I left :)

After getting things settled in the apartment, we walked down to the town square where we went to a tiny kebab shop and both got falafelrulle (a wrap with falafel, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and a hidden pepper that you always have to be on the lookout for).

After lunch, Leah surprisingly felt up for walking around a bit and seeing the town so we went outside to see the one half of Karlsrkona. We explored a few places of the town that I have yet to see which was a lot of fun. We also explored (and identified) many of the plants in Karlskrona - most deffinitely something I haven't done yet.

After walking around a bit and taking a bunch of pictures, we came back to the apartment where we had homemade pizza with the rest of the gang. That night a few folks came over for karaoke but the trip from State College was beginning to catch up with Leah so we went to bed soon after.

Day 2:

The next morning, Leah and I jumped on a train to Kalmar, a town 1 hour north of Karlskrona along the coast. I had been planning on taking Leah there because they have an old Viking castle and a neat church, two things that Leah had mentioned she'd like to see while here.

Well, much to my surprise, the trip went slightly different than I expected. We arrived first at the castle and started by walking around the outside and then eventually, making our way to the inner courtyard. As we walked around, we noticed that it was surprisingly empty. Well I soon realized that unlike every other shop in Sweden, the castle is only open on weekends and closed throughout the rest of the week. So...site-seeing stop number one was a no-go.

That's alright, we made up for it by taking some really cool pictures of us outside the castle (because we had the whole place essentially to ourselves).

Next, we went to the nearby modern art museum, with much higher hopes after getting locked out of the castle. We went inside, bought our tickets, and proceeded to the first floor of exhibits. What we found was a room full of paintings and videos that, well, simply put, made no sense. Perhaps that was because all of the descriptions were in Swedish, but I still claim that none of the art made any sense. When a man jumping up and down naked on a TV mooning the camera is considered art, I simply shake my head.

But that's alright, because there were still two more floors ahead of us and we could only assume that it would get better from here.

On the next floor, there was a single door, which we went on through. It turns out that all there was was a library and office space for a few people. Most deffinitiely not a place where visitors were supposed to be walking around - so we quickly got out and proceeded to the final floor.

On the upper floor was supposed to be an exhibit about polar bears and seals...

When we opened the door, only one wall was covered in art and it looked like a random collection of children's paintings which sadly, did not include either a polar bear or a seal. Hanging from the middle of the room was a sheet which on it was projected a seal being stuffed by someone, being played on a loop.

Needless to say, it was the poorest museum I have ever been to, which is a shame because we were both big fans of modern art up until that point. (But we're still holding out hope for other places...)

After the museum, we walked to the center of the town where we passed by some neat old streets and shops and even a glassblower.  Eventually, we found the church which we were quite excited to see. As the day would have it however, the door was locked for lunch so we took the forced break to grab some food at a nearby cafe (in which they were playing Star Trek - strange) An hour later, we walked outside and went inside the church, excited that we were finally about to see something.

But, as luck would have it, upon walking through the doors, we were greeted by the largest sheet of white plastic I have ever seen hanging directly in front of us. Confused, we walked up towards a section which had a clear window inserted and looked through to the other side - only to find that the entire inside of the church was being renovated and was nothing but dust and construction equipment.

At this point, we were beginning to feel slightly defeated so we headed back to the train station. We managed to arrive just in time and barely made it onto the train heading back to Karlskrona.

Slightly relieved that we were now heading back to 'home,' we found some seats and took a little rest. Amidst our rest, our train decided to take its good old time to get to where it was going, and by the time we had to get off halfway to switch trains, we were running 30 minutes behind schedule. That being said, we had missed our connecting train and were now stuck in a random town that no one has ever heard of, Emmaboda. So we talked to the train lady working there and she said we could grab a bus home but it wouldn't be another hour before it arrived.

By this point we had given up and were completely ammused with how the day was going and decided to hang out at the nearest (perhaps the only) cafe in town. Turns out the cafe had a thing for the 70s and it felt like we had stepped back in time to some disco place, but the food was great so we didn't mind.

A few hours later and we found ourselves finally back in Karlskrona, relieved after the craziness of the morning.

To make sure that we were somewhat productive for the day, we decided to head to my school to show Leah where all the studying happens (sort of). To get us there, I was planning on renting a tandem bike for the two of us, but as the day had shown, our luck wasn't going to get us the bike. So instead, we decided to do it like all the Swedish teenagers do - one person riding while the other sits on the carrying rack behind and holds their feet out to the side.

Who would have thought such a task would be so difficult. But let's just say that Leah's lack of grace when it comes to walking (ie tripping all the time) also carries over to her ability to sit behind me on a bike. We made it all of 50 feet before giving up and deciding to walk the bike to school, and somehow, in those 50 feet, Matt happened to ride by on his bike to witness the whole ordeal. I guess that's one task we're going to have to work on more for the future.

After getting to school, I realized that there really wasn't much to show - BTH is about the size of PSU's football stadium, well maybe slightly bigger, but you get the idea. So, I got the idea to show Leah our bike coop room in the basement. As we were heading to the basement door, I went to open it at the same time as a series of indivudals dressed in all black with road signs hanging around their neck emerged from the same basement door. Both of us jumped back as the group filed out of the basement followed by a man carrying a video camera and halloween axe. Oh the things you come across in Sweden... Turns out the bike room was locked but that incident alone was worth heading to the basement.

Satisfied that we had actually seen something for the day, we walked back to the apartment.

That night, we went out to dinner with Ali and Matt where we happened to run into our head professor of the program. Everything was fine until we realized that we were sitting under a bunch of pictures of naked girls at our table, slightly awkward, but oh well. The food was great and Ali and Leah even decided to try out their Swedish moves on the dance floor (granted it was just the two of them and their moves were more like a sprint around the dance floor while Matt and I continued walking by).

(stay tuned for more about Day 3 and 4...)

New Eyes. New Future.

So I’ve been hooked on the whole documentary kick recently and find myself searching through different films online in my free time. Today, I came across a film called War/Dance – a story about children in northern Uganda who have been displaced from their homes because of violence and war. The film shows that many of these children have experienced horrible things in their lives and now, are united through song and use dancing as a way to escape from the past and live for the future.



It was a film that really pulled at me, and I found myself balancing tears of happiness and tears of sorrow. After watching films like these – that do nothing more then retell an individuals story – I can’t help but feel awful for the way we are leaving this planet and our society for the next generation.

When you listen to any of these children’s stories…when you understand what they have had to go through…when you watch their tears role down as they simply tell you about themselves – how can we do anything else but ask ourselves – is this how life was intended to be lived?

Back in the summer of 2007 when I visited Tanzania, I met a friend who has had more of an impact on me than I ever thought possible for only knowing someone for a few weeks. His name was Johnny, and he was an orphan. Johnny was abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth and was the unintended outcome of a failed, illegal abortion. As a result, Johnny is mute, suffers brain damage, and has a limp and deformed arm.

I’ve never met a kid with a bigger heart – or a bigger smile. I miss Johnny.

Although Johnny and I didn’t share a common language, and could only communicate through laughs, hand motions, and grunts – by the time I left, I knew Johnny’s story. In so little time, I learned to see the world through his perspective and his eyes. All of the sudden, I learned that life was about more than the difficulties thrown our way, and was more about our attitude towards handling them. Johnny learned that pretty quickly, and was one of the happiest kids I’ve met despite his challenges.

You know, when I think of the kids in our world, I have a renewed sense of hope. It’s easy to look around us and pick out the messed up, broken, and failed things we have created. We so easily overlook the children, quietly standing beneath our gaze waiting for their turn to make a difference. When will we stop, look down, and seek their knowledge?

Sure they don’t have the wisdom or skills that are developed with age, but I believe in the knowledge of a child. I believe in their simplicity, their curiosity, and their love.

So as I was watching War/Dance, all of these thoughts started rushing back to me from my time in Africa. At one point in the film, a child confronts one of the rebels who had abducted him a few years early and asks if he knows anything about his missing brother, who he hasn’t seen in years. He then goes on to ask why they continue to abduct and kill children when they know it is wrong.

I wish I had just a fraction of the bravery and courage it takes to ask questions like those. Let alone sit and wait for an answer…

But to a child, some things are simply black and white. Some questions have to be asked. And often their curiosity leads them to ask those questions. Why do you kill when you know it is bad?

We’ve gotten good at answering those questions by explaining the ‘grey’ areas in life or explaining the complexity of the situation. But have we missed the point. I understand we live in a complex world, but aren’t certain things still black and white. We’ve gotten so good at answering children s questions that we begin using those same answers on ourselves. But what if we took the time to listen to the answer from a child’s point of view…

One of the girl’s from the movie makes the comment “I’m excited to see what peace looks like…”

I am too.

Anyway, I couldn’t really articulate everything I was thinking above, so I wrote the following. Maybe one day we’ll start to take the advice from our children…

New Eyes. New Future.

I want to see the world through the eyes of a child.
I want to feel pain as a child,
   experience joy as a child,
      share a story as a child.

Sadly, I don’t know if I remember how to think like a child anymore.
I can categorize their actions,
Observe their behavior,
And speak about their brilliance,
But to think their thoughts is far too difficult.

I wish I could hold back the tears for just once,
wipe them all away.

What world have we created for those younger?
Is this what I am proud to hand over?
I often dream of my legacy, our legacy,
We flip through the pages of history
And sum up others’ actions in a few brief words.

But what records will there be of us?
What direction are we moving?
And do our children want to follow?

We are numb to the world we have created
And confused when children seemed shocked about that same world.
Can we open our eyes for just once
To see what we have created?

If the fate of tomorrow rests in our hands,
Then when will we grasp it and change it…

I hope I will be there
When the last bomb drops
And the last tear falls

I want to be there
When the armies scatter
And the guns drop

When soldier’s arms are open wide to embrace children,
And a mother is reunited with her daughter.

I’m excited to see what peace looks like…

For I’ve seen the smile of a child in the midst of war.
It is a smile that has weathered a storm, and even though it rains,
Manages to peak through and find a glimmer of light.

But imagine those same smiles in the midst of peace...
With no worries or fears,
No demons or nightmares.

A smile about the world around them,
Not for the world inside of them.

But until that day,
I will walk with the stories of those children in my heart.
Their pains, their joys, and their stories are not mine,
But I will hold onto them as a reminder

A reminder that we are all walking side by side.
We are simply passerbys on this planet,
With the hope that we would leave this world
a better place than how we found it.

Complexity of Water

Donating money is easy; changing a lifestyle is hard.

Some of the people I know are extremely quick to offer money to aid and development groups whose goal is to 'serve the poor and underpriveleged.' This is great and I myself support many of these same groups. I don't think any less attention should be focused on these organizations.

However, it seem hypocritical and a cop-out for so many people to willing give their money to causes such as these (because of powerful marketing, inspiring personal stories, or shear size) but then live the rest of their lives with no regard to how personal life decisions impact the same cause that they were so quick to financially support.

So what am I trying to get at here, maybe it would help if I gave an example that sticks out to me. (Although honestly, I'm still looking up many of these issues to understand what it's all about)

As a society we have gotten really good at separating ourselves from the source of things. The Story of Stuff is an excellent summary of this problem, and shows how we very rarely know, or understand, where things that we use and consume come from. We're not taught to think of the larger system and processes involved. Rather we're taught to focus on the final product. I guess this would be one way to describe consumerism.



Let's consider the plastic water bottle as one example. To start, it is made from plastic, which is made from oil, which has a whole list of side-effects such as climate change, increased gaps between rich and poor, and increasing landfills. Plastic water bottles account for 1.5 million tons of waste each year, and require 50 million gallons of oil per year to produce. Sure it's great when they are recycled (although only 20% of all bottles are actually recycled), but is there even a need for the bottle in the first place? Additionally, it takes 'three times as much water to produce the bottle as it does to fill it.' Something just doesn't seem right...

Well let me back down a little bit, I don't want to start pointing my finger too quickly. It's easy to pick out flaws in others behavior (or in this case, partially my own), but I realize there are probably just as many problems that I need to overcome in my own life. None of us are perfect and when we loose humbleness, we loose our ability to empower others.

But back to the water bottles. Coming to Sweden, I made it a goal of mine to carry my aluminum water bottle with me everywhere so I wouldn't need to buy bottled water. So far, so good, and it's been at my side pretty much wherever I go (as evident by the numerous dents and scratches it has picked up over the last 4 weeks).

So the other day I started looking into the larger system and processes behind the water bottle industry that are so often disguised (or we're just too lazy to go look up ourselves). I came across a documentary called 'FLOW' which investigates water scarcity throughout the world and how multinational companies play a huge role in buying up poorer communities water resources to make a profit for themselves.

It's funny, in the past I often got (and still do get) pulled into the emotional side of developing countries having limited or no access to clean water. How can such a large proportion of society (we're talking about global society here, not western society) not have their basic right for water met when the rest of the world can easily go turn on a tap whenever we want? Something didn't seem fair, and who was doing anything about it?

So I often found myself supporting organizations who were drilling water pumps and developing products that sterilized dirty water.

But I never thought about how the water I drank and used in the western world was connected to those people.

What I started to learn from 'FLOW' was that the water I drink is more often than I realized connected to those same people that I always wanted to help - yet not in a very positive way. On top of the fact that larger water companies treat those communities fairly poorly, the money that I spent on their bottled water could have just as easily gone to directly supporting the organizations building the pumps in the developing world.

One estimate from the UN claims that 30 billion US dollars would be needed to provide clean water for the entire world. In just a single year, 3 times that much is spent on bottled water alone (taken from FLOW film).

So then I started looking into the difference between bottled water and tap water and sure enough, there's no difference. As much as the bottling companies would like us to think otherwise, the fact is that tap water is regulated by the U.S. EPA more stringently than bottled water is from the U.S. FDA.

Additionally, one research group found '38 different harmful chemicals, including painkillers, fetilizer and arsenic' in 10 popular brands of bottled water.

The more I researched the issue, the more surprising facts I found.

If you're at all interested in this issue or simply want to be more aware of global water problems, I would definitely recommend 'FLOW.' Check out the trailer and full-length film below.

FLOW Trailer



FLOW Full-length film


So when I start to think of issues like these and realize how little I actually knew about something that I use so frequently (water of all things, it nearly defines me, ha), I begin to realize how important awareness is. The same can be said for any other issue such as climate change, deforestation, sex trafficking, peace, or education.

The key is for our society to start questioning.

To stop being comfortable with what is, and be bold enough to make what should be.

Crossing the Tipping Points

New research published in Nature outlines 10 life-sustaining bio-physical systems for society and shows how they have either crossed a crucial threshold or are near to crossing that limit.

As you can see from the illustration above representing the 10 systems, we have already crossed the tipping point for three of them: climate change, biodiversity loss, and the nitrogen cycle.

This paper attempts to numerically evaluate some of the main 'sustainability' problems facing our society. It is a similar approach to that of the Natural Step, which outlines the four sustainability principles that cannot be violated to ensure a sustainable society operating within the ecosphere.

The research put forth in Nature is a first attempt at identifying those limits, which is tricky business. In identifying planetary boundaries, we can show how close we actually are to crossing the 'rough' limits we've defined for the system. At the same time, it may encourage inaction on issues where we still have some wiggle room.

For more thoughts on the proposed framework (which is actually based in Stockholm), check out the following article and comments added by leading experts on a few of these issues.

Age of Stupid Thoughts

Well, just got back last night from the premiere of The Age of Stupid and I have mixed feelings from the film. The movie accurately portrayed what it may be like 50 years down the road if nothing is done to slow down global warming, however, the film concluded on a fairly hopeless ending. I have no trouble with a film like that if the purpose is to dramatically show the negative effects to those who are interested in climate change but are somewhat on the fence about acting about the issue. For example, it made the point that protests and people pressure are extremely effective (and urgently needed when considering the closeness of Copenhagen) at urging political leaders to make necessary decisions. So I'm sure that group of people will leave the movie feeling assured once again about the importance and urgency needed to act on climate change.

However, for those still new to climate change and unsure about the next steps they can take, the movie was too much of a doomsday downer, with very little motivation to get out and do something. Now granted, there was a follow-up to the movie with interviews from Kofi Annan and others, but I feel like it could have been incorporated into the film itself a little better. Sure this is an extremely important issue that needs an all-hands-on-deck approach, but I believe inspirational leaders are more effective at moving the masses than a primarily negative movie.

The good news however, is that if we look at the whole and this week in general, there is that side of the coin as well. Tuesday in NY, the UN met to discuss climate change and Obama gave his first address to the UN. As with many of Obama's speeches, there are always parts that seem pretty memorable, and one of my favorite lines from this one was:

"But difficulty is no excuse for complacency.  Unease is no excuse for inaction.  And we must not allow the perfect to become the enemy of progress."

I especially like the last line. There are too many people who are expecting the perfect treaty to emerge from Copenhagen, which odds are that won't happen. However, that is not to say that progress will not be made. This is a complex issue, no one is arguing that fact. As a result, we will not end up with a perfect solution, and the process is going to require many iterations before getting it right.

So it will be interesting to read some of the articles that come out about the talks on Tuesday to see what progress was made. Here's just one of them so far describing the confusion regarding the current plateau in global temperatures caused by periodic fluctuations in the sea. Sadly, climate critics are using this as an excuse to downplay the urgency of drafting an international treaty by Copenhagen.