The frustration in the room was palpable. The chair of the meeting huffed into his microphone, chastising the governments of the world for not doing their homework. It would have been funny, except that their “homework” was to agree on an action plan to save the planet. And, despite negotiating for the past year leading [...]
For most of my life, I’ve specialized in working really hard without getting paid. This specialty seems inherent to many young people who seek to create social or environmental change; we spend countless hours fighting for the causes we love for little or no compensation and the rest of our time working restaurant-type jobs to [...]
“This is our moment, this could be the turning point,” said the young Belgian man at the front of the room. Around him sat youth from all around the world, young environmental leaders who had come to Rio de Janeiro to attend the United Nations Earth Summit. Though Rio+20, as it’s commonly known, won’t officially [...]
When I was just beginning kindergarten, the leaders of the world came together in Rio de Janeiro for a groundbreaking Earth Summit that put the concept of sustainable development and biological diversity on the global political agenda. While I was chopping the hair off my sister’s Barbies in third grade, the United States whacked the [...]
I just participated in the largest climate march in history, 100,000 people from all over the world who gathered together in a shared desire for a fair, ambitious and binding climate deal here in Copenhagen, Denmark. We held torches for Climate Justice, acknowledging the fact that 75% of the ghg emissions in the atmosphere have [...]
This morning one of my friends from Algeria came up to me shaking his head, asking me how anyone in America could listen to Sarah Palin’s crazy ramblings about climate change. I wanted to tell him that no one did, that Palin is a crazy neoconservative desperate for media attention. Judging from the low percentage of [...]
If attending the United Nations 15th climate conference in Copenhagen has taught me anything, it is the incredible power of the United States Congress. I really want to like the U.S. delegation. I just got out of a briefing with Jonathan Pershing, the Special Envoy for Climate Change and Lisa Jackson, the new Administrator of [...]
I really should be in bed in right now. It sort of feels like Christmas eve, the night before the day where you really, really hope that you will get everything you want, neatly packaged with a red satin ribbon. But the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) is a little different. We already know [...]
Obama is not the only political figure who can use “Yes We Can.” I’m currently sitting in the UN General Assembly at the Children and Youth Chair, listening to the Chair of the Commission on Sustainable Development Gerda Verburg from the Netherlands, speak about how the international community CAN overcome the combined crises of food [...]
This was written by Imran Battla and I during the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York for the SustainUS Blog We just finished meeting with the head of the CSD-17 State Department Delegation John Matuszak as part of the U.S. Government Listening Session. One of the questions we asked him pertained to the [...]
