Tuesday, December 8, 2009

So today = relaxing?

Every morning the participants of COP15 are greeted in one of the main hallways by a different activist group. Yesterday the WWF greeted us with this:

Today we had indigenous people from around the world remind us about their role in these negotiations and remind the delegates that they have rights too and should not be ignored during these negotiations.

The last six hours haven't been to bad so far, I got to the Bella Centere around 8:30 am went to a presentation about what America is doing to combat climate change. It was both informative and propaganda driven, the case studies they used were interesting. It nicely showcased what America has been doing the last few years to combat climate change and what the Obama administration has done to start sustainability initiatives around the United States.  Then I got interviewed by a woman who is with the Centre for Sustainability Leadership in Australia ( to learn more about the organization http://www.csl.org.au/) and they are putting together an online course that helps give students tools to help create change, I'm not sure when it will be available. So I was used as a case study for this course and I talked about UMCAN and the UM 350 event. It was really scary let me tell you, but I think I represented UMCAN and UM well.

Quick Observation:
Many of the food staff have shirts made from 100% recycled plastic coke bottles also Coke is a HUGE sponsor of the Hopenhagen campaign being run here in Copenhagen. I really am not sure how I feel about Coke's role but I know they are giving much needed funding to these initiatives and am OK with their role because hopefully they will start changing their business practices even more. Plus, this is reaching an even larger audience than could have been reached otherwise, these Hopenhagen ads cover Copenhagen and there is a large exhibit here at the conference promoting this idea.

Here's one of the ads...


2 comments:

  1. Hey Yaicha--great updates. This is a fascinating ad--maybe you can come and talk about this in the Consumption class next semester! Hope you're having a great time. ~Steve

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  2. The Centre for Sustainabiity Leadership sounds really interesting and so does their online course- we will need to check that out. It is great that you were interviewed as a "case study". I am psyched! - Len

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