Well today was the first day of Climate Week. The event really centralises in New York City but with so much going on at the same time, this is turning out to be a global set of events. I’ll try to report as much of it as I can see, so far much of it is extremely encouraging and I hope the trend will continue.
The first thing to mention is of course the Global Climate wake up call, which is probably finished by now as 1pm has now come and gone on the far side of the USA. My wife and I took part in it on St Andrew’s Square in Edinburgh and I was pleased to see that it was not going to be 3 people and a baby but a good 30-odd people gathered holding their phones up in the air. Hundreds of people have sent pictures to Avaaz to show just how global the event was, from Australia to India, Mongolia, France and of course the UK. You can catch a glimpse of us on this photo, this photo and this photo. Unfortunately, it started to rain just as we were wrapping this up so I was unable to take photos myself.
As part of this event, people were also calling their leaders to press them to take significant action on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December. One of the demonstrators in London managed to get through to Gordon Brown himself and a composite of both sides of the conversation was put on the No 10 website. The message it contains is very encouraging, see below:
Of course the other big event today in New York City is the focal point of the US premiere of the Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong much acclaimed movie / documentary on Climate Change. Where An Inconvenient Truth had graphs, The Age of Stupid has people, and the impact is staggering. Think that if Al Gore had stabbed you with a needle, the Age of Stupid is a Great Sword! We went to see it in March when it first premiered in the UK and I can definitely vouch for the sort of impact a movie like that has. It truly has the power to change your life, so if you have the change, go see it (you never know, a New Yorker might come across this entry just in time 😉 ) and meanwhile, check out the trailer below:
The world premiere is tomorrow. There are venues organised in over 60 countries with over a million people due to see it, it’s turning into a huge event.
I’m seeing so many little bits of news just now, it’s hard to report them all. The one I would like to quickly mention because I think it’s quite significant, is that article published by cop15 claiming that carbon emissions are at their lowest for 40 years. It seems unreal especially when you consider how fast the world population has grown since 1959 and especially how much carbon emissions have increased since 1990. But it would seem between the recession and the fact that lots of governments are waking up to the need to reduce emissions, there is a glimmer of hope that if we all push on to really make a dent in our emissions (remember 10:10 folks), and press our leaders to take significant actions, we could just about avoid catastrophe. And more people even talk about the economic advantages of green jobs and a green economy so we all win!
Tomorrow, the world leaders will meet in New York for a bit of a chat prior to Copenhagen. Some organisations expect big news, especially from countries like China and India, so let’s hope there’ll be more good stuff to report 😀
Quick Edit: This just in from @tcktcktck, check it out it’s awesome