Environmental Education Media Project

Viewed through the lens of a still camera – clicking off one shot after another – there are a host of discrete events worthy of attention in the week just past and the weeks ahead. Earth Day in the United States is around the corner on April 22. And World Water Day was on March 22. The cornerstones of World Environment Day on June 5 are Rwanda -- and Pittsburgh. Rwanda, of course, is home to the famed and rare mountain gorilla, while Pittsburgh is a mere 135 mile from Cleveland, where the Cayuhoga River was once so polluted that it actually caught fire in June 22, 1969, igniting the American environmental movement.

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Over the course of the inquiry that began in 1995 when I was assigned to document the rehabilitation of China’s Loess Plateau, I have learned many things.

Specifically, I have observed that there are powerful long-term evolutionary trends that have provided and continuously renewed the atmosphere, the hydrological cycle and the fertility and productivity of the soils. These trends are principles and they are understandable, measurable and predictable.

The three trends that I have observed and study are:

• The trend toward total colonization of the Earth by biological life.
• The trend toward differentiation and speciation leading to massive biodiversity.
• The trend toward the accumulation of organic matter as each generation of life lays down its body to nurture the next.

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A letter festooned with stamps from Taiwan arrived at our offices last week, with a contribution from a group of mothers who had just screened "Hope in a Changing Climate" at a local school. The full story of this outpouring of support is told by Nicholas Chen, a new EEMP board member.

But it reminds me all of the power not just of the film, but of people working together to change our world. Beyond Copenhagen, beyond the ten transmissions on BBCWorld, and even beyond the more than 15,000 people who have viewed "Hope" on the internet, people in communities across the globe have been brought together around this film. Using our Discussion Guide, invitation templates, and a set of carefully crafted supporting materials more than 64 organizations in 28 nations have engaged diverse stakeholders in film screenings and facilitated discussions.

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Attending the 15th Convening of the Parties (COP 15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen was an extremely intense experience. Given the ambition of gathering thousands of organizations and 10’s of thousands of individuals together, in order to collectively address human impact on the Earth’s climate, it is not surprising that the conference was confused and ended without a legally binding agreement. Perhaps the most disturbing outcome is that somewhere along the way, the Climate and the Environment have taken second place to the politicized negotiations. We need to put our priorities back where they should be.

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Word from inside the plenary this windy and cold Friday morning in Denmark is that things are tense and unprecedented. This mirrors Achim’s Steiner’s characterization Wednesday that the talks were "in crisis." And in conversation with a range of people in the last 24 hours there is a broad sense that the groundwork has not been laid for a binding treaty. Even as most fundamental of disagreements remain unresolved, operational details of implementation have begun to unwind as well.

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While the demonstrators stole the show earlier this week in Copenhagen - determined that alternative and contrary voices be heard - they also seem to have provided the organizers with a seemingly sound reason to close the Bella Center entirely to non-governmental organizations. Thus a call for greater participation ends with almost total exclusion.

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After listening to the head of the United Nations Environment Program, Achim Steiner, say, in regard to the negotiations here in Copenhagen, that "we are losing faith, we are losing trust, we are losing confidence, we are getting angrier with each other, and we are beginning to lose the sense that we can do it," I pondered possible outcomes. The lack of an agreement would represent a profound failure for all involved, and there are thus tremendous incentives to avoid this -- especially with the signals sent in the ramp-up to the process: American, Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian announcements.

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Neither Al Gore nor Yves de Boer were looking very happy when they walked by a few minutes ago. And as is widely reported, there is concern within the sprawling Bella Center that despite pledges made in the ramp-up to COP15 little progress is being made here. And certainly the climate here has changed as full-fledged negotiations are now underway; non-governmental observers, fully accredited and registered, were largely closed out this morning as snow began to swirl around an increasingly frigid Copenhagen.

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We screened "Hope in a Changing Climate" yesterday during an event dedicated to agriculture and rural development and then participated in a distinct event entitled "Forest Day 3." During various sessions at "Agriculture Day," much was made of the fact that forests are ahead both in terms of scientific understanding and their full inclusion in the COP 15 negotiations.

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Listening just now to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack speak in Copenhagen at Agriculture and Rural Development Day, I was reminded of how important meetings are to generating hard deadlines. According to Vilsack, the USDA will issue "The Effects of Climate Change on US Ecosystems" before President Obama travels here this coming week. While we cannot be sure, the report appears to be a serious effort, drawing in high-powered academic researchers, to examine the fundamental relationship between climate and ecosystems.

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How we remember, what we see in our mind’s eye, is of course intimately connected with words and language. And while endless pieces far more clever than I aim to be have been written about the alphabet soup of acronyms that are spawned whenever governments and multilateral organizations convene, there is a more deeply serious aspect to language that matters very much.

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I try to pay attention to what I remember as well as what I forget. Of course, what we readily recall is often the mundane while we often forget the painful or profound. As the political theatre and deeply held convictions of thousands of people envelops the Danish capital, like the cold mist and rain here again in Copenhagen, the normalcy of the Danes stands out -- a bit awkwardly.

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Airport terminals always remind me a bit of terrariums -- enclosed spaces nonetheless bustling with life. En route to COP15, the fifteenth conference of parties struggling across a multilateral minefield to manage an increasingly our climate that has become increasingly unstable due to human-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

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