Alec Goes to Copenhagen- Days 1 and 2

I’m writing this from the apartment of my wonderful host family here in Copenhagen Denmark! Today was my second day in the city, and it was a bit of a day off. Both for me, and the negotiators at the conference.

Yesterday, my mom and I got into Copenhagen at around noon, after leaving at 3am (Los Angeles time) the day before. After we got in, we spent an hour wandering aimlessly around the city trying to find this apartment. We finally took a cab here, spent a good 15 minutes settling in, and then left to go straight to the conference center, where I was to give 2 presentations.

I didn’t get a chance to get to the demonstration downtown, but I heard from a few friends it was awesome. Despite anything you’ve heard about riots and violence, there was nothing of the sort. There were just a handful of anarchists who got violent, but other than that, it was just 100,000 people from all different countries peacefully demanding that our leaders create a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty at the negotiations.

I do feel hopeful, seeing some of the commitments various countries have said already. The world is taking climate change seriously. All we need is for them to be brave and agree on a fair, ambitious, and binding agreement that will benefit our future.

This really is an historic event. Almost 200 nations (192 to be exact) coming together to create an agreement that will either ensure the survival of this and every generation, or put the future or this planet in jeopardy. And they better do the first. The fate of this planet depends on it.

And yet, even though this agreement could be great, no matter how fair, ambitious, and binding this treaty is, it alone won’t be what solves this crisis. It’s going to take an energy revolution, from the people. On the scale of the industrial revolution, which completely redefined life in the western world. This is what needs to happen now. And it needs to happen from the bottom up, beginning with the people. And the fact that so many people (over 100,000) are here shows that we are ready for this revolution.

So thank you for reading. I’m super excited to see what happens this next week and report back to you on what’s going on. I’m actually not totally sure I’ll be able to get in after tomorrow. They’re cutting back the number of people who are allowed to enter, and a lot of the youth won’t be able to gain access. I’ll find out in the morning.

In any case, lets hope our leaders consider our future with every move they make. And meanwhile, lets keep this green revolution going strong.