After attending COP 15 I’ve become more and more angry at my government and even more so at the lack of environmental action being taken on behalf of Prime Minister Harper here in Canada. With his recent decision to prorogue parliament, he has left all responsibility and accountability to represent Canadians in the House.  I have to ask the question, Harper, what about Copenhagen? Proroguing parliament allows the government to disregard the significant issues currently facing Canada, issues that are not only limited to Copenhagen, but also include Afghanistan and the security measures... (continue reading)

Exhaustion. Excitement. Disappointment. Hope. Confusion. Contentment. All emotions I felt on my last day in Copenhagen. I’m home now, and what an adventure this has been. Despite the problems with the final agreement (which I’ll talk about in a minute,) I’m totally glad I went and proud to have taken part in this historic event. My last day was very fast paced and exciting. I gave a presentation, saw Al Gore, and I made some great connections for the million kid march. My presentation was to a group of high school students from Copenhagen, and they were really a great audience.... (continue reading)

Hey everyone!  It’s a pleasure to start writing to all of you.  I was a youth delegate at the COP 15 United Nations Climate Conference this December.  It was quite the experience, and I’m more than happy to share some of those moments with you.  As a Canadian, it was truly interesting to see how our image has changed in the eyes of the international community because of our inaction on climate change. Before leaving for Copenhagen, I engaged with my local community through the creation of something called PLUG OUT TUNE IN.  It started out as a way to bring people into the... (continue reading)

There was a collective cringe in the room last night as activists and journalists listened to Obama’s closing press conference. There was no video, only audio, so you had to do something with your eyes. You could pretend to take notes on your laptop, but there was nothing to note. The speech was empty. As was the “deal.” You could do a slow pan across the room, but that would require making eye contact with people from other countries and there was an unsettling familiarity about being American with a leader failing the rest of the world…again. It would also require... (continue reading)

I grew up having this recurring dream. I guess it was a nightmare, really. It was one of those end-of-the-world scenarios where we knew the earth was collapsing in the next few days and I couldn’t get home to my family in Hawai’i because the planes weren’t running anymore and I was stuck over here on the continental U.S. I’m not sure if that’s typical, for children to worry about the end of the world. I figure my parents’ generation was probably plagued by fears of the end of the world coming from nuclear threat during the Cold War, but I think this subconscious dread is a unique... (continue reading)