December 2005:
Shared Planet Conference
The group fill us in on how the Shared Planet conference inspired them to Stop Climate Chaos.
Hello readers! This is our first log, and we want to fill you in with what our People & Planet group has been up to since we started at the beginning of this school year.
We began to work on a local level, raising awareness of trade injustice around school - the prospect of “Divine” chocolate certainly seemed to be an incentive for some to listen to our concerns. We knew, however, while we promoted our cause that there were many more issues that we were keen to address. We wanted to get involved in the campaigns, and explore the ways in which we could further make an impact, which will always be difficult in our capacity as a humble sixth-form group!
A visit from Tom from People & Planet in October provided us with such a great opportunity. He was the first representative we’d been able to discuss our plans and concerns with, and we couldn’t help but be inspired by his enthusiasm. Following our meeting, we all made plans to attend the Shared Planet conference at Oxford Brookes University.
The conference began with a couple of rousing speeches. The first by Kumi Naidoo, who so aptly outlined the problems and potentially disastrous issues facing the countries in the third world (including a very amusing George Bush joke – a bit rude for publication!).The second speech was delivered by Caroline Lucas MEP, who furthered our awareness of the issues surrounding climate change. She highlighted the problems that our generation faces if we don’t act now to combat the apathetic attitudes of some of the world’s leading authorities towards climate change. Her speech included some very thought-provoking, if not downright scary, statistics as to what the climactic situation could be in the very near future if nothing is done. Just imagine if parts of London were underwater…
On Sunday afternoon some of us signed up for a Stop Climate Chaos workshop, where our beloved Tom made a re-appearance by running the group. The workshop gave us a much better grasp on the causes and effects of climate change, and what we could to help, with the help of Tom’s very own home-made props – including a wonderful carbon-o-meter. Having left the workshop loaded with information, and carrying armfuls of propaganda, we returned to school ready and raring to cut out our carbon emissions.
We were all lucky enough to take part in history when we each took the “Stop Climate Chaos pledge”. When we left the conference with many, many pledgecards, we were absolutely intent on spreading the word.
We have all taken a lot of inspiration from the conference, not least the fact that Oxford itself has a really enthusiastic and positive community of people, committed to making an impact on the global situation on all sorts of levels. We came away with oodles of ideas as to how our own group could act, and what steps we could take on everything from campaigning to simply promoting on a local level. It was a truly motivating and encouraging weekend, which really triggered us all to consider our own actions, as well as the actions of world-leaders.
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