Writing
In addition to my own blog, Palimpsest, I contribute longer articles to several blogs. I post most frequently on It's Getting Hot in Here and ChinaDialogue. This page contains examples of recent articles.
The Trouble with Climate Aid
A report in the Guardian newspaper on May 16 offered cold comfort for people in the developing countries worst affected by climate change. Britain wants to help them, but only if they get a little something in return. That's right, the UK treasury only wants to offer climate adaptation funds in the form of conditional loans, fully repayable with interest and administered by the World Bank.
Comparing Salt, Fat, Sugar, and CO2
Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, has announced a plan to put ‘carbon labels‘ on four categories of its own-brand products: orange juice, potatoes, laundry detergent, and light bulbs. The labels, which were developed with the Carbon Trust’s carbon labelling program, show the number of grams of carbon which the product is responsible for during production, packaging, distribution, and disposal.
Read more on It's Getting Hot in Here.
Big Bali of Trouble
Nusa Dua, Bali. We have been sitting outside the closed conference rooms where delegates from around the world engage in the grueling process of working out an international climate policy, line by line. Campaigners, delegates, and journalists mill about, trading rumors and whispering strategy. Everyone has been working nonstop for two whole weeks, and it all has come down to this one long session.
The milling crowd reflects nothing of the nuance of the international negotiations, which will determine the future of international climate change policy. Instead, the din reveals the clanking of glasses and the milling hubbub of various national representatives, sound and fury, signifying nothing. The air may be charged, but what exactly are we all waiting for? Everyone is as edgy and nervous as an expectant father banished from the maternity room, yet there will be no agreement born today. At the moment, all we hope for is a plan to negotiate another plan.
(With Richard Graves)
Read more on the Gristmill
BaliBuzz: The End of the Beginning
At the moment I’m sitting on a fourteen hour flight, the last leg of my journey home. My round-trip flight from London (where I live and work) emitted about 3 tons of carbon dioxide. When I started a Facebook group to support youth activism at the Bali conference, one of the first comments I got was “Isn’t it ironic that you’re all flying to Bali for a climate change conference? You’re better off spending all that money on local climate change efforts at home.” It echoed a sentiment I had heard from a number of people, including my own partner. I wasn’t the only one going, of course; I was part of a delegation of 22 young Americans and approximately 150 people under the age of 26 attending the conference. I fully recognize that flying halfway across the world and staying in a big, air-conditioned hotel is hardly the most obvious way of living out my principles. So what possessed me to go? And what did I do when I got there to justify the expense and the emissions?