When it comes to wind power, Americans have all kinds of excuses not to use it. "It's too expensive" or "Not in my backyard" (NIMBY: referencing that they don't want a tall, skinny, white turbine obstructing their beautiful view of the ocean or the mountains.) Let me begin by saying this is all a sham, in my opinion.
COPENHAGEN -- I arrived at the Bella Center today at 11:40—just ten minutes after the United Nations decided to ban further NGO access to the climate change conference. But they didn’t tell anyone waiting outside in the cold for more than a half an hour.
COPENHAGEN -- While hundreds of thousands of people were out marching against climate change this past weekend, world leaders inside the Bella Center slyly removed the most important number in the world from climate negotiating texts — one that more than 100 nations had already agreed to.
“There is no 1A bus running from here,” the Danish metro transit security man told me on the corner of Kongens Nytorv (King’s Center Square), where I generally get off the subway and hop onto a bus. “You have to get back on the subway, go one stop, get off at the Norreport station. Then go outside, get on a 15 bus.”
COPENHAGEN — The Global Day of Action began Saturday in the South Pacific where the sun rises. The day of international protest started as an uplifting global demonstration calling for a “Real Deal” to come out of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen. More than 3,000 marches and candlelight vigils in 139 countries occurred — some yielding as many as 50,000 demonstrators— all with the intent of spreading this one common, unified message to policymakers.
COPENHAGEN - “Today is going to be the most exciting day of the whole conference,” Brian told me this morning, after I got off the phone with my mom, the birthday girl. Dubbed “Real Deal Day,” an estimated 5,000 climate demonstrations staged for today, 12/12/09, around the world are asking for only one thing — a real deal to come out of the Copenhagen climate negotiations.
COPENHAGEN – I had heard from friends who studied abroad in Copenhagen that traveling by bike is “the only way to see the city,” but I was totally unprepared for the number of bikes that they have here. The wall of every building is lined with bikes, and the racks in city squares and below subway platforms are mind-boggling.
COPENHAGEN -- Unfortunately, I opted to watch four Hollywood Blockbusters in place of the inside of my eyelids on my eight-hour overnight flight—not that the screaming baby sitting in front of me, crawling into my seat, would have let me sleep even if I had wanted to. The Delta-Northwest 747 finally arrived at the Amsterdam airport at 8 a.m. this morning, on schedule for me to stand in the 45-minute customs line.
COPENHAGEN -- It took 20 minutes to get from the Kongens Nytorv plaza to the Bella Center -- the equivalent of five subway stops (plus the additional two stops it took for me to realize that I was going the wrong way on the M1 train towards Vanlose instead of towards Vestamager, which meant getting off two stops later and back on the M1 going the correct direction -- more on how I can't read or pronounce anything Danish later).
DETROIT -- I leave today for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark -- after I take a final exam and turn in two final papers (not to mention the two papers I have to write while I'm gone, and the two exams I take on Dec. 18, the day after I return!).