Klima Forum

The city of Copenhagen was truly alive with the spirit of resolutions to global climate change and related issues and solutions. Within walking distance of downtown Copenhagen, a "People's Climate Summit" known as KlimaForum was taking place. (Their website: http://www.klimaforum09.org). The conference featured speakers from around the world, from Green politicians like Marina Silva (former Environment Minister of Brazil) and Elizabeth May (Canadian Green Party leader and former Director of the Canadian Sierra Club) to Cradle to Cradle entrepreneur Michael Braungart to community leaders who have started organizations to combat particular aspects of climate change. In addition to the speakers, Klimaforum also hosted exhibits, film screenings, and briefings from the COP.

On Wednesday, I began in a talk by Selina Juul who, upon learning about the damage of food waste on a global scale and how it contributes to the climate crisis, began a group called "Stop Wasting Food" (www.stopspildafmad.dk). According to her information, an appreciable amount of green house gasses (GHGs) are emitted by the production of food that gets wasted. She also said that if everyone were to reduce food waste to zero, it would have the CO2 impact of removing one of four cars from the road! Selina suggested that the reasons why people waste food are because of a lack of knowledge around things like left overs and portion size, a normalized "use and throw away" culture, and a lack of planning, responsibility and respect. A couple of thought provoking issues her presentation led me to think about were with regards to food packaging and trips to the grocery store. Selina suggested that food waste could be reduced by reducing food package size -- i.e. single people living alone (buying food for one) would waste less food by purchasing food in a size they can consume before it goes bad. However this begs the question, wouldn't that raise the plastic to food ratio, making it more packaging intensive? It's better for plastic packaging to buy in big bags, but if that leads to food waste because you can't consume all of the product before it goes bad -- what's the solution?! Selina would point towards the food packing industry to develop a more sustainable packaging system. As for transportation, Selina and her Stop Wasting Food group promotes limiting what you purchase per trip to the store based on how much you can eat before it goes bad. This would lead to making more trips to the market, which may not be so bad in societies where walking/biking/busing to the store is normative, but in America where most people drive, wouldn't this lead to more car trips and thereby more pollution related to transportation? Food for thought.

My next event at Klimaforum was a brief talk and film screening by meteorologist, Jesper Theilgaard. He stressed the importance of H2O, specifically as a green house gas and as an ingredient for disaster when crossed with heat. With his background in understanding weather, he was able to explain the energy transfer in calories of water as it changes from a gas to a liquid (approx 600cal/g) and how this, in combination with extra heat leads to hurricanes. When solar heat meets the ocean, the result is water vapor, as more solar heat is added to the equation, the pressure builds. He also spoke to vaporous water leading to drought. Following his talk, Jesper screened a film called "Age of Stupid." The film was set in 2050, an age of drought and devastation. The viewer has the perspective of inside a computer used by the narrator to research "causes of climate change" and "symptoms that climate change was happening." As he picks particular items from the lists, short clips are shown of melting ice caps, flooding islands, etc. I was not able to watch the whole film, but it definitely seems worth looking into.

I left the film early to attend a talk on transportation systems by Initiative Transport Europe. The presentation focused on the relative differences and impacts between different modes of transportation. The talk turned into a discussion as we explored what a minimal impact (transportation-wise) town would be like. First came the issue of reducing need/demand by centralized living and accessibility of non-emitting transportation like bikes and walking. Then how traveling patterns can be adjusted through relative location and how to mitigate or reduce emission impacts.

More on Emma's Wednesday at Klimaforum to follow in a later post.

Peace&Trees,
Emma Fujii