Alec and Victoria (in the back in black) with friends in Copenhagen

Alec Goes to Copenhagen- Days 1 and 2

I’m writing this from the apartment of my wonderful host family here in Copenhagen Denmark! Today was my second day in the city, and it was a bit of a day off. Both for me, and the negotiators at the conference.  

Yesterday, my mom and I got into Copenhagen at around noon, after leaving at 3am (Los Angeles time) the day before. After we got in, we spent an hour wandering aimlessly around the city trying to find this apartment. We finally took a cab here, spent a good 15 minutes settling in, and then left to go straight to the conference center, where I was to give 2 presentations.

 I didn’t get a chance to get to the demonstration downtown, but I heard from a few friends it was awesome. Despite anything you’ve heard about riots and violence, there was nothing of the sort. There were just a handful of anarchists who got violent, but other than that, it was just 100,000 people from all different countries peacefully demanding that our leaders create a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty at the negotiations.

 I do feel hopeful, seeing some of the commitments various countries have said already. The world is taking climate change seriously. All we need is for them to be brave and agree on a fair, ambitious, and binding agreement that will benefit our future.

 This really is a historic event. Almost 200 nations (192 to be exact) coming together to create an agreement that will either ensure the survival of this and every generation, or put the future or this planet in jeopardy. And they better do the first. The fate of this planet depends on it.

 And yet, even though this agreement could be great, no matter how fair, ambitious, and binding this treaty is, it alone won’t be what solves this crisis. It’s going to take an energy revolution, from the people. On the scale of the industrial revolution, which completely redefined life in the western world. This is what needs to happen now. And it needs to happen from the bottom up, beginning with the people. And the fact that so many people (over 100,000) are here shows that we are ready for this revolution.

 So thank you for reading. I’m super excited to see what happens this next week and report back to you on what’s going on. I’m actually not totally sure I’ll be able to get in after tomorrow.. They’re cutting back the number of people who are allowed to enter, and a lot of the youth won’t be able to gain access. I’ll find out in the morning.

 In any case, lets hope our leaders consider our future with every move they make. And meanwhile, lets keep this green revolution going strong.

Speaker in support of REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation

Alec Loorz: Live from Copenhagen- Day 4
Wow, I feel so inspired while writing this. The highlight of my day was a speech by Al Gore calling upon the world leaders to take real action for the youth of this and every generation.

He began and ended with a standing ovation from the crowd. And right after a joke about a farmer in a car crash saying “I feel fine,” he noted a group of people who aren’t formally represented and don’t have an official voice in this process. And that is the generations who follow us.

There is no way the negotiators will create a binding treaty in the next 3 days. But they can make some sort of agreement that will be a good starting place. But we can’t wait till another year to get to that binding agreement. It’s already too late. So, Mr Gore offered a solution to this problem. He proposed the next meeting be in July of next year, rather than November, or December, like was planned in Mexico City. When he said this, there was an audible “hm” from all the negotiators who were there, some of them right next to me. It was part, “How dare you?” but it was mostly, “wow... that might work.”

He also proposed the US should vote on the climate bill on April 22, 2010. The 40th anniversary of earth day. To help make this happen, I am planning a million kid march for April 2010. We are calling it the iMatter March: One Million Kids Stand Up for Their Planet. It will be part physical march on Washington and other cities throughout the US, and part virtual march, using an iPhone app that should be ready in early march. Everyone from parents with babies to school children to teens to college students will be peacefully reminding our leaders that it’s not about money or power, it’s about the survival of their grandchildren and generations to follow.

Mr Gore passionately asked the question, “Who are we?” And talked about how if these negotiations stall like they have been so far, that the reasons will be forgotten in the very short future. If they let it stall and the unthinkable happens here in Copenhagen, these leaders are going to have to watch their children grow up knowing they did nothing for them. And their grandchildren would look back at the Copenhagen conference and ask them, “Why didn’t you act?” “Why did you let this process fall into paralysis?” “Don’t you care about us?” “Didn’t you realize we were at stake?”

Then the room went quiet and he said, “I don’t believe that is who we are.”

These leaders have to power to make the right decisions, and can, instead, be thanked by their children and grandchildren for making the right choices and creating an agreement that ensures the survival of future generations.

I can only dream and hope for the lives of every member of this generation that our leaders will listen to him. We can’t afford to wait for even one more year. We need them to be bold, be brave, and do what’s right for their grandchildren and their planet. And not necessarily what benefits their pocketbooks.

Let’s make it so.

It finally happened. I didn’t get into the Bella Center at all today. I knew it was just a matter of time. But something happened today at the conference center, and I’m not exactly sure what.

I woke up this morning, and we walked through the snow to the metro center, but it said that the Bella Center station was closed... because of “crowd control.” Yeah, right. Then later in the day, it said that there was a demonstration going on. Then they completely shut off all NGO (non governmental organization) access for the rest of the day and no NGOs at all are allowed tomorrow and Friday. The UN is doing an awesome job putting a binding cap on people. I wish I could say the same about carbon emissions.

So, apparently, people were angry about not being able to get in, and even some of the negotiators who were supposed to be, you know, negotiating couldn’t get in. So then the police got violent, using tear gas and batons to keep people out.

A few youth were able to get inside, however. The US youth were able to deliver a “be a strong leader” postcard to Senator Kerry. And a small group of youth from all over the world sat down in a circle in the middle of the hallway and said they would not leave until a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty is made. Despite being violently dragged away at one point, a group of 19 sat there for over 8 hours (it’s 2:00am here) until Security threatened to kick out all of civil society (everyone who’s not the government) if they didn’t leave.

They sat there on behalf of (and started reading all the names of) 11 million people from across the globe demanding that our leaders come up with a treaty that benefits our future.

I wanted more than anything to be there with them, and if the center wasn’t closed, I would’ve made the trek through the freezing wind and snow to get there. I I had to settle with watching a live stream of the sit-in. You can hear all about it on Whit Jones’ live blog: itsgettinghotinhere.org.

The youth movement stood up, er, sat down and made their voices heard. This is exactly what needs to happen. And we can only hope the negotiators will listen to them when they arrive at the conference center tomorrow morning.

So meanwhile, while this brilliant activism was going on inside the Bella Center, I was over in the part of town known as Kongens Nytorv (Danish for King’s house or something like that.) I was attending an event for the support of REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Basically, what is does is it makes a tree worth more alive than dead. How it works is Developed countries (US, for example) would pay rainforest nations that would otherwise get money from deforestation to not cut down their trees. They would pay as much or even more than what the nations would make from the loggers, and the rainforest nations get to keep their forests. It’s a win-win-win-win. The only people negatively affected are the illegal loggers who don’t get their fat paycheck.

REDD is being talked about in the negotiations right now. And people are saying that it could be the only good thing that comes out of this conference.

Our world leaders pretty much have 2 days to save this planet for this and every generation. And if they don’t do a good enough job, the youth of this planet will be on their backs holding them accountable for their actions. We are not going to settle with anything less than a fair, ambitious, and binding (those are the buzz words, if you haven’t figured out already) treaty.

So who’s ready?