18th January 2023
Quick update here. Today NTC were invited to participate in the IRENA Youth Section presentations.
Well done to Ben and Shimon for a stunning performance in front of complete strangers. Extolling our work on the Nature Reserve. The audience were highly impressed.
Obligatory group photos and a recording of the session and follow up question from the audience - go NTC!
16th January 2023
Okay, so he we are. Award Ceremony over. Sadly, we did not win but we gave it a good try.
The winner from our Category is the German team. Well done to them.
Putting aside the inevitable disappointment, the purpose of the Prize is to secure forms of sustainability and hopefully reverse the damage that has been done. We got to hear from a large number of presidents including the President of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol.
Job is not complete here, the serious side to this is the range of innovators and speakers at the ADSW
.
One of the significant aspects of the ADSW week is a series of discussion areas devoted to the work and ideas of young people. This is significant and provides much hope that the World will continue to turn. Here are some words from Ben and Shimon.
What is the Thematic Roundtable and Intergenerational Session?
The IRENA Youth Forum is a key step towards the future as it one of the first of it kind to have the younger generation directly involved and contributing to creation of policy and decisions that will be affect the future. This is a step forward, as for once we are able to make decisions that will directly affect our lives instead of having decisions made for us by people who don't know or who will not be affected in the longer term.
At the IRENA event, key topics like how will the energy transition for un-renewable to renewable energy happen and what is need? One of the key aspects which was talk about was the skill required to make that change, whether it be the skill set required to set up new renewable energy sources, like solar farms, through to actual financial and people skills so that connection can be made and appropriate funding can be given to people to continue the movement for change in the future. As a result, people such as the CEO of large companies and delegates from countries like Norway are taking part to further deepen our understanding and expand how we can work together.
At the Thematic Youth Roundtable and Intergenerational Sessions, the experts gave advice and thought provoking responses to the areas the youth led questions which we felt affect us greatly.
This link between government, delegate and private companies coming together allows financial support to grow to expand these projects around the World, whether they are in the UK or in a country in Africa, this is essential to the idea and many goals of conferences like IRENA and even COP. Also, the incorporation of the youth within this event allows leaders and people of influence to allow people such as us to hear first hand the problems who feel so passionately about the issues at hand expanding on the impact IRENA has.
The future is in our hands. We are the future leaders. There is much we can learn from current leaders but must have the courage to make momentous changes based on our knowledge and experience, however we gain this.
Ben - Northfleet Technology College
IRENA is all about creating a voice for all people and their respective countries. Ultimately, it is about saving the people. Non-renewable energy is the one evil that has burnt this World, our Earth. This is why IRENA is needed and is here. Our focus can help to mend and patch up the consequences of our past and current behaviour, removing the likelyhood that it will happen again.
"With what?" you may ask. "With renewable energy!". The answer is easy to say. However, this is not as easy as saying it. Problems are rising figuratively and physically. One of the main problems is money or, more properly, lack of access to money. The World is run by money. There, I've said it. Saving the World is isn't cheap. Where will the money come from?
Some may say that there's not enough people wanting to change the World. However, the truth is that there is. For example, if people in a small town somewhere wanted to change, where would they get the money? Who would they ask? What would they need to do in return?
Please help tackle the problems, no matter how difficult they are.
Shimon - Northfleet Technology College
So, what's it all about then? A word from our students
Live from Abu Dhabi, well it was live when we recorded it earlier today. Short intro from me and then over to Ben and Shimon to give an insight into what we are up to ...
It’s Alive!
ONE POINT FIVE – Looking in then Looking out
12th January 2023
So, this morning, we landed having contributed somewhere in the region of 1.5 tonnes of CO2 between the three of us. Does it matter given the context we are at ADSW for? The climate and, more specifically, what we can do to redress some of the damage caused by Homo sapiens is the overarching focus. One of the, if not the, biggest threats is CO2 in the atmosphere.
Travel by just about most engine-propelled vehicles has a CO2 legacy (don’t get me started on the hidden damage caused by electric solutions). So, dumping around 500KG of CO2 into the atmosphere is a little uncomfortable.
One of the overwhelming slogans used at the conference is ONE POINT FIVE. It is written large throughout the venue and the venue is huge. What on Earth does the ONE POINT FIVE refer to? This is taken to be the rise in Earth’s temperature that will mark a turning point. If we go beyond 1.5 it’s curtains for many humans, other species and low laying countries. Below 1.5 and we have a chance to reverse changes. Above 1.5 and the effects could speed up, pouring misery on millions that we may be powerless to stop.
Hold on though. How did we arrive at this point in our evolution? For all our genius (and we are pretty marvellous at genius solutions to complex problems) the World finds itself looking in on an existential threat. Really? How did we let that one in? It is tempting to use ‘creep up on us’ but this has not been a ‘creep’. We have known about this for time and have chosen not to act.
Let’s be clear here. The ‘existential’ threat is not something Sartre or Camus would have discussed and written about. Metaphysics is all very good when the floodwaters are not threatening to drown your wife and children. This ‘existential;’ threat is very real and biding it’s time before some real damage is brought to humanity.
If it were just humanity the temptation is to take the attitude of ‘so what’. We made our bed (heated by gas powered radiators, no doubt) and if we are wiped away so be it. Earth Abides (worth reading the 1949 George R Stewart novel if you get a chance). Something will take our place as the alpha species. It’s in our destiny to die but maybe we would like some say in how this happens and whether we bring this on because of poor decision-making and lazy global politics.
Nature has always, to anthropomorphise it, been capricious. It’s unlikely that the Romans at Pompeii did much to bring on their downfall here and Herculaneum. The geology did that, it was chance that nature blocked the sun and covered the surrounding land in ash and volcanic debris. Severe weather, earthquakes, El Nino and La Nina will still happen (the latter two are heightened by what we pour into the atmosphere though).
Come on, back on track. We are not an even community. The language we use: First World, Second World, Third World is evidence of this. Much of what the First World continues to do impacts on the remaining 2 thirds. I’ll let you find your own statistics on the coal consumed and emissions pumped out by First World countries. It becomes a deceptively simple moral ethical issue. When my actions start impacting the quality or length of your life I am responsible and responsibility normally arrives with some acceptance that I will do something to reduce or remove the harm. Don’t forget, this is not theory. The first World has killed Bangladeshis through their poor behaviour. The impact of going above 1.5 on first World countries is severe but we tend to have the resources (for the moment anyway) to side step some of the catastrophe). Billions do not and are facing more existential threat.
Hold on though, it’s not just humanity that is staring down the barrel of the global warming shotgun. The flora and fauna that has co-existed with us for around 300,000 years is suffering a more rapid impact. The statistics on how many species we have caused to become extinct vary greatly. Take out those that we have shunted into history because of our migratory and predatory nature and we still have significant numbers that defy belief. If you can, do some research, the results are truly saddening/terrifying/ethically repugnant (choose whichever you think fits). Our genius still provides the means to rapidly move away from existential threats (well, assuming the 1st World does not close its borders but that’s different tirade). The deep-sea coral off the coast of Scotland can’t do that. Increased acidification of the oceans will simply render it dead and a historical item. I do wish coral had consciousness and could move to better areas but it can’t.
Hm. Is my 500KG of CO 2 well spent? I do hope so. I will most likely not be around to see the real fear and carnage that going above ONE POINT FIVE will bring. I do hope that by bringing the existential threat to a wider audience will encourage governments and major corporations to stop messing around and get on with the job. Simple message, sorry Google, ‘Don’t be Evil’. If we know that our actions cause harm that’s about as evil as you can be.
