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I felt the last strands of the summer sun beat down my back as I bustled my way through the crowded city streets overflowing with savvy business men and women. My swollen feet, delicately shoved into three-inch heels, and I hobbled into a small room on 1st and 42nd Street where my press badge sat waiting patiently for my arrival. I picked up the badge and admired it. It was my first real press badge, even if it was only temporary.
Excitement pulsed through my body as I walked through a small white tent towards the visitors entrance, where both my bag and I were searched. The doors glided smoothly open and I was hit with a blast of fresh cool air just as the director of the student journalism program, Judy Kuriansky, walked up to me. Judy, who was wearing a bright blue Chinese-style suit, grabbed my arm wildly as she congratulated me on being accepted into the program. Together, we walked towards a nervous group of well dressed students huddled against the wall. Orientation had begun. Within minutes we were talking to one another in rapid succession about our journeys here from Kenya, Paris, New Zealand and New York.
It was Wednesday morning, the first day of the 60th Annual DPI/NGO Conference on Climate Change: How it Impacts Us All, and I was already running late. I hurried towards the United Nations with Starbucks coffee spilling wildly in all directions, when I arrived just in time to catch the group. We ascended up a short flight of stairs towards the General Assembly where Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon was waiting to give his welcoming speech to a group of over 2,000 journalists and Non-Governmental Organization groups.
‘We cannot go on this way for long,’ Ban Ki-moon said. ‘The time has come for decisive action on a global scale.’
The rest of the speakers, including Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, President of the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly and Asha-Rose Migiro, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, echoed Ban Ki-moon’s inspirational tone about the importance of working together to prevent global warming.
After the welcoming ceremony in the General Assembly, we were free to choose a midday workshop to attend. I made my way down to floor 1B where I found a small room, about the size of a high school classroom, where the workshop ‘Climate Change and the Mind-Body-Spirit Connection: Challenges for the Holistic Health and Education’ was being held. The moderator, Anie Kalayjian, President of the Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention, began by explaining the emotional affects that natural disasters, as a result of global warming, has on its victims. Kalayjian explained that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has the greatest psychological affect on survivors, along with survivor’s guilt, which will only continue to grow as global warming progresses.
Next, Elizabeth Arman, Atam Jaya University in Indonesia, shared heart breaking experiences of helping victims in Pakistan after the 2006 earthquake and the recent tsunami in Indonesia. She explained how one young girl was traumatized after losing her mother and father in the tsunami, to the point where she was too scared to go to the beach and no one wanted to play with her because they thought she was strange. Arman also explained how survivors become insecure, introverted and developed a negative self concept which generates to their overall perception of life.
‘One mother was so overwhelmed with grief,’ Arman said. ‘That she said to her only son left, ‘I wish you died and your brother survived.”
Anie Kalayjian ended the workshop with a list of steps to follow for a better, healthier environment. She stressed the importance of working together to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by eating organic foods, walking to work, wearing hemp and planting trees.
‘When we work together,’ Anie said. ‘We can help Mother Nature to heal from all the abuse.’
I left the room feeling a surge of inspiration as I walked to the first roundtable, ‘Climate Change: the Scientific Evidence.” At this conference, and the rest that followed over the next two days, the panelists spoke of how climate change is real and the result of ignorance is that carbon dioxide emissions are causing hazardous changes to our environment everyday.
The panelists, including New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin, listed the evidence of climate change including rising sea level, change in precipitation patterns, rising temperature, agriculture decline in Africa and an increase in natural disasters. Lastly, the panelists explained that industrialized countries must make the first step towards preventing global warming because underdeveloped countries are the least responsible but the most effected.
The next couple of days followed in a similar pattern. We all attended conferences and workshops to broaden our knowledge on climate change. On Friday afternoon, as we said our goodbyes, we were urged to share what we learned with our friends, family members, peers and communities in order to start making a difference. As I walked towards Grand Central, the words of Chairman Richard Jordan echoed in my head.
‘At 9:00 AM on the Monday morning after the conference, what will each of us do?’
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