There are over 15,000 people attending COP15, the UN Climate Change Conference here in Copenhagen. Twenty of those in attendance come from a dozen nations where waste reduction and recycling, or “wastepicking,” is contributing substantially to emissions reductions and maintaining a healthy economy.
“Recycling?” you may ask surprised. Yes.
While in America we may take for granted the ease and convenience of recycling our leftover coffee cups and soda cans (according to the Environmental Protection Agency, nationally, we recycled 83 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2008.), “informal” workers, or wastepickers, in countries such as India, Indonesia and Peru are at the heart of existing recycling systems in the developing world.
These workers came to Copenhagen to make the case for the connections between wastepicker livelihood and environmental protection. Recycling employs millions of people in developing countries. Even in developed countries like the U.S., recycling provides many more jobs per ton of waste than do incinerators and landfills. But the stories of these workers living and working on the fringes of the economy are not simple, and they came to COP15 in the hopes of promoting positive solutions to waste at the local, national, regional and global levels. And while it is not a simple or an easy job to collect paper, plastic, metal, glass and other recyclables from some of the largest landfills on the planet, these wastepickers are campaigning for what so many other workers are also focused on – job creation, fair wages, and safe working conditions.
It’s a simple thing to recycle. The next time you toss that glass bottle or stash that newspaper, remember that recycling programs across the planet are helping to combat climate change, create energy independence and revitalize economies. And there is nothing disposable about that.
Je suis pour une planéte plus respecteuse,que nos politique prennent conscience du danger que nos notre planete retombe dans le neant, pour l,avenir de nos enfants et que notre terre puisse encore vivre de nombreuses années
Why didn’t these 15,000 folks telecommute to the COP15 summit thus create a lot less pollution? Lead by example.
If anyone thinks of something that I can do to assist any of you to reasonably, sensibly, responsibly and humanely realize the goals of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, please send word to me.
Perhaps the last act of the last week of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is the last, best chance for the leaders of the human community to save a good-enough future for the children, life as we know it, the Earth and its environs from the ravages of global human overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities that can be seen with the naked eye engulfing the surface of our planetary home, depleting its resources and degrading its ecosystem services. If ever there was a time for action, that time is presented this week.
The next few days are more vital to human wellbeing and environmental health than any other few days in my lifetime. Much good luck to all negotiators. Please find a way to go forward now. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I am concerned the urgency of the global predicament makes some kind of responsible agreement among all nation necessary, before the skyrocketing growth of the human overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities on Earth inadvertently ruin the planet we inhabit as a fit place for habitation by the children.
We can surely hope that December 18, 2009 marks the first day the human community actually moves decisively to save the future for the children and coming generations rather than continuing to engage in the same, unbridled, business-as-usual overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities that gave rise to the converging global threats which have put human wellbeing and environmental health at risk in our time.
I THINK THERE IS TWO KEY CONCEPT FOR ABOARD PROBLEM OF “CLIMATE CHANGE” . THEY ARE “THROUGHPUT (TRANSFLOW) AND ZERO GROWTH THEORY”
IF WE KEEP A SIZE OPTIME OF THE ECONOMY AROUND OF 1/3 OF TOTAL ECOSYSTEM , THE OTHER TRANS-FLOW SEEKING ENERGY ALTERNATIVE FOR REDUCE POLLUTION AND INCREASE THE “EFFICIENCE” FOR UNIT OF RAW-MATTER
PRODUCT MANUFACTURATED.