Questions from Cornelius/Green Acres

Our climate survey:

We went in town, looking for people to ask our questions. So we spotted these guys, hanging around and giving us a quite uneducaed impression. We wondered what they think about the subject. Although we weren’t expecting that much, their answers were quite shocking: “I will drive a car, smoke and do whatever I want- the consequences of climatic change won’t bother me. I will already be dead when the world will get in trouble”, said one of them. Some other disappointing answers were: “I like warm temperatures” or “I know one should do something, but I didn’t really think about what exactly…”

So we think, young people who are not that educated and have to work all day are not aware of the consequences, because they can’t feel them at the moment and aren’t very well informed. If we asked the same questions in our school, the answers would have been more satisfying, because we treat this matter very intensive here.

But luckily, we found some others who care too: Some older persons (and at least a few teenagers too) could think about the problems caused by climatic change. “It’s something that makes me worry. And it should bother especially younger generations as well.”

And what are the concrete consequences for Switzerland? “It will get warmer, so glaciers will melt. First we will have floods, and later on there will be a lack of water. We will lose some of our ski regions and a lot of tourists.”-“I think farmers will have problems because the climate will be dryer.”

Now we know: It’s important to inform people, who don’t have the ability to discuss climatic change at school, about it’s consequences and that they will occur sooner as they might imagine- and that it needs everybody to decrease the damage.

Désirée

a.) The climate protecting organisation thinks that we're not doing enough for our climate. But Switzerland has quite a good record in comparison to some other countries.

The main problem is, that the glaciers and the permafrost in our Alps are melting. The glaciers melting leads to a loss of drinking water supply and the production of clean energy with this water decreases as well. the melting of the permafrost is dangerous for the towns and the roads which are in the valleys because they could be hit by falling rocks. Land slides have become a problem, too, with whole mountain sides turning into a mud avalanche. Burying farmland and houses.

b.) We should reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 1990 to 2020 and not allow the global warming to raise by more than 2°C. There should be taxes for gas and the taxes for heating fuel and CO2 emissions should be higher.

c.) Unforunately th priority for climate change topics is not the first. There are articles from time to time but we had to search for quite a while until we found something.

d.) An article about an experiment with a huge icecube was very impressive. An icecube which is 730 kilograms heavy has been situated besides to a glacier which is melting quickly. The experment is to show how quickly the glacier is actually melting.

It's impressive to see this and it hopefully catches the attention of the people.

e.) Do you really want to have a green Matterhorn?!

3.a.

I feel anger if people negotiate the problems and if they don’t want to do something because they think it’s stupid to retrenche. I also feel anger if people say things like „I don’t care about the earth in 100 years, I won’t be there anymore.“. Conclusion: The thing that annoys me the most is indifference. I feel responsible fort he marks I leave and i try to keep them as small as possible. But I also feel a responsiblity for myself and that means that I don’t want to go back to stone age. I hope we arrive to pick up the pieces. I know that the world won’t become perfect, but I hope that it becomes the best that is possible.

3.b

I fear the consequences of a huge increase of temperature. I have a worst-case-image of a world very hot, dry and dusty where you never know where to get water or food. from. I feel a bit helpless but also motivated to do something. Helpless because there’s always the feeling that your doings is just a drop on a hot stone and motivated because it can just get better.

Rachel

As we can speak openly here I would like to be honest: I don't believe that we have the competence to stop climate change because it is a natural process. What we humans are doing is to accelerate this process. By now we are aware of this fact, but we aren't thinking about the consequences. Why? Because it won't concern us anymore, but the generations that follow, our children, our descendants!

This behaviour is very egoistic but it is a characteristic of humans.

I appeal to your reason, let's think about others for once and try to do without some of the things that make our lives so comfortable!

Anja

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We are going to raise a stand in the city, where we will give informations about climate change, give hints what people can do and ask them to protect the climate. We will also play music and sell water-saving taps and selfmade sweets. The money we earn, we will give to myclimate. We will do this two tmes during 6 hours. I hope the people will be interested...

Another group is going to visit primary school classes and will inform the children during a school lesson.

We are doing this because we think that lots of people don't really know much about climate change and how they can help to protect our environment.

(no answer yet)I think there are people who are to lazy, or they think it's to expensive, or they just forget the problem again. Or they think: "Actually, I have bigger problems than climate change". (Western) humans are like this.

But of course, these are stupid thougts and I try to avoid them and to do what is possible for me.

well to be honest if I had to say that a person REALLY acts climate friendly, I think I couldnt tell you anybody..

but I know SOME persons, that do everything thats possible for their possibilities.. for example go to school by bike, when they have quite a long way to school.. or only take cold showers.. things like that..

but I think in our world, in this industrialised world, we cannot act absolutely climate friendly.. but we can try our best..

I have written a diary entry about this subject. It's called " the climate change and the medias". Have a look at it...

a) it is painful to say so, but I really don't think that we would do things differently..

human nature is looking for power, for progress, for industry etc.

maybe there are people who would try to change the thinking, to produce things without, or with less oil.. maybe the numbers of co2 emissions would be lower, but I think we sort of need a catastrophe to make us see that we really need to change things..

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a) I really enjoy dancing, because it gives me the feeling to be free, to do what I want..

I love music, singing, playing the violin..

I couldn't be happy without my familiy, my friends > i like to hang out with them, to see that there are people who care for me.

I love to draw, to let out my feelings etc..

b) When I'm at school, I see my friends, but I'm not free to do what I want, so there are kind of two sides :)

mostly school is a reason why I can't do things i really enjoy, because you need to invest time in homework, practising etc.

but I think it is not bad, that you can't do these things all the time, because it wouldn't be something special any more..

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Some of us go to school by train, others by bike and a few of the people of our class come by bus.

Only those who are living further away from school than 5 km come by bus or train, all the others who are able to go by bike, do.

Most of the families of the people of our class have one car, about four or five have two cars and just one family doesn't have any car.

We're 18 people in the class so together we have about 22 cars.

Unfortunately a lot of people heat their houses with oil, others with wood and just one or two have a climate friendly ground-coupled heat pump.

Yes, especially fruits and vegetables are different, in winter nobody eats strawberries or peaches and in summer we don't eat mandarines because they aren't fresh.

I also have to say, that you can get all the things in the shops but they are not good when it's not their season.

People who look to the environment buy vegetables which grow at this time, so they don't make such a long way from abroad.

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I think the most important thing is, that everyone recognize the problems and the consequences which these prblems have because when everyone knows that we have to act NOW it would be much easier to start doing projects to protect our environment.

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The biggest problem of Switzerland is, that our glaciers are melting the consequences are, that our water supply gets smaller because the glacierrivers make a big part of our water supply.

We also will have problems with the tourism because Switzerland has many ski regions which get closed if the snow melts so no turists will come in the winter.

I think the biggest difference is the money..

our country is much richer.

but of course there are many other differences like the climate, the industry, the lifestyle etc.

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