If you havent had a chance to watch any of the COP 26 discussions, I would definitely recommend it. There have been several interesting and inspiring presentations, videos, and speeches so far, and many hopeful promises. The science still says we can maintain our global temperature within 1.5 degrees C of pre-industrisl temperatures, but we may already be at a point where that may be politically infeasible and it is statistically becoming more unlikely. In the video, Johan Rockstrom revisits his concept of the 9 planetary boundaries that we have discussed several times in our course. The information presented in this talk includes updated scientific findings on where we stand today in relation to our planet's boundaries. I have included first, the link to an entire segment that includes several smaller Ted talks related to the climate crisis that follow Rockstrom's discussion. The next links are segments by Johan Rockstrom in other portions of the conference.
Peter Rockstrom discusses Planetary Boundaries at TED Countdown, COP26 Glasgow
Johan Rockström at #COP26: 10 New Insights in Climate Science | UN Climate Change
Johan Rockström at #COP26: "We have reached the decisive decade"
These are just a few segments from this week that I thought related most to class as we have discussed this specific aspect of sustainability recently. However, the entire conference has been interesting and is all available online through various outlets. Having watched most of this weeks proceedings, I am anticipating next week's sessions in which actual negotiations will take place to come to final agreements and commitments by world leaders of state, business, and NGO's. It is refreshing to see the seriousness of this issue, but also alarming that this is real and we really need to anticipate some major changes to how we live. These changes can only come in 2 ways it seems, either by choice, where we come together to work syngergetically as a global population to make the changes necessary, or involuntarily, if we fail to take action, or the action we take is insufficient to prevent the shocking changes that will be afflicted upon our species as we try to cope with an unstable climate. I hope we are able to choose the former, if it is not already too late.