Environmental GC

Each term at RCN, we have a Global Concerns (GC) day.

A global concerns day takes a topic from the 'RCN pilars' and discuss it through workshops and presentations. All workshops are made by students (with assistance by teachers) and during our two years here, everyone must help out planning one GC.

This term it was an environmental GC day. Next term will be humanitarian, then Nordic and out last term here will be "other," before they start over with environmental...

There were lots of different workshops (Resource Management, Success Stories, Waste Management, Education, Environmental Activism, Political Views and the ones I was in) that different groups of students had planned. I was in:

Environment & Culture - where we talked about environmental problems and way to look at environmental problems in different countries and cultures.

Climate Change - surprisingly enough we talked about climate change. We played games (for example jeopardy) and had a very interesting discussion about who's responsibility it is, to take the first step and do something for the environment.

Future Visions - this was my favorite workshop for the day. In three groups, we had to plan a city. One group were placed in the desert, one on the rainy coast and one in the cold inland. With fake money and specific resources, we had to create the most environmental friendly city with the happiest inhabitants.

Marine Conversations - again, the name speaks for it self. We talked about conversations under water and build water filters out of bottles and fabric.

At last, we had a very interesting presentation for the entire school, talking about No-Take Zones in fishing, and how this will actually improve the sea life and the fishing.
Here, you can read more.

Ozonisers took a picture for 350. "350 is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis." Read more, by clicking on the 350-link.

The most interesting things today, I think, was the presentation at last about no-take zones (you should really read the link) and then some of discussions.

In Climate Change we talked about who should take the first step towards a better environment. It sounds like a cliche, but really think about it. There are so many ideas on what to do, but right now all we do is talk. Who is gonna take action? Most people agreed that it should be the politicians.

Then, in my next workshop (Future Visions) we actually had to be the politicians and plan out how our city should be. Here, we talked about taking people's freedom, if they for example had to apply to buy new products (cars, computers ect.) or had to sort their garbage. Since we were trying to get a happy people as well, it was all about them being mad if we (the government) took charge.

But now how does that connect?

So we want the government to take the first step, to lead us, but then again we don't want them to make decisions for us? To control whether or not we recycle?

Who do you think should take the first step?