CSD

If any of you have been watching CNN lately, the press and country are abuzz about President-Elect Obama’s picks for prominent positions in his upcoming administration, including his Cabinet.  One of the most recently announced is UC Berkeley’s own Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who has been nominated to be the next Secretary of Energy.

Along with other members of Obama’s energy and environment staff (known by some as the “green dream team”), Dr. Chu has used his position at a prominent research facility to study climate change and its negative effects. In recent years, the Lab has had extensive research forays into alternative fuels, including cellulose from plants, which could potentially replace harmful fossil fuels in years to come.

According to experts, Obama’s “dream team” has one thing in common - an understanding of the connection between climate change and economic growth, and that the pursuit of renewable energy can create jobs. Obama himself has already pledged to create 5 million green jobs and invest $150 million in building an economy reliant on renewable energy sources over the next decade.  Though Obama has yet to be sworn in, the promises of the next administration and recent growth of the green industry in the United States may provide a good counter-example to the longheld belief that economic growth and environmental sustainability do not mix.
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Here are a few questions to help you use this example to relate back to your 2nd topic - Industry and Regulation - for CSD: How might the pursuit of sustainable development create economic growth in your country?   What policies by local, national and international bodies could help create these positive economic results?  What position should NGOs and educational institutions, in general and in your country, play in the push toward sustainable industry?

Happy holidays, everyone!

–Kelly

Hi everyone,

I’m glad to see that some of you are following the blog, and thanks to those of you that have submitted comments. This is just a quick note to let you know that I have received them, but we’re in the middle of finals week over here at Berkeley so I will be a little delayed in moderating the comments and getting back to you all individually. Please expect to hear back from me by the 20th at the latest.

Also, please stay tuned as there will be a slight modification to one of the topic synopses pertaining to drought. In order to keep the discussion from being too broad, we’re going to narrow it down to a particular region - yet to be decided. I will post this information as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, please do continue doing research on drought in your country. Look especially for innovative solutions that you or your neighbors have come up with to address the issue, as these will be useful no matter what region is selected.

Thanks for your comments, and keep them coming!

–Marie

How many of you out there reading this blog have already seen the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace ?  For those of you who haven’t, I highly encourage you to check it out!  It’s a well-made and exciting film, and if your parents or your budget are constraining factors, you can justify the trip to the cinema as “educational research” for BMUN 57’s CSD!  Why, you ask?

Well, the film features the villain as a scheming investor who is plotting to buy up all the water rights in the deserts of developing countries like Bolivia.   Bond, of course, figures out the scheme and a fast-paced multi-country and multi-million dollar pursuit ensues.  While I won’t reveal the entire plot to you, I would like to note that this is not such a far-fetched idea – even though water in the desert may seem like the bizarre invention of a desperate movie producer, it has actually happened in the past!

Libya, for example, found water in the late 1980s while searching for underground oil fields.  They have since engineered the Great Man-Made River – “one of the largest civil engineering projects in the world” but also one of the least known.  The river is now fueling all sorts of economic changes in the country.  Uzbekistan, too, has an underground water supply that has considerably improved human health in recent years.

To turn the discussion back to desertification, what relevance do water rights have in your delegation? How has your country’s access to water (or lack thereof) affected the national economy?  Who own the water in your country, and why?  What are your opinions on who should own a resource that is necessary to life?

–Marie

I recently came across an article about the United Nations’ 2009 aid request.  They are asking for a record $7 billion in aid to help millions of people recover from disasters (whether they are natural or man-made) and conflict in the next year alone.  This is notably the largest request made in U.N. history.  The organization’s request also reminds countries that the global financial crisis does not justify a country’s making fewer contributions to foreign aid – after all, storms don’t pay attention to economics!  (Although there’s an argument to be made that wars can be made or broken by the same.)  Last year, the U.N. asked for $3.8 billion, to which it later added several billion more in aid to respond to “natural disasters and soaring food prices.”

Here is a question for those of you following our blog: in the next year, what kind of disasters, whether natural or man-made, might justify the dispensing of aid by the United Nations for problems pertaining to our topics of drought and desertification, or perhaps in regards to industry and regulation?

– Marie

Hey everyone,

Just writing to introduce myself.  My name is Hewa Artin, and I am a Junior-Transfer Student at Cal. I am majoring in Molecular Cell Biology with an emphasis in Neurobiology. I have done a year and a half of Model United Nations in community college and am excited to be a part of BMUN at Berkeley. I don’t have a lot of prior experience with coordinated sustainability but am looking forward to being a part of the Commission on Sustainable Development so that I can learn more about sustainability, and help make a difference in today’s important environmental issues.

I encourage you all to check back regularly, as we will begin posting more frequently with news updates and recommendations as you begin writing your papers.

Looking forward to meeting you all in February!

–Hewa

Hi everyone! My name is Kelly Fitzpatrick and I will be one of your vice
chairs for the Commission on Sustainable Development. I’m currently a
third-year student at UC Berkeley, though this is just my second year with
BMUN. I’m a double major in political science and history, with an
intended minor in Spanish. Outside of BMUN, I work at a part-time job and
write for UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, the Daily Californian. I’m very
excited to be a part of this new commission, particularly because of the
relevance environmental issues have to current policy debates in
California, the U.S., and worldwide. I can’t wait to meet all of you in
the spring and I hope to be talking to you (via our CSD blog) very soon!

–Kelly

Those of you who may have begun research on areas affected by drought for your topic synopses will note that Australia is facing a record drought - its worst in over 100 years, according to the BBC.  As an island nation, it is likely that the anthropogenic climate change that is causing monstrous storms (like Hurricane Katrina, Cyclone Nargis, and others) and flooding in some regions is also causing prolonged periods of dry weather and drought in places like Australia.

Many nations with low sea levels and coastal residents are considering innovative (if alarming) solutions to the impending climate crisis.  The Maldives, a network of islands south of India in the Indian Ocean, for example, have announced that they are setting up an investment fund to purchase drylands as a refuge for their citizens in the event that ocean levels begin to rise above their current levels.

Australia’s top officials have openly acknowledged the link between natural gas emissions like methane - produced largely by grazing animals like cows and sheep - and climate change, and have come up with an interesting response: eat more kangaroo!  The proposal to increase consumption of kangaroo meat is intended to curb greenhouse gas emissions (of which methane is one) which will in turn slow the onset of climate change.  Though the link between drought and climate change is indirect, it remains an important example of a country taking initiative to reduce its own contribution to the global climate crisis.

And now for a question directed at delegates who will be attending in the spring: as you are working on your topic synopses and learning more about your country’s own initiatives to address drought and desertification, have you come across any interesting or innovative solutions that, perhaps, hadn’t crossed your mind before?

Please remember to respond to these posts with your name, delegation and high school to be sure we can give adequate credit when your papers are submitted.

–Marie

Hi everyone, my name is Marie Logan and I’ll be your head chair for BMUN 57’s Commission on Sustainable Development.  I’m a history major and studying Spanish for my minor, and my area of concentration is in Latin America.  You may recognize my name as I’m also the Sustainability Coordinator in this year’s officer corps. I’m really excited about this commission because it’s new to BMUN! I’m particularly interested in these issues and I’m excited to share my passion about this topic with you. Our vice chairs this year are Kelly Fitzpatrick and Hewa Artin. We’re all very excited to meet you next spring!

We will be posting regularly to this blog in the coming months - sharing interesting news articles, or mentioning something relevant that we’ve learned recently in our classes here at Cal. I definitely encourage you all to check back often. To give you some incentive, there will be extra credit points offered for substantive responses that are made to our blog posts. Remember that points will be given based on quality, not quantity - but showing that you’re regularly checking up can’t hurt either.

Thanks for visiting, and we invite you to check back soon.