Tuesday

The first day of a seminar is always filled with expectations, anxiety and excitement. Everybody is pumped to start something new. The grey morning weather did not deter anyone.

Today was more theoretical, which is a good step to the practical part. An awesome introduction and explanation into the theme `‘the good life‘ with focus on climate change.

After a lovely breakfast, we started the first part which was about climate change and ecological boundaries. We take natural resources from the ecosystem and then the output of our activities destroy the planet. From plastic in oceans, to air pollution, to loss of desert, destruction of portable water and so many others.

Sometimes, we usually hear climate change and think it is far fetched but it is closer to home than we think. One other activity which was an eye opener was the population distribution, GDP and CO2 emissions from the various continents. Not forgetting, the CO2 emissions per person annually from selected countries. Almost every group guessed that China will be country with the most CO2 emissions per person but NO Way, it was the USA. That was a lesson for most of us concerning what you read or perceive about a country.

After a lovely meal, there was a discussion on Economic growth. We broke up into 4 groups and made posters on various texts on „the Inhabitable Earth`. This made us see that climate change is not in the future but it has already started. It is live and happening. The numbers. The statistics and research speak for themselves. We also cast our minds back to events that have changed. For example, in Ghana, it actually rains during the rainy season and now you cannot even tell. We also talked about how we do not see certain insects as often as before, for example; the firefly.

Today’s activities made most of us a bit sad but motivated to do something about it. Humans are the main cause of destruction , we are the ones who can help solve it as well. We all look forward to tomorrows discussion and activities.

We then took a nice stroll. As I walked by the river, the green parks, and the gardens. I just thought to myself. It will be sad if my children do not get to see a tree or in my case…a firefly

Emefa