Can a bunch of bloggers change the world?

I hope so.

Today, thousands of bloggers across the world will unite for Blog Action Day to post on one issue - climate change.

The goal is simple; to influence the thinking of world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15 Copenhagen) in December so that a unilateral political agreement to lower carbon emissions worldwide can be agreed.

Given that the world is still talking about how to begin to tackle the problem in 2009, it’s bewildering that I wrote my first significant ‘work’ on climate change more than 20 years ago in 1988 – a secondary school project completed at the age of 13 which even then highlighted the threat to the ozone layer, the horror of deforestation in the Amazon and the need to explore cleaner fuels to power our cars and to generate electricity.

This is not a new issue. This is no longer a scientific debate about whether global warming does or doesn’t exist. The evidence is accepted as being clear and irrefutable. Climate change is happening - and it’s happening at an alarming rate.

Still cynical? Then take a look at the frightening images being catalogued by the Extreme Ice Survey’s remote cameras from the world’s retreating glaciers. The clip below – representing just two years of retreat between 2007 and 2009 – needs little explanation, justification or ratification.


AK-03 Columbia Cliff from Extreme Ice Survey on Vimeo

Perhaps more disturbingly, recent evidence collected by Polar explorer Pen Hadow, subsequently analysed by the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, supports what Professor Peter Wadhams calls a “consensus view” that Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years.

No, this is no longer a debate about the science, this is a political issue. Copenhagen should represent a vital opportunity to make unprecedented progress – and failure by the world’s leaders to take that opportunity must not be an option, according to incoming COP15 president, Connie Hedegaard on the COP15 website.

“If the whole world comes to Copenhagen and leaves without making the needed political agreement, then I think it’s a failure that is not just about climate.

“It’s the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century. And that is and should not be a possibility. It’s not an option”

So, if you feel strongly. Pop a few wise words on a blog and submit it to the Blog Action Day site as soon as you can.