Hey everyone, my name is Sydney Taylor and I am a junior majoring in International Studies with a concentration in U.S Foreign Policy. Like we have been asked plenty of times before, why did you choose to enroll in this class?, my answer is the following: I do not know a whole lot about environmental politics nor anything about International environmental politics. That says a lot since this past summer I worked as a full time intern at the United Nations and one of the things I had to work on was a briefing on the Copenhagen Agreement. To tell you the truth, I do believe in global warming and climate change, but to be completely honest from what I learned and experienced this summer, I do not think the world will come to a complete agreement on anything serious that will have great benefits on Climate Change. Sure, the leaders of the world will say, “Yes we need to do something”, but in reality how many of them will actually do anything serious about it. Except Denmark and a few others who have led the way in solar and wind energy.
Why I have come to this conclusion is because this world has become extremely competitive and many nations do not want to lose their standing in being an economic powerhouse. Also there are many countries, who depend on the exporting of millions of barrels of oil a day, a week, a year, who will be greatly affected by the cut back of oil. Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria are two countries, if I stand to be corrected that economy depends on the oil and other resources. This is what I believed and learned so far.
As a result, I definitely decided to stay in this class to learn more from an academic standpoint on what is going on in the world when it comes to climate change. What are other countries doing, that is not projected in the news, when it comes to climate change? What other technology is out there that is being created to decrease our dependency on oil? I would like to know more about how the environment effects food security in Africa and Asia where the result of climate change is being felt the most. Do people know that changing of the environment results in food instability or increase stability? If that answer is yes, what needs to be done to increase food security.
As you can see I have many questions and my one question that seems to confuse the mess out of people is, Why do they or do not believe in climate change and global warming? Is it because of the news media, the environment around you? Are we as a people in denial about the changes going around us? Are we too comfortable to realize that in order to live on this earth we must take care of it, just like we take care of our families. So everything I have just said explains to everyone why I enrolled in this class, what I hope to learn from this class and what I can hopefully contribute.

As to this article I just finished reading, a quote struck me in a way I can’t seem to explain. The quote reads, “But it is possible to believe something and still resist taking the actions your belief seems to require. (I believe that seat belts save lives, but I never wear them, even on airplanes.)” I think many of us can be defined by this quote. There are those who smoke and know it is extremely bad for you, but they still do it anyway. There are those who own and drive a gas guzzling SUV or Hummer, we know it’s a gas guzzler, but they still purchased the vehicle. I can go as far as to say there are many of us who yell that we need to wean off the oil dependency but um hey you guys, “ Many of you own SUV’s! There are millions of us that know that leaving the lights on when you are not in the room, leaving the water running when you are not using it, is bad for the environment because we are wasting the precious resources we have, but how many of you will actually unplug that electrical outlet when we leave the house. Because as we all now know, your TV may be off, but if its still plugged in the outlet, there are still electrical currents running through the system.
How many of us, are willing to change our ways because it will become less of a convenience to do it. Now when we try to calculate what it means to be living environmental friendly in the U.S. That takes a lot of planning to do. Turning and unplugging all the appliances every time we leave the room only to do it when we walk back into the room 10 minutes later. Not watering our lawn every two days but instead once or twice a month. Cutting our shower times down to less than 5 minutes or so. Not turning on the Air conditioner the minute it hits 77 degrees, but instead keeping the blinds close to keep the hot sun rays out. I think America can live environmentally friendly but when we have different people screaming different things from climate change is not real or the earth goes through this every so often, to the world will end in 50 years and not have a concise answer, it will definitely take some time for people to believe in sustainability and eco-friendly development.