What's Your Issue?

Abstract

In February of 2011, I took the first step of a journey that would change my perspective on life of what I knew to be true. I filled out the application to be part of the Dickinson College Global Climate Change Africa Mosaic (“the Mosaic”). The Mosaic was a unique semester in which a group of 11 students took four classes in the fall of 2011 to prepare for a trip to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa. We spent the first two weeks of our three-week trip at the conference doing research on climate change negotiations, and the final week outside of Durban in the Valley of 1,000 Hills doing a service learning project. When I started, I was an environmental science major who was sure that climate change was a serious issue. I figured that the reason political progress was slow in this area was because political leaders did not understand the gravity of the situation, for surely if they did, they would do something to remedy it. The truth is, I did not understand the gravity of the situation myself, and world leaders may not be experts in the field, but they have a better grasp of the situation than I originally gave them credit for.