Kerr’s Green Debate Team

Without education, you probably couldn’t read this post right now. Learning is the essential component of every society. Without it, ideas and skills would not be passed on from one generation to another. Literacy is often one of the most often cited goals of education and one of the most common, being one of the most primitive and useful skills that can be learned. Unfortunately, too many countries are unable to afford to spend time on teaching even these basic skills, because there are higher priority activities that have to be learned. These involve something that is seen as even more important then reading, which is considered a luxury: surviving.

            In many of the provinces of Southeast Asia, poverty is rampant and teaching scarce. Subsidence farming and provisional skills are the rules of life’s crazy game. In Bangladesh, such attributes are required to withstand the seasonal floods that scar the country in raging waters and ungodly sanitary conditions. As one of the most densely populated places on the planet, it is a wonder the country manages to sustain relatively few deaths. Indeed, most of the danger lies not with the moving streams, but the mosquitoes and dirty water which people are forced to use. People are usually unable to be prepared to handle the floods, and end up resorting to using the same water they urinate in to clean their teeth.

            Luckily, immense strides have been taken place to handle these dangers. The government has recently announced that the education budget will be increased by littler over 2%: a 3 billion dollar investment. Although spread out, most of the new budget is concentrated towards the farmer class who will be taught basic skills on how to survive and maintain hygienic conditions during the floods that attack the area. Measures will include early-preparation by storing fresh-water, teaching how to farm on top of roofs, boat construction to rescue others, how to raise the level of fresh-water wells, and how to purge groundwater of arsenic which has managed to infest most of the wells.

            There is still work to be done however. Measures must be taken to help those who are unable to reach educational facilities, and improvements in health and an economic policy shift will have to be taken inside of the rural communities to make up the lost money. Despite this, the Bengali government has shown its compassionate side, and such measures will help the Bengali people use education to not only survive, but thrive.

A lot of “action”, ironically, on climate change is all talk and not a lot is getting done. 

The first blog talks about how the EU (European Union) will stand by Bangladesh and other (LDC’s) in hopes of making a significant impact in climate change.

 Where the problem comes is in terms of what will actually be done. They talk a lot about what they plan on doing and what they have in mind, and although intentions are important in helping other countries, what makes this plan different from the others in the past?

 What is also more suspicious is that the EU has a very strong interest in Bangladesh even though is doesn’t contribute nearly as much as green house gas emissions as other countries, in which they concede.

 Moreover it is a low developing country. Who cares if they want to help if they can’t handle a huge burden of doing things that take funding? It is true they EU could give them money but they are a low developing country, they have more important issues to solve.

 Even if people disagree that their problem isn’t more important than global warning, what people can’t deny is that if you can’t handle your situation locally, how do you expect them to solve things globally and of more quantity.

 Towards the end of the editorial, they further this idea that promoting all of these meetings will provoke change, will this maybe true there isn’t any uniqueness to why these meetings specifically will perpetuate the outcome that everyone wants.

The same theme happens to reoccur in The New York Times editorial about how it’s a “New Day on Climate Change.”

 Apparently, Obama has directed the (EPA) Environmental Protection Agency to think about whether or not California should be able to set their own rules on green-house gas emissions in which President Bush rejected.

 While this deserves a gold star for effort it really isn’t doing much—this organization is only considering it. One must also take into a consideration that even with this big goal of reducing green-house by x percentage is wonderful and they give lots of statistics that would go into effect if this was passed but it hasn’t.

 Furthermore the bill in California hasn’t been passed either therefore we can’t say this is a stepping stone for American climate action.

 Another thing that must be considered is the likely hood that this will get passed. With president Obama standing behind this doesn’t guarantee the affirmation of this plan. Currently, the president isn’t the most popular president at this time with lots of the American people, disapproving of his actions so far.                  

            When will American and the World realize promises and discourse is only as useful as  the action that occurs?