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December 10, 2009

An Ocean of People

This is Jackie’s second post from Copenhagen. Stay tuned for more and read the other dispatches.  – Emily

It’s an ocean of people here at the International Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen. Like schools of fish, we are all swimming upstream and down in hopes of catching our elusive prey, climate negotiators who hold the power to preserve our otherwise quickly degrading habitat to make sure it’s here in the future for the small fry. 

The Bella Center, where we are working, is a diverse ecosystem consisting of individuals from nearly every country of the world, rich and poor, those set up high in the mountains and in low-lying island nations. Many of these countries have sent a diversity of interests: business, industry, government, journalists and importantly those of us committed to preserving our environment, who in United Nations-speak go by the name of ENGO’s or Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations.  

The Oceana team is here in the name of ocean acidification — a growing problem for our oceans that threatens massive extinctions of corals and major disruptions of other ocean ecosystems if we don’t find a way to stop pumping carbon dioxide into our air.
 
We’ve teamed up with some of the foremost scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, POGO and the Plymouth Marine Lab to get that message out. We have a library of information and a full time exhibit where delegates to the convention can pick up materials and learn about ocean acidification. We hope that this information will re-energize negotiators and help make sure they devise and commit to a strong agreement that will save our oceans and all the life within them.