Green Piece - issue 2

Issue 2 - Online VersionAugust 15th, 2011

Green Piece - Official Magazine of Lake Constance 2011 -

Editorial

2 Green Piece - Official Magazine of Lake Constance 2011

Lucky holder of this magazine,

The time I got introduced to you by Mr. President will certainly remain memorable. The moment I pro-mised that the Zucchini would play an important role at this session seems like ages ago and yet it was only yesterday.Time seems to be a flexible concept in EYP. You met one another less than 24 hours ago but can cer-tainly already engage a conversation with any of your fellow delegates’ parents about their childhood, secret dream or favourite actor. And yet, time is precious, we are not here forever, even though most of us would wish; except for the organisers maybe. It is everybody’s duty to make the most out of this short but definitely sweet experience. Give and you shall receive.

This is how this session is also meant to be. Once, we were given a lot from Nature but nowadays, we fail to fulfil our assignment. Indeed, we, human beings want things fast but tend to forget what our choices imply for others. We believe that certain things are not mortal; however, this is the point; we have to question ourselves and find out whether we are true fools or only dreamers. We cannot afford to keep on living our current lifestyle. Nature in its multiple representations is destroyable. Ozone holes, melting polar ices, floods and desertification are the result of our insatiable desire for more. To take a stepping-stone in attempting to offer solutions to this urgent issue you chose to join us here. It is now time to prove your engagement and put your heads together to propose a concrete solution set to these burning problems.

May this issue be helping you by strengthening your mind or discovering an aspect you haven’t though about, yet. Be creative, exchange opinions and debate until you found the common ground of a consen-sus. Thus, we also aim to entertain you with “Green Piece” and “Green Piece TV” and hope you had as much fun reading and watching our products than we had producing them.

Enjoy the moment. Alex Narayanin - Editor -

CONTENT This Magazine was brought to you by 2. Editorial

4. ENVI - ECON

5. Is Batman the good Guy ? - AGRI

6. AFET - ITRE

7. DEVE - TRAN

8. Adventures of Zucchini Duck

12. Delegates’ Interviews

14. Smooth Criminal

15. It’s really Green in here !

16. Denying Climate Change

17. What are we talking about ?

20. Global Warming

21. The Zucchini - Eurovillage

22. Survival Guide

3Issue 2

4 Green Piece - Official Magazine of Lake Constance 2011 Issue 2

One of the more pressing concerns raised by climate change is its effect on extreme weather conditions. Extremes in matters of precipitation levels and in terms of high temperatures can have devastating consequences on human life.

According to studies launched on behalf of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety committee in 2005, climate change will result in severe heat waves such as the one that swept Europe in occurring almost every second year. Due to human influence we have seen hurricane intensity increase by 70%, terrible floods sweep European plains and severe droughts are now 75% more likely.

The ‘who’ has verified over 22.000 deaths as a result of the 2003 heat wave. 2005, the year of the EU study, had seen 26 tropical storms in the region, 14 of which went on to become hurricanes and 4 of these reached the United States. All of

these figures are records for European storms and one of the hurricanes, Wilma, reached the highest intensity level ever recorded. Storms causing €1 billion or more in damages are now to be expected every 2-3 years. We have seen a marked increase in extreme rainfall events. On the other end of the spectrum the world area suffering from drought has doubled since the 1970s to include much of southern Europe.

All these indicators show that action needs to be taken.

Such action must be two pronged. The ENVI committee must come up with innovative ways for Europe to deal with natural disasters and extreme weather conditions as they happen while also working to reduce the likelihood of their occur-rence; or at least prevent an increase in such a probability.

Climate at its Extreme - ENVI By Eoin O’Driscoll

A coin has two sides. When you flip it, it almost never ends up balanced on the edge. And even when it does, it eventually falls down and makes an unpleasant noise.

The EU has many coins. One of them is the “greenhouse effect” coin. One side encourages reducing greenhouse gases to a minimum; the other stresses a strong economy. The EU intends to be presented as a great economic and political power, similar to the USA or China. However, it deliberately differentiates itself from other “world players” by being aware of a wide range of other issues such as social and environmental ones. That puts us exactly into the position of balancing on the edge.

The intention to be the best at everything fails to be sustainable. As an example, we can look at the environmental issues. We’ve been told about cli-mate change and global warming for several years now. At the beginning, no one believed it. Later, decision makers emphasised the importance of

a strong economy and encouraged massive pro-duction. Lately, the trend is to be “green” and re-duce the amount of anything harmful to our planet. This change in opinion resulted in a late response to the situation that has been serious for quite a long time already. Such delays between informa-tion and action have already caused painful and costly reorganisations in both the private and the public sector.

The crucial decision is between heads or tails. One option is to compete with the powerful and developing China. In that case, we have to ac-knowledge that even the USA has lost this fight. Their credit rating has been lowered recently; this is an end of an era. The other option is to become greener. That would mean submitting to the loss of a certain level of comfort.

Both sides of the coin require sacrifices. But this decision has to be made before the coin really falls down. Such noise would be unbearable.

EU flipping a Coin - ECON By Veronika Drzková

5Issue 2

The European agricultural sector is struggling to ensure a balance between supply and demand and with the development of organic farming. The Common Agricultural Policy plays an im-portant role in ensuring this. How does it work today and what can be improved?

The usual way of ensuring an eco-friendly production is put-ting pressure on farmers with for example new regulations in the CAP and Single Payment Scheme. These demands have forced the European farmers to comply with organic methods, which is a vast improvement.

However, the responsibility is not just the farmers’. The supply and demand should match in order

to avoid overproduction. This is not the case today. Farmers pro-duce organic products in a lar-ger extent than what is sold. The prices of organic and ecological products are out concurred by the cheaper, non-organic ones. What is the benefit of an organic product if it is not sold and goes to waste? The producer and the consumer should both equally pay the price of the ecological burden caused by the produc-tion of organic products.

Whilst the CAP serves as the Eu-ropean customers’ Batman, it is the developing countries’ Joker. The export subsidies, included in the CAP, affects the domestics markets in developing countries .The CAP should not be a tool to demise developing countries

whilst benefiting the EU.

According to a study by Louise Fresco at Wageningen Universi-ty, farmers have the resources to produce 1000% more than ne-cessary. We have the resources to feed several more Earths and to ensure the future of our pla-net. However, these resources are not being used properly. This proves that something is really off beam and vastly questions the necessity and function of the CAP. The current CAP could be summarised as unbalanced pressure on farmers and custo-mers and unbalanced opportu-nities for the EU and developing countries. With these conditions serving, how can one expect a balanced supply and demand?

Is Batman the good Guy ? - AGRI By Noura Berrouba


There are countries on the African horn such as Somalia, which haven’t witnessed real rainfall in over two years; something unimaginable for Euro-peans like us. The climate of the wider parts of the African continent and the Middle East is extremely unbeneficial for growing crops and vegetables, which are essential to us humans as a part of heal-thy nutrition.

In addition, climate change reinforces the tough living conditions, steadily causing more draughts and less rain. The poor people in the deve-loping countries are, unjustly so, most affected by the changing climate caused by the industrial countries. They are very dependent on donations and charity that they receive from the Western world and it is not very surprising that many deaths there are caused by starvation or malnutrition.

There are, however, examples of locations where even the desert has been made fertile enabling it to carry healthy organic food; The Egyptian Sekem

farm is one of those.

The name “Sekem” is a translation from an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph and means “vitality”. This is exactly what the farm and the whole ideology behind this farm stand for. It was founded in 1977 by Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish, and is located just nor-theast from the desert of Cairo. The aim of the Sekem initiative is to meet today’s challenge of sustainable human development by contributing towards a comprehensive advancement of the in-dividual, the community and the environment. Fur-thermore the products of the Sekem farm are all made of ingredients originating from biodynamic farming in the fields of natural pharmaceuticals, food and textiles and are thus all organic and of highest quality.

In order to help people living in such areas it is im-portant that those of us who are wealthy enough to support them in building up their own farming culture, follow the model of the Sekem farm.

Nothing is Impossible - AFET By Nicole Goetz

German ‘Angst’ - ITREGerman nuclear power stations have always been safe. Of course every now and then there have been small incidents and accidents such as when the power plant in Brunsbüttel had to be shut down because of sloppy construction work and wrong wall plugs. Or when Krümmel went up in flames and had to be shut down in 2007.

Funnily enough the aforementioned caused about 110.000 maniacs to protest against nuclear en-ergy by building a 120 kilometres long human chain between the power stations in Krümmel and Brunsbüttel. Of course 120 kilometres of antago-nism didn’t change the government’s opinion on nuclear power so that in 2010 it still provided al-most 25% of Germany’s total energy and thereby was the largest contributor in the German energy mix after coal-fired power.

However this calculation was done without 2011. After a strong earthquake, a giant tsunami hit se-

veral nuclear power plants in Japan so that whole cities had to be evacuated and that kept everyone worldwide on the edge of their seats for months. Suddenly the possibility of planes crashing into German power plants was taken as an excuse to shut down seven more nuclear reactors while France obviously doesn’t have any problems be-cause they are still getting more than 75% of their energy out of a total of 59 nuclear power plants. Even after 9/11 the United States are still very confident no one will fly a plane into one of their 104 nuclear power plants. This is probably why they are building plant number 105 at the moment and trying hard to keep up with China where five more plants are being built at the moment.

Looking at these countries who Germany usually likes to compare with in every way this looks like classic case of “German Angst” to me.

By Timm Brünjes

7Issue 2

Did you know that the money spent by the United States government on the Pentagon in one single day amounts to enough to buy bed nets for pro-tection from malaria for the entire area most direly in need of it? Shut down the Pentagon for one single day and for five years millions of people would be much less likely to be infected with ma-laria. Of course it isn’t that simple, shutting down the Pentagon.

What this anecdote does however illustrate is that the developing countries and developed countries such as the United States have huge differences in how much money they spend. Of course you don’t have to be a genius to realise that. It also painfully reminds us that there are very basic things that African governments and people can’t afford. Is cutting emission one of them?

Some critics of the Kyoto protocol opposed it for the reason that it failed to demand CO2 emission reductions from developing countries while setting them for developed countries. To some this may

seem unfair, based on the argument that deve-loping countries already pollute and will do so even more as their economies develop. Maybe their share right now should just be smaller in sha-ring the burden; nevertheless it should exist.

In a way that argument makes sense to me. Still, I’m a little more of an optimist than that. I see a huge opportunity here, an opportunity to build these developing economies to be ecological from the get go. Besides whoever said that if it wasn’t written down on paper that developing countries wouldn’t do their best to keep their emissions under control. China is a good example of this, having dramatically cut emissions in last decades.

As a final note, it would be pretty unreasonable to ask developing countries to cut down their emis-sions further when a large part of their carbon footprint is due to the imports they buy from us. It’s almost like the Western is stepping on Africa’s face with it giant carbon foot.

Hey big Spender - DEVE By Saga Eriksson

Everyone wants a green-city, a green way of tra-veling, a green economy but before choosing an eco-friendly change we should know how trans-ports’ emissions could change the climate as well as human’s health.

Do you know what benzene and carbon monoxide can cause to your health? A brief exposure to very high concentration of benzene in air can lead to death. Lower levels can cause drowsiness, diz-ziness, headaches and tremors. On the same note carbon monoxide is dangerous because it inhibits the blood’s ability to carry oxygen to vital organs. Inhaled CO combined with the oxygen carrying blood’s hemoglobin forms carboxyhemoglobin, which is unusable to transporting oxygen.

How many substances can cause cardio-respi-ratory damages? Nitrogen oxide can cause reac-

tions with hemoglobin in blood, lessen the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, decrease the Vita-min A rate in the organism and can cause cancers. And what about your brain and your metabolism? Cadmium could cause the excretion of essential proteins and sugar from the body as well as bone fractures, infertility and damages to the immune system. Furthermore mercury can cause the ex-cretion of essential proteins and sugar from the body.

A life full of trips all around the world is the life that everybody wants. It’s important to be conscious of the consequences we generate to the atmos-phere and to our health. Is it more important to travel and to have health damages or traveling in a “green way” and saving our health and our planet?

Air Pollution - TRAN By Monica Mantovani

Once upon a time there lived the Zucchini duck. Half zucchini, half duck, this shy, retiring creature li-ved alone in Lake Constance.But the Zucchini duck was not happy there. Climate change had already caused the water levels to rise to a level that the Zucchini duck found uncomfortable. Those mean swans kept pecking at him with their sharp beaks and insul-ting him for his lack of feathers. “You’re not a duck”, they’d say, “you’re a vegetable!”. It made the Zucchini duck cry but no more, now he had decided that he was having no more of this nonsense

and would leave Lake Constance and its mean swans behind. He had determined to set out for Antarctica where he would be amongst his own kind.

Waddling down the road, suitcase under wing, the Zucchini duck headed into the train station. He was so happy to finally setting out and away from his lonely existence here in Lake Constance. However, when he finally walked into the station he began to cry. “All these signs are in German”, he wept, “and I only speak ‘Duckish’”. So the Zucchini duck sat there, des-

pondent, sobbing, sitting on his suitcase in the corner of the train station. He sat there crying for hours until the water moderator for Lake Constance came out of the train operator’s office. She had long been a friend of the Zucchini duck and in her basic Duckish as-ked him why he was so said. He explained his problem and in res-ponse Veronika, the kindly water moderator, shook here head.

“Have you not heard about the cli-mate change?”, she said, “It has caused the water levels to rise so high that I have just had to tell the

Adventures of the Zucchini Duck

By Eoin O’Driscoll


Part One: Escape from Lake Constance

operator to shut down all trains to Antarctica. They are just too dan-gerous with all this climate change going on.”

The Zucchini duck got even more upset. How would he ever make it to his kin in Antarctica now? Vero-nika, however, had an idea “Don’t worry,” she said, “you can always get an airplane. I’ll drive you to the airport and you’ll be in Antarctica in no time!”.

Alas, it was not to be. When the Zucchini duck went up to the Duck Airlines desk, the pretty, young

duckette behind the counter just shook her head. “Have you not heard about the climate change.”, she said, “It has caused yet ano-ther freak storm and there are no flights leaving this airport tonight!”The Zucchini duck was now utterly depressed. How would he get to Antarctica now? The pretty little duckette took pity on him and an idea suddenly struck her. “Don’t fret little duck”, she said, “you’d could always ask Baron von Zep-pelin to help you! My sister’s his pet duck, I’ll bring now if you want!”And so, off the Zucchini Duck went to meet with the far famed Baron

von Zeppelin to ask for a ride in one of his marvellous airships. The gregarious Baron was more than happy to take the Zucchini duck on one of his inventions. It had been too long since anyone had wanted to ride on one of his wonderful airships. And so, the Zucchini duck found himself flying off to Antarctica with the one pilot brave and in the one airship sturdy enough to foil the nefarious sche-mes of climate change and bring the Zucchini duck safely to his kin.

9Issue 2


Sometimes, words are not enough.

11Issue 2

Sometimes, words are not enough.

At the beginning of this innovative green session, how could we miss the opportunity to interview some of our dear delegates?

Let’s have a look at how they answered to our questions.

How did you get to the session?What are your expectations?Describe your best EYP memory!How much did you Facebook stalk the officials and committee members?

Delegates’ Interviews

Alina Zalewsky, Germany, ENVI

When we asked Alina where she came from and she told us she is German, we were very surprised about how she came to Friedrichshafen. She came here with a car shared with four people which are not at the session.

She expects to meet new people all around Europe and she would like to have a good topic discussion, too. Alina, in fact, studied Environmental studies at high school and she thinks that having an idea about this subject is fundamental.

Alina’s best EYP memory is her past Olympic Forum, where she met a good friend. To the question about if and how much she stalked the officials’ team and her committee mates she answered that she had no time to stalk them, because she was very busy with her trips and her studies.


Adam Borowsky, Poland, ITRE

Adam’s trip was a rather short one, taking five and a half hour with airplane and train. With an interest in nuclear power issues he sees this as an opportunity to discuss it in a climate context.

Asked about his best EYP memory he enthusiastically talks about his first session- The 16th regional session of EYP Po-land. The atmosphere in General Assembly and the Closing Ceremony impressed him. Furthermore, he especially enjoyed the last part, singing and hugging to Imagine by John Lennon.

Adam attended the Iberian session in Spain, just before this session, and did therefore not have any time to Facebook stalk. However, he says that if he could have, he would have.

By Noura Berrouba and Monica Mantovani

Olcay Soyalan, Turkey, AGRI

When Olcay said she was Turkish, we expected to hear about her trip from Istanbul. We were surprised when she said that she travelled by bus and airplane, all the way from USA.

Asked about her expectations, Olcay expects it to be amazing and full of surprises. She also thinks that the session theme being specific will result in many useful solutions.

Surprisingly enough, Olcay’s best EYP memory was sad. Saying goodbye to her new friends at the 1st IFES in Stockholm they were not saying goodbye but rather see you soon. Sadly, she didn’t meet anyone yet, but hopes to do in the future.

Asked about how much she facebook stalked her committee members she told us about the frustration she felt when she didn’t find the names in the email. The profiles she found were closed so she couldn’t see any pictures. She stalked most of the officials but especially her chair, Sini.

Manuel Garcia, Spain, TRAN

On Saturday, Manuel, from TRAN committee, came from Spain to the session by plane, unfortunately not paying extra charge for the environment because he didn’t see this option while buying his tickets.

He, probably as all the other delegates, hopes to meet new friends from all around Europe to discuss environmental topics and to share opinions to solve the big problem that climate change is.

Manuel’s best EYP memory is the strangest we’ve ever listened about. After his Spanish National Session, when he was to the airport, he met a session’s journalist who had a big box with muffins (the ones of the coffee breaks during the session) and who started giving them to the people leaving.

Manuel did not use Facebook to stalk officials and delegates, he preferred Google instead in order to know everything about them!

13Issue 2

Green Piece - Official Magazine of Lake Constance 201114

“On a scale of 1 to I’ve already fallen asleep because this ques-tion is so long, how tired are you?” The session President, Mark Brakel looks at us with a slightly confused look on his face. “That is a very complicated scale. But since there’s a lot of adrenaline in my body right now I’d say 1, meaning not tired at all. I’m very excited for the Roma-nian delegates to arrive.”

However, the Romanians aren’t the only ones Mark looks forward to spending time with. He recalls his best session to date to be the Czech Nationals where he was privy to the karaoke talent and straightforward nature of the aforementioned population.

When it comes to this session; Mark plans to top this previous frontrunner by proceeding to harass the Czech officials and delegates and of course to party hard. Nonetheless the session theme and living ecologically still seems to provide him with

some room for improvement. Sitting in his stuffy apartment in winter he sometimes opens the window whilst leaving the heater on which, in his own words, is not the most ecological of acts. He hopes to redeem himself by cycling as a means of transpor-tation and eventually relocating his session cup. He also hopes the use of the hybrid car during the session will put him back in the planet’s good graces.

Since Mark feels that small ac-tions alone can’t save the planet we fear that his measures of re-demption may not be enough to save his homeland the Nether-lands from being submerged under water in the following two decades. Forced to emigrate he sees himself moving to the Middle East. He hopes to find help from the AFET committee in choosing which Middle Eastern mountaintop would be the ideal destination.

Then again, maybe all the com-

mittees of this session will to-gether come up with an ade-quate enough plan to keep Mark in Europe, and EYP for even lon-ger. We just have to make sure that he doesn’t have to relive another awkward moment of chasing after his delegates at a supermarket being desperately late for Committee Work. To Mark EYP is like the Bodensee. Upon arriving to Friedrichshafen we didn’t immediately see the lake, hidden behind the trees, just as upon arriving to EYP for the first time higher meanings to it all seem to be lost in a forest that we can’t yet see for its trees. Then you get to the lake, start Teambuilding and Committee Work and see the beauty of it all. Regardless, jumping in the cold water may be uncomfortable at first but Mark’s leadership and kindness makes it all worthwhile. And once you get in deeper, the water starts feeling warmer and you feel like you could stay in there forever.

Smooth CriminalBy Saga Eriksson and Timm Brünjes

15Issue 2

We all know that the Youth Summit on Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies in Friedrichshafen equals „the green session“. But what does it mean, exactly? How can we be sure that the announced environmental friendliness is really happening? Well, just look around and you’ll see.

It’s really Green in here !By Veronika Drzková

Throughout the session, the organisers have two hybrid cars - Toyota Prius - at their disposal. They got two in the end, even though they initially asked for only one!

The organisers who arrived by plane did not get their travel expenses reimbursed, unlike others, who chose a less harmful way of transport.

Transport

We all have been offered to lower the consumption of meat by voluntarily taking ve-getarian meals. Meat eaters can test their endurance and will at least for a few days.

Regional food is served as much as possible, reducing the need of transport to a minimum.

Organic goods have their place here as well. For instance, all teas we drink are organic.

Food

Only recycled paper is used for printing.

The fight against non-reusable plastic cups has been declared. Everyone can get a special EYP Germany cup for a deposit of 5 Euros. Moreover, the artistic extra value is free!

All the official emails concerning the session have a special note at the end of the signature. It states: “Please consider the environment before printing this email.”

Material

EnergySpecial extension cords can be switched off while not being used. This saves precious energy.

You might have noticed different signs encouraging you to behave more envi-ronmentally friendly. Moreover, they stress the advantages of such behaviour by advertising the night’s romance. It’s definitely more romantic when the lights are turned off, right?

Green Piece - Official Magazine of Lake Constance 201116

Being participants of this Youth Summit on Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies, we all know what serious issue and hotly discussed topic climate change is in our society. Trying to find solutions to those pro-blems humans are causing to their planet is why many young and enthusiastic people from all over Europe came to Lake Constance this summer.

For every significant global topic, however, there is more than one main opinion. Climate change does not make an exception to this rule either. There are quite a few people who don’t share the prevailing opinion that the climate change is caused by humans. Interestingly enough, those people mostly come from the major industrial countries in North America and Europe, namely the very countries that cause the climate change. They state that this change in our cli-mate is simply due to the change of nature over time and that it has happened in the history of the planet before. They present statistics that are quite the op-posite to those of Al Gore.

Actually, it is a fact that there have been many major altera-tions of climate in the past when the humans still lived in caves and had no idea about cars or airplanes. The most prominent examples of this are probably the big ice ages altering the rela-tively warm periods. Moreover, the statistics about the carbon dioxide concentration in the air display a periodical increase and decrease. Taking this into ac-count, history seems to support their thesis of a natural climate change.

Considering all those hints and facts, are those people right to call man-made climate change an invention of tree-huggers and nature lovers?

The answer is a clear no. First of all the natural climate changes in the Earth’s past were much longer than today, they took centuries. Furthermore, there are unimpeachable numbers and facts that prove the current condition to be man-made. Nowadays, people denying cli-mate change and advertising exactly the opposite theory are

a further threat to our climate. Living ecologically does need much more energy and effort than not to do so. Therefore, people who hear that theory might be convinced that they cannot do anything to help the planet. They would again use the car to go to work instead of bicycle or train, let the light on in rooms they don’t use or take hour-long showers. The lifestyle of individuals, especially in the United States and wide parts of Europe, would worsen again in respect to taking care of nature and our environment.

To me, and maybe some of you as well, it is not understandable how certain people can tell the rest of the world that they don’t have to worry about polluting the environment. Especially in times when the impacts of climate change are as obvious as never before. Therefore, it is important not only to stick to the hard facts, but also to look around and ob-serve what horrible, undeniable things are happening around the world due to climate change, due to us.

Denying Climate Change ?

By Nicole Goetz

17Issue 2

It has become apparent to the global community that a globe spanning treaty to both combat and adapt to Climate Change is necessary for our collective future. However, a conclusive, effective agreement has proved elusive, to say the least.

Huge time and resources have been spent in negotiations on the subject. Massive summits of global leaders have been cal-led in Kyoto, Copenhagen and Cancun and yet, climate change continues unabated.

The agreements usually fall on the issue of how to share the burden between the developed and developing world. Deve-loped countries argue that they are already doing their bit to reduce their emissions of fossil fuels and point out that even if they reduced such emissions to virtually zero, if the developing world’s emissions rise as pre-dicted, it will not be enough and global emissions will still rise.

As China and India are poised to overtake the United States as the world’s largest polluters and South American and African countries set to quickly catch up, it is apparent that it is in the developing world that efforts must be concentrated to com-bat climate change.

However, as leaders of deve-loping countries ranging from Brazil to India are quick to point out, to put the burden on their shoulders is hardly unfair. Their economies are still developing and expanding and their popu-lations are increasing; all causal factors in increasing the emission of greenhouse gases. It’s easy for the developed world with dwin-dling populations and loads of money to develop in sustainable energy but as long as coal, gas and other fossil fuels remain the cheapest energy sources, eco-nomic development will continue to lead to higher emissions. It is not fair for the developed world to expect the rest to curb their own economic growth when they themselves have been hea-vy polluters for so long. Already, the developed world has done much more than its fair share of polluting already.

The developed world and its ma-jor economies need to take this on board and commit to aiding the developing world to develop sustainable into economies. Like democracy and Human Rights, the development of sustainable energy sources and the reduc-tion of carbon emissions should become essential components of any bilateral and multilateral trade deals between the deve-

loped and developing nations.

The developing world should begin to fund development pro-jects that promote the necessa-ry infrastructure for the develop-ment of green economies across the developing world. They must provide the necessary assis-tance so that the developing world’s economies can grow in an environmentally friendly and sustainable fashion.

They must also take not of spe-cific circumstance and realise that a broad sweeping, elegant solution is likely not possible. For example, Brazil is one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change. However, its energy sources are incredibly environmentally friendly and put most of the rest of the world to shame. It is Brazil’s vast defores-tation that must stop for a sus-tainable global environment to come about.

Hopefully, next time around the developed world take on board the reasonable concerns of the developing regions of our planet and come to appreciate the intri-cacies that will be involved in any successful agreement. Hope-fully, they do this and together we can put in place a framework to combat climate change and adapt successfully for the future.

What are we Talking about ? By Eoin O’Driscoll

Stop reading, Start looking !


19Issue 2

Dennis Quaid is playing a troubled character again. You can tell by the wrinkles on his forehead. He is about to burst into a full-blown case of thought-ful gazes into the horizon, dramatic pauses and meaningful, yet subtle stroking of his stubble. At least that’s what happened in “The Parent Trap” when his twin daughters played and prank on his character. That’s how you know things are about to get really messed up.

The most striking image in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” is that of the Statue of Liberty covered up to its waist in ice and snow. This visual tool is also used to cleverly remind how the planet consequently is up to its waist in plight. The im-pending consequences of global warming on New York, and the Earth as a whole, start to unfold to paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) after an expedition to Antarctica. This warrants yet ano-ther serious look beyond the camera, and another wrinkle on that pretty face.

Jack Hall’s son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) leaves for New York on a class trip and of course gets stuck in the middle of one of the biggest storms since a giant asteroid hit T-Rex right in his face. Meanwhile

in Scotland, at the Hedland Climate Research Centre, several buoys are registering major tem-perature decreases, confirming Jack’s theories and consequently our worst fears. Eventually Jack sees no other way to save his son, who is now trapped at the New York Public library, than to walk all the way to New York from Washington DC to get him. All the while as other flee to Mexico, which is now ironically closing its borders to the United States.

Not to give away too much of the movie to those of you who have yet to see it, I will only further say this. What makes this movie so good and so terrifying is not just the slightly exaggerated facial expressions of Dennis Quaid or the visual effects that sometimes serve as scare tactics rather than conveying the actual message, but instead how the movie seems so real. Even though in it eve-rything happens so fast and we tell ourselves we still have time it does serve as a clear warning not to fall into a comfort zone and realize that actions need to be taken only when its too late. In Beth Or-ton’s words “How come wisdom came on strong, but it’s too late to be done?”

Global Warning By Saga Eriksson


The Zucchini By Veronika Drzková

EYPers are definitely the masters of randomness. This has been proven once again here in Frie-drichshafen. How else would it be possible that at the very beginning of the session, while all the participants were standing in the circle for the first time, the editors - let’s call them Alex and Sebi - show up holding two zucchinis?

Zucchini has become a true legend here, nicely following one of the session themes. Beware, be-cause it might randomly appear anywhere at any time. No place is safe. But since we love zucchini, we are happy to have it around as much as pos-sible.

Zucchini could be used for numerous things. You don’t even need to brainstorm to come up with at least 50 ideas. For instance, Franzi and Benny the

Head Organisers, do not need words anymore. They can express themselves through zucchini.

When it comes to eating zucchini, great disputes and conflicts occur. Some describe it as a sticky disgusting mud; others appreciate every single aspect of its taste. Zucchini admirers recommend several recipes. The famous ratatouille is surpri-singly one of Anar’s favourite vegetarian meals. On the contrary, Alex, proud French, refuses the consumption of such liquid mass.

The green session deserves a green mascot. We’ve obviously already found it. Zucchini is eter-nal it stays with us forever. Let’s be thankful and deeply appreciate and love such a gift from above.

Eurovillage is an EYP tradition and usually takes place on the first night of the session. Last night’s Eurovillage saw our youth hostel filled with stands containing all sorts of interesting food and drinks. From Romania we got cabbage stuffed with meat and natural honey. Poor Timm was never told about spitting out the honeycomb and now has a bellyful of wax! Shame on you Romania! Howe-ver, your homemade fruit drink “Tvica” impressed heavily.

From Sweden we had the usually classy food of caviar reduced to a toothpaste-like substance in a tube. Saying that Eoin ate about 7 crackers covered in it. Similarly, the Finns brought us Rein-deer jerky. Timm liked it so much that he washed it down with some German Oettinger beer.

Eoin has resolved never to go near a Turkish Euro-

village stand again. Copious amounts of “pizma-niye” were consumed on his behalf. Basically, it’s a pure and extra strength cotton candy. What’s not to like? Eoin may also have been responsible for the many missing “baklavas”. He will have to waddle back home to Ireland if he comes across such tasty food again.

From the Netherlands we got “beschuit mit muis-jes”, usually consumed to celebrate the birth of a baby. What is the Dutch delegation trying to tell us?

Georgia surprised us with their “Gozihaki” nuts & honey – really a combination we haven’t expe-rienced before Lake Constance. Thanks for that!

Altogether we had great fun, great food and a great event.

Eurovillage By Timm Brünjes and Eoin O’Driscoll

21Issue 2

By Monica Mantovani and Noura Berrouba

Survival Guide

Be open-minded and take every possibility to learn from others. This results in a very understanding and open atmosphere.

Try to remember names. The people sur-rounding you will be your mates for the following week.

The organisers put in a lot of effort to make sure that you get proper coffee breaks. When seeing them, thank them.

You will have a lot of time to get to know your committee. We encourage you to ask your chair random questions about him/her. You will see that your chair is not always serious, but a really interesting and amusing person.

Now that you have arrived to Friedrichshafen we want to give you some guidance on how to act during your stay and what to do outside the session program. The first thing you have experienced is Teambuilding. Here are some things we encourage you to do

After getting to know your committee at Teambuilding, Committee Work is waiting for you

The first part of Committee Work starts be-fore the session. You should all be acade-mically prepared for your topic. A high level of knowledge results in great discussions. If you are not yet prepared, enjoy your night studying !

Everyone will have different views and you will not always agree. However, you should respect everyone’s opinion.

Respect your chair. They are there to as-sist you and to enhance your experience. Discuss, learn and share opinions!

If you are not yet prepared, enjoy your night studying !

“

“22 Green Piece - Official Magazine of Lake Constance 2011

We hope you will use your free time and the time you might have after the session to discover Friedrichshafen

You might have seen lots of people biking. For a small price, you can rent a bike and explore the surroundings in a green way.

The lake goes by several names: Boden-see and Lake Constance. Don’t miss the opportunity to take a swim.

Take the time to visit the famous Zeppelin museum in the city centre.

Take the chance to learn some German phrases. You could ask the Germans at the session or be brave and stop a stran-ger on the street.

Germany has many culinary delights. We suggest you try a Brezel and experience a German flavor.

Teambuilding and Committee Work take place during the day. The organisers have planned a nice evening program for you

The journalists have a free hugs offer, so make sure to use it.

The evening activities will be very enjoyable. However, to make them even better, we encourage you to invent a crazy dance and teach it to everyone you meet. We expect to see a lot of these during the parties.

We don’t want to see your sweaty t-shirt from Teambuilding at the party. Make sure to dress up! The best dressed will win the award for being the most stylish person at the session.

We hope that this guide clarified things for you and that you are now less confused. Enjoy your stay !

23Issue 2

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