When it comes to climate change it seems that everyone has an opinion. Few receive a platform as prominent as the New York Times, however, as did University of Illinois sophomore Emily Cross in December after attending climate treaty negotiations in Mexico.
Her opportunity came after a professor suggested that Cross, a major in Earth systems, environment and society, attend the annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun. There she met Andrew Revkin, who runs the Dot Earth blog on the New York Times website.
“He was interested in my writing a ‘postcard’ of sorts because I am a student who is passionate about the subject and an outsider of the climate negotiations,” Cross says. “He just wanted to see what my reaction was and get my thoughts on anything that stood out in my mind.”
She pulled no punches in her assessment, and her deeply felt criticism became the subject of a December 13, 2010, Dot Earth blog post titled “Young Witnesses Look Past Cheers at Climate Talks” that suggested the conference was—despite its celebratory conclusion—a squandered opportunity. Revkin posted the text of Cross’s letter and later posted her reply to some of the roughly 50 reader comments.
“Don’t mistake my saying so as a cynical diatribe of a once bright-eyed student,” Cross writes in the first letter. “I understood that Copenhagen was a failure and Cancun probably wouldn’t be much better. I understood that negotiations occur behind closed doors. I understood that much doesn’t happen until the end, and I understood that the meetings are draining and often frustrating.
“Yet I left Cancun understanding that the majority of this much-publicized diplomatic spectacle was a distraction from what needs to be done.”
Most readers who commented on her letter were supportive, though a couple took issue with her stand on climate change by trying to portray her as too young to think clearly. Cross seems unfazed.
“I have no tolerance for the dismissal of ‘climate science’ and the crisis at hand, and will not waste my energy attempting to convince those unable to open their minds,” Cross writes in her reply posted on the Dot Earth blog, which can be viewed here.
Cross is also a member of the U of I’s Climate Research Group in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and she hopes to pursue a career in environmental policy. Despite her downbeat assessment of the convention she remains hopeful that adequate measures can be taken to preserve the environment.
“I’m a very optimistic person about what we can achieve,” she says, “but when we only do what is convenient rather than what is right, observers have a responsibility to point it out.”
