Global warming: good for soybeans, bad for everyone else
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Guan Yanjuan, a civil servant candidate in Foshan, Guangdong Province.
As much as I care about climate change, for those who live in a non-coastal city like me, climate change is still a vague idea. People can feel that it is hotter in summer and warmer in winter than it used to be, but that can also be explained by the hot island effect. After all, global warming is a gradual process.
Unlike water pollution or soil contamination, climate change is not as direct or obvious. Plus, people might be desensitized from the news everyday. It requires more efforts to attract public attention.
As for the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire soon, I think the developed countries and the developing countries should work together.
The two parties don't have the same responsibility. Developing countries should cut their emissions, but it can't be achieved since they don't have the proper technology. In order to reduce the total emissions, developed countries should help by sharing their technology.
They have the moral responsibility to do so, and the choice placed in front of them is simple: money or future? What's the point of making loads of money out of technology while the sea level is still rising? Both developed countries and developing countries should put aside the past and emphasize the current campaign of climate change.
The Copenhagen conference will affect the public through the media. People will reflect on their way of living after seeing the overwhelming coverage of climate change on TV and newspapers, and then it will be easier to convince them to try a low-carbon lifestyle.
The Chinese delegation to Copenhagen is led by Premier Wen Jiabao. This implies that the Chinese government is very serious about the issue. In China, the attention of the government usually decides how successful a project can be. Take the 2008 Olympics. It couldn't have become such a big event without support from the government.
Personally, I am not very positive about the result of this conference. In the past 12 years, some countries have implemented changes, some countries have changed their minds, and some have maintained a stubborn attitude.
US President Barack Obama promised to put environmental protection into his agenda when he was running for the office, thus I believed his administration would be more active in this field, yet the general US attitude is still unclear.
Without the participation of the US, the conference in Copenhagen is very unlikely for us to achieve significant change.
