Workshop on Climatic Change

A one day workshop for school children was organized by CONCEPT on 20.12.2009 for environmental awareness. The theme was Climatic change and its implications. The venue was Navaikulam Government Higher Secondary School, Navaikulam, Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala State, India. 60 students representing various schools participated. The workshop was organized in such a way as to give the students an opportunity to know about the causes of global warming and climatic change, its implications on human and other life forms in the present and in the long run, the international efforts to reduce the global warming and the difference in opinion among the stake holder nations on sharing the responsibilities carbon emission and its control.
The program started with an introductory note by Mr. S. Ramachandran Nair, Vice-President, CONCEPT, followed by a presentation by Mr. GK. Rajesh, Member Secretary, CONCEPT. The session was impressive with enthusiastic participation of student s.
At the end of the presentation, the participants were grouped into five teams and were instructed to write down various factors contributing to green house effect, global warming and climatic change and to suggest various control measures. The team leaders presented their observations which were subjected to critical debate and discussion. Later the participants were segregated into two groups, one representing the developed nations and the other the developing and under developed nations. Each group explained their position and justified their stand on sharing responsibilities of emission and on their respective stands on Kyoto protocol of 1997 and the recent Copenhagen summit. The teams exhibited both evidence of thorough understanding of various issues as well as came out with many useful suggestions worth pursuing. We took note of the knowledge and understanding the young participants exhibited and the strong (rather leftist) views expressed by them, favoring developing countries and against developed countries in general and USA in particular. However on behalf of CONCEPT, we advised the students on the importance of careful analysis of the situation by study in depth and of reaching fair judgments basing realistic appreciation of facts. We also warned them not to be carried away by newspaper information and on the importance of logical conclusions based on scholastic writings. We feel the parents and the teaching community should understand these issues and decide to work together to mould the young minds in a useful and impartial manner.
On the whole the program was useful both as a thought provoking exercise for the students as well as the organizers. The participants came out with a plethora of view points on micro and macro measures for containing climatic change and ways out for consensus between developing and developed countries on the issue of sustainable climatic intervention. CONCEPT will continue to organize similar program for students.