Party Boat on the Rhine

No environmental conference would be complete without a party yacht. No worries about carbon footprint; the organizers announced that they purchased credits to offset the emissions.

The top deck was a great place to mix and mingle with my RIAS mates, such as former NBC and ABC correspondent Bob Jamison. He even scored an entire bottle of red wine from the friendly waiters, who kept the drinks flowing. Other RIAS fellows made some new friends among the climate change experts as a jazz band recalled the sounds of the Big Band era when RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) was a lifeline to East Germans craving news from the other side of the Berlin Wall.

The party switched into high gear when "Germany's best party band" rocked the dance floor. The techno-pop hits attracted dancers of all ages and you didn't need a partner to hit the floor. You haven't lived until you've cruised the Rhine while dancing to the Black-Eyed Peas' hit "I've Got a Feeling," After wearing myself out,I retired to the sidelines, only to meet a lovely young man from Ghana who insisted I "dance with the prince." This was a real "Dancing with the Stars" moment as the guy proceeded to toss me in the air and spin me around while others cleared out of the way. Unfortunately, no one bothered to take a photo!

Media and the Environment

Germany ended up with an extra parliament building in Bonn, which was planned and under construction when the Berlin Wall came down. They decided to build it anyway and the Bundestag actually met here a few times before moving to Berlin. The building, featuring transparent glass architecture to symbolize open government, now serves as a conference center.
We attended a conference on Media and the Environment, sponsored by Deutshe Welle, Germany's counterpart of Voice of America. However, the content of the conference was based on the assumption that journalists must advocate in favor of action to combat climate change, rather than approach the story with the idea that there may be more than one side to it. A few of the workshops offered tips on how to deal with climate change "skeptics."
After working in the Maldives for several years, I have come to be skeptical of the whole issue. There is no hard evidence that the low-lying islands of Maldives are "sinking" due to rising sea levels, although the Maldivians held an underwater cabinet meeting to publicize their alleged plight and plead for a "fund" to deal with their problems. I attended an interesting session with academics who had studied coverage of the climate change issue in developing countries and was encouraged to see that the trend is toward blaming China and India for high pollution output, rather than bashing the US. However, I met plenty of people who are convinced that it's the developing world's "turn" to pollute because the industrialized countries did it for 200 years, and on top of that we should PAY them to do so while we strip our economies down to the bone.
Europe, and Germany in particular, have led the way in reducing emissions, which was relatively easy for them to do when all the smoke-belching factories of the Communist bloc shut down. Europe also leads in developing green technology, so when they preach the gospel of climate change, there is a direct economic incentive to do so.
One thing the climate change crowd is good at: traveling around the world to have meetings, despite the insane carbon footprint of people flying to the conference!
Just to clarify my own position, I'm in favor of reducing pollution because it's the right thing to do for future generations.

A Green Question

Thanks, in part to the brilliant public relations move of holding an underwater cabinet meeting, Maldives is known throughout the world as the country that could disappear from the map due to rising sea levels. However, with all the talk of turning this into a green paradise for sustainable energy, Maldivians are not very considerate of the environment around the capital. This floating trash was in the harbor right outside the foreign ministry and the president's office and it gets worse in the areas of the harbor that are basically an outdoor sewer for the fishing boats. I should point out that it is a very different story on the resort islands where the waters are pristine.