Tuesday 14 August 2007

Comments about "Greening Cities" ...

A year ago if anyone had said that I would represent my country in a summit about climate change in the UK, perhaps I'd have started to laugh, in spite of our hard work (in my school) related to a better environmental education.

In my school, in Lisbon, we have a project, the main objective of which is to promote an effective environmental education based on the co-operation among students, teachers, school management and other staff.

Nonetheless, the Summit inspired me. The fact is that we feel stronger than before. For three days we listened and talked to some of the most important specialists in climate change in the UK and perhaps in the world. It is really important to be optimistic and believe that by working together we can change the earth's future (and this isn't only a "cliché"!).

Together everything is possible! During the summit we understood that despite our many different ways of life, all of us live in the same world. During the three days, students from many countries around the world listened together to specialists, talked with them, discussed and created the summit's resolutions. Why can't adults follow our example? Why can't politicians sit around the same table and break all the frontiers so that we can actually face and solve the inconvenient truth?

But in the future we will be the adults, and perhaps assume political roles, and we'll make the difference, it's a promise!

Due to our work around environmental issues, being at the summit was a kind of gift, but at the same time it was "just" one more activity related to our project. On the other hand, the summit gave us more, better and efficient ideas, which means that now we must undertake the responsibility to share them at school and with other schools in Portugal as well.

How lucky we were to achieve all this in a most interesting country, together with such nice people, making possible the beginning of beautiful friendships.


Joana Magalhães da Silva

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