By Aubrey Ann Parker
Circle of Blue

For two weeks in Copenhagen last month climate negotiators debated carbon levels, emissions, and balancing the financial burden of saving the planet among developed and developing countries. Still, even as international leaders wrestled with the complex mix of geopolitics, science, economics, and diplomacy, another important ingredient in the climate crisis was barely mentioned: the effect of the warming planet on the Earth’s freshwater.

The same oversight, however, was not repeated by public interest organizations and water advocates who also were in Copenhagen, especially indigenous representatives from underdeveloped countries that are most vulnerable to climate change and the diminishing access to fresh water.

Numerous groups, such as the Khapi community in Bolivia and the Tagalog in the Philippines, banded together in Copenhagen to explain at a number of meetings and public events how climate change is already threatening their access to food and water, as well as the sustainability of their thousands years old cultures. Some of the strongest voices were heard during the World Water Movements and COP15: Proposals and Strategies for Water and Climate Justice panel.

Read complete article — originally published on January 27, 2010 — at Circle of Blue.

The hydropower potential of Patagonia in Chile has attracted growing interest from multinational corporations. Pictured above is a view from Patagonia’s “Valley of the Explorers,” located at the terminal moraine of the Expolaradores Glacier.

By Aubrey Ann Parker
Circle of Blue

High in Chile’s Andes Mountains, glacier-fed rivers tumble down knife-edge slopes in a froth of swift water barreling through tight canyons. Chile already produces more than 40 percent of its electricity from hydropower, but how much further Chile is prepared to advance its alternative energy industry—especially the hydropower sector—is now a question that has come to rest uneasily along the rocky banks of the Pascua and Baker rivers, two of the most remote and cleanest rivers in the world.

Both rivers are viewed by the multinational company HidroAysén as the fuel for its $US 5 billion project, which includes the construction of five large dams—some higher than 100 meters—to hold back enough water to power 2,750 megawatts of electricity, the equivalent to three mid-sized nuclear power stations. Additionally, more than 20 percent of the country’s electricity would depend on these dams, located on glacial rivers which some scientists fear are threatened by climate change.

Aubrey Ann Parker is a reporter for Circle of Blue. This article is based on two weeks of extensive research in hydropower that Parker conducted through the Graham Scholars Program at the University of Michigan in the spring of 2009. Read the Graham Scholars’ complete critique of the HidroAysén Environmental Impact Assessment here.

Read complete article — originally published on February 18, 2010 — at Circle of Blue.

Listen in!!!! I’m going to be on a call-in radio show today (De. 18th, 2009) 2-3pm (EST) discussing Copenhagen and the media!

91.7 KALW Public Radio Station in San Francisco!!!! http://www.yourcallradio.org/

COPENHAGEN – When it comes to wind power, Americans have all kinds of excuses not to use it. “It’s too expensive” or “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY: referencing that they don’t want a tall, skinny, white turbine obstructing their beautiful view of the ocean or the mountains.) Let me begin by saying this is all a sham, in my opinion.

Recognized around the world for the last century of leading the manufacturing industry, Detroit is rusting from the inside out. Michigan is currently experiencing a 15% unemployment rate. Although some jobs have been created since the government incentive to manufacture affordable cars with good gas mileage, the jobless people of our state are still left waiting for the dawn of the second industrial revolution.

Why aren’t we using our technical expertise and warehouses full of machinery equipment to help optimize wind turbines that could be used throughout the world? This morning I attended a three-hour tour to Middelgrunden Wind Farm, just off the coast of Copenhagen. Luckily this tour didn’t turn out like Gilligan’s, because the temperature was below freezing.

The tour highlighted several speakers from the wind energy industry, all of which mentioned the need for better turbine design so that wind energy can become more affordable for consumers. They stressed the importance of new technology to overcome the learning curve in an industry that is still fairly young (only 30 years old for onshore turbines, and less than 10 years for offshore). But the potential is there, and estimates say the demand is growing fast.

The tour boat circled 20 turbines at the offshore Middlegrunden wind farm —- contributing three percent of the Copenhagen energy grid -— and we could see 100 Swedish turbines spinning in the distance. There are 11 offshore wind farms just like this scattered along the Danish coastline, but it still manages to retain its beauty. There are plenty of sailboats docked for the winter in the harbor, and I’m sure their owners still get plenty of use out of them — they might even use the turbines as a sort of obstacle course. The coastline at Middelgrunden is marred with carbon emitting stackhouses in addition to the windmills, and to my way of thinking, I’d rather have 20 skinny, white turbines “ruining” my view of the water than sooty, gray smog.

Denmark has 5,100 wind turbines total —- 78% of which are onshore, 22% offshore -— contributing to 20% of Danish electricity production. Jan Hylleberg, CEO of the Danish Wind Industry Association, projects that by 2020 this will increase to 50%.

I believe that Michigan could lead the green revolution —- supplying wind turbines to the world instead of automobiles —- if we could only think outside the dinosaur graves buried beneath the Middle East. The laws of economics apply here: As fossil fuels become scarce and supply decreases, demand (and therefore price) of these industries will increase to an amount that no one can afford to pay; thus a crash like the recent auto industry.

So why are we giving false hope to workers in Detroit by filling jobs manufacturing high mileage cars that we know are only temporary fixes? Why are we proposing to use our industrial knowledge and resources to build six new coal plants, if we know that the price of this energy is only going to increase? Why, instead, aren’t we seeking our own, domestic solution to this very foreseeable problem in the near future? Shouldn’t we be producing and manufacturing our own wind turbines, as well as supplying them to the rest of the globe?

Simply put, because nobody wants a shiny white turbine obstructing their view of crystal clear Lake Michigan. Absurdity! We get some amazing winds off the bluffs along the coast and we should be taking full advantage of them. And even if you argue that this isn’t enough to meet the energy demands of Michigan, that’s fine -— at least we can sell the technology to other places like Denmark where wind is more favorable.

The Danish wind industry started after the first oil crisis in the 1970s. Denmark was looking for domestic solutions to foreign fossil fuel dependence, and began to develop a plan featuring wind as a long-term, renewable alternative. Although the market began with onshore wind turbines, offshore development—which produces 30% to 40% more energy per turbine -— has experienced a steady increase, expected to grow 45% annually in coming years. This means that in 2015 6% to 7% of the world’s wind energy will be offshore, and the European Union will increase to 20% offshore suppliers, says Anders Soe Jensen, offshore president of Vestas Wind Systems.

Each turbine is 100 meters tall and 76 meters in diameter, producing two MWh per hour, totaling to four million KWh per year —- enough to power around 1,200 households (for onshore turbines), says Jensen. Middlegrunden, with 20 offshore turbines, produces enough energy for about 35,000 households —- this compared to the 20 to 25 thousand households if the same 20 turbines were onshore.

The other wind leaders in the European Union are Spain, with 15% wind power, and Denmark’s southern neighbor Germany, with 8%. Last year the EU as a whole had a 40 percent increase in wind installations.

“We can industrialize this industry at a lower price, building a foundation,” Jensen said. The only thing missing is technological advancement, who is currently hiring for the position of a manufacturing leader.

Christian Kjaer, CEO of the European Wind Energy Association, says the European Union legislation is expected to set a binding target for renewable energy at 20% —- a 5% increase from the current set point. By 2012, the EU will meet its Kyoto obligations because they are already delivering on carbon reductions, says Kjaer. This in stark contrast to Canada, which I heard the other day at the Bella Center is at negative three percent of its Kyoto obligations.

Spain alone plans to intensify this regime, however, ratifying an agreement in June 2010 to have 40 percent of Spanish energy coming from renewable resources, says Carlos Gasco of Ibertrola Renewables in Spain.

“Scientists say we need to act soon,” Kjaer said. “Developed countries need a 25 to 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions. We need a legally binding target by 2020, not by 2050 …” Kjaer not only recommended bumping up renewable energy systems, but also a complete fuel source switch, such as from coal to gas.

Steve Sawyer, the secretary general for the Global Wind Energy Council, has 20 years of experience with negotiations like those seen at the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen this week. He told the tour that by the end of next week 130 heads of state will be here, “and the deal isn’t done yet. Usually they only show up to congratulate themselves on a job well done.”

Sawyer confirmed what I’ve been feeling all week. As far as the negotiations go, there are pessimists and there are optimists here in Copenhagen when it comes to the question of whether or not the United Nations will sign a “real deal” by this time next week. “But as far as I can tell,” Sawyer said, “the game is still in play.” However, he adds, the majority of the negotiations on the table right now are “nowhere near ambitious enough … (despite that) potential is huge all over the world.”

Currently, there are wind projects totaling 33,000 MW under construction now, 22,000 of which are in China alone. Almost 29,000 MW of wind power are currently generated in the United States as of April 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

“We’ve learned from Europe,” said Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association. The EU set hard renewable energy targets and then each country had to develop their own energy portfolio to reach those goals. “In the U.S., we have no hard targets, so it is up to the individual states to come up with their own objectives,” which is much less actionable in terms of carbon reductions.

I hope as we go into the next week of negotiations that the U.N. does decide to implement strict renewable energy goals. And I hope that the Michigan manufacturing industry will be watching.

Marina Ahmad of the Pakistan Youth Climate Network and Aniruddha Sharma of International Youth Climate Movement wait outside the UN climate summit, despite Danish police statements that NGOs will not be admitted for the remainder of the day.

COPENHAGEN — I arrived at the Bella Center today at 11:40—just ten minutes after the United Nations decided to ban further NGO access to the climate change conference. But they didn’t tell anyone waiting outside in the cold for more than a half an hour.

Yesterday, the metro stop directly at the Bella Center was closed for crowd control, which meant subway patrons had to get off at the stop before or the stop after the Bella Center and walk one kilometer, before then standing in a very long line—reputed at four to five hours. All the major news outlets were there also, each hoping for something to erupt, but the scene was fairly benign. Everyone realized that because more than 100 heads of state were arriving to the Bella Center this week that security measures had to be ramped up, inevitably leading to longer lines. People were still getting inside—it just took a long time. And free coffee from Greenpeace seemed to be keeping people warm and happy.

Today was not like yesterday.

I heard from friends that the best time to arrive at the Bella Center and avoid long lines was after the morning rush. There were only about 40 people ahead of me in line, so I figured that I would be out of the fluffy falling snowflakes soon enough. Today the Danish army replaced Greenpeace as soldiers were handing coffee and tea across the fence to people waiting patiently in line. But it didn’t take long to realize that nobody in the line was going inside.

“Let us in!” a few people started intermittently shouting from behind me, and I could see the crowd was growing to well over two hundred NGOs alone (members of political parties and the press had their own lines, and a very few of them were being admitted here and there).

Finally at 12:15 p.m. a policeman on a megaphone announced, “The UN has decided NGOs cannot come inside today. Come back tomorrow.” People from the lines started shouting, “But why?” and when all the officers refused to answer any questions besides, “May I have some coffee,” the atmosphere immediately changed. And in addition, the army had run out of tea.

Two people next to me were particularly vulnerable to this new situation: Sinikka Lennartz, a German student from the Eberhard Karls Univeritat and Aniruddha Sharma from India with 350.org, Sustainable Market Foundation, and International Youth Climate Movement.

“It seems I won’t get my lunch,” said Lennartz, a hypoglycemic. A security guard brought Lennartz three sugar packets as she weighed her options of heading back to the town center or staying in solidarity with the other NGOs trying to get inside.

“What about my coat?” Sharma asked a police officer, Klaus, as he waved his yellow ticket for the coat check. At 11:30am Sharma and approximately 35 others from the Indigenous People’s Group staged a demonstration by walking out of the plenary sessions. Sharma left his coat inside believing that he would immediately be re-admitted. I asked him why he walked out in the first place.

“The developing countries are trying to remove the rights of indigenous people from the negotiations, and this is not acceptable,” Sharma said. He explained to me that the local governments, such as indigenous leaders, are not included in the negotiating discussions, particularly surrounding the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries Programme (UN-REDD). Additionally, some negotiators are trying to remove the few words that do actually appear in the text regarding indigenous rights.

“If your forest is destroyed, it is the local people who are most impacted by climate change,” he said, now with a slight shiver while wearing my bright red hat on his head. Lucky for Sharma, he was able to flag down a security guard, who sported a shaved head and an earpiece, who ran inside to fetch his coat.

At 12:28 the same police officer as before got on the megaphone and said to the angered crowd, “Because of earlier protests causing a security issue, we are now admitting parties and the press only. Do we have an ministers in the crowd that can please come to the front?”

“The UN has decided NGO’s do not have access today, please respect this and go home.”

COPENHAGEN — While hundreds of thousands of people were out marching against climate change this past weekend, world leaders inside the Bella Center slyly removed the most important number in the world from climate negotiating texts — one that more than 100 nations had already agreed to.

350.org is an NGO that began in 2007 with just seven students from Middlebury College and Bill McKibben, author of the first book on global warming for a non-scientific audience—back in 1989.

The international organization — which McKibben prefers to call a “global campaign” — has grown over the past year to more than 100,000 “unofficial” members, each carrying a simple message through pictures: 350. (Click here to check out photos from more than 1,500 climate demonstrations held on October 24, 2009, as well as the 3,500 that occurred this past weekend.)

“We asked people to take a number, without any emotional meaning, and fill it with emotional resonance — their dreams, their passions, their nightmares — and people figured out how to do that,” McKibben told the audience at the Klimaforum09 venue.

From scubadiving along coral reefs in the South Pacific to the top of mountains in New Zealand, a mosque in Iraq to deep within the Congo—these photos display the creativity of people around the world.

“When people say environmentalism is something only for rich, white people — that is a lie,” McKibben spoke of the thousands of photos they received.

“It is people who live closest to the affected places that understand most.”

McKibben led the audience in chanting “Three, five, oh” on three separate occasions.

“If you don’t have that number firmly in your head by this point, there is something seriously wrong,” he laughed.

McKibben informed the audience that currently the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is 390 parts per million. Long before the industrial revolution, the concentration was around 280 ppm at the dawn of human civilization.

In January 2008, the American climatologist Dr. James E. Hanson published a scientific paper in which the first paragraph was very clear: any value of CO2 greater than 350ppm would create a world that was not the same as the one in which human civilization began and similar to which life on earth is adaptable. We now had our red line, the threshold of sustaining life on earth.

We had crossed that threshold sometime very recently, thus explaining why one third of the Arctic glacier ice melted in 2007.

McKibben was slated to speak for two hours in the afternoon at the Klimaforum09 venue, along with special guest President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives. When the president was almost an hour late (held up in traffic from the Bella Center negotiations, I’m sure), McKibben didn’t miss a beat.

After showing hundreds of pictures of demonstrations in support of the 350ppm carbon limit from around the world, McKibben called on world leaders to listen to the cry of the masses.

“As people were mounting vigils and bells were ringing in the real world, 350 disappeared from the climate negotiations,” he explained.

Inside the Bella Center there is no scientific debate — no new scientific finding — the number is still 350 for survival, but because it will be a difficult target to hit, it was removed from the climate negotiations.

It would “require the laser light focus of all our governments that usually they only use when they’re about to go to war. When they go to war, there is never lack of money and commitment.”

Furthermore, he argued, we are at war and our opponents are the sciences of chemistry and physics.

But this is not a war of negotiations and compromise — chemistry and physics don’t negotiate.

“They tell you their bottom line flat out: 350.

That will not change.

The United States has agreed to cutting emissions by 4% of the 2001 levels, but McKibben says this just isn’t enough. He said that every day MIT plugs in the numbers of what each country has committed to a computer software program that then spits out the total carbon that will be in the atmosphere in the year 2100: on Sunday, that number was 770ppm.

“Obama may give the most beautiful speech next week, but they [chemistry and physics] will not be swayed by his oratory, but they may be swayed by his action.

If he arrived and said, I’ve listened to the scientists and I’ve understood what they are saying, and he cut emissions by 40% instead of 4%, then the world would have a fighting chance.”

McKibben was not optimistic in this hope, however, he urges followers to keep fighting and to keep spreading the message of 350 past the end of the UN climate summit this week.

“Obama’s not going to say that this week and we wont get the treaty we need this week, but we’ll be closer than we were — it’s going to have to be, because we don’t have any other choice.”

“The Bella Center?” he looked puzzled. “No. There’s a bomb or something”

I figured he was just joking about the reason for the police had lock down he described to me—absolutely no buses, cars, trains, or bikes were running anywhere near the Osterport station because the police had closed it off.  When he first described the scene to me, I figured it was probably because of a protest going on—we heard this morning from fellow reporters covering the long lines outside the Bella Center that last night a group of protesters were doused with a water cannon.  However, I think this might be another fine example of the press here in Copenhagen looking for a dramatic, shallow story that will grab the attention of readers surfing Google News.  All the online reports I’ve found say that a burning car—set by pyromaniac protesters—was saturated with water, not the actual protesters themselves.

The Osterport station in Copenhagen has been closed for the last five hours-or-so due to a bomb threat. This meant I had one heck of a time getting home after spending the afternoon at the Klimaforum09 venue.  I think “threat” is not a common Danish to English crossover word, because everyone I talked with tonight just kept saying “bomb” whenever I asked what was going on.

“What is going on?” I asked the blonde boy sitting behind me, who had just finished a conversation with the elderly woman in a fur coat sitting behind him.  This was the second bus I had gotten on—the first was the 150S bus, which I confused for the 15 bus. The dozen people on the bus were chuckling after something that the bus driver said over the intercom.  I heard something that told me he was taking us back to the Norreport train/subway station, where I had accidentally hopped onto the 150S bus not fifteen minutes earlier.

“The Osterport station is closed,” the blonde boy said, confirming what the security guard had told me more than half an hour ago.  “There is a bomb.”

“A real bomb, or just a threat?” I asked him.  He stared at me. puzzled.

“A bomb,” he said again, looking at me like I was stupid or possibly deaf in one ear.

“Like a bomb actually exploded or someone just said they were going to do it,” I clarified.  The blonde boy turned to the woman in the fur coat again and symbolized with his hands an explosion as he rapidly spoke to her in Danish. The rest of the bus continued speaking with the bus driver—patrons yelling while he spoke over the intercom.  They were shouting other bus and subway stops, and I quickly realized he had offered to drop them off wherever they wanted to go. “Sundby!” “Bella Center!” “New York!” “Thailand!”

“No, it was a game. A joke,” the boy turned back to me and said.  No, it was a threat, I thought to myself.  He looked at me, wondering if I knew was comprehending what everyone was laughing about as they spoke in Danish.  The bus stopped at the Norreport station where I had started my adventure, and everyone filed off.

“Can I get to Arthursgade on this bus? Do you go there?” I asked the young buzzed-headed bus driver, Mulefel.  He had no idea where that was.  He asked me to explain where I was staying—uptown, downtown, outside of town—and I realized that I had no idea.  I couldn’t even remember any major landmarks near our apartment besides the football (soccer) stadium, which I wasn’t even sure was anywhere close to where we live.  There was my favorite little bakery on the corner, and “The Laundromat” diner where we eat dinner almost every night, but I doubt he knew those hole-in-the-wall places if he didn’t even recognize the street I lived on.  I remembered there was a train station a few blocks down from our bus stop that started with an “S” but I had no idea what it was called.

“Saaaaa…” I tried to sound it out.

“Sydhavn” he suggested confidently. “That is over by…” I cut him off—that wasn’t it. It was some other crazy-sounding word that started with an “S” but had a strong “o” somewhere in the middle—I didn’t know what the middle letters of the word were, but I definitely knew what they were not.

Since I was the only person on the bus, Mulefel offered to take me where I needed to go—which seems like something he could get fired for—if I could just remember where I lived. He urged me to try harder to remember, but nothing was cutting through the fog.  Finally I suggested the football stadium, and he said he would take me to the Vesterport station where I could hop on either a 14 or 15 bus going the other way, towards my apartment. By that point, I was ready to just get off the bus altogether and jump in a cab, but he refused to let me “waste my money.”

Although I promised Mulefel that I would sit right there and wait for the bus—he had radioed and found out the 15 bus was no longer coming through (possibly related to the bomb threat), so I needed to wait for the 14—I started walking down the street to catch a cab.  When I turned the corner there it was, mocking me as I stood in the sleety mix descending from the dark sky: Klimaforum09.

I had spent the last hour on three buses, four subways, and one train to end up right where I had started.

Needless to say the cab ride cost me $30 but was well worth it, even though I couldn’t hail a cab for 45 minutes of trudging around in my soaked-to-the-bone ballet flats.  My cabbie was Palestinian, however, he’s lived in Copenhagen for the last 20 years—even he didn’t know what street I live on and had to use his GPS to find it.  As I explained my sob-story of traipsing around the city for the past hour, he told me he felt that there were “too many people in the city…and too many police responding.”

A little later he warned me to put on my seatbelt—a $100 fine—when we pulled up next to a full-sized blue van filled with more than a dozen police officers in navy uniforms and caps.  On the radio, I heard a few familiar words, “Obama,” “Ethiopia,” “Osterport.”

“Can you understand any of what they are saying?” he asked me. “It’s the news. They are talking about the bomb.”

For the last time Danish people: it is a bomb threat, not a bomb.

After I told him the words I recognized in the broadcast, he explained that President Obama was urging the African nations to come back to the negotiating table.  I told him that I had heard there is a major demonstration for tomorrow and that the Guatemalan and Venezuelan delegates are expected to walk out of negotiations—he added India to that list.

We’ll see how all of this will impact entering the Bella Center tomorrow, which was already about a five-hour wait today due to heightened security this week.

Climate Change Demonstrators, including Greenpeace International, in Copenhagen.

Originally published by the Detroit Free Press and Circle of Blue

COPENHAGEN — The Global Day of Action began Saturday in the South Pacific where the sun rises. The day of international protest started as an uplifting global demonstration calling for a “Real Deal” to come out of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen. More than 3,000 marches and candlelight vigils in 139 countries occurred — some yielding as many as 50,000 demonstrators— all with the intent of spreading this one common, unified message to policymakers.

This may well go down in history as the most coordinated showings of human solidarity and resolve in history.

But the poisoned arrows of the media were aimed at a public Hermes, as the winged-feet of marches advanced westward across the globe, carrying the message to world leaders: Respond to climate change now. There was no debate about science or politics here in the streets of Copenhagen on Saturday. The devil is in the details — small island nations are sinking and in need of assistance while major countries are scrambling to realign their markets for a new-century economy driven by clean energy.

By the time the sun had set in Copenhagen, Western journalists — with the sole intent of selling a dramatic, shallow story — hinged their coverage on the delinquency of a few (less than a dozen as it turns out). Reporters replaced the ethics of journalism and defaced the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people around the world trying to send a unified message.

While the 50,000 peaceful protesters congested the cobblestone streets of a thousand-year-old city — one that remembers when the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere was over 100 parts per million less — the press took the misconduct of a minority and ruined the message for the majority. This week will be unprecedented as more than 100 heads of state will converge to — as the overwhelming majority of scientists report — decide the fate of our largest cities, our coastal zones, our glaciers, our agriculture, and our economies.

In pursuit to sell news, or Google hits, instead of the frightening reality at hand, many major media outlets are missing the Big Story.

Saturday began with peaceful, large-scale demonstrations in Melbourne, drawing tens of thousands of people into the streets. This was the fifth anniversary of “Walk Against Warming” in Australia, and according to an early morning report by the Associated Press, “Australian marchers lead world climate protests.” Similar titles included “Australians walk to pressure Copenhagen on climate change,” “Protesters demand climate for change,” and “New Zealand youth joins climate change demo” by Reuters, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Otaga Daily Times respectively.

The BBC displayed the first pictures of the day — the Australian “Walk Against Warming,” traditional Chinese drummers in Beijing, as well as face and body paint displays in the Philippines, South Africa and France. However, the energy and excitement behind such a massive movement waned as the sun moved westward across the globe.

The climate legislation activists were asking for slowly faded from headlines to make way for the enthralling tale of police beatings and incarcerations. What began with “Protesters call for bold pact on warming,” in the Boston Globe, but soon became “Copenhagen Climate Summit Protest: 600 Detained at Climate Rally Urging Bold Pact,” and “600 Detained at Climate Rally Urging Bold Pact,” in The Huffington Post and ABC News. By the time the sun had set in Copenhagen, the headlines transitioned solely to the number of arrests from the demonstration — “Nearly 1000 held after Copenhagen climate rally,” in Reuters and “Nearly 1,000 arrested in Copenhagen,” in RFI.

Like the childhood game of “telephone,” the phrase whispered into a neighboring reporter’s ear became increasingly more dramatic, changing with every new media message. The climate demonstrations ended with a message that so radically changed their original sentiment: “Copenhagen talks stagnate as protest turns violent” reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation News on Sunday.

It was official — in meager attempts to outbid each other, the media had completely skewed the way the world perceived the Global Day of Action.

Here in Copenhagen, I followed the marchers from start to finish along a 4-mile trek through neighborhoods, past ancient churches and alongside picturesque parks. I took photos and recorded interviews for Circle of Blue, alongside toddlers in one-piece snowsuits and an 89-year-old Danish woman carrying a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a sign reading “The World Wants a Real Deal” in the other. I did not witness a single struggle between protesters and police during the entire four hours it took to walk from Christiansborg Slotsplads (Parliament Square) to the Bella Center where the United Nations climate negotiations are being held. Nor did anyone that I’ve spoken with over the past two days — other journalists, Danish cab drivers and internationals from Canada and Estonia. Compared to most U.S. football games, the crowd was saintly.

By the time the headlines began to emerge, some online reports were painting a portrait of simply young people marching for good-natured rebellion. And others were taking it even further, seeking any little barb or acerbic note. But the march contained people of all ages, from babies in strollers to old men waving. In many ways, it was the definition of family friendly and cordiality — people making way for others, families picnicking, restaurants opening their doors for people to use the restrooms — despite the striking scene the media has laid out in vivid headlines.

Photo by Aubrey Parker/Circle of Blue

Thousands of yellow signs were made by Greenpeace earlier this week, each with phrases such as “There is no Planet B,” “Nature doesn’t compromise,” and “Bla, Blah, Blah…Act now!” These made up only a fraction of the rainbow assortment of colorful signs. Some people carried umbrellas to emphasize the coming tropical storms due to climate change, while others carried flags labeled with “350” or the iconic symbol Che Guevara. Additionally, flags from countries all around the world were raised high as activists marched in vibrant traditional threads and chanted in native tongues, “Si, se puede”— “Yes, we can.”

Some dressed entirely in blue to represent a “flooding” in the streets. Others dressed in red zoot suits and slick Ray Ban sunglasses carrying signs asking developed nations to pay their debt to the developing ones. One girl figuratively carried the sins of the world on her shoulders, with a cross and an air-filled globe strapped to her back.

A three-story, inflated snowman frowned as he was dragged through the streets of Copenhagen. A mock head-honcho of industry dressed in a suit and smoking a cigar pulled at the strings of his marionette puppets — each a different climate negotiator trading pieces of paper labeled “Nuclear” and “Coal.”

Music and sunshine filled the small cracks and empty spaces between people — varying from Irish jigs to Euro dance beats blasting from speakers on wheels — keeping the cold at bay. Bongo drums, stomping, and chanting came from in front and beside me, each conveying a similar message related to the urgency of climate action now. A band of five young men blew into empty coke bottles to the tune of “Under the Sea” at the start of the march. Further down the road a team of a dozen elderly men and women — clearly former high-school band members — tooted trumpets and tubas, all of which hadn’t been polished in quite some time (much like their well-meaning skills).

The day ended with a DJ mixing techno accompanied by African choirs at a candlelight vigil on a concert stage a few hundred meters from the Bella Center. Speakers included Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Irish president Mary Robinson, who both criticized developed nations for not bringing progressive enough legislation to the negotiating table.

“They marched in Berlin, and the wall fell. They marched in Cape Town, and the wall fell,” Tutu said to a mystified audience. “They marched in Copenhagen, and we are going to get a real deal.”

There’s no doubt there were problems. A handful of anarchists dressed in all black — rightly named Black Box, who were part of the Youth Culture Center shut down by Danish police two years ago — stormed the rear of the parade, throwing rocks, paint and fireworks. Police responded by holding upwards of a 1,000 unrelated marchers in the cold for more than five hours on suspicion to attempt foul play. Less than a dozen were charged with any offense.

Yet this is what the majority of the news industry chose to focus on — the brutality of Danish police and the violence of protesters. The resounding message of the day has been completely distorted, as can be seen in the videos by major news sources that know better, such as the New York Times, NBC, and USA Today.

Aubrey Parker, who is currently pursuing a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, is reporting for Circle of Blue in Copenhagen. Parker is part of a team from U-M and is also blogging for the Detroit Free Press. Read her blog here, and be sure to check out the rest of Circle of Blue’s Copenhagen coverage here.

COPENHAGEN – “Today is going to be the most exciting day of the whole conference,” Brian told me this morning, after I got off the phone with my mom, the birthday girl. Dubbed “Real Deal Day,” an estimated 5,000 climate demonstrations staged for today, 12/12/09, around the world are asking for only one thing — a real deal to come out of the Copenhagen climate negotiations. Today one clear, united, and very loud voice is traversing the globe like wildfire — starting with the dawn of the day in the South Pacific, in the far east of the world.

“Wow,” I heard Carl say to himself from his computer, “There’s a Tweet here that says there are 50,000 people marching in Melbourne right now.” This in addition to the 10,000 marching in Brisbane and 15,000 in Sydney. (See an amateur video from Melbourne here.)

There are so many people who have converged here in Copenhagen, but amidst the cry of too many voices, one message cannot possibly be heard over the din.

There are groups here asking for indigenous rights, womens’ rights, the rights of developing nations to emerge from under the oppressive thumb of developed nations, the rights of developed nations to continue with business as usual, water rights, forest rights, land-grabs, farmers, start-up energy firms…the list goes on and on.

Each stakeholder wants his or her piece of the climate change pie, about to be hacked apart by your old Uncle Joe who’s legally blind and has a shaky hand.

“I would rather see no deal at all than a watered-down version that doesn’t help anyone,” fellow U of M delegate Ahmed Tawfik told Keith Schneider of Circle of Blue and Climate Action Network.

Ahmed isn’t alone.

Only half way through the conference, already many people are beginning to fear that the bureaucratic powers-at-be won’t be able to deliver at the end of all of this.The problem as I see it is that there is such a disparity between the climate proposals that each nation has brought to the negotiating table, making it virtually impossible for anything but more dialogue and digress to emerge.

But there isn’t time for more dialogue—our time is running out to make a change that can actually save lives.

This week I’ve heard the heart-wrenching stories from Bangladesh, the Maldives, Fiji — all places that are already experiencing rises in ocean levels and increased tropical epidemics such as malaria and dengue fever.

I’d like to be optimistic and say that the far distances so many of these people have traveled will all be worth it — one girl I heard speaking on Wednesday said that she had come from Fiji, across 4 continents and 3 days of travel — however, I too am beginning to be disillusioned by all the bureaucracy and lack of one clear, single message.

However, the estimated 5,000 climate demonstrations planned for today — both in Copenhagen and around the world — might be the united front that all of these factions have been looking for.

Maybe next week’s talks will “get serious” enough, following a weekend of international action.

This morning I woke up early to start researching the Global Day of Action, hosted in large part by many different groups in the TckTckTck coalition and Global Climate Campaign. In fact, there are currently more than 527 organizations and networks from 67 countries (85 from Denmark alone) that have signed on to be part of what is assured to be the largest demonstration on climate change to date.

Today is not meant to be a demonstration solely for those like the girl from Fiji who were able to make the long trek to Copenhagen.

According to 350.org, there are currently 3,125 candlelight vigils planned for this weekend in 139 countries around the world. The Copenhagen candle light vigil starts at 5 p.m. today, upon the arrival of the estimated 50,000 climate change protestors arriving from their 2-hour march.

And it doesn’t stop there — tomorrow, faith communities all over the world are planning to “ring church bells, beat drums, blow horns: all 350 times.”

In Copenhagen, a rally begins today at 1pm (AMS), with speakers and music at Christiansborg Slotsplads (Parliament Square).

After mobilization efforts to energize the crowd, fifteen large recycled sails — each embellished with climate messages — will be carried more than three miles over the course of 2 hours, arriving at the Bella Center where they will be given directly to Yvo de Boer, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Executive Secretary. (Watch a video of Greenpeace preparing banners and signs for the event here.)

The candlelight vigil will immediately follow at 5pm—but not before the whole thing “getsinteresting,” Carl told me. “You should probably pack a change of clothes in your backpack, just in case. I haven’t been to a march that’s been tear gassed in a long time — not that I expect this one to—but it’s better to be prepared.”

So, if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it’s because I’m sitting in a Copenhagen jail with 50,000 other demonstrators (what a great present, right Mom?). As exciting as that might sound, I actually hope that we aren’t all incarcerated today…mainly because then who will ring the church bells tomorrow?

Demonstration and Candlelight Vigil in Copenhagen

Just a quick note (it’s hard to type because my fingers are so numb!).

I just got back from the march and candlelight vigil from the city square all the way to the Bella Center–6km in total, that took over 2 hours.  I was helping to take audio and photos for the non-profit environmental journalism organization that I work for, Circle of Blue. It was incredible: the first sunny day since I’ve been here, so it was just beautiful to shoot.  And the message was overwhelming and beautiful as well.

At the end of the march, the estimated 50,000 people were directed to a stage beside the Bella Center.  There were speakers and music planned, but we decided we had gotten enough footage of the event, and left to get food.  Our cab driver told us that 40 (international) people had been arrested for throwing rocks, but he wasn’t sure what country they were from.

In any event, I think this was really something and I’m hoping that it unifies the voices into one clear message to the negotiators: we want a real deal.  We’ll see if this uplifts the spirits for next week.  (It’s not just in Copenhagen…demonstrations and candlelight vigils are going on right all around the world–Google it right now!) More later when I am more coherent and less cold…