OUR THOUGHTS No.11

皆さま、こんにちは！🌟

第66回国際学生会議（ISC66）のページをご覧くださり、ありがとうございます！！

 

クラウドファンディングは残り5日となりました！

本日もISC66の実行委員の思いを届ける"OUR THOUGHTS"企画！！を行っていきたいと思います！

 

第11回目はISC66Table5のテーブルチーフを務める、Dao Duy Doanです！！

 

My name is DAO Duy Doan. I am the table chief of Table 5, which will be discussing about the prospect of social activism as a method to combat climate change.

 

Currently I am an International Relations major with hope of becoming an academic in the future. I think that the study of politics is the study of how people get what what they want, despite the opposition of other people who live in the same society. Phrased like that politics sounds innocuous enough, and yet in many ways “politics” has become a dirty word. People don’t want to “get political”, and when a decision is said to be “political” it is implied that it has been made with less consideration for “facts and logic” than what would be desirable. As a result more and more prefer to talk about policy or public policy, which convey the idea of decisions made by experts who know a lot of technical knowledge.

 

I consider the recent surge of climate change activism a reaction against the way of thinking that try to “depoliticize” all aspects of our life. I am not saying that climate activists are calling us to ignore the experts. But they are saying more than just “hey let’s implement a carbon tax or something and call it a day”. Many activists see anthropogenic climate change as natural consequence of run-away capitalism. As a result they want a massive overhaul of our society. Even the less radical ones see something wrong with the fact that just 100 companies are responsible for as much as 70% of CO2 emissions since 1988 ^[1]. Without saying that mass movement would prove to be the key to solving our climate change issue, I dare say that it is important to serious examine what the activists are doing and whether we should be a part of it.

 

I think that nowadays people generally don’t have the luxury of setting a side several days and think deeply about an issue that concerns them. And students like me are one of the few groups left in society which still have the privilege of doing so once in a while. ISC would provide us a unique opportunity to examine our own beliefs regarding some of the most important issues of our time. I only hope to learn from the participants of my table, for I am certain that they have unique experience and background and know things that I have never really considered. For my part, I hope to get the participants thinking about lesser known, but no less insightful perspectives that I have been fortunate enough to be exposed to in my classes, such as “degrowth” or “ecomodernism”.

 

 

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change