This week, by popular demand, I bring you...

A day at the office

DISCLAIMER: For those of you who actually want to know what I do all day, this post is for you. Those of you who would prefer to stick to fun pictures of mountains and cows decorated with bells and flowers, you'll have to wait just a little longer to be entertained. I do promise to deliver next week though, since I'll be visiting the Les Alps festival where there will be cows and mountains galore. For now, feel free to skip ahead!

My work: I spend my days in an office pretty much like any other, except with slightly higher security and many many more acronyms. I'm working with UNITAR, which is the training and research divison of the United Nations. It's actually a pretty interesting organization because it address some really diverse and cross-cutting issues, from diplomacy & peacemaking to biodiversity to women in conflict. The common goal of all the different departments is to build the capacity of governments, institutions and individuals to take action in these areas.


Luckily, UNITAR is quite small for a UN organization, so I'm not faced with the heavy bureaucracy of some of the larger UN bodies. In fact, my department- the Climate Change Programme- only has a handful of staff members, most of whom work part time. Myself and my supervisor are the only current full-time climate change staff at UNITAR.


The Climate Change Programme's purpose is to build the capacity of least developed countries to help stop climate change and adapt to its impacts. Because many developing countries are already feeling the impacts of climate change (such as crop failure, increased flooding, drought, and the spread of diseases like malaria), it's important that they measure where they're most vulnerable and create plans to adapt to a changing climate. However, developing countries also have the greatest difficulty with adaptation, as they often lack financial resources and expertise. So this is where my work comes in- we help build capacity within developing countries so that they are better able to assess their vulnerabilities to climate change & adapt to its impacts.


We also have a project which supports regional organizations which are working to help stop climate change (commonly known as mitigation). The regional organizations help build local expertise by developing "train the trainers" programs in different areas of climate change and sustainable development Right now, project partners are in Senegal, South Africa & Sri Lanka, although this will likely expand more in the future.


As of yet, I don't have a specific project or role, since my supervisor is quite busy and is often out of the office. Instead, I take care of whatever is needed from day to day, which varies quite a bit. For the first two weeks I was here, I spent most of my time getting up to speed on the different projects and learning how the office works. Now I have more concrete work to do, although I'm still settling in and learning the ropes.


And that's why I'm here, in a nutshell!

For your reading & viewing pleasure, Liz's week in review:



Accomplishment of the week: Total mastery of french keyboards

Those tricky accents and missing quotation marks have been the bane of my exitence for the past few months, ever since I started having to write people in Geneva on a regular basis. But finally, my friends, I have the keyboard conquered. I am its master & it is my willing subject. I tell ya, if the learning ends here, my 6 months in Geneva will have been completely worthwhile.


Favourite discovery of the week: My new apartment!!!

I'm not homeless! What's more, I managed to find a place that's big, beautiful, furnished & in an amazing neighbourhood. It even comes complete with a friendly Canadian roomate, my friend Béatrice who's doing an internship with the World Conservation Union.

I'm extremely relieved to have found a place to live, especially since the rental market in Geneva is extremely tight. You should have seen some of the other places Béatrice and I looked at- it's extremely common here to pay over 1700 Swiss Francs (about $1500 Cdn) for a small, dirty one-bedroom apartment. Yikes!

Behold the glory and splendor of my new digs:

This is the living room, which we'll be turning into a second bedroom.


Here's the enormous kitchen, which will become our defacto living room.


And finally, here's the view from our window of the park & community garden right below.

We move in October 1, so you can look forward to some more gushing and gloating in a couple of weeks. I really will try to keep it to a minimum though, I promise.


Travel adventures of the week: visit to Freiburg, Germany

Last weekend I took the train up through Switzerland to Freiburg, a small university town in southwest Germany. Freiburg is known for its young, vibrant student population and for its many cobblestone streets with open canal-type storm drains running alongside. It also has its fair share of lush vineyard sitting atop small, steep hills.


Here you can see a house sitting at the top of this vineyard. Many of the town's hills have estates built right at the top, the better to keep an eye on your serfs while they toil away in the fields, I suppose.








And here's some nice beautiful grapes close up. Delicious.

Now might be a good time to mention that wine in this part of the world is by far the cheapest item on any menu. Even in Switerland, since they grow a lot of Swiss wine and only sell it locally. Swiss wine is pretty decent; however, since it's not really exported it's remained a well-kept secret. I mean, who knew that the Swiss made wine? I certainly did not.


I also got to bask in the company of special European guest star Mr. Jean-Oliver Dalphond.

On Sunday, we planned to take a cable car up a nearby mountain, but unfourtunately woke up to the pitter patter of rain on the cobblestones. Instead, we were forced us to spend the day inside, waiting out the downpour. Oh well, at least it was nice to have a relaxing weekend.


Favourite "green" discovery of the week: Micro-hydro dam in Freiburg!

In the spirit of recording my adventures in renewable energy wherever I go, here's a small-scale hydro generator that I came across in Germany. My lack of German prevented me from understanding the explanatory plaque that was posted nearby, but I did manage to make out something about 60,000 KWH. Not bad for such a small dam.



And that's it for me for the time being. I'm sending you all love from across the ocean, most especially to the fabulous Ashley Rose, who turned a whopping 24 years old on Saturday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASH!!

Much love,
Liz

These people make me excited to get up in the morning!

This past weekend, a group of amazing people representing over 35 youth-based organizations all over Canada got together in Toronto & formed a Canadian Youth Climate Coalition.

Now I don't know about you all, but I personally can't even read the above sentence without feeling all warmy and fuzzy inside. Scratch that- it actually makes me feel all warm and activisty inside, like I physically can't sit still in my chair because I need to be out doing something- anything- to make the world a better place.

I'm really excited about the energy and momentum behind this movement and in my boundless energy & enthusiasm, I'd like to share with you a few things about you, me & climate change.

First of all, if you wanna know more about this fantastic Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, here's a link to an article about the conference last weekend and here's the declaration itself.

Now, I was originally planning to share a scary article about how arctic ice is melting much more quickly than anyone expected, along with an equally scary article about environmental refugees in Bangladesh who are forced out of their homes because of climate-change related flooding, but then I thought hey- it's Friday, so let's be a little more upbeat, shall we?

So, in the warm and activisty spirit of this post, here I present to you:


10 things you (yes you!) can do today to help stop climate change.

1. Drive less. Even one day a week less. C'mon- do you really need to take the car to the video store? Wouldn't you feel good if you got on your bike once a week to go to work?

2. Make smart food choices. This means buy local and eat less meat. Bonus points if you can eat organic. (I swear this isn't vegetarian propaganda- meat is really energy-consuming, especially beef, and locally grown food consumes way less fossil fuels because it's not tranported across the world.)

3. Switch your lightbulbs to compact flourescents. They save tons of energy & will last forever, so you save money too.

4. Write your local MP and tell them how important it is for Canada to meet its Kyoto commitments. If you're American, this applies too! Canadians, you can find the name and address of your local MP here.

5. Turn off your car if you are idling for more than 10 seconds. That's right Ashley Rose- I said 10 seconds : )

6. Reduce your home heating & cooling. Set your thermostat one degree lower in the winter & two degrees higher in the summer.

7. Bring your own bags to the grocery store. At the very least, for the love of god, please don't let them double bag!

8. Buy a reusable coffee mug for your daily Starbucks/ Second Cup/ Cuppa Joe fix.

9. Avoid air travel whenever possible. Take the train if you can (it's fun!)

10. Buy carbon offsets for your energy consumption. These are essentially investments that you make in renewable energy to offset the impacts of your fossil fuel consumption. The David Suzuki website has a great list of places where you can buy carbon offsets.


See- not so bad, right? It's like the Letterman top 10 list, except without the kicky punchlines. And these are totally things that you can do. Come on- try one today. You'll feel great. You can even brag about it. The polar bears will thank you.

All right, I'm off to change the world!

Love,
Liz

The joys of watching Will Ferrel do George Bush


Maybe it's just me, but I find this hilarious. I'm still laughing and it's been, oh, about 7 minutes since it finished:

Will Ferrel does George Bush on global warming

A Sunday excursion into the French countryside- how very European of me

Hello everyone,

So today I decided to my beautiful new bike for a spin. You know, let her stretch her legs a little.

I left my own charming village of Vernier & biked through several other charming villages, eventually making my way to France.

[Side note: for those of you not so familiar with the geography around here, Geneva is on a little prong of Swiss land that sticks right into into France. If you travel half an hour in any direction except east, you hit another country. For a Canadian, it feels very strange. ]

I spent the afternoon biking around the French countryside, down charming windy roads with fields of wine, corn and sunflowers on both sides, and up little sloping hills with bell-wearing cows beside me and the French alps just in front of me. It was a completely idyllic Sunday afternoon, like something out of a Van Gogh painting, or a car commercial : )








For lunch, I stopped in a town called Ferney-Voltaire, named after the philosopher Voltaire who lived the last part of his life there. I'd be able to give you some more fun fact tidbits about this if the Voltaire museum/ tourist attraction had been open. However, it was closed, just like everthing else in this part of the world on Sundays.

Anyway, the village of Ferney-Voltaire was also very charming, although I did get accosed by a slightly desperate looking man on the street who had just moved there from France and wanted someone- anyone- who spoke English to have a drink with. (Note to self: do not make friends with strangers. Even if they can't figure out how to use the ATM machines.)




People here, on the whole, are a very friendly bunch. They say "bonjour" to you when they meet you on the street, even if you're on your bicycle. They say "bonjour" to you when you sit down at the table next to them at a cafe. I find it very refreshing. Of course, this only applies to the little villages & not to downtown Geneva.

And now I'm off to a world music festival that's conveniently happening across the street from my apartment. So far, I give Switzerland a hearty two thumbs up!

Bisou,
Liz

P.S. I almost forgot the best thing of all: I saw a few houses like the one below in the midst of my travels. Way to rock out with the solar panels on the roof!

My life in pictures!

Hello all of my beautiful friends and family,

I'm proud to say that I've managed to make this photo editor thing work and can bring you the first images of my life in Geneva. From now on, I can regale you with charming & informative snippets complete with audio-visual aids. Aren't you all a lucky bunch!
















Okay, so here we have some pictures of Geneva, which is actually very similar to Vancouver in many ways, with all its trees, mountains and water. Only European. And exhorbitantly expensive. Apparently Geneva is the world's most expensive city after London but before New York- who knew? I did not.

I have confirmed this ranking through my own careful empirical research, being the responsible and intrepid traveller that I am. Yes folks, last night I paid 25 Swiss Francs (about $22 Cdn) for a cocktail. And that's just the tip of the iceburg.












Things generally range from a wee bit more expensive to "good god- you expect me to pay 450 francs for a one-speed used bicycle?" Fourtunately, some things are very affordable, namely cheese, bread, wine, beer and chocolate. A diet of champions, really.

The city has a really amazing transit system complete with fun electric buses and trams. This makes me happy because even though I live in a little village about 20 min outside Geneva, I can still get downtown and back very easily.

The transit pretty much operates on the honour system, with occasional random inspections from men in green outfits who fine you if you don't have a ticket. I've been told that it's easy to ride the buses for free all the time, but seeing as one of my co-workers was caught and fined last week, I think I'm going to stick with my transit pass, at least for now.

Anyway, on to more audio-visual aids.






























Here is a church in Vernier, where I live. There are a lot of very old and beautiful churches here, which is pretty much par for the course in Europe. Not very unique I know, but people always seem to like pictures of churches.
















Moving right along, this is the building where I live. My apartment is very bright and spacious, and I'm living with some great roomates, one French Swiss & one German Swiss. I also share the apartment with one crazy ankle biting cat named Zoe. I'm here until the end of September and then I have to find something else, hopefully closer to the city.

I still haven't heard whether I'm staying in Geneva for my whole six month contract or if I'll be going to Dakar, Senegal but my supervisor gets back from Africa tomorrow so hopefully she'll be able to give me some idea soon.

And finally, la piece de resistance, me with my beautiful new bicycle! I bought her in the market today & I think we're going to be very happy together. Isn't she beautiful?


And I think that's enough photoshopping for one day. Stay tuned for more to come!

xox
Liz

Why won't our government step up to the plate?

A new poll just came out that shows that 77% of Canadians want our government to meet or exceed Kyoto targets when it comes to reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions and slowing climate change. So then why is the Harper government considering waiting up to 5 years before making any plan to limit emissions?

The Conservative minority government is touting a "Green Plan II" which they'll be releasing this fall. The plan is expected to have some very good elements, such as investments in public transportation and regulations to help curb air pollution. But they're missing the most important "green" issue if they refuse to address climate change!

As a young person, I'm pissed off. Our government values oil company profits over my right to a clean & heathly future, and that makes me angry.

Instead of complaining about the economic cost of asking energy companies to reduce their emissions, Harper could be creating new jobs through investments in the renewable energy sector. There are so many possible responses, yet he refuses to look at any of them.

I'm glad that there are so many young people in Canada who are stepping up and taking leadership on climate change action. In fact, 45 youth-based NGOs have formed a Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and are meeting in Toronto this weekend to come up with a collective plan to address government inaction on climate change. I won't be there, but you can bet I'll be at that meeting in spirit!

Love,
Liz

Hello everyone!

I've been in Geneva for exactly a week now, and am settling in pretty well. My jet lag is gone, I can get on a bus without ending up accidentally in France somewhere, and I'm well on my way to becoming a morning coffee regular at the cafe in my office building.

I started work right away at UNITAR, a whopping 12 hours after I arrived at the airport. For those of you less well-versed in the endless acronyms that the UN loves so much, that's the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. I'm in their climate change program, officially as a Climate Change Program Fellow (unofficially as the new Canadian intern- significantly less glamorous, I know).

I'm new and niaive enough around here to still get excited when I see the UN crest on the front of my building every morning. I'm also pretty excited about my UN badge and security pass, even if I am only a "fellow" and not an actual permanent staff member!

If there's anything I'm learning, it's that Geneva is a city of expats. I got lost walking around town the other day & had to stop 6 people to ask for directions before I could find someone who spoke French or English. Most people who live here weren't born here- in fact, I'm beginning to become convinced that real "Genevoises" are an urban legend & they don't actually exist.

Okay, that's it for now. I promise to post some fun pictures soon & maybe (gasp!) have some interesting stories to tell. For now, I hope you're all doing well & I send you big hugs from Geneva.

xox
Liz