Maya Lin - Unchopping a Tree from What is Missing? Foundation on Vimeo.
This remarkable video by artist Maya Lin dramatizes in a way that no written story ever could the pace at which the world’s forests are being chopped down. It also drives home the depth of the failure by negotiators in Copenhagen to reach an agreement that many people thought was quite doable.
I’m not talking about a binding, global agreement on targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse emissions. Everyone knew going in that this was not in the cards at COP15. I’m talking about a much more doable deal on reducing deforestation. As I pointed out in my previous post, the approach taken in negotiations on that issue is known as REDD, or “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.” And even though it is, in many ways, much more straightforward and practical than a global emissions deal, it too went down, just like the tree in Maya Lin’s video.
For more remarkable videos, I urge you to go to What is Missing?, the Web site of a project led by Lin to make people aware of biodiversity and habitat loss — and what can be done about it.
(Thanks to Kevin Doran of the University of Colorado’s Center for Energy and Environmental Security, and one of several of CU participants at COP15, for posting the video on his blog.)
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