Module 9- Jake Hughes

  1. My diagram focuses on the secret cables and bribery that the US used in order to persuade countries to be in favor of the Copenhagen Accord to cut the amount of greenhouse emissions. The Copenhagen accord focuses on each individual country’s plan to cut the amount of emissions. It allows the countries to have their own plan. My diagram starts with climate change. The greenhouse emissions are released into the atmosphere. These emissions are what lead to climate change. Climate change is what led to the creation of the Copenhagen Accord. Since the US has such a large contribution to the amount of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, they were quite in favor of this accord. With the US being so in favor, they were really pushing for other countries to join the accord. If a country was not in favor, they would request a large amount of money from the US. The US then gave in to the bribes. These were not the only tactics of our country however. The US tried to send secret cables to other countries in order to entice them to join. The US actually sent China a cable that was disguised as a file from the National Journal. Whenever the file was opened, the user who planted the corrupt file would have complete control of the computer that opened it. Other countries decided that there was a great deal of money to be made from the US, so they attempted to negotiate. After all the bribery and secret cables, the US ended up compensating many countries to end in a total of 140 countries in favor of the accord.

 

  1. In module 9, we learned about Climate change and in particular, about the Copenhagen Accord. I feel that climate change is a very serious threat to our world. Like stated within module 9, human and non-human systems are adapting to climate change. Whether it be the amount of water in our oceans or the temperature shifts, something has to be done. The impacts of climate change are bound to cause harm. The concept of climate change also brings up another concept that we have learned about, sustainability. There was a definition within module 3 that stated: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This definition is applicable in this scenario. By limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, future generations will grow up in the new way of doing things and eventually have a lower emission rate as a whole, thus aiding in sustainability. Lastly, I think that the State Department should have made everything public. I don’t feel that climate change issues require our country to bug a file and send it to other countries in order to align them with our views. I think that every country should want to team up together as a whole to lower our greenhouse emission rates. The US should not have gone about it the way that they did. The US should have been a little less discrete. Maybe more countries would have joined us in the accord if we weren’t so sneaky and malicious. The use of secret cables just made countries not trust us. This is why I feel that we as a whole should team up to limit our greenhouse gas emissions and try to end climate change.Untitled drawing

2 thoughts on “Module 9- Jake Hughes

  1. Hi! I really like the way you approached this topic. You can see that my views are very similar by reading my blog post, (http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/04/08/climate-change-rebecca-hodge/)! Your system diagram was very good and really got into a lot of detail about the article. I really enjoyed the point you made about module 3 and the way that in order to combat climate change, we cannot be selfish. I thoroughly agree with this and I think that the way the US handled this situation was indeed compromising the needs of future generations. Lastly, I think that your interpretation of the Wikileaks document was very in depth and accurate!

  2. Hi my name is John and you can check out my blog at http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/04/08/module-9-climate-change-10/.
    I thought your post was very similar to mine because we have the same views. My diagram focused on the US deals trying to gain support for the accord. I agree with you in that the US should have been a little less discrete with their actions of trying to gain support. If they would have been more open about it, they more than likely would have gained more support.

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