PORT TOWNSEND — While global leaders discuss cutting back on carbon emissions, a Port Townsend educator will work from Paris to connect students in her hometown with other youth around the world who are interested in climate change issues.
Laura Tucker, who was elected to the Port Townsend School Board in the Nov. 3 election, left Thursday to attend the United Nations 21st Conference of the Parties in the French city, a meeting that begins Monday among world leaders and which is intended to set new greenhouse gas emission standards to slow climate change.
“This problem will be solved on a grass roots level,” said Tucker, a member of the Jefferson County Climate Action Committee.
“It will be addressed on a governmental level, an institutional level, and needs to be a cooperative effort by everybody,” she said.
Tucker, who said she has been a teacher for all of her adult life, is one of 10 teachers in the United States who was invited to participate in the international conference, which will end Dec. 11, by Climate Generation, formally the Will Steger Foundation.
Her prime directive is to connect students in Port Townsend with students from around the world working on climate change action.
She has set up an online video meeting for each conference day that will connect groups of Port Townsend students to children who are attending the conference through a video Google Hangout.
In Port Townsend, the connection will occur daily at 8:20 a.m. Dec. 7-11 and will include four classes.
They are Christina Laughbon and Chris Neuman’s fifth grade, Melinda Pongrey’s seventh grade science class, all at Blue Heron Middle School and Lois Sherwood’s 10th grade science class at the high school.
The live connections will originate from each classroom.
“It will be at the end of the conference day in France,” said Tucker, 59.
“Port Townsend students will have a chance to talk to students around the world who are working on climate change.”
A translator for the sessions will be present to alleviate any language barriers, she said. She expects the sessions to be conducted in English.
“We are the only country in the world that speaks just one language,” she said.
She is accompanied by her husband, Hank Walker, 60, who works at the Port Townsend Food Co-op. The two plan to return home on Dec. 12 or Dec. 13.
“This is all about the survival of the planet,” Walker said.
“We can’t stop this entirely, but we can mitigate what has already occurred.”
As part of the connection, Tucker and Walker are carrying a few hundred cards made by Port Townsend students to be distributed to children at the conference.
“We want to let the kids know that the whole world is working on this,” Tucker said.
“We want to seed hope where we can because these kids are the ones who will inherit the bigger mess.”
President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive at the conference today. He will meet with other world leaders to craft a new U.N. pact to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for a rise in global temperature that causes rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans, and other climate changes.
Janos Pasztor, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for climate change, has said that more than 120 world leaders strongly support the conference and have confirmed they will attend.
Tucker and Walker have been preparing for the trip since the summer.
Walker said it was “not an option” to cancel the visit after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Claiming responsibility was the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, a militant jihadist group that now calls itself the Islamic State.
“It never crossed our mind that we shouldn’t go,” Walker said.
“This is too big an event to miss, and is the conference that will determine whether we exist another year as a species.”
Tucker’s day job is as the Jefferson County waste reduction education coordinator. She said she “tries to get people to throw less stuff away, and if they do throw it away, they put it in the right place.”
Tucker will assume a seat on the Port Townsend School Board in January, having been elected in an uncontested general election race to succeed retiring school board member Pam Daly.
Tucker refers to “catastrophic climate change” rather than “global warming” which she says “sounds kind of friendly.”
She said that taking action will not require lifestyle sacrifices.
“We can still have a high standard of living,” she said.
“We aren’t going to have to go back to living in teepees or anything like that,” she said.
“We can move toward eating healthy food, clean air, clean water and healthy bodies while watching our carbon emissions.”
Tucker will write a blog from the conference, viewable at http://ltuckercop21.blogspot.com/.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.