by Alister Doyle | 22 Nov 2023 | Decoder Replay, Educators' Catalog, Environment
For years, governments have engaged in marathon annual talks to try to end global warming. But they often fall frustratingly short. A giant sculpture tops the Museum of the Future in Dubai. Credit: Lyonerov CC by 4.0 Editor’s note: Beginning 28 November, some...
With COP28 beginning in Dubai this week (late November 2023), help your students contribute to the climate conversation with this article originally published in October 2022 ahead of COP27 in Egypt. Climate journalist Alister Doyle runs down what to expect with these global summits — and why they often fall short.
Exercise: Read the article with your class to cover the background and purpose of COPs. Then, have students find current media coverage of the event. How does today’s coverage compare to Doyle’s piece from one year ago? What, if anything, has changed? Is the general consensus on climate change mitigation more or less optimistic than it was a year ago?
by Alister Doyle | 17 Oct 2022 | Climate decoders, Decoders, Environment, Middle East, Politics, World, Writing's on the Wall
For years, governments have engaged in marathon annual talks to try to end global warming. But they often fall frustratingly short. Egypt will host COP27 in November at the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Rising sea levels caused by climate change are...
by Alister Doyle | 29 Jun 2022 | Environment
Governments often set, then fail to meet, goals for fighting global warming. Do deadlines help? Or does “blah blah blah” of unkept vows hurt the planet? Climate activist Alizée tied herself to the net at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, France, 3 June 2022....
by Alister Doyle | 10 Aug 2021 | Educators' Catalog, Environment, Technology, World
It’s taken more than a century, but experts now say humans are definitely to blame for the climate crisis. Will a UN report spur nations to take action? Emissions from a coal-fired power plant in Independence, Missouri, United States, 1 February 2021 (AP...
Alister Doyle puts his years of experience covering the environment to use in connecting the dots between the umpteenth report on the climate crisis and the umpteenth global meeting on what to do. Doyle provides a genuine service in showing us why the latest report by government experts and climate scientists has a bearing on the summit later this year in Glasgow to review the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Doyle’s report exemplifies News Decoder’s mission to explain complex global problems in a dispassionate, balanced and understandable way.
Exercise: Ask your students to choose an issue on the front page of a daily newspaper or on the nightly news, and to write an article explaining the background to the issue and why it’s important to the readers.
by Alister Doyle | 28 Oct 2020 | Decoders, Educators' Catalog, Environment
Without a push to protect nature, Earth faces the worst extinction crisis since dinosaurs were wiped out. A summit next year offers a dwindling chance. Birds fly past a smoking factory chimney in Ludwigshafen, Germany, 4 December 2018 (AP Photo/Michael Probst) Among...
Alister’s Doyle tour d’horizon of the state of biodiversity draws on years of study and probes a range of primary sources. His article is a lesson in how to pack a mass of material into a tidy, readable story that eschews jargon. Doyle’s article keeps its sight on the future: the challenges, the stakes and the calendar. This decoder is an invitation to take stock of our countries’ commitments to preserving our planet, and offers numerous entry points for classroom discussion of issues that will define students’ future.
