Environmental studies take Calabasas employee to South Africa

By Michael Picarella Acorn Staff Writer

AROUND THE WORLD-Robin Hull departed last Saturday for a three week seminar on environmental issues in Johannesburg, South Africa. Future challenges for humanity will be discussed.

Calabasas resident Robin Hull, the city’s volunteer program coordinator, will join an expected 60,000 people at the Johannesburg, South Africa Summit 2002 conference later this month.

The Aug. 26 to Sept. 4 conference will address environmental issues such as pending water shortages and the dangers of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions.

The event will take place at the Sandton Convention Centre in the Johannesburg suburbs and is organized by the 10th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

Hull, 26, grew up in Calabasas and graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies. Shortly after leaving school, she was offered an internship with the city of Calabasas and about four months later became a full-time employee.

She’s been with the city since.

"I want to improve the quality of our city," said Hull, who is passionate about environmental issues and wants to create a deeper awareness for some of the environmental problems facing the world today.

Johannesburg Summit 2002 is the perfect opportunity, Hull said, to further her studies and to take an active role in support of sustainable development, a term that refers to the effective management of global resources in a fast changing world.

A recent UN report predicts the world’s population will grow by about 2 billion people by 2025 and that nearly half the world’s people will suffer from water shortages.

The use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase also, which could severely harm the Earth’s atmosphere by trapping heat.

This process, known as the greenhouse effect, helps keep the Earth from freezing, but experts said the Earth has warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years and might increase an additional two-to-six degrees Fahrenheit over the next hundred years.

If the Earth gets too much warmer, experts say, commercial agriculture, among other things, would suffer greatly. The added heat also could melt glaciers and ocean ice and raise sea levels by as much as three feet during the next century.

Attending Johannesburg Summit 2002 will be government representatives, business and industry personnel, children, farmers, local authorities, and non-governmental organizations embracing the scientific and technology community.

"(This event) is more of a plan of action," Hull said. "We want the governments around the world to basically commit themselves to something more specific instead of something more broad, by saying ‘oh, these are great environmental concepts and we’re all on board.’ This (event) is a plan of action on how we’re going to achieve those goals."

Hull said she doesn’t know exactly what to expect at the Johannesburg summit, but is excited to attend. She learned about the event from her boyfriend who was reading a book about a similar event that took place 10 years ago in Rio de Janeiro called Earth Summit.

"This summit is going to be (made up of) a bunch of different workshops," Hull said. "I think what I’d like to get out of this experience is a lot of different ideas as to what is possible out there and what other people are doing. I’d love to meet people from around the world and learn about the lobbying process and how to make an impact and change things."

She’ll make the trip through the auspices of an organization affiliated with the United Nations. After a meeting with the Friends of the U.N. nonprofit group about two months ago, Hull received her official invitation.

"This is the beginning of an environmental movement," Hull said. And she’s glad to be a part of it.

For more information about Johannesburg Summit 2002, visit the event Website at www.johannesburgsummit.org.