I made a very early start yesterday, to build a short presentation. We had submitted a working paper to this section of the meeting (everything happens through submitted materials, almost nothing happens spontaneously), and I had gone to sleep the night before thinking that I would merely introduce that paper, consider it as read, and then sit back to hear responses, if any, prepared by national delegations - the normal procedure, would not require extra effort on my part, and I could do it from my expected seat at the far periphery of the room (where IPY sits along with WMO, UNEP, World Wildlife Federation, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, and other interested parties - all of us attending by invitation and assigned to specific locations in an outer circle behind the delegates table). But I woke early thinking: no, they will expect something special from me, I have done presentations for them in the past, they will want to hear (and see) fresh news of IPY, the chair (a friend from New Zealand) will have preserved a time in his agenda for a presentation. So I built a short but colorful presentation, using images from a presentation I had done for the French - German student event in Paris a few weeks ago and text from the IPY Ministerial Declaration adopted Monday morning in Washington. Anticipating that I could not use my Mac (correct, as it turned out), I used no animations and converted the final product to a .pdf, display-able on any computer.
I finished a few minutes later than I hoped. After a quick walk to the nearest metro, a relatively quick Metro trip (two lines) to Union Station, a brief stop at the ticket machine, and a run to a far gate, I managed to get on a 730a train to Baltimore. I realized as the train departed that I had assumed the European travel model - buy a ticket from a machine immediately prior to travel for any train to any destination. That model did work in this case, although I got tickets for specific trains (outbound and return) and I ended up on an Amtrak train headed for Boston rather than a commuter train. Looking afterward, I did not see a commuter service between Baltimore and Washington; perhaps not enough people want that service. No problems, Amtrak had seats and traveled just as quickly and directly to Baltimore. Taxi to the Convention Center and ready to work!
I did give a quick presentation, from the front. The chair had protected a space in the agenda for me (I gave him a very short presentation in return, that helped him save time) and the assembled group greatly enjoyed it - a refreshing change from their endless sequences of working papers and interventions, all in hard copy. More to the point, this group (the Committee on Environmental Protection) can now share the excitement and ownership of the IPY, collectively (internationally) and nationally. Of course, in my preparations, I had tried to find a way to mention many of the countries and many of the other groups around the room. This CEP makes slow but steady and important progress (with ASOC, mentioned above, agitating, thank goodness, for faster and more aggressive actions) on crucial issues such as invasive species and resource protection. At this meeting they heard (from ASOC of course) a proposal to establish higher protection (essentially, to reduce or eliminate fishing) in the Ross Sea, one of the few regions of ocean anywhere that still has most of its big fish and higher predators intact. I wanted to show them that IPY will provide helpful information not just about invasive species (we have a big project on that topic for Antarctica) but also on the nature and future of the integrated ice-ocean physical and biological systems. And, by giving a good presentation, I can thank many of my friends around the room, friends who have supported IPY nationally and internationally.
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