Debra Baker

The 147 world leaders who attended the long awaited climate talks in Paris have finally come to an agreement. The plan requires countries to keeping the rise in the global average temperature "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and "endeavor to limit" them even more, to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, compared with pre-industrial levels.

It's been 4 days since the Paris Agreement was reached at the pivotal Cop21 conference. All 147 world leaders who attended the long and grueling discussion have finally agreed to the following. That by the year 2100 all countries must keep the rise in global average temperatures (as compared to pre-industrial levels), well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to try to keep them under 1.5.

Even wording it as simply as I could, the agreement still sounds technical, complicated, and specific, and that's because it is. While the official goal is to be below 2 degrees of warming, the 'less official goal' is 1.5 Celsius. During the conference, there was a big push to make the official goal 1.5 Celsius, rather 2.0 Celsius. 1.5 is the maximum rise in temperature that would keep many islands and those living on coasts out of the water. Unfortunately, a lot of these are developing nations, and as we know, developing nations are not always heard as loudly. Though developing nations generally have had the least impact on our rising temperatures, they will feel the worst of the effects, in this case, for the island peoples, there home's will likely be submerged. "1.5 to stay alive," was a slogan that ran throughout the campaign, and I really wish I had done more to help with that. Yes, having it as the unofficial goal will motivate many countries some, but if you pay any attention to politics, you'll notice that countries frequently get by on the bare minimum of what they have to do. Without that extra momentum, some necessary changes might not happen. I could have done something to help spread the slogan. Even a simple tweet with the hashtag would have been worthwhile, but I did nothing more than think about it. This is a habit that I need to change, and probably, the same goes for a lot of you as well. Laziness is all too easy. Change doesn't come out of laziness though; it's a sad fact of life.

That being said, I'll try to leave on a happier note by bringing up a speech Obama made earlier in the conference. It was a very optimistic speech. (although the first few sentences were a bit scary). A lot of people tend to be very pessimistic in the face of global warming, saying that our efforts don't matter because they won't change anything. 10 years ago people said it was because one person's efforts wouldn't matter. Nowadays you hear people saying that it's because it's too late for anyone's efforts to matter. You see what kind of ironic hole we've backed ourselves into?! Anyways, the next step into the future might look back on that second stage of pessimism that is happening now, and be just as angry as we are at the last. So you see why it's so important to be optimistic, and, I don't know the science behind it, but according to Obama there is in fact a point! That we can turn this thing around, even for ourselves!!! Listen to Obama guys, be optimistic, because hope is required for change and for action.

Stay tuned for future posts on how to achieve that change, and look at my eco instagram for more!: mindyourfootprint. Also, for more information on the Paris Agreement, this is a good article right here: http://time.com/4146764/paris-agreement-climate-cop-21/. Thank you so much for reading!

Lately I've been struggling a lot with self improvement. I've been eating too much, doing homework to little, exercising to little, and wasting way too much time on social media. I've gone vegan - not a hard change for me since I care so much about the movement and I've already been a vegetarian for a while. This has definitely helped me to cut back on the sweets, since so many contain milk and eggs. It's also worried my mom enough that she's gotten in to home cooked meals, and those are always super healthy. I still don't feel like I'm doing enough though. I still feel like I've completely lost all self control. I can't even hold off of my lunch until lunchtime, and that's after eating about 8 lbs of food for breakfast. I eat all of what's in front of me and usually more. I'm constantly thinking about food. It's not like this is a new thing, I've been in this weird frame of mind of planning my day out (what I'll eat, when I'll exercise, when I'll do homework) thoroughly and obsessing over it and then not following any of it, for kind of a while. It's a bad habit and, unfortunately, habits are really hard to break. It's sucking the life force out of me if I must be honest. However, exercising always makes me feel good, so to make myself do that thing that makes me feel good, I'll give myself, and anyone else reading this, a bit of motivation by posting about my favorite you tube workout channels. Yes, I know workout videos are cheesy, but with it being dark when I get home, I really can't run, and these are the next best thing. It's hard to get yourself started when you're just following a workout routine without anything to watch or get you pumped.

My favorite fitness channel on youtube is SuperherofitnessTV. Her name is Kierra LaShae, and she's pretty fantastic. Her channel is mostly full of dance workouts, but she has a few other sorts of videos as well, such as snack ideas and conventional HIIT workouts. She's also worked with DailyBurn. She's a mom, a musician, and recently a vegan. I was super excited when she made that change.

She's adorable which is weird because she's a lot older than me but.. still adorable

Another favorite is YogaWithAdrien. This channel is much less cardio. A lot of her yoga videos are pretty easy, and some are more challenging. She's very devoted to her "find what feels good" principal. She's all about doing whatever it seems like you're body is telling you to do.

PopsugarFitness is pretty standard, but it honestly has some pretty good stuff. There's lot's of variety: Kickboxing, dancing, conventional HIIT, lazy girl arm workouts, but killers, everything. One of their trainers names is Rebecca Louis, who has her own channel. PopSugar also posts a ton of workouts on Pinterest that are pretty great.

Look at that body! Fitness goals yo

Rebecca Louis has less variety than the whole Popsugar channel, but it's still a pretty good channel, especially when you're trying to get toned and don't have tons of time; most of her videos are pretty short.

Last night, my workout didn't poop me out, but it was still pretty good. I started with a quick 10 minute ballet vid I found on PopsugarFitness, just to warm me up. Then, since I felt like listening to music, I headed on over Pinterest and just found a cardio workout written out to warm me up. I put on Spotify, and then instead of jogging in place when it asked me to, I danced around my bedroom. Occasionally I'd pick up a pair of 5 lb weights during. The workout was too easy for me, so I took out the rests. If a workout doesn't suit your needs, modify it! there's no reason to follow something that's not gonna give you anything! After about 20 minutes of that, I did a 15 minute power yoga video, that I found on Youtube; I especially find yoga difficult to stay concentrated on without a guide, unless I'm at a park or something with no distractions around me (not gonna happen during the winter).

I hope the cold weather hasn't sucked all of the motivation and or self control out of you all, because those are terrible things to have sucked out of you. If it is, don't fret, spring will be here soon, but first is CHRISTMAS, and there is also always tea before the sun comes out again. Hope you're loving the season though. I truly hope you are. :)

The rain will not stop them. There are lines around every corner & block at Wordstock. #WordstockPDX @literaryarts pic.twitter.com/ib7DUGBTHq
— Scott Cheshire (@ScottCheshire) November 7, 2015

I went to Wordstock last Saturday with my mom. Wordstock is a annual book festival here in Portland, Ore. where a multitude of different authors and those with literary jobs come and speak about their projects.

If I could only explain it in one word, that word would be packed. Now, I've been to crowded events before, but I honestly don't know if I've ever been to something that busy. The One Direction concert in Seattle perhaps, but that was at a stadium, which was designed to be able to fit that many people. This was at an art museum, that usually has about 30 people there at once, and never any more. Packed might be on odd word to use to describe the entire event, but it affected everything. Even with the church across the street opened up to the public, everything was over mass capacity. Every food place was sold out by 2, and the even lasted until 6. Toilet paper was in the midst of being used up every time I went to the bathroom, and my mom kept complaining about the rain lingering on other people's jackets getting on her. The line for a show I saw, 6 female authors speaking about their horror novels, went up three flights of stairs. My mom's not very good at walking or standing for a long time, so this was a bit of a toil for her.

I had originally gone to see John Krakauer, author of Into The Wild, but his event was at max capacity. My mom grumbled quite a bit about having to walk all the way to the church and back in the rain, and then suggested getting coffee, but I was honestly smiling the whole way through. The rain usually puts me in a good mood, and the coffee was a quite nice added bonus. We then got through the wet, crowded, mixed up line and into the up the stairs line. The talk about the writing of the horror novels was actually pretty good. The 6 authors, Paige Mckenzie, Virginia Boeker, April G. Tucholke, Cat Winters, McCormick Templman, and Kendare Blake were all very nice, very smart, and very humorous. Also they all seemed surprisingly normal for horror authors, except for maybe Kendare Blake, who had some interesting lines, such as "I just want a girl to stab stab stab," and spoke of her neurotic tendencies in keeping her house safe. I liked them all though. Nothing was too mind boggling, but it was nice to hear about the writing process of a novel, especially less cookie cutter ones. After that we left the crowded room, and shuffled into a much larger one to see an OPB presentation. Unfortunately, I was hungry and tired, and didn't pay much attention here.

Anyways, it's really nice to see how many people are so interested in the literary arts. Of course, this is Portland, so it could be expected, but it was still surprising. Books are great, they teach us to think things over in multiple ways, they teach us empathy, and they teach us creativity. They teach us to be critical, and they even entertain. I must admit, I don't read nearly as much as I should, but I'm glad so much of Portland does.