Category Archives: Teaching Others

The Face of Climate Change Highlights: Europe

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This is the fifth blog in our series of guest posts by the Earth Day Network. 

In Europe, the Face of Climate Change is ever-present, as the region is threatened by rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Nonetheless, Europeans are stepping up to confront these challenges by engaging in civic activism and awareness campaigns.

In the UK, the Face of Climate Change is a young woman and her polar bear puppet, Polo. The woman uses Polo to educate students about the effects of climate change and other environmental issues.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, the Face of Climate Change is environmental activism. Hundreds of Bulgarians took to the streets in the Save the Forest demonstration, protesting deforestation in the region.

In Belgium, the Face of Climate Change is the face of girl concerned about the impacts of climate change on the country’s coastline. Rising sea levels and coastal erosion are already affecting Belgium’s economy.

On Earth Day—April 22—thousands of Europeans will take action on behalf of the environment. In Italy, Earth Day Network partner Earth Day Italia has planned a massive environmentally-themed concert at the Teatro della Luna in Milan. Celebrities, artists, scientists, and journalists will come together to discuss the meaning of Earth Day and the impacts of climate change. In Kosovo, the Kosovo United States Alumni has planned an Earth Day event to educate Alumni members and the general public about environmental issues.  KUSA will also showcase The Face of Climate Change photo display in Pristina on April 22.

Hundreds of events like these will take place throughout Europe on April 22. To learn more about Earth Day and to participate in The Face of Climate Change, go to www.earthday.org/2013.

This entry reflects the author’s personal judgments and does not represent the views of the United States Government or the Department of State. Interested in more of the Earth Day Network’s guest blogs? Take a look at the first post, the second post, the third post, and the fourth post. And don’t forget to check out the Face of Climate Change wall of photos for more inspiration – you can even submit your own! 


Guest Blog: Solar Sister #3

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Solar Sister Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
What has women and girl’s health to do with clean energy?

Did you know that energy poverty has a female face? Women and girls in villages, small towns and shanty dwellings dispersed across the length and breadth of Asia, Africa and Latin America live with the worst consequences of energy poverty. Let’s put spotlight on two key health dimensions that often get sidelined in discussions on why energy access is so important for women’s health. One, the burden of lifting heavy fuelwood for cooking over long distances and two, women’s sanitation and safety concerns related to the use of outdoor bathrooms without basic lighting at night.

In Entoto, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, thousands of women and girls collect firewood. They carry these burdensome heavy loads for many miles, which they will use or sell as woodfuel. In Ethiopia 90% of energy comes from biomass like wood and charcoal (Photo Credits: Wikipedia) All over the world, rural women heavily depend on fuel wood for cooking. According to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, over half of world’s population cooks food, boils water, and warm their homes using wood, dung and other local biomass. The World Health Organization estimates that exposure to smoke from cooking constitutes the fifth worst risk factor for disease in developing countries. Open fires and poorly designed makeshift cook stoves emit smoke and particulate matter which are responsible for nearly 2 million deaths a year worldwide.

In most cases, women and children are responsible for collecting the wood, a very time-consuming and tiring task. International Energy Agency estimates that the average fuel wood load in sub-Saharan Africa is around 20 kg (44 lbs) but loads of 38 kg (84 lbs) have also been recorded. Women can suffer serious long-term physical damage carrying such heavy loads on their back with impacts like low birth weights in babies. Add to this the constant risk of falls, bites or assault, that risk of injury rises steeply the further from home women and children have to walk to collect the wood due to deforestation engulfing many areas. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is fighting these issues to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.

The other women’s health issue related to energy poverty was brought to my attention by Sarah Kasule, Program Coordinator with the Mother’s Union of Uganda, which is one of Solar Sister’s key grassroots partners in training rural women as solar entrepreneurs. Sarah told me an important benefit of solar light for the women of Africa that I had not heard about from anyone else I’d met. She said that in Uganda, open pit toilets are often located outside the houses/larger settlements and in absence of light; women have to walk in the dark to use the toilet. This is not a very appealing topic for most to talk about openly but is extremely important from women’s health perspective as women pick up all kinds of unsavory infections in absence of clean toilets and worse, without being able to see where they are going. Besides, walking alone in the thick of night to use the toilet increases the risk of gender-based violence, which drives women further into poverty. The situation is worse for women living in refugee camps. Access to light can be one of the important tools to improve nighttime security and health for women. Sarah is happy that now with the unique partnership between Solar Sister and Mother’s Union of Uganda, this important issue can get much needed light.

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

Guest Blog: Climate Science That Sticks

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Rebecca Anderson, Climate Scientist for ACE (Courtesy Photo)

Rebecca Anderson, Climate Scientist for ACE (Courtesy Photo)

Rebecca Anderson is the Alliance for Climate Education‘s staff climate scientist and a climate educator in California and Nevada. She blogs regularly about climate science and solutions for The Huffington Post and other outlets. Previously, Rebecca conducted climate research on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet ice-core drilling project, studied ice caps on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic and worked as an interpretative ranger with the National Park Service. Rebecca holds a Master of Science in geological sciences at the University of Colorado and a Bachelor of Arts in geosciences from Williams College.  Read her guest blog below!

 

I love my job.

Every week I get to visit a nearby high school, get up on stage and present to the students the story of climate change. It’s a story without an ending yet, but that’s a good thing, because then I get to work with the same young people who are writing the end of the story.

I’m an educator and the team scientist for the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE). ACE is the national leader in the United States in climate science education for high school students and has presented our free multimedia assembly on climate science and solutions to more than 1 million students nationwide. I am proud that our assembly is working too—a recent survey with Chicago Public Schools found our assembly contributed to a 58% improvement in climate science understanding, and ACE was awarded the 2011 Climate Change Communicator of the Year Award.

But I was not always in this line of work. I started out wanting to study glaciers, so I could travel to remote and bone-chillingly cold places around the world. And I got to – both to Baffin Island in the Arctic (2 years of research on those ice caps and a Master’s degree told me: “Yep, they’re melting — and fast.”) as well as to Antarctica (not melting quite as fast there yet, thankfully).

The more I travelled and the more I studied, the more I learned that scientists know plenty about climate change. The problem is that most people don’t understand what the scientists know. And because people don’t get how severe the problem is, they don’t care.

That’s when I met ACE. Now, instead of having adventures navigating the frozen wastelands of the Arctic by snowmobile, I explore wilderness like the fearsome hallways of Placer High School when the lunch bell rings. The wildlife is just as interesting.

On stage, I explain the situation with climate change through our multimedia assembly. It is climate science that sticks, filled with fast-paced animations that show students how our lifestyles are increasing greenhouse gases, which in turn are trapping in excess heat and warming up the planet. I also talk about the impacts: more heat waves, intense storms, flooding and droughts, disease, military strife…this is the worst part. But then I invite students to imagine their own end to the story – and to actually step up to make their vision real.

I love this part the best. Because when I finally do wrestle through the crowds in the halls, I step into a classroom filled with the Placer High ACE Action Team: 20 students dedicated to making their school and community greener. In addition to competing with other ACE Action Teams nationwide to use less energy in their school in ACE’s Biggest Loser Energy contest, they’re planning for their annual Placerpalooza festival – a springtime greenfest with solar-powered music, all recyclable and compostable materials and local food and crafts.

Placer High’s club is just one of almost a thousand ACE Action Teams across the country taking on carbon-cutting projects. And people are listening. Last spring, two ACE Youth Reps spoke at the White House about their success in lowering their school’s energy use and saving the school more than $20,000.

These young people aren’t just the future of America’s shift to sustainability. They’re at the heart of that shift right now.

How to get your man back after broke up

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A Pure Home Water representative demonstrates how to assemble a household water filter at a school in Tamale, Ghana. (Courtesy photo)

Students around the world have recognized the need for water conservation and are taking action. From experiencing the role lakes play in the local ecosystem firsthand to taking part in innovative environmental projects that help youth put their ideas into action, these students are setting an example for everyone around the world- regardless of age.

This video gives you a glimpse into an incredible adventure for Israeli high school students spending a week at Lake Kinneret.  In conjunction with the Society of the Protection of Nature, the students see up close how the river impacts its surroundings and how important conservation is. Israel has been experiencing lower than normal rainfall for several years, which has resulted in the lake to fall below the “black line” – the line that indicates when there is not enough water to pump out to people without severely damaging the water supply. When students interact with nature and get to see exactly how they can impact something as vital as a river, both positively and negatively, it can be the catalyst for positive action. Those same students that sleep next to the rivers, under the stars, are aware of the interconnectedness of an ecosystem. This awareness makes the first step towards water conservation not only easier, but imperative.

About 5,000 kilometers away in Tamil Nadu, India, students at Kola Permual Chetty Vaishnav Senior Secondary School in India are continuing to take steps to conserve water on a school-wide level. In 2008, they won the Green I Competition sponsored by Yi Bangalore (Young Indians Bangalore), a “competition for school students [that] aims to create awareness and encourage students to think about conservation and sustainability measures that can be incorporated within their school/community for a better tomorrow.” The prize money the students won supported 8 rain water harvesting systems on the school’s campus, a roof-top garden, solar hot water generators, and a drip-irrigation system. This group of students has made real progress in reducing their school’s impact on the environment and in their water conservation efforts. They used their ingenuity, creativity, and teamwork to not only learn about different innovations they could use, but to create their own and take even greater positive action.

Has your school done anything great to help the environment? Are they doing something now? From recycling and composting programs to installing solar panels, when students work together they can make incredible changes not just in water conservation, but in all areas of the environment.