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Daisy is the author of the diary, and I merely am posting for her as she is a new kos-friend. I provided the link to her site at the end of her text. I will also ask her to post an early comment so you can tip her.
The dry lake in Amboseli, Kenya
Mount Kilamanjaro has lost most of its permanent snowpack.
The Drought in East Africa Continues.
"Despite knowing their environment well, people in the Turkana or Oromo regions of southern Ethiopia were unable either to predict or cope with the severity of the long drought. In Kenya, drought used to come every five years, and this region has always been food-insecure. Now drought seems endemic, and the local pastoralists' coping mechanisms are overwhelmed", writes Simon Roughneed on May 14, 2010. This devastating drought continues today and increases with catastrophic proportions for all species. The depth and severity of the droughts in Africa are the outcomes of climate change today. As more carbon is released into the atmosphere globally snow covered mountains melt, rivers dry and rain ceases to fall. Please try to reduce your carbon emissions today and inspire those around you and in decision making positions to do the same. All of our lives depend on making anual steps towards an a 80% reduction in carbon emissions. A 5% reduction a year throughout in efficiency, and use with a 5% increase in clean energy can make a world of difference. If we all take a step by step incremental approach throughout all aspects of the energy landscape landscape can reach our goal and protect crucial habitat.
A Girl With 37 Parts Too Many
Lilian Pesi and her friends need our help.This PSA was shot in Kenya during the recent drought
Together we can build a sustainable future for girls like Lilian Pesi. Clean stove projects at schools and orphanages are a good start. They can be funded with carbon offsets. Once installed they have positive effectsthoughout the whole systm. Clean stove projects keep girls in school rather than out on dangerous roads looking for wood and water. Clean stoves also reduce carbon emissions by 70% because they do not cut and burn wood fuel, Nt cutting trees preserves habitat. Not burning wood reduces the amount of smoky air that causes a serious health risk to children's developing lungs. This integrated approach can provide targeted development that improves the entire system and provides solutions that are wide spread and long term. At the Irbaan school for example, we have installed a well so girls are not taken from school to look for water and it has also kept 500 people alive during Kenya's deep drought. Additionally they do not have to sterilize the water over wood fires so the trees are left standing.
As a designer of legacy products that have been providing sustainable cradle to cradle solutions since 1991 problems ask for solutions, solutions often provide new business for local economies. Working together and taking the design challenge of end hunger in our lifetime while reducing emissions by 80% seems as much an opportunity as a problem. The environmental movement is about MORE not less. 80% of a products footprint is established at the point of design. We not only need to design sustainable products we need to design sustainable systems that provide positive effects throughout the web of life.
According to Carlson, "We are entering into a Restorative Economy, a re-design that will provide the lions share of future profits to those who find systemic solutions to the worlds enviromental issues. Products and profits will come from systemic solutions that redirect existing capital to clean energy solutions for a doubling population and eliminate deep poverty. We are creating a movement where we can all be part of the solution through transparent, seamless redirection of existing capital. Natures systems are abundant, productive and adaptive and so is our community. We can come together and redesign a system that works for everyone. A restorative economy builds wealth and environmental stability with a biodiverse bottom line that includes MORE (Money, Organisms, Resources, and Ecology ) in every decision. As you consider design and solutions ask yourself what footprint you are leave. What seed are you planting. Include MORE in your design and the system will improve overall and set a precedent for what is expected of designers. It has to improve the system not rob the system and have a holistic approach. This often increases product longevity. What does accounting for MORE mean? MORE puts Money, Organisms, Resouces, and Ecology on the bottom line and provides MORE value throughout the system that includes solutions for those in need.
I had wanted Cool HIVE to be a global HIve where we could all work on systemic design and trade in solutions ideas and farm stuff. I wanted us to be able to Cool your credit card by having purchases offset by affinity programs. Connect, build and advise projects in the HIVE. Our slogan was "Come Buzz around with us and team up with friends to produce long-term legacy solutions that save lives with everyday activity." I was not big enough to do this. Nor do I have the personality to make something big like that. but it doesn't mean its not a good idea to team up with friends and brain storm on solutions that can protect our habitat and reduce carbon emissions and famine. Acting as a team. I live on a mountain and deer and native plants our my team. Partially I chose this after being in East Africa and spending time with the Maasai, who are literally outside all day. They have a calm, regal quality and I knew that rushing aournd trying to save the day was not exactly the right solution. If we could find a way The corporate challenge of paying the environmental date as they go while staying competative me mean a redisign of a productive business system. Our lives need to connecting to life giving systems that integrates with your daily life. Millions of girls like Lilian Pesi will thank you for Making the Planet Cooler by reducing your carbon emissions by 5% and offsetting with a solar stove purchase.
We Have the Technology Now We Need the Will.
This was the little piece on CNN and in Times Square on Climate Action day Oct. 24, hosted by Bill McKibben and 350.
The Maasai Climate Action was challenging as on the day of the shoot elephants blocked the children's passage through the dry river so we didn't have a total of 350 kids at any one time. I would say, having seen the devastation of drought, East Africa shows Climate in Action. They endure unthinkable suffering from lack of water. That alone sends a clear message to the world. We need reality based climate policy TODAY. Each of us should make a personal sustainability goal to help reduce our emissions everyday. It matters to children all over the world today and tomorrow.
Solar Stoves Buy One Give One
Reduce CO2 emissions at home and while camping $25
How to make one, use one and enjoy one includes free recipes. (pdf)
Kibera Outskirts- Displaced People Crowd City Slum
How coal contributes to Kenya's deforestation
The externalities of the fossil fuel business, like the US coal industry, include drought due to climate change. Here in Kenya, as crop yields are diminished due to lack of water, impoverished populations cut even more equatorial forests to increase crop lands. As water becomes dirtier more wood is turned into charcoal and burned to purify it. Fresh food is extremely limited resulting in longer cooking time for hard soaked corn and dried porridge. Trying to meet their most basic needs a virtually carbon neutral population is rapidly become more carbon intensive in an attempt to stay alive. As the world turns its back, Kilimanjaro is loosing both snow and tree cover. Kenya is loosing species diversity at an alarming rate. Lakes and rivers fed by Mt Kilimanjaro's snow cover and microclimates have all dried up. The Maasai have no place left to walk to find water. Children are thirsty, hungry and being abandoned across the country. A clean energy economy can end hunger in our lifetime and restore habitats that have been marginalized by climate change and our fossil fuel dependence. With just 387 parts per million carbon equivalent in the atmosphere we can see the devastating effects climate change is already having. Are we really willing to continue with our focus on a mono-crop of money while all other valuable assets diminish. We are borrowing heavily not only from our children's future but on our own. Stop climate change NOW, Use Less live MORE.
Irbaan School - Maasai Mara, Kenya
Irbaan Primary School, Maasai Mara, Kenya, opened with three classrooms in November 2007, thanks to the generosity of international donors. The school, serves communities spread out for over the vast grasslands of the Mara region in Kenya, is still in need of ongoing support to provide a quality education to the hundreds of children in the area. More classrooms are needed to accommodate all the children and school supplies from textbooks to desks are in short supply. Funding for enough teachers that includes salaries and accommodation $300 a month, will help keep classroom sizes of reasonable size. Children, who walk as far as 7 kilometers to school, each way, often on an empty stomach, need a hot lunch to be provided. Provide an individual scholarship, $300 a year, and we will include you on the donors page of the Charming The World, Maasai book. I am astounded at the number of children in this touristed region that still lacked access to basic essentials like fresh water and food. This is an opportunity for the first generation of Maasai girls to go to school, and their first opportunity to experience physical and intellectual autonomy. Their young fathers appreciate what education did for them and want to share this gift with all their children. This generation values education and can transform the brutality of poverty into potential.
This well put in about 18 months ago currently sustains 500 people. This area in the Mara has not seen rain for two years. I was there during that last rain. I remember the panic I felt seeing thousands of dead Wildebeest carcasses float into the water stream of hundreds of villages along the Mara river. Children go to school to get a meal. Usually corn and mush cooked over fires from the 50 lb. burlap WFP sacks. I go from school to school and find children lining up for a scoop of corn and see the little ones trying to carry some home for their siblings. It makes tears come to my eyes every time I see it. As the cows die from drought and the milk dries up these children will soon be facing the dire consequences of malnutrition that has come about from climate change today. Yes these are the consequences of climate change, our emissions here are killing children there. We are all complicit in this crime against humanity. Clean development mechanisms are an essential part of climate policy. They will provide sustainable development to those most affected by climate change......children like these.
Original Post
East Africa Food Crisis: 48 Hours of Action
This weekend, Daily Kos is participating in 48-Hour Fundraiser hosted by environmental websites and nonprofit organizations to benefit the 12 million people struggling for survival in the East African countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Last week, the United Nations announced famine -- already declared in two districts -- is likely to spread throughout southern Somalia. This week, the UN issued a warning that food insecurity in northern Uganda is sufficiently alarming to raise the possibility that the country might become the fifth nation impacted by the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in sixty years.
Also participating in this weekend of action are 350.org, Oxfam International, WiserEarth, tcktcktck, DeSmogBlog, MIT Climate CoLab, BPI Campus, Climate Change: The Next Generation, RedGreenAndBlue.org, Cool HIVE, MedicMobile, and The Enough Project.
Over the course of the weekend, experts in the field of humanitarian assistance will join environmental writers to outline the history of the region and detail how geopolitics, colonialism, ongoing civil wars, climate change and geographic vulnerabilities have combined to create the perfect storm now ravaging East Africa.
Each participating organization is choosing its particular group for donated funds. Daily Kos is donating all monies raised to directly support the work of Oxfam in the Horn of Africa. Please add $.01 to your donation so it ends up being $5.01, $20.01, $50.01, $100.01, and so on. This will enable Oxfam to keep track of all Daily Kos donations.
Click here to Go directly to Oxfam's donation page, which will enable us to keep track of how much money we raise.
Please read this if you live outside the United States - to make a donation, click this link and scroll down a bit to find your country. If not listed, please Google Oxfam in your country.
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CLICK THE BELOW LINK TO MAKE A DONATION
Donate now - Donate to Oxfam America
Please read this if you live outside the United States - to make a donation, click this link and scroll down a bit to find your country. If not listed, please Google Oxfam in your country.
|
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