World Water Day 2008

• by ~summer~
• Filed Under: developing world
• Date: Sat, Mar 22, 2008

Video from 2007 Children’s World Water Forum

Today is World Water Day. Here’s some water and sanitation facts:

• 1.1 billion people lack access to an improved water supply - approximately one in six people on earth
• 2.6 billion people in the world lack access to improved sanitation
• Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use
• The average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day. The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each day.
• Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources.
• Every $1 spent on water and sanitation creates on average another $8 in costs averted and productivity gained
• Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water live on less $2 a day
• Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more for per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.
• For children under age five, water-related diseases are the leading cause of death.
• 88 percent of all diseases are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
• At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.
• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

Visit: Engineers without Borders and UNICEF

• Tags: africa, americas, asia, children and opportunities, developing world, global responsibility, sanitation, water

Good 4 Girls

• by ~summer~
• Filed Under: children and opportunities, developing world
• Date: Mon, Feb 25, 2008

Every once in awhile, an individual throws an idea to the wind and it takes flight.

You’ve seen those Tampax & Always commercials describing how girls in South Africa often miss school because of lack of menstrual protection? Procter and Gamble has started a program in Africa, where they are donating Always sanitary pads to girls who otherwise would miss several days of school each month due to inadequate menstrual supplies. You buy their product, they donate.

Kudos to them for stepping up to address a need, but….while I just said “hmmm, I’m not so sure about that”…Crunchy Chicken, eco-challenge blogger extraordinare, saw these ads and then pondered out loud at the solid waste concerns associated with maxi-pads. Lacking Class II landfills, many African girls might rely substantially on incineration, triggering a very real air quality concern.

From what I’ve read, the biggest barrier to girls staying in school past puberty has a lot less to do with lack of menstrual products, but more the lack of bathrooms, privacy and clean running water. Imagine having to change a rag or newspaper (which is what most girls use), or now a pad or possibly tampons, while squatting behind a bush and then having no facilities to wash your hands? ~Crunchy

Crunchy asked if there would be interest in starting a donation drive for reusable menstrual pads. Within days, Crunchy started the Good 4 Girls website, complete with resources to make or purchase reusable pads. She’s been in touch with 5 aid organizations in 4 African countries, which have confirmed there is great need for a program such as this. By the end of March, she hopes to have enough donations to ship 60 kits to girls in Africa.

• Tags: africa, bloggosphere, children and opportunities, developing world, green(er) living

Spielberg Pulls of Out Olympics, Citing Concerns about China’s Role in Darfur

• by ~summer~
• Filed Under: justice
• Date: Wed, Feb 13, 2008

Steve Spielberg has pulled out of the Olympics, citing concerns about China’s role in the Darfur conflict. The months long campaign by the group Dream for Darfur has urged people to contact Olympic sponsors and participants, including Spielberg, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Staples, etc., to convince them to use their influence to address Chinese role in Sudan.

Chinese state-owned oil corporations invest in the regime that sponsors genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and China sells weapons to Sudan.

In April, Spielberg wrote a letter to the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, calling on China to take firm action to stop the violence in Sudan, but received no response to his request for a meeting.

Spielberg, who was on-board as artistic adviser for the Beijing Olympics, decided that the Chinese government had not been sufficiently active in resolving the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region. In a statement released last night, he said: “I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual. At this point, my time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur.”

China, consistent with it’s non-interventionist line of policy with regard to its own human rights violations, stated that the human rights crisis in Darfur is an issue internal to Sudan and called Spielberg’s withdrawal “unfair”.

Amnesty Intl. isn’t calling for a boycott of the Beijing Games, though others are. According to Amnesty “What’s important is that everyone involved in the Olympics goes to China with their eyes open: basic human rights like free speech and fair trials are routinely denied in the country, and China has sold weapons to Sudan that have been used to commit crimes against humanity.”

Thank you, Mr. Spielberg.

more from Amnesty International

• Tags: africa, darfur, olympics

rhino poo

• by ~summer~
• Filed Under: Uncategorized
• Date: Wed, Dec 5, 2007

Still looking for that gift for the curmudgeon who has everything? Thinking you’d like to fork over for some charitable giving, but the WWF plush animals aren’t quite the freebie you were hoping for? Looking for something beyond that Oxfam note card? Well, time is waning for your chance to claim some rhino poop. Several rhino species are in real bad shape. To call attention to their plight and raise funds for consevation efforts, the International Rhino Foundation is auctioning off rhino dung.

Now, at first read this sounds silly. Poop is worthless (unless it’s being converted into energy at a co-generation plant). However, with the rapidly declining populations and the fact that scarcity drives prices up, the stuff could be gaining worth as several rhino species become the creatures of legends. Further, ecologically speaking, dung is gold. For instance:

• Rhinos disperse seeds from trees and shrubs in their feces that will eventually grow into new trees and shrubs.
• Rhinos that poop in water provide food for fish.
• Rhinos use piles of dung to mark their territory.

The rhino poop auction began Friday. Four separate pieces of dung will be up for auction:

• The White Rhino: Tied with the Greater One-Horned Rhino as the largest species of land mammal after the elephant. 14,500 left.
• The Black Rhino: The population of this rhino decreased 96 percent between 1970-1992. 3,725 are left.
• The Sumatran Rhino: Likely, the most endangered of rhinoceros. 275 remain.
• The Greater One Horned Rhino: Along with the Southern White Rhino in South Africa, the Indian Rhino is one of two greatest success stories in rhino conservation. 2,619 Indian Rhinos remain.
• Sadly, the Javan Rhino is so rare, its feces could not be obtained. Fewer than 50 roam our fragile little planet.

Check out at ebay to bid on the dung. If a good old fashioned rhino adoption is more yer thing, IRF has that option as well. A mesely 100 bucks will fund one rhino protection unit — five rangers — in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park while they patrol the park and prevent poaching of Javan rhinos and other animals for four days.

h/t Rick O
image source international rhino foundation

• Tags: africa, asia, endangered species, environmental economics

elephants keep track of their relatives

• by ~summer~
• Filed Under: Uncategorized
• Date: Tue, Dec 4, 2007

elephants under the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro

New research shows that elephants keep track of the location of up to 30 relatives by tracking their scents and maintaining a mental map of their locations. The University of St Andrews studied 36 family groups of elephants living in Amboseli National Park.

Psychologists from the University of St Andrews collected samples of female elephant urine from the ground and presented it to relatives to trick them into believing that the elephant had recently passed by. Elephants showed surprise when they encountered the scent of an individual who was actually walking behind them so could not possibly have been there. They also reacted when the urine was from a family member who was far away, and not supposed to be in the area.

from BBC
image from Amboseli Trust for Elephants

• Tags: africa, endangered species

Investors Against Genocide - Divest from Sudan

• by ~summer~
• Filed Under: developing world, justice
• Date: Thu, Nov 15, 2007

Richard has a Darfur Update posted, with a focus on the progress being made by the group Investors Against Genocide. The group is leading a campaign to encourage/pressure major investment firms with holdings of certain stocks to divest from these stocks. The stocks in question were identified by a Taskforce, which listed about two dozen companies that are “highest offenders,” and the divestment effort is focused on the very worst of those highest offenders - the oil companies that are providing the funds the Government of Sudan needs to carry on the genocide in Darfur.

I, being of corporate ilk, have a 401k with Fidelity (the company matching funds are too hard to pass up). I’m sending in a shareholder resolution and encouraging my close work friends to do the same. If you invest in a problem fund, please consider submitting a shareholder resolution. I’ll let you know what I hear back from Fidelity.

image source: preventgenocide.org

The Save Darfur Coalition has a series of ads up on YouTube, with this one seeming to be among the more effective:

• Tags: africa, children and opportunities, darfur, developing world, kids, political