Friday, January 29, 2010
Tom Hanks Kicks-off Haitian Humanitarian Radio Relief
By the Freeplay Foundation
The Freeplay Foundation is delighted to announce that two-time Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks, and Freeplay Foundation ambassador, is kick-starting a Haiti Humanitarian Radio Relief Fund for earthquake survivors in Haiti.
Why radios are needed
Access to information is critical both during an emergency and in reconstruction. Although often overlooked, news and updates from local and international sources is an urgent need, along with water, food, shelter and medical attention. Radio stations are broadcasting and our radios will help aid agencies, the UN and the government get essential information to the population.
The Lifeline radio is one of the most successful aid-only products in history and is robustly engineered for harsh conditions. With AM/FM and short-wave bands, it will pick up both local and international stations and with its excellent sound quality, large groups will be able to hear it clearly. It operates on solar energy coupled with a fail-safe winding mechanism.
Working with credible local partners, the radios will be distributed to shelters, schools, churches, health clinics and wherever people are gathered.
©Marco Dormino/The United Nations
We need your support
Tom Hanks joins the Freeplay Foundation in asking you to help get Freeplay solar-powered and wind-up radios to the Haitian people for the days and months ahead. You can also make a one off donation for any amount by visiting the
Haiti Humanitarian Radio Relief Fund page.
Thank you for your support. For more information, please visit
www.freeplayfoundation.org
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Imagine a brighter 21st century
By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
In our short time on Earth, we humans have emerged from a chaotic world, imposing order and meaning in myriad ways, imagining the world into being. That was our great gift. As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, will we prove ourselves to be imaginative beings capable of creating a better world ?
Our challenge is to imagine a world where our wealth is in human relations and where we learn to live in balance with the rest of nature. By imagining a future, we can make it happen – as we always have.
If we continue, though, to set human borders and the economy as our highest priorities, we will never come to grips with the destructiveness of our activities and institutions.
In imagining a better future, we must open ourselves to the idea of change. And we’d do well to remember that people with vision have been overturning outmoded ways of thinking and acting throughout our brief history on this Earth – often in the face of great resistance. It wasn’t long ago that people in countries such as the U.S. believed slavery was an economic necessity and that abolishing it would destroy the economy and way of life of its “free” citizens.
As far as the cost and the speed of acting in our own best interests, consider how quickly the U.S. was able to build its space program after the Russians launched Sputnik I in 1957. In putting tremendous energy, thought, and resources into getting people onto the moon, the U.S. also sparked innovations such as 24-hour television news channels, cellphones, and GPS navigation.
On the environmental front, world leaders came together in Montreal in 1987 to confront the effect humans were having on
the ozone layer with our use of chlorofluorocarbons. The international treaty they signed used trade sanctions and incentives to get countries to phase out the use of chemicals that were contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer. And that agreement allowed developing countries to take longer to phase out CFCs because the industrialized world had disproportionately contributed to the problem.
We really do have to think big – to imagine what a future that offers the most good to the most people and to all life on this planet would look like. Obviously, reducing poverty, conflict, and human-rights abuses is paramount. Environmental problems exacerbate those issues and so must also be dealt with. Part of the problem is that many of our political leaders are stuck in the mindset that constant economic growth is essential.
For example, consider what
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a speech to South Korea’s National Assembly in late 2009: “Without the wealth that comes from growth, the environmental threats, the developmental challenges and the peace and security issues facing the world will be exponentially more difficult to deal with.”
But with constant growth comes depletion of and increasing competition for scarce resources, as well as more waste; in other words, increased environmental threats, developmental challenges, and peace and security issues.
In thinking beyond these artificial parameters that humans have set (and remember, they were only set during the middle of the 20th century), we can imagine a more sustainable way of living, as York University economist Peter Victor has done in his excellent book
Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster. As Dr. Victor points out, we can’t change overnight, but by imagining a future in which humans live within the Earth’s capacity to provide for our ongoing needs, we can steer ourselves in the right direction.
Once we have imagined this better future, we can get serious about solving the challenges we have created with our now outmoded ways of thinking. Issues such as climate change, mass extinctions of plant and animal species, pollution and toxic chemicals in the environment, water shortages, and more require scientific and political solutions – along with the efforts and support of citizens throughout the world.
We’re well into the 21st century. It’s time we started thinking and acting like responsible 21st century citizens. It’s time to imagine what we really can be.
Learn more at
www.davidsuzuki.org.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Newsletter: When science fiction meets reality
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Avatar : beyond science fiction
All of the issues on this world are clearly the same as those on Earth when Europeans first contacted the indigenous people of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. The invaders perceive the natives as ignorant, superstitious, and cultureless beings with far less worth than their own.
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2010 eco-friendly resolutions
Whether you call them resolutions, goals, or lifestyle changes, there are measures you can take to make 2010 easier on the planet. This week we’re pointing out several of those actions, plus providing the numbers to back them up.
Learn more...
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Avatar offers loads of fun with a green message
By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
One thing I enjoy about the holiday season is having time to go to movies. For more than 40 years, I’ve been involved in making television programs to educate people about science and the natural world. But people watch television in a desultory way, often interrupted by the need to help children with homework, let the dog out, or go to the fridge for a beer or to the bathroom for a break. So we tune in and out, often forgetting whether we got a memorable factoid from The Nature of Things or Grey’s Anatomy.
Movie audiences are different than those in TV land. For one thing, people have to make an effort to go to a theatre. They must then pay to watch, and once they start, they have to focus on the film. There are no commercial breaks. So the impact of watching movies is far greater than the impact of television viewing.
Years ago, while camping on the Serengeti in Africa with my family, I was astonished to meet three young Chinese-Americans, who, as I could see by their clothing alone, were clearly not seasoned campers. I asked what made them want to come and experience the wilderness. Their answer amazed me: “Because we saw The Lion King.”
So even an animated film had such a powerful impact that these urbanites were motivated to set off on a wilderness adventure. For me, Dances with Wolves was a monumental experience, as it presented North American aboriginal people and their values in a way that was a big departure from the usual Hollywood stereotypes.
Which brings me to the latest movie blockbuster, James Cameron’s Avatar. Some reports claim that Mr. Cameron has wanted to do an environmental film since he was 14 years old. I don’t know whether that story is apocryphal or not, but I do think he’s produced an incredible film.
Of course, the 3-D effects are dramatic and charming, but the best part is that Mr. Cameron has created a world that is instantly compelling and believable, which is what good fairy tales do. The indigenous inhabitants of Pandora are clearly alien but not so profoundly different that we can’t identify with them.
All of the issues on this world are clearly the same as those on Earth when Europeans first contacted the indigenous people of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. The invaders perceive the natives as ignorant, superstitious, and cultureless beings with far less worth than their own. When the Earthlings learn that an ancient, immense tree that is a sacred home to the native Na’vi sits on a priceless resource, nothing is going to stop them from exploiting it.
The movie is over the top, as most fairy tales are, with its conflict between the good guys (the Na’vi and a few Earthlings) and bad guys (the rest of the Earth people), but it’s a rip-snorter of an adventure when the good guys fight back with flying reptiles (I’d give my right arm to have one of them!), six-legged horses, and a host of other ferocious “beasts”. I won’t give away the ending, but I can say that I left the theatre very satisfied.
Right-wing commentators in the U.S. and Canada have been apoplectic in their condemnation of Avatar. They say it is anti-American, depicts soldiers and corporations negatively, is anti-Christian, promotes paganism, and on and on. One of the more amusing comments came from someone who wrote a letter to the Calgary Herald, claiming that “This movie will be the undoing of our children. They will soon turn into a hive-mind of radical environmentalism – puppets of their master, David Suzuki.”
Talk about confusing fiction and reality!
One U.S. “family” movie-review site says Avatar “has an abhorrent New Age, pagan, anti-capitalist worldview that promotes goddess worship and the destruction of the human race.”
Of course, this anger is in reaction to the clear analogy of Na’vis with North American natives – the way they’ve been exploited and the ignorance of the oppressors about the interconnectedness of everything in nature. .”
Sure, the movie has a great ecological message, but overall it’s just a lot of fun. Please go and see it if you haven’t already. I’m going to watch it again – and again!
Learn more at
www.davidsuzuki.org.
Friday, January 15, 2010
ALTERNATIVE CHANNEL SUPPORTS HAITI : SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP
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Port-au-Prince was devastated by an earthquake measured at 7.0 on the Richter scale Tuesday afternoon. The quake destroyed most of the infrastructures of the capital, putting millions of people to the streets. The President of America’s poorest country fears more than 100 000 people have died. Aid organizations have deployed emergency response teams to Haiti.
The best way to help is by donating through one of these high-rated effective and financially stable charities.
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The Canadian Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRD) is accepting donations to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. Donations can be earmarked to the Haiti Earthquake fund. The Red Cross response includes evacuation support, search and rescue efforts and providing shelter and first aid. Local Red Cross volunteers continue to work around the clock to help the many people affected by this disaster.
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The humanitarian organization delivers medical care to people caught in crisis. Donations to its Haiti relief efforts will go toward repairing the obstetrics and trauma hospitals in Haiti that were damaged in the earthquake. They also will go to transporting an additional 70 doctors and medical supplies to the island in an effort to set up makeshift emergency medical response centers. To donate, go to doctorswithoutborders.org or call 1-888-392-0392. |
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The national committee for UNICEF is responsible for the organization's fundraising. UNICEF uses the money for health care, clean water, nutrition, education and emergency relief. The organization has issued a statement that "Children are always the most vulnerable population in any natural disaster, and UNICEF is there for them." 64% of Haiti’s population is less than 18 years old. UNICEF requests donations for relief for children in Haiti via their Haiti Earthquake Fund. You can also call 1-800-4UNICEF.
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You can also find a list of all the organizations you can donate HERE
Be Generous and donate NOW!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Chris Nicola’s secrets
Chris Nicola is sharing his secrets from Priest’s Grotto, a place he discovered nearly 17 years ago while looking for a cave of 38 brave Jewish Holocaust survivors who used to hide from the Nazi genocide.
Chris, inherently an adventurer and a Change Agent, has devoted more than three decades to the exploration of caves across the world from the former Soviet Union to the Caribbean, Europe, Oceana, the Americas and Africa. Yet, his life-long commitment is to raising awareness about the Holocaust genocide through the amazing and awe-inspiring story of the survivors who lived underground in a dark, 77-mile massive Ukrainian cave system for an excess of 500 days. Priest’s Grotto is a place where Chris and a team of expert volunteers excavated a large amount of delicate archeological and historical artifacts. Not surprising considering the cave was a home to 38 people for about a year and a half.
Through Chris’ discovery, advocacy and a new documentary, the story of how two families lived in complete darkness only leaving the cave at night to search for food and supplies is able to remind us of the tragedy and need to promote human rights. Single-handedly, Chris worked to find the caves and share their Holocaust survival stories to inspire people around the world to come together.
There are two projects taking up much of Chris’ time. He’s working on The Priest’s Grotto Heritage Project, a genocide awareness program where he trains youth in Borchev to work as archeologists with local museum staff to locate, protect and preserve the cave artifacts.
He also created The Ukrainian American Youth Caver Exchange Foundation (UAYCEF) dedicated to protect Ukrainian caves while fostering the exchange of speleological (the study of caves) related information between young cavers in America and Ukraine. Chris serves as its director and frequently leads caving trips.
Intrigued? Read more about Chris and his amazing journeys as he works on his documentary on Changents.com.
Monday, January 04, 2010
The 2009 Changents picture review
In 2009 Pictures Screamed Louder than Words: Which Change Agent Screamed the Loudest?
Scott Harrison stunned us with a beautiful slide show about "The End of the World," a village in Central African Republic. Scott's org, charity: water, changed lives in an instant - as they have done so many times before - when they drilled a clean water well for the village.
see all Scott Harrison's pictures
Anna Cummins heard a talk on the North Pacific Gyre and it changed her life forever. She's trying to help raise awareness about the Pacific Ocean turning into plastic soup. This is a picture of a youth canoeing down a waterway in Java. Anna created a JUNK raft and began giving talks down the West Coast about the effects of plastics on the water. It's not easy work to change the world one piece of plastic at a time, but Anna's doing a pretty awesome job.
Christine Destrempes' exhibit "13,699" stands for the number of people who die each day from water related diseases. Each person is represented by a bottle cap - captured before heading to the landfill and suspended from fishing line.
This looks like paradise, right? Erland Howden may have captured a gorgeous beach scene in Papua, New Guinea, but if you look closer you can see that the sand is disappearing from the base of the palm tree. The culprit? Erosion caused by global warming.
The ocean is more than a great place to catch fish
By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
To many people, our oceans are little more than a great blue expanse of water. To some, they are a source of beauty and enjoyment. And for millions of people around the globe, the oceans are sources of food and jobs in fishing or fish-farming industries. But the oceans are also the anchor for life on this planet. When it comes to global warming, the oceans may be our salvation.
The oceans do much more than provide us with food, employment, and enjoyment. They also absorb much of the excess carbon that humans have been pumping into the atmosphere during industrialization.
The world’s oceans have already absorbed a huge percentage of carbon that would contribute to global warming if it were released into the atmosphere, according to Blue Carbon: the Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon, a report by the UN Environment Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.
The IOC’s Patricio Bernal argues that “the ocean has already spared us from dangerous climate change.” He adds, though, that “each day we are essentially dumping 25 million tons of carbon into the ocean. As a consequence, the ocean is turning more acidic, posing a huge threat to organisms with calcareous structures.” (These organisms include corals, clams, shrimp, and many types of plankton.)
The report finds that protecting and restoring marine ecosystems such as estuaries and mangroves could contribute to offsetting up to seven per cent of current fossil fuel emissions at a much lower cost than technologies to capture and store carbon at power stations. What this means from a global warming perspective is that by simply protecting and restoring these ecosystems, we could achieve 10 per cent of the reductions required to keep the climate from warming by 2º C. These actions would also have numerous other benefits to marine wildlife and fisheries.
 ©Alastair Rae The damage we are inflicting on ocean ecosystems has numerous consequences for global warming. Ice at the North and South poles has kept our ocean temperatures relatively stable for millennia. Now, our oceans are absorbing so much additional energy that the ice is melting and the oceans are warming at an ever-increasing rate. If polar ice disappears, the warming trend will escalate because the albedo effect, the reflection of sunlight off bright surfaces like clouds and ice, will decrease. We can only guess how this will affect marine ecosystems and all life on our planet, but we are already noticing changes in the distribution and abundance of species throughout the world’s oceans.
The Blue Carbon report notes that of all living organisms that are able to capture carbon, those that live in the ocean capture more than 55 per cent. Coastal wetlands, marshes, mangroves, and estuaries play an important role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Other life forms in the open ocean assimilate carbon through their diets, which is then stored in the sediments of the deep ocean when the life forms die and sink to the bottom. This carbon will be stored for millennia. Protecting more of these valuable ocean ecosystems will help control climate change resulting from excess carbon in the atmosphere and will also help restore the capacity of these areas to support marine life, particularly fish. Given that over three billion people depend on marine fish for protein, we should do all we can to ensure abundant fisheries for the future.
 ©Ian Mackenzie Canada can play major role on this issue. We must protect the valuable ocean ecosystems within Canada’s jurisdiction and we must be a global advocate to set objectives for conserving and managing the Earth’s marine resources.
We have tremendous opportunities in Canada to do our share. The coastal estuaries and sea grasses on Canada’s West Coast and the great delta of the Mackenzie River are just two of many places where our government could do a lot more to ensure protection and recovery of these environments.
The need for additional conservation of our oceans is undeniable, the benefits of doing so are becoming more evident every day, and the opportunity is before us. All we need now is for governments to acknowledge the leading science, like that presented in the Blue Carbon report, and to get serious about investing in strategies that will put us on a more sustainable path.
Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.
Blue Carbon IOC news release (Bernal quotes)
Ice cap melt and warming oceans (Copenhagen Diagnosis report)
Managing the Earth’s ocean resources
The need for conservation
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