Environment

As I mentioned in earlier blog posts, at the Young Commonwealth Climate Change Summit I discovered many inspiring people and organizations working toward tackling climate change. One of them was a social enterprise called Worldview Impact that works on mitigating climate change and reducing poverty by creating green jobs in poor communities. 

After watching a dynamic presentation by founder Bremley Lyngdoh, I asked if he’d have time to give the Youthink! audience a little more background and insight into his organization. When I arrived for our meeting at Worldview headquarters, Bremley first treated me to some “conflict resolution tea” (lemongrass, in case you’re interested, and delicious).

Curious? I was. It’s thus named, Bremley informed me, because it was grown on Paradise Farm.

Even more curious? It turns out Paradise Farm is one of Worldview Impact’s projects—a farm in Sri Lanka where both Tamil and Sinhalese women work together to produce organic food. For those of you who’ve been living on Mars for the past few decades (or ok, are out of touch with Sri Lankan politics), the Tamils and Singhalese were opposing factions in a decades-long civil war that took place in the country.)  “Farming releases the negative energy in people,” Bremley tells me. “You can’t fight over there.” From what it sounds like, the people who work on Paradise Farm are probably too busy to think about fighting. They not only grow crops like tea, cocoa and cashew nuts; they also grow rubber trees which they then harvest to make a host of products—yes, including carbon-free condoms. 

Did you know that climate change—along with its numerous other sins— poses a threat to food security? For example, changes in rainfall patterns will affect poeple's ability to grow food and feed livestock. There are other connections between climate change and food, too. Some foods require huge amounts of energy and water in their production. Others are exported and travel long distances, leaving big carbon footprints.

On World Food Day (October 16), the Food and Agricultural Association (FAO) and World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts launched the Food Security and Climate Change Challenge Badge. This awesome guide (pdf) is a great way to learn all about climate change and food security issues and is also full of ideas and ways in which you can take action to reduce your footprint and your impact on the environment.

This month, we’re talking about food on Youthink!, and how so many people don’t have enough. I recently came across a couple of blogs on the topic of food security—one had some good news, and the other not so good. Let’s start with the bad news first.

Deforestation is happening at alarming rates in many parts of the world. We often hear about the disastrous impact this can have in terms of climate change and biodiversity loss. Deforestation also poses a huge threat to food security. In fact, did you know that in the developing world, 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their food, fuel, and livelihoods? This blogger has seen deforestation and its consequences happen first-hand in his hometown.

Did you know August 16-22 is World Water Week? This annual event is dedicated to the planet’s most urgent water-related issues. The theme this year is: “Accessing Water for the Common Good."

Around the globe, access to water is becoming harder and harder for many people, because of high demand and erratic availability. Still, there are some factors that provide an opportunity to improve things. For example, the global economy, as well as many local economies, are growing several times faster than population growth. And this growth might help people and governments to deal with problems and increase productivity. (Of course now the world's current financial turmoil may have a negative impact on this).