Sustainability

I participated in the organization of the Latin American Heads Conference (LAHC) Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Conference in Lima, Peru. This conference became something real with teachers and students participating in this event.  It is so rewarding to see something materialize from paper to actions.
This conference talked about many things, but the main theme and drive was to promote concrete actions for schools in Lima, Peru regarding a very important issue, educating our student with a Sustainable Development approach, perspective and creed. After all, doing that will help us take good care of our planet by consuming Fair Trade products, raise community awareness, organize and participate in students' activities, and overall, be responsible with ourselves and our planet.
You can find more information about this conference and the informatiuon that was made available through its wiki, click here.
Fair Trade is the approach to business by doing things in a sustainable way, better wages, giving things back to the community, which promotes further development and increases the production and helps businesses grow by taking good care of the planet. Find out more about fair trade from: Wikipedia, Fair Trade Foundation (UK), Fair trade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), Fair Trade Federation (US), and review some good examples of TransFair (US).

One of the impacting messages I took from this conference is to be aware of the products I and most of us consume. I'll follow this post with another one about Green Chemistry, but take the time to visit a very interesting website, The Story of Stuff, where you can watch Annie Leonard.



The best of all is that The Story of Stuff will help students raise awareness in their immediate community, and for us teachers, we'll be able to use their resources for teaching this and other lessons.

Global Warming…or, Global Raining?

I’ve been hearing about the issues of Global Warming for years. Causes and consequences have shifted in some way over the years. Many are the reasons for that, certainly the world’s needs are sometimes a drive force to modify some of these issues. Carbon dioxide, greenhouse effect, oil, methane, and other terms have been in our mouths for years. Nothing has been significantly done government-wide in the US, more than separate actions that have have little or no effect nationwide, not a good move considering that the US populations represents 4% of the world population but contributes with 25% of the World Carbon dioxide emissions.

I’m talking about this because I woke up at 5 am with water dripping from the roof of my apartment due to “intense” rain for Lima, PERU. Since I came back to my home country, I have witnessed more rain in the last 3 years than during my first 25 years here.

Click here for the news report.

I call it “intense” because 3-4 cm in the city of Lima is a significant problem, the city is not prepared for rain. In fact, floods all over the city were registered yesterday, disrupting transportation and bringing down mud and houses.

How can an old bureaucratic city with a corrupt government prepare for mother nature’s fluctuating weather conditions? That is something that must be answered not only in my country but everywhere. The difference with northern or european countries is that they have had more extreme weather regularly and they are prepared, but we’re not.

If problems come from extreme weather and unpredictability, what’s better than mother nature to help us solve those problems. I review TED talks constantly, and these two lectures might be of interest for this topic:

www.asknature.org

Animal Power to reduce GHG - July 26th, 2008

Greenhouse gases (GHG) are causing our planet to warm to temperatures that are melting the icebergs at damaging rates already. Reducing car emissions, lowering the burning of fossil fuels, and searching for alternative sources of energy are the current trends in government actions around the world. Capturing the CO2 underwater is also an option that has been explored for some years already, but that is part of the plant kingdom function, as long as we take care of that kingdom we'll be securing our future too. Unfortunately there many fronts to work on, lots of people to educate and a tons of work to be done. Some is done, but it appears that is not enough.

For those of us who love to eat meat, there will be a better way to contribute to the environment. Converting livestock manure into biogas is something that isproved to be benefitial in many ways. Leaving manure to biodegrade takes time and contaminates a lot.

Did you know that the gases emitted by decomposing manure, methane and nitrous oxide warm up our atmosphere 21 and 320 times more than carbon dioxide. Yes, astounding right?

A group of researches have published a study in the Environmental Research Letters confirming that working on manure to obtain energy and decreasing the detrimental effect of warming our atmosphere is feasible and convenient.

Considering that most nations have a large consumption of livestock products this is a great initiative.