Collective efforts for far-reaching changes (climate change) are possible and realistic should politicians choose to listen to the voice of their young people.

Students at New Delhi at another interaction with  with Prof Mathew Hibberd

The 22nd United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP22 marks the 22nd yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21). Post the historic CoP21 held in Paris on November 30, 2015, India became the 62nd country to ratify the Paris deal with 14 more countries committing to ratify the deal before the end of 2016. With the ratification, “India has to implement an array of standards in its energy production and emission monitoring. India had also linked the ratification of the treaty to its admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Getting the agreement implemented is a key strategic objective that President Barack Obama has set for himself before he leaves office in less than four months.” (The Hindu, October 2, 2016).

Against such a backdrop, as the world waits for the ratification from other countries so that the Agreement meets the need of slightly more than 3 percentage points to reach the 55 per cent threshold, it is pertinent to ask where does youth stand, against such a backdrop, in their understanding and perception of the climate issues. Our study, “ClimateAction: Youth Voices – A Four Nation Report” conducted across four nations, two Asian and two European — India, Vietnam, Italy and the UK — by the University of Stirling, Scotland and Centre for Environment Communication, New Delhi brings into sharp focus the pressing need to engage the youth into climate change talks to understand and platform their ideas, expectations and solutions to a cleaner climate.

The now worldwide Divestment Campaign is a powerful example of youth action for a clean climate. The divestment campaign which began on US college campuses in 2011 slowly grew into a nationwide divestment campaign with more than 400 US colleges and universities joining in. To quote the Guardian: “The speed at which the fossil fuel divestment campaign is growing seems to have rattled its opponents in the coal and oil lobbies.” So why not involve more and more youth to create a cleaner climate? What do the young people across the four nations involved in our study think about climate change?

Students at New Delhi interact with Prof Mathew Hibberd

The ClimateAction: Youth Voices – Four Nation Report finds out that today’s youth believes they will inherit a deteriorating environmental situation from older generations, with some arguing that the young generation will be required to pay a greater price for profligacy of earlier generations. There was, however, uneven knowledge of key events relating to climate change. For example, some of our focus group members had not heard about the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (CoP) in Paris in November 2015. Only a small minority of focus group participants were actively involved in climate change campaigns. There was clear support for focus group findings that young people lack resources to take effective action; do not practice daily rituals that might be more eco-friendly; and that the lack of immediacy means that relevance of climate change to daily lives remains low.

An international binding agreement was considered vital in tackling key ecological problems of the 21st century. But many argued that when it comes to action there is still a lack of political will relating to the enforcement of climate change agreements. Youth from Europe and Asia remain pessimistic to the international community’s ability to implement such an agreement.

Youth look to definitive leadership and institutional support as a key ongoing requirement for climate change and look to local, national and international institutions, public and private, to provide that the stewardship and, crucially, the funding for infrastructural projects and services that can affect real environmental change. Their viewpoint came with the expectation of a substantive and viable solution at Paris, the absence of which, they said, would not only have a disastrous impact on environmental issues but would also undermine key social problems which, to their minds, have been worsened by climate change. One problem highlighted was the issue of migration where participants see a direct and causal link between mass movements of people, crop failure, extreme weather and climate change. Another pertinent issue was that of ‘free riders’ — those who seek to evade responsibility for climate change whether they are individuals or nations. Climate change is a collective issue requiring societal solutions that go beyond individual involvement.

The world’s poorest are seen to be disproportionately affected by climate change. This, paradoxically, lessens the importance of climate change among some, especially in India and Vietnam, as fighting poverty remains the key issue. There was strong support across focus groups for advanced national economies in the West, the USA, Canada, Europe, etc., to support the developing countries through financial or technical support in adopting climate change initiatives. While the UN was seen to be a key mediator in coming to a successful climate agreement, yet the dependence of its decision on the unanimity among its five permanent members — China, France, Russia, UK and USA — was seen to somewhat weaken its authority.

Youth across the four nations have come to believe that all the major institutions of our modern societies have largely failed to engage them in climate change issues, let alone to motivate and mobilise them into changing their behaviours towards more climate-conscious lifestyles. One of the prominent problems identified in this research is that common visions or mutual understandings of climate change have remained difficult to execute properly, whether one looks at international agreements or initiatives in affecting behavioural change.

It should be noted, however, that the cause for audience skepticism and pessimism found in this research is not simply due to the failure of the major institutions involved in the tackling of climate change. The story is, arguably, far more complex than lack of relevancy or a perceived lack of leadership or green-washing and so on. It relates more to deep-seated social vacuum at the macro and micro level in societies. Many people view climate change messages through ideological or social frameworks in line with their nationality, political beliefs, socio-demographic data – age (of especial importance for this study), gender, class, ethnicity, location, peer group, and so on. Climate change is tied closely to vaguer and contested notions of national, regional and local identities, cultural meanings and values and audience dissemination of texts and images. As such, climate change communications stretch beyond the realm of science, government policy and targets. As the Alliance of Religion and Conservation argues:

The emphasis on consumption, economics and policy usually fails to engage people at any deep level because it does not address the narrative, the mythological, the metaphorical or the existence of memories of past disasters and the way out (quoted in Hulme, 2009: 356).

Climate change communications, in other words, might generate much stronger impacts in communities if they speak to the reality of people’s life in a subtle, more “naturalised” way. The agreement at the Paris CoP needs to be ratified and enforced in ways that different people can understand and adopt. Key to this process are the leading industrialised countries and the leading developing nations such as BRICS. Special hope has been placed in President Obama to lead the USA and help secure success thus reinforcing his legacy as a forward-looking and progressive democratic president.

While young people are hopeful of the Paris Agreement being successfully ratified and implemented, they are also realistic enough to understand that all countries need to make major changes and sacrifices in order to help secure a better chance of limiting the damaging and pernicious impacts of climate change. Collective efforts for far-reaching changes are possible and realistic should politicians choose to listen to the voice of their young people.   

It's hard to comprehend the concept of oceans getting more acidic. Unless you become the coral.

It’s not easy to get people exercised about ocean acidification. Yes, it’s a nasty consequence of climate change, a potential death sentence for oysters, clams, sea urchins and, most of all, coral. But it’s slow-motion extermination, out of sight of most humans, and that makes it difficult for us to feel much of a connection—let alone any responsibility—for the calamitous process.

Researchers at Stanford, however, believe a good way to help people become more aware of their impact on nature may lie in a particularly unnatural experience—virtual reality (VR) immersion.

“Some experiences may not be well-suited for VR,” says Jeremy Bailenson, professor of communications at Stanford and director of its Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL). “But if we leverage what is special about the medium—the fact that you can move your body and interact with a scene—then we can create intense experiences that actually change you.”

Bailenson has been researching the value of VR as a teaching tool since the late 1990s, and he’s found that it can have considerably more impact than simply knowing that damage is being done to the natural world. Once someone can see, hear and even feel what’s happening from the perspective of plants and animals, he or she tends to understand their fate in a more visceral way and is more motivated to take action, he says.

That notion was borne out in a recent study by Bailenson and a team of scientists from Stanford, the University of Georgia and the University of Connecticut. They determined that immersing people in a VR experience was clearly more effective in getting through to them than simply showing them a video on the same subject.

The key was to have people become the coral.

In two worlds

The Stanford team worked with marine biologists to build a virtual replica of a reef around the Italian island of Ischia. Underground volcanic vents there have been spewing carbon dioxide, and that has given researchers the opportunity to closely analyze the effect on marine life—specifically how, as ocean water absorbs more carbon dioxide and becomes more acidic, it corrodes coral and the shells of crustaceans. 

From that model, the researchers programmed a VR experience that speeds up the destructive process,  allowing a person to first interact with a reef full of life, and then be an up-close-witness to decay as species disappear. Ultimately, the person takes on the perspective of a coral, one whose branches break off with an audible crack.

At its best, virtual reality, says Bailenson, enables you to have a “dual presence,” where you know you’re still in a room wearing a headset, but also actually can feel that you’re at the bottom of the sea. It’s important, he says, for the VR environment to respond your body’s movements.  

It also should to be an experience that stimulates multiple senses, including touch when possible. The coral reef VR, for instance, creates the sensation of a fishing net brushing against you. If it feels natural, notes Bailenson, the brain is able to treat the experience as authentic.

That said, Bailenson concedes it’s still difficult to measure the long-term impact of VR immersion. In other words, can it actually spur people to change their behavior for an extended period of time? In a previous study, Bailenson found that people who chopped down virtual trees, using a joystick that vibrated like a chainsaw, used 20 percent less paper afterwards than others who read about cutting down trees or watched a video about the process.

But that study and most of the other research to date has relied on follow-up questionnaires a week or two later. So, researchers haven’t really been able to determine how long VR-induced empathy endures. Bailenson thinks that is about to change.

“With the advent of mobile equipment, we are planning to run longitudinal studies, which means collecting data from very large, demographically diverse data sets,” he says. “This will be very important in discovering the impact of VR on the general public—from children to the elderly, and those from all socio-economic statuses and backgrounds.”

Teachable moments

Bailenson and the Stanford team have already begun taking steps to move virtual reality teaching beyond the research lab. Earlier this year, the Stanford Ocean Acidification Experience and a related VR documentary were featured in an arcade at the Trebeca Film Festival. “For a week, we had a constant line of people,” says Bailenson. “They were waiting in line to learn about marine science.”

And last week, the VR experience was made available to the public as a science education tool. It can now be downloaded for free and experienced on HTC Vive, a high-end virtual reality system that sells for about $800. While the consumer market for VR systems is still relatively small, the consensus is that sales will start to take off in the coming holiday season now that prices have begun dropping and headsets are no longer so unwieldy. Next year, according to the VR industry consulting firm KZero, more than 170 million units could be sold.

Bailenson hopes Stanford’s software will become a model for virtual reality “field trips” that will allow students to have experiences that can teach them about nature in a uniquely personal way.

To that end, he says museums have begun investing in VR systems to provide that opportunity.

“You’re not watching something, you’re doing it,” he says. “You learn by doing. These are magic, teachable moments.”

This blog post was originally posted here.

The Arctic—home to diverse wildlife and many cultures—is changing faster than any other part of the planet in the face of climate change. Melting sea ice is already contributing to rising ocean levels worldwide and opening up new areas of the ocean for risky oil drilling. And polar bears, which depend on that ice to hunt seals, rest, and breed, are now more vulnerable than ever.

The Columbia Climate Center, in partnership with WWF and Arctic 21, published a new report that asks experts to consider the effects on the Arctic in light of an international agreement that aims to limit climate change to between 1.5° and less than 2° s C. Unfortunately for the Arctic, even that limited increase could mean a change of roughly 4°C and even up to 5°C.

Already, the changes are impacting not only Arctic residents, but billions of people living in other parts of the world.

But there’s still time left to help the Arctic and the impacts of climate change. Ultimately, experts agreed on five important ways we can take action:

1. We need to fund research to help us all better understand what the Arctic might look like in the near future. That research should prepare us for multiple scenarios.

2. We need to develop technology to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Once we find out what works, that technology should be put to work immediately and on a large-scale.

3. We need to immediately help people who live in the Arctic to adapt, which may include relocating communities. Right now there’s little policy and infrastructure to help these people adapt so they’re going it alone.

4. We need to give scientists the tools to help us effectively understand and adapt to a changing Arctic. We should support an emerging pan-Arctic observing system, along with early warning components and development of Arctic system models to track Arctic change.

5. We need to create a unified voice for Arctic action with continued global talks and decision-making, especially when that work is forward-looking.

When the White House hosted the first ever Arctic Science Ministerial, leaders from around the world agreed to work collaboratively. Keeping that commitment will be important. The Arctic needs the best in science to create the most effective policy, and no one is going to be able to do it alone.

This blog post was originally posted here.

The classroom is the right place to start educating our citizens about the greatest challenge they will face.

The reality of climate change is here, and the science behind our warming planet is clear. July and August 2016 were the hottest months in recorded history. And last year was the hottest on record. Wildfires have scorched California. Thousand-year floods have devastated Louisiana. Temperatures are soaring. Sea levels are rising. Weather is more extreme. Greenhouse gases have been steadily increasing for decades.

At age 13, I participated in civil rights marches and other activities. A few years later I was also active in anti-war marches and events. By the time I was 16, I helped lead a protest at my high school, which ended with a ceremonial tree-planting on the first Earth Day in 1970. I was fortunate because my family supported and encouraged my activism, as they have throughout my career.

As I look toward our planet’s future, I reflect on numerous examples from our past, in which young generations not only helped lead, but also provided the main spark that forced older decision-makers to push through change. The 1960s and ’70s in the U.S. are one big example. The Berliners tearing down the wall in 1989 is another. The Arab Spring in 2010/11 changed that corner of the world forever. And more recently, the rise of 350.org and its mass mobilization of young people, which included the People’s Climate March in New York in 2014, is a big new force in the fight to address climate change.

William Lopii, a herdsman and educator in Lorengelup, Kenya. Photo credit: Joe Lukhovi

It’s clear that if we want change, we need to not only watch and listen to young people, but also embrace and support them to help create the change our planet needs. If the leaders at COP21 in Paris don’t get this message, they are simply missing the boat.

That’s why Global Greengrants Fund is partnering with 350.org to provide grants and assistance to international youth groups that are working to fight and address the impacts of climate change in their communities. In addition to Global Greengrants Fund’s normal granting—which has provided$45 million to grassroots and indigenous groups in 165 countries over the last 20 years—we are now in the process of granting out $475,000 specifically to grassroots and frontline youth groups so they can mobilize the climate movement in the lead-up to Paris. This grantmaking strategy is being directed by the youth climate organizers who make up our Next Generation Climate Boardand 350.org's global network of campaigners.

Young grantees are often from marginalized or indigenous communities that are already being impacted by climate change and stand to be devastated as the chaos worsens. They need to be given more opportunities to tell their stories and lead. Developing and empowering their voices isn’t just a good idea—it’s a necessity.

Ekai Nabenyo educates villagers about climate change, Lorengelup, Kenya. Photo credit: Joe Lukhovi

When we started searching around the world to find youth leaders and groups to fund with our grants, we were amazed at the work that was already moving forward that we were able to support. Young people from Peru to Malawi already had structures in place to address the impacts of climate change in their communities. Here’s the “#YouthOnClimate” campaign that Global Greengrants and 350.org have put together:

- We’re making grants to groups in Africa, Asia, Latin America and beyond.
- We’ve put together a series of videos to help amplify emblematic young voices in Kenya, the Philippines and Ecuador.

[video: https://youtu.be/RoiMU1C2u6U]

- Our Call2Action focuses on mobilizing youth around COP21 to engage in civil action in their local communities.
- We will have a contingent of youth voices at events in Paris for COP21.
- We and others are moving “Through Paris,” not “To Paris,” to make sure these young people have the tools and resources needed to take the movement beyond Paris and back into their communities.

I’ve traveled around the world and met with dozens and dozens of local environmental groups and leaders. Young people, women, indigenous people and people from countries in the Global South hold a key to the solution of climate change. These groups bring a badly needed perspective, whether it is deep respect for the Earth, concern for the future or new ideas and tactics.

Climate change is imperiling our youth, and so we are empowering our youth to fight it.
 

This blog post was originally posted on Ecowatch.​

Development practitioners know secure land rights for women are important for the well-being of rural families, whether a woman is head of her household or lives in a household headed by a man. We know the research shows that women’s land rights are associated with family improvements, such as:

• Increases in food expenditures
• Children less likely to be severely underweight
• Improvements in child educational achievements
• Increases in share of expenditures devoted to healthcare

Photo: Neil Palmer (CIAT) 

And we know that improvements in gender equality could raise agricultural output. A recent study of six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa stated that “if women worldwide had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20–30% and raise total agricultural output by 2.5–4%.

Secure land rights can also provide women with a fallback position in the case of divorce, abandonment, or death of their husbands. Secure land rights can provide access to credit and rental income.

But in my view, maybe even more important but less frequently discussed, secure land rights can improve women’s status in their families and communities. Status matters because inequality between men and women often means that harming women and girls is acceptable and normal. Surely we agree that women around the world should be able to be free from having their physical, sexual, emotional, and economic rights violated.

In almost every focus group I have ever conducted with women—no matter the country—domestic violence against women is raised and discussed, even laughed about. I do not ask about it—women talk about it in the same way they talk about their burdensome chores. Both women and men accept this behavior as ordinary.  

Also common among rural women are the difficulties of —

• Sharing resources with a second wife and her children
• Walking long distances for wood or water; having little or no say about what is planted or what happens to the income from the land
• Improving unusable and abandoned land and then losing it to a stronger male; not being compensated for land takings
• Using a relative’s land one year and being kicked off the next or even before the harvest
• Being left behind in the village while husbands travel to earn money, sometimes never hearing from them again
• Having land and livelihood sold or mortgaged for liquor or sex without any knowledge
• Being deemed a burden or counted only as property

Secure land rights grant women opportunity and status. Still, women’s status is an untouchable subject in my meetings with policymakers and governments if my goal is to convince them to make meaningful changes in laws and policies that will have a positive influence on women’s land rights. Frankly, raising women’s rights at all will almost certainly shut down any real policy discussion. Instead, I talk about agricultural productivity, food security, economic growth, and poverty reduction—how giving women rights to land can positively affect those priorities. I often use a quote from the World Bank World Economic Development Report in 2012:

“Gender equality is smart economics, enhances productivity and improves other development outcomes.”

I am a lawyer, so I accept that this is the better argument, the winning argument. But when I talk to women, the positive impact they speak of is often intangible. It relates to how they are viewed by their husbands and their community; it is about their new status as a valued member of their family and village.

I am thrilled that women’s land rights are part of the discussion on rural women’s day because of the enormous positive impact secure land rights will have on agricultural productivity, food security, poverty reduction, families, and, women’s status.

This blog post was originally posted here.

From the Paris agreement to a new deal on another kind of greenhouse gas, the world is doing a lot to slow climate change.

Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a speech to the 28th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. CREDIT: AP Photo

The past few months have seen a historic amount of global climate action, from the official entry into force of the Paris climate agreement to a landmark agreement to begin limiting emissions from the international aviation industry.

Now, mark another win for global climate action: On Saturday, representatives from almost 200 countries agreed to a new deal to reduce emissions from the world’s fastest growing greenhouse gas — hydrofluorocarbons.

Hydrofluorocarbons — or HFCs — are the gases currently used in refrigeration and air conditioning. And while they help keep certain items cool, they also threaten to heat up the world, with 1,000 times the heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide. According to scientists, continued use of HFCs in air-conditioners would be enough to raise global temperatures one full degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

“This amendment to the Montreal Protocol is the single most important measure the global community could take to limit global warming in the short-term.”

In an effort to curb their use, members of the Montreal Protocol met in Rwanda last week to discuss how HFCs could be phased out without disproportionately impacting developing countries, like India, where air-conditioning is crucial to public health.

The countries settled on an amendment to the original Montreal Protocol called the Kigali Amendment, which relies on a tiered system to time the phase out of HFCs throughout the world. Developed nations stop using and producing HFCs within a few years, followed by developing countries like China and some island nations in 2024, and finally countries like India, Iran, and Iraq in 2028.

“This amendment to the Montreal Protocol is the single most important measure the global community could take to limit global warming in the short-term,” Andrew Light, senior fellow with the World Resources Institute, said in a statement. “Because HFCs are thousands of times more potent as a warming agent than carbon dioxide, a successful phase down can avoid up to a half a degree Celsius of global warming by the end of this century.”

The deal, according to some scientific estimates, could prevent .5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century — no small amount, given the goal of staying well below 1.5 degrees of warming set out in Paris.

If the Montreal Protocol sounds familiar, that’s because this same body had great success in the late 1980s and early 1990s to force the phase-out of chlorofluorcarbons, which both destroyed the ozone and contributed to global warming. HFCs were meant as a non-ozone-depleting replacement to CFCs, but ended up acting as powerful warming agents themselves.

The Montreal Protocol is one of the great environmental success stories in recent history — a coalition of countries coming together to recognize a problem (in this case, the hole in the ozone) and agree upon a solution. Phasing out CFCs really did help the ozone — today, it is finally starting to heal.

It’s fitting that the Montreal Protocol would reach another crucial global deal at a time when the global community seems to be embracing climate action like never before. In early October, the Paris climate agreement reached the threshold of representative countries and emissions needed to enter into force, and it’s expected to take effect in early November. That’s months beforeanyone thought the agreement would enter into force, spurred largely by the specter of an American president who would seek to cancel the agreement. Nations understand the critical nature of the climate change problem, and are acting quickly — and acting together — to help slow the crisis. Earlier in October, nations came together to help curb greenhouse gas emissions from airlines — a deal the International Air Transport Association (IATA) trade group called “historic.”

So even as the United States seems locked in a contentious presidential election that treats climate change more as an aside than a critical issue, the international community appears ready to move forward with climate action.

“In less than 12 months, American leadership has brought the world together to craft two historic agreements that represent a global turning point in our fight to tackle climate change,” Michael Brune, director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “While we have much more work to do, the significance of these diplomatic achievements cannot be overstated.”

Which is not to say that these agreements represent the culmination of global climate action — they are much more like the floor of what is necessary than the ceiling. A recent study, published before peer-review, by former NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen, argued that even with the Paris agreement, the world has already warmed by 1.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. And many of the countries individual pledges to the Paris agreement do not go far enough to help slow global warming.

Still, with a wave of international accomplishments preceding this year’s United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held November 7 in Morocco, there are reasons to be optimistic that the international community could continue to press for increasingly ambitious climate action.

“The Kigali Amendment, just prior to the adoption of the Paris Agreement, brings concrete global action to fight catastrophic global warming,” Clare Perry, climate campaign leader with the Environmental Investigation Agency, said in a statement. “Still, with billions of tonnes of emissions still up for grabs, the ultimate success of the Kigali amendment will depend on accelerating the removal of these industrial climate-killers in upcoming meetings.”

This blog post was originally posted here.

Picture this 

You are in a restaurant with your family standing in front of the buffet. Looking at the buffet knowing that 30-40% of the food you are looking at already was discarded as waste before it even makes it to the shelves. The food we use so many resources for creating in the first place is later thrown out in the trash by the end of the day because restaurants have to keep a high standard to their customers. Why? The reasons vary: from stringent regulation on shapes and sizes of vegetables to kilograms upon kilograms of perfectly edible restaurant food being thrown away at the end of a day’s service. Not only is it costly (for both the environment and our pockets) but it’s unnecessary and unfair. Why should we accept that it’s right to waste such vast amounts of food that we’ve worked so hard to create while people are starving around the world?

Food waste consequence 

The impact that food waste has on our environment is colossal. Our planet is warming at unprecedented rates. Whilst the media focus on heavy industry and automation as the main sources of pollution, the fact that 13% of all the US greenhouse gas emissions result from the food supply chain continues to be widely ignored. 

What role does wasted food play within this? Arguably the most important. When sent to landfill, rotting food releases methane, an extremely damaging greenhouse gas that in the short-term is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. 

BuffetGO is a revolutionary new concept that is changing the way we deal with food from Hotels, Restaurants, and bakeries. Our unique "excess food service" are changing government laws in Europe as we speak because it is a sin against humanity to throw out perfectly good food to eat in the trash when 1 out of 4 humans don't know when their next meal is on the table.

Our goal is to increase the percent of reduced food waste in America by 1% each year witch is the equliant of (338.000 tons) and we will continue to do so until we reach a 10% nation wide.

Image credit: BuffetGO

BuffetGO created in 2014

I was living in Copenhagen, Denmark. We used the platform "Airbnb" to rent out one of our extra bedrooms from time to time. It is a great way to get that extra income when struggling with the house and car payment. This is also how I got introduced to the BuffetGO concept.

Mikko lived with us for five days. After three days we started talking business. What did we do and so on? I was working in a European startup called Colego and working on another project on the side that is on hold for now. Mikko was giving lectures in business intelligence around the world while having a car rental company in Finland. Mikko also had a great idea called BuffetGO. 

I never forget how impressed I was with such a brilliant idea and concept and wondered why nobody created this before. Here we have the perfect solution for food waste, combat climate change and ending world hunger and nobody is doing anything about it.

At this time I already visioned every major restaurant and hotel group in the world being a part of the BuffetGO concept since this is a no brainer. Why throw out food when you can get paid and doing what is right? While standing with this printed four-page power point presentation Mikko asked me if I loved the concept and course my answer was YES. He then asked me if I really believed in this. I said YES. He then said, "Take it, It is yours".. I was speechless. Mikko was standing with the holy grail and just handed it over to me. I still remember I asked him if he was an angel sent to help the earth because this is exactly what the world need. Three days after I had quit my job and have been working on BuffetGO since. With time I became more and more passionated about the cause and effect for climate change and realised how important it is we do something. At this point, it is no even about the money anymore even though there is money involved. Money is important, but integrity is more important and with both money and integrity you can do so much good for people around the world like building schools for homeless children in Columbia or helping humanitarian organisation saving lives in the water around Greece and turkey causes by the world crises we created. This concept has since we started to spread to 8 different countries in Europe within the last one and a half year and now we are in America as first movers in a totally new market trying to save the world. So far we inspired at least 4 other companies to follow our lead in Europe. BuffetGO is the only one operating in the US.

The restaurant problem in a nutshell 

Restaurant managers have trouble estimate how much food is needed and for the same reason this food in been thrown as waste by the end of the day. This is for great irritation for the business owners since wasted food is wasted money too. Also, there is some moral in this. Like if you have Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio telling you that it is bad throwing out all that food. It simply does not feel right well knowing about the global climate change and catastrophic hunger issues we have.

 

Image credit: BuffetGO

The perfect solution for food waste, climate change and world hunger

Now buffet style hotels and restaurant / bakeries can sell the surplus food 15-30 minutes before the food is taken down from the shelves instead of wasting it. This one of a kind partnership provides restaurants with 100% profit margins while reducing food waste at the same time. We raise the average income per restaurant with 3.2% with zero/no cost. We also provide them with a better image that proves they create fresh food on a daily basis. New customers tasting their food and their carbon footprint is reduced since each meal sold through BuffetGO saved the environment 3 litres of petroleum in energy. This will make every business owner feel good since they can both help and get paid at the same time.

BuffetGO customers have already paid for the food online when they arrive at the restaurant. BuffetGO has full legal responsibility for the food, takes care of marketing and any customer service related issue making it easy for the restaurant. The only process the Restaurant has to do is simply hand over a takeaway box to the arriving customers 15 minutes before closing. The customer picks up the food them self and leaves again as a takeaway customer. The majority of the profit belongs to the restaurant, but BuffetGO does donate 20% to the World Food Programme. BuffetGO does not only solves local hunger but global hunger too while combating climate change at the same time. It is truly a win\win solution for addressing the food waste epidemic in the world. 

By ordering through BuffetGo, you can show your support for a fair, just and equal society. Moreover, an equal society in which access to capital doesn't dictate a person's capacity to feed themselves.  

Communicating about a phenomenon like climate change, which by nature is complex, in plain language is a process fraught with several challenges.  

The most important aspects of climate change issues, ideas, and policy measures are lost in the rumpus created by the confusion resulting from the lack of proper understanding of what climate change is really about.  

While the basics of climate change is well known, that the world is warming due to increased levels of greenhouse gases emitted by humans, the real phenomenon is often reduced to an abstract theory. The evidence clearly points to a warming world, with record temperatures recorded every year, and still some argue that Earth is cooling. Some even argue that global warming is a scam, though overwhelmingly the Scientific community has shown that climate change due to a warming world is a reality. The difference in opinion is so much that there is very little room for rational argument.

The opinion on climate change is divided not because of the unavailability of proper information, but mostly because of the way the available information is falsely analyzed and mis-presented to the public. Communication with the vast majority of people who range from being dismissive to indifferent or undecided about an issue like climate change sure isn’t a cakewalk.

Creating an efficient communication strategy that brings about real change in people’s perception requires understanding the target audience’s psychology.

Photo credits: Feel green. Think green, Kristina Bychkova, Carpi, IT , Voices4Climate competition

While evidence-based science is something climate change specialists are comfortable with, common people are far removed from the harsh realities of climate change and the scientific data and concepts surrounding climate change. Also, since essays, research findings, and scientific data can be full of jargon, simplifying such information and presenting it in a well-articulated manner can be the first step towards getting and retaining the audience’s attention.

To overcome challenges and effectively communicate the causes and effects of climate change to a widespread audience, it is necessary to:

1. Craft messages that offer immediate benefits. Since climate change is not something that would top everyone’s priority list, it is important to create and deliver messages that would make them want to give a serious thought to climate change implications.

Instead of saying: Weatherization is essential to battle the consequences of climate change.

It’s better to say: Give your family a better and safer environment by protecting your home and taking action against climate change.

2. Let go of jargon. The language used for the purpose of communicating climate change is full of jargon, which at times can be intimidating. To make sure that more people pay attention to the issues at hand and understand the proper context of communication, it is imperative to simplify the language.

Instead of saying: Research bears testimony to the fact that the recent climate change is anthropogenic.

It’s better to say: Research supports the fact that the recent climate change has been brought about by human activity.

People should be made aware of the availability of  jargon busters and acronym finders.

3. Tell a story. The focus should be on the audience rather than the argument. Putting out numbers, graphs, percentages, and other statistical information will not help drive the point home. It’s important to use a narrative that appeals to the emotions of people. To bring about a behavioral change, it’s important to understand what really appeals to the people. Using an emotional appeal which is also logically sound can help make the language more persuasive.

4. Make the messages relatable and credible. People respond better to someone they can relate to. People tend to react with skepticism towards things they can’t completely grasp. Therefore, it’s important to deliver messages that people can relate to, which in turn can have a lasting impact, when compared to climate change messages put out by Government and other institutions of authority.

5. Harness the power of social and visual media. Social media has tremendous reach and can be utilized to deliver messages to the masses. From graphs to charts to infographics, one can use different types of visual messages that summarize the cause and consequences of and solutions to climate change. Creating other impactful visual media such as videos and images can help garner much attention since they elevate the experience of the viewers.

Photo credits: Tomasz Wawer

Although the basic idea of communication is to help people know about something, it’s also important to focus on what they would do with the information they’ve access to. A message without any call to action hardly brings about any change. A change in behavior can be brought about by changing people’s mindset, which is why it’s important to deliver messages that can strike a chord with people and influence long term behavior.

It’s crucial to implement effective communication strategy sooner than later because we are at a juncture where creating awareness is more necessary than ever before.

Banner photo credits: Stefano Cefalo Geronimo, UK, Voices4Climate competition

The closer you get to diplomacy the more you realize it is not that sexy. No offense to all my pals at United Nations and the yearly COP meetings, each of you are incredibly sexy in you own special ways, but then it comes to the process of getting the international community to agree on something let alone on begin acting on it, well the process can be quite drawn out, but it certainly isn’t a tease.

When the world’s countries agreed to the Paris Climate Agreement last December, it sparked what many thought would be a very lengthy process of each and every nation ratifying the agreement in their own special way. I remember someone telling me at a meeting shortly after Paris that it could take years, depending on the domestic politics in each nation, to get everyone onside. Hearing this, my optimism surrounding what was achieved in 2015 shifted to concerns that we wouldn’t deliver the dish we all ordered in before the end of 2016. Now, three quarters into 2016, I am back to feeling confident and for good reason.

All eyes were on the French capital last year during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21). Photo Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

Before I explain why I am confident that the Paris Agreement will ratified before year’s end, let’s do a quick refresher. In December of 2015 representatives from 195 nations negotiated and agreed to the Paris Climate Agreement, which among other things was the first globally comprehensive climate agreement, it bound nations to contain warming to 1.5 degrees, and made financial flows consistent with a pathway towards lowering greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. Pretty cool right? Still, the agreement that started in Paris didn’t end there. In the months after Paris, 191 nations have “signed” the agreement, which is a largely ceremonial distinction with most nations “signing” during a high profile event on Earth Day. Still, signing doesn’t equal ratification. Ratification only happens when the government’s of each country undertakes their own unique process back home to making the deal official. Ratification, in all it’s forms, has been taking place throughout the year, but not every country that has signed has ratified at that point, it’s an ongoing process that begs the question, “Do we need to wait for all 195 to do this and if not when does this happen?”

Well our friends at the United Nations had an answer for that question and, like all things United Nations, it’s a bit more complicated than it probably should be. For the Paris Agreement to go into effect, or into “force” as they say in UNland, two things need to happen. First, at least 55 countries have to ratify the deal and second, countries representing at least 55 percent of the world’s emissions have to ratify the deal. I’ll let you do the venn diagram in your head for that one, but after you draw the two circles you will get it and be sure to note that the overlap in the middle is fairly irrelevant.  

As of the time I write the comma at the end of this introductory clause, 61 nations have ratified the Paris Agreement. So the first threshold has been met, however, the second one remains just out of reach, as those 61 nations fall just short of reaching the 55% threshold. Still, the world is very close to hitting the second mark, and there's reason to be confident it is about to be met.  And it’s only October. For an unsexy process, this is actually pretty steamy.

The Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, United States. Photo Credit: Daniel Pinto Lopes

Now to the confidence, which stems from two big develops since the UN General Assembly meetings in mid-September. The first relates to India and the second relates to the European Union.  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used October 2nd - the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi--as the day for submitting India’s instrument of ratification to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. There remains some discussion about the exact procedures required for India’s submissions, but after uncertain comments from Modi relating to India's ability to ratify before the end of the year, it seems as though this latest ratification is the real deal. India’s ratification brings the emissions percentage up to 51.89, which gets us just a bit closer to the big moment.

And then we got even closer.

On Tuesday October 4th, the European Union agreed to its ratification in a historic vote. This brings us over the 55/55 threshold, and after 30 days, the Paris Agreement goes into force. By my calendar, the force will be with us (I thought of that all by myself), right around November 3rd -just in time for the COP 22 meetings in Marrakech, Morocco and a less than a year since the deal was struck in Paris. That may seem like a very long time ago for this relationship to be begin but, like I said, for diplomacy this moved really fast.