There are plenty of ways we can reduce our impact on the environment. One of these, a really cheap one, is walking. Walking alone, with friends, with your boyfriend, with your mum, to? You can walk to work, to the pub, to the cinema, to the park wherever!

"Why not use a car?" you could ask me. I would reply with another question: Do you necessarily need to go everywhere by car? Think about it. A nice walk wakes you up when you go to work in the morning and makes you feel better when you go back home in the evening, especially if your job requires you to sit all day; it keeps you healthy, because it gives you energy, it helps you to burn calories, to prevent heart diseases and to stimulate your muscles! More benefits here.

A nice walk gives you the opportunity to enjoy the nature, to breathe and, why not, to meet new interesting people.  "What if its a rainy, cold day?" Well, you can wear your best coat and rainy boots, open your umbrella and just go!

Moreover, walking is cheaper. Better again, it prevents stress!

Driving a car means:

1. More money to spend every day in gasoline;
2. More money to spend every day in parking;
3. More money for the maintenance and insurance;
4. Contributing to pollute the air YOU breath every day;
5. More stress!

I have been working with the Connect4Climate team (a really green one!) for one year, studying with my colleagues the best ways not only to raise awareness about climate change globally, but also to engage young people in daily sustainable actions. The change needs to start from each of us, we should be the first to give an example on how to live in a greener way. I live 20 minutes away from the Connect4Climate office and I walk every day, by the rain, by the sun or by the snow, and I really enjoy it because it makes me feel better.

PS: You live far away from the place you want to reach?  Take a bus or the metro, which will allow you to get closer and then just walk!

Share your green actions and climate change stories in our Voices4Climate competition.

The Nigerian Medical Students Association (NiMSA) is the umbrella body of all Medical Students (over 60,000) in the thirty-eight Colleges of Medicine across all the states of the Federation and the FCT. NiMSA is also affiliated to the Federation of African Medical Students (FAMSA) and the International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMSA). The parent body of NiMSA is the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).

The Standing Committee on Environment and Population Activities (SCOEPA) is the arm of the NiMSA saddled with the arduous task of following the Environmental trend as well as the Population of the Nation.

A two day international Summit on environment with Theme Climate Change; A global menace that can be halted locally, comes up between 6th 7th of September, 2012 in University of Abuja Teaching hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja. This will gather international participants and over 500 hundred medical students across the member medical schools in the nation.

This will go a long way to:

1. Enlighten the populace on ways and means of population control.
2. Train peer educators and activists.
3. Advocate to both the Government and Policy Makers on the need to institute and implement good environmental friendly policies.
4. Work with the media in ensuring every issue on environmental and population abuse is well covered and properly addressed.

 

Contact:

ETUK, ENO-ABASI ETIM

SECRETARY, STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND POPULATION ACTIVITIES,

NIGERIAN MEDICAL STUDENTS ASSOCIATION.

TEL: 08037794575

Email: scoepa.ng@gmail.com

On today's topic of how climate change affects health, lets start where we left off yesterday, with the role of women in rural communities. How climate change impacts health varies by landscape, location, and how the environment is used or misused by the people in that particular community. I wanted to reference the role of women in rural communities because of how they use the environment to provide for their families. 

As discussed yesterday, women on the continent play a central role in domestic activities in the home, which include cooking and taking care of children. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that acute respiratory failure from breathing indoor cooking smoke from charcoal and firewood is the number one killer of children under the age of 5, as referenced in the above video from Amy Smith. In adults, respiratory problems can manifest themselves as lung disease or bronchial asthma.

The linkages between the various categories become clearer and clearer. In this instance, there is a direct correlation between degradation of forests for energy, and the impact on respiratory health. The World Health Organization recently put a number to the premature deaths related to cooking fires causing compromised respiratory systems:

Although the danger has received scant public attention, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than two million premature deaths annually are caused by exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires, with women and children the most afflicted. That makes it one of the top five overall health risks in poor, developing countries, and the cause of twice as many deaths as malaria. 

The toxic emissions are blamed for low birth weights, pneumonia in young children, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, cataracts and other health problems in adults. Half of all deaths among children under age five from acute lower respiratory infections are due to indoor air pollution from household solid fuels, according to WHO.

Another phenomenon of climate change impacting health is the prevalence of mosquitoes in areas where they didn't usually survive. As average global temperatures rise, mosquitoes are able to survive at altitudes where they previously didnt have a presence.

Nina Chestney wrote recently for Reuters, "As mosquito species spread due to climate change, the transmission rate of diseases like malaria will increase, engulfing countries like Zimbabwe from 2025 to 2050".

Malaria is the most prevalent vector born disease that currently doesn't have an effective vaccine and is single-handedly responsible for reducing Africa's populations by 1 million each year. Malaria statistics from our partner organization, UNICEF paints a pretty grim future if solutions to mitigate climate changes threat to global health:

Malaria kills a child somewhere in the world every 30 seconds. It infects 350-500 million people each year, killing 1 million, mostly children in Africa. Ninety per cent of malaria deaths occur in Africa, where malaria accounts for about one in five of all childhood deaths. The disease also contributes greatly to anaemia among children - a major cause of poor growth and development.

While rainy season signals an increase in malaria infections, flooding from too much rain is also another threat to global health. Unpredictable flash floods serve as a vector for spreading waterborne diseases.

The Natural Resources Defense Council lists some of the waterborne ailments flood-stricken communities have to contend with:

Exposure to pathogens from sewage and unclean water can sicken vulnerable communities with illnesses like cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis, and norovirus (which cause diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, headache, and fever).

Human activities, like hillside deforestation, compound the effects of floods. This once again points a finger at human activity as one of the main factors worsening disasters related to climate change. Perhaps we need to consider that if we are the architects of our own demise, it is because we are not making the linkages between our actions and the natural disasters that befall us.

What do you think? What needs to be done in order for us, stewards of the environment, to actively work towards mitigating climate change? If climate change affects all of us through a fabric of human connectivity, how can we build stronger, smarter threads that form a better picture for our global health?

Finding a healthy and balanced lifestyle has been an ongoing process for me. What foods and practices are healthy for me and the environment? Which choices make me feel proud to say that Im doing my best?

Avoiding factory-farmed foods is a practice that I maintain for reasons, including the fact that, "Millions of animals are crowded togethercausing significant environmental threats and unacceptable health risks for workers, their neighbors and all the rest of us". 

Here are a few brief takeaways for you:

1. Sustainable Table:

"Factory farms emit harmful gases and particles such as methane and hydrogen sulfide, which can contribute to global warming and harm the health of those living or working nearby".

2. Sustainable Table:

"Air pollution results from the overuse of machinery, the mismanagement of manure, and the irresponsible feeding practices that characterize industrial farming".

3. Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production:

"Every day, doctors use antibiotics to treat thousands of sick children and adults. Humans depend on these life-saving medicines for their personal health. But did you know that as much as 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are being fed to cattle, swine, and poultry on industrial animal farms, for purposes other than treating disease?"

Maintaining a diet free from factory-farmed foods feels both healthy and intuitive to me. Many times, food that is served to us originates from practices that are not healthy or kind to any party or place involved, including the animals, those working within factories, and the surrounding soil and air.

Some healthy food for thought:

• Research where your food is grown and packaged
• The fewer ingredients, the better
• If you don’t understand an ingredient, write it down and research what it is and why it has been added to the item

Grocery runs deep in my genetic code, but all I ever wanted to do was work for my hometown congressman. I was a two-issue girl, and I decided early to devote my life to campaign finance and energy policy – two areas I felt were poised for progress. I spent every summer of college interning and eventually landed a job as a legislative aide responsible for campaign finance and environmental issues. I spent the better part of the next decade working for Democrats, Independents and Republicans, who prioritized both (with a brief stop at the Justice Department, suing companies for violating the Clean Air Act). Most recently, I worked in the Senate on the American Power Act, the last major Congressional effort aimed at capping greenhouse gas emissions and creating a domestic clean energy economy.  

When that effort failed, I took a hard look at the prognosis for legislative progress, and my conclusions were bleak. But that didn’t weaken my resolve.  I decided to start a business that would make climate change progress incrementally or, as we say at Glen’s Garden Market, one bite at a time.

Television reporter Holly Morris, Chef and television host Carla Hall, and Glen's Garden Market founder Danielle Vogel. 

My father was a grocer. His father was a grocer, and so was my great grandfather. My mom’s dad owned supermarkets too. It wasn’t entirely counterintuitive that when it came time to start a business of my own, grocery would be my avenue of choice. But unlike my (actual) forefathers, my approach would be entirely mission driven.

Every single decision we make at Glen’s Garden Market in Dupont Circle is made with the environment in mind.

• Foremost, we source our food from the states of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed; and so we cut transportation and refrigeration emissions by bringing our food in from very close by. 
• We seek out thoughtful, meticulous producers who treat their land, their animals and their ingredients with respect.
• We built our store with old cattle fencing that had been discarded by one of our vendors in West Virginia.
• Our countertops were constructed from compressed, post-consumer recycled paper.
• We offer only reusable bags (what sense would it have made to send plastic right back into the watershed that provides our nourishment?).
• Our lights and equipment all meet the most rigorous efficiency standards.
• We retrofit our display cases to include doors to prevent the unnecessary waste of ultra carbon-intensive hydrofluorocarbons.
• We installed showers in our team’s bathrooms and bike racks in our break room to encourage our folks to bike, walk or run to work – and most of them do.
• Our kitchen operates under a no-waste mandate.
• We recycle and we compost, aggressively. 

But the thing we spend the most time on is helping other small businesses grow along with our own. In the 17 months since we opened, we’ve helped launch 17 food businesses. Seventeen companies have seen their products on a grocery store shelf for the very first time here. Often, those products come in through our front door in the arms of the person who made them. And after that happens, we promote them aggressively and help grow their brand. It’s one of my greatest pleasures to eventually find them on the shelves in our competitors’ stores – not just because it means their businesses are maturing, but because I know how thoughtfully those products were made. I want to see them displace demand for industrially produced food, which is exactly what they’re doing when they bump less carefully-crafted items off the shelves in other stores.

The notion of a “green” business is so ubiquitous these days that it’s trite. We don’t make the choices we do because we need the “you’re vaguely progressive, finger snaps for you” t-shirt. We make them because this business exists, fundamentally, to make progress toward addressing climate change. We do it by growing small, local businesses that create food thoughtfully, by being conscious of the real costs of food waste and working to mitigate them, by sourcing locally – not “whenever possible” but always. Even when that means our produce department includes little more than apples, potatoes, onions and kale in the cold months. And by working to create a space where only good food choices can be made. 

Glen’s Garden Market is very much a grocery store and killer craft beer bar with $4 pints all the time, and a heck of a sandwich and pizza shop, but it’s also a small business incubator, a community participant and a mission-driven progress-mobile.

It’s not an economy-wide climate change bill, but it’s progress, one bite at a time.

[video:https://vimeo.com/98563072]

 

Roughly one person every second is displaced by a climate- or weather-related disaster and in the last six years, 140.5 million people - two percent of the Earth’s population - has been displaced by such disasters alone. With millions of people forced to move each year by rapid-onset climate-related hazards and slow-onset environmental degradation, social well-being, human rights, economies and even state stability are at risk.

To coincide with UN Human Rights Day, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is highlighting the need for climate change to be viewed through a human rights lens. Climate change is magnifying the existing vulnerabilities of affected communities and eroding their capacity to cope with change. The global community is failing to provide the protection, assistance and access to durable solutions that those on the frontlines of climate change require and deserve.

In a new report released today, ‘Falling through the Cracks’, the EJF examines the various legal and policy frameworks governing climate-induced displacement at the international level. EJF has found that the ‘protection gap’ is more like a series of holes - suggesting the need for a new global framework, which is broad in scope and sensitive to the needs of multiple populations of concern.

The cost of everything is higher in today’s world, mainly at the grocery store. Which is a trip that many of us want to skip once in a while. We could start skipping it and even drastically slash our bill, by growing our own food…

Many people think that to grow fruits and vegetables could be overwhelming, but it is actually easier than what you think…

What you firstly need is small square feet of land, or a container gardening, water and a little time. Our ancestors did it and so we can!!!

By growing your own vegetables and fruits you can:

• Improve your health:

To eat fresh fruits and vegetables is a way that your body could stay healthy. By having them in your backyard they have a higher level of vitamin content. Fresh food could actually be the best thing for your health. We don’t know how long has the food on the supermarket shelf been there? Or even how long has the fruit or vegetable been traveling for? If the fruit is fresh it is more likely to taste better as well.

• Save money:

As soon as you start consuming your own vegetable and fruits, your grocery bill will go down. You only need a packet of vegetable and seeds that can cost less than a dollar and water.

• Reduce negative impact on the environment:

Growing fruits and vegetables in your backyard helps the planet in many ways. By growing your food, you are avoiding [commercial] pesticides and herbicides. You will also reduce the use of fossil fuels, and the pollution that is created by supermarkets. You are also less likely to waste your food.

Also, think about all the exercise you get from gardening. Planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting could be the exercise of the day and a family activity as well. Gardening is also an activity that relaxes you because the physical activity is not very intense. It is a way to take your mind into something else and get pure air and sunshine.

Overall, by growing your food you are building a sense of pride. Watching a plant grow thanks to your care and making it a healthy meal for your family is gratifying. It is a direct process that helps your health and personal well-being. When you are watching the process of a seed blossoming, you don’t have to care about food safely. You can just forget about the farm manufacturing plant, contamination and the transportation process.

This is a hobby that can actually improve your health, your wallet, and the environment!