Environment Pillar

This Is the Environmental Pillar that One of the Presidential Candidate aspires to use to drive to Prosperity; If you can relate with it, then you definitely relate to his leadership style. TUNAWESMAKE!!!

Environment

Kenya must realise that we stand to lose the most with the changes in climate. This is why it is necessary to move from rain fed agriculture to other avenues.

Strict implementation of the international conventions.

Peter Kenneth commits to strengthen and to better integrate environment and NRM policies and programmes into national development plans including the facilitation of policy coordination between local, national and regional decision making levels. Environmental Rights as enshrined in the Constitution and the dictates of the Vision 2030 will be rigorously implemented.

With the discovery of oil reserves, Kenya joins the league of resource-rich developing countries and this provides an opportunity to promote economic and social development, build human capital, and reduce infrastructure gaps. Managing those resources effectively is therefore a critical policy issue for Peter Kenneth, but a challenging one if the literature on the “resource curse” for many countries is anything to go by.

Policies to reduce land fragmentation must be put in place.

Butterflies react to climate change

British butterflies are heading north as global temperatures rise, new research suggests.

The study, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, reveals that climate change is causing certain species to move and adapt to a range of new habitats.

The study, led by academics at the universities of Bristol and Sheffield, aimed to understand the role of evolution in helping a species to successfully track ongoing climate change.

With temperatures rising, many species are moving further north in the UK but this may mean crossing a landscape with increasingly less of their preferred habitat, academics said.

Evolutionary change in the ability to use geographically widespread habitats or increased ability to move longer distances can help species to track the warming climate and move northwards.

The Brown Argus butterfly is successfully expanding its distribution northwards in the UK and uses a range of distinct habitats.

Using genetic techniques to detect evolutionary change, the researchers were able to show that the colonisation of new sites further north by the Brown Argus had involved significant adaptation during or following colonisation.

Researcher James Buckley said: "These findings are important as understanding the likelihood and speed of such adaptive change is important in determining the rate of species extinction with ongoing climate change."

Carbon tax rebate may be logical if it can level the playing field

Ministers should abolish a carbon tax that was only announced in April, the head of the manufacturers' association told the Financial Times on Monday. Yet the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) are already busying themselves with the preparation of a package of measures to support energy-intensive industries affected by the tax, such as steel, aluminium, chemicals and paper. Details are due in the autumn, but its objectives are already clear: to reduce the impact of the carbon tax, which was introduced to make polluters pay for a greater proportion of the pollution they create.

Given that the tax's express purposes is to make polluters pay, it might seem odd to then reduce its impact on energy-intensive industries, which are alone responsible for 45% of total UK business and public sector emissions. But there could be logic in this counter-intuitive approach, as there is a case for governments to provide temporary, short-term support to help polluting industries evolve and succeed in the carbon and resource constrained world that we now inhabit.

If the package is actually designed to support the transformation of energy intensive industries, so they can become part of the solution toclimate change and the other environmental challenges, that would be a tremendously good thing. The government could do this by providing greater financial support to cover the upfront costs of installing the greenest and lowest-carbon production methods, working to research and deploy cleaner technologies with industry, and promoting tougher regulations in Europe and internationally.

Instead, there is a risk that the energy-intensive industries package does none of this, and that it merely becomes a crude tax rebate for the very worst polluters. It would be yet another subsidy, complementing the staggering windfall that energy-intensive industries received under theEU emissions trading scheme. If this comes to pass, it would be a missed opportunity. For it would do nothing to support the adoption of sustainable, low-carbon production methods and the retooling of industries, and by reinforcing the status quo, it would actually harm our international competitiveness in the future.

This scenario would be the result of a successful and concerted lobbying campaign. We are often told by those captured by extractive and energy-intensive industries that the polluter pays principal is too painful and that jobs will be lost or sectors will move overseas. But protecting industries from future competitive pressures, such as carbon intensity and resource efficiency, will make sectors less internationally competitive in the future, not more. And being wedded to sectors where we lack a clear comparative advantage, while simultaneously stymieing needed structural change, is hardly likely to improve economic performance.

The case for increasing the pressure for change becomes stronger if you look at where growth is going to come from in the future. The UK steel sector, for example, now employs just 2% of the number currently employed in the low-carbon and environmental goods and services (LCEGS) sector (18,900 v 910,000). And while the UK as a whole remains the seventh largest economy in the world, for production we are now ranked only 18th for steel, 23rd for aluminium, and 29th for cement. This follows a long-term downward trend.

In complete contrast and despite its relative immaturity, we now have the sixth largest LCEGS sector in the world and this is growing at over 4% a year – well above growth in the rest of the economy. In each LCEGS area the UK has a global share of between 3.2-3.8% and in carbon finance we have a global share of 11.7%. These are going to be increasingly important areas for us to earn our way in an increasingly competitive global economy. The future lies in the new green economy, not the old polluting one.

The other argument deployed against progress is that there are no alternatives. This is patently false. In high-carbon industries there are many credible alternatives emerging. For example, concrete can already be produced that actually captures and stores CO2 in the built environment. There are also low-carbon steelmaking processes being developed, such as alkaline electrolysis, that with the right support could be commercialised and deployed successfully.

The challenge is not finding low-carbon alternatives with a lower environmental impact – plenty exist and many more will be developed. The real challenge is creating a route to market for these technologies and this will never happen if incumbents are not encouraged, supported and ultimately forced to evolve, or are allowed to continually block progress. This is why policy makers must act to level the playing field through appropriate carbon pricing and regulation, while creating time-limited windows where the government and industry can work together to develop solutions.

The environmental challenges we face mean that we cannot continue to pursue two different strategies simultaneously: support for greener, low-carbon technologies, while continuing with business as usual in polluting sectors. We can't conveniently have it both ways and the sooner we realise this and act on it, the sooner a cleaner and safer future will arrive.

Boats Banned From Dumping Sewage in Long Island Sound

Boats will be prohibited from dumping sewage in New York State waters in Long Island Sound under a ban announced on Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The new ban, covering 760 square miles, makes the entire Sound a no-discharge zone; Connecticut secured the same designation for its portion of the Sound in 2007.

The ban, which goes into effect on Thursday, will require an estimated 12,200 recreational and small commercial vessels to dispose of their sewage, mainly human waste, treated or not, at government-run or privately operated pump-out stations along the coast.

Storm-water runoff and releases from wastewater-treatment plants remain a far larger source of pollution in Long Island Sound than waste from boats, federal officials noted. Still, treated sewage from the boats contains chemicals like formaldehyde and chlorine that harm marine life and pose health risks to swimmers, they said.

“A lot of the sewage is discharged close to where people swim,” the E.P.A.’s regional administrator, Judith A. Enck, said, adding that the ban was “long overdue.”

Government officials and environmentalists described the move as a meaningful step to improve water quality in the Sound, a 110-mile-long estuary between densely populated Long Island and Connecticut. New York officials had already restricted discharges in areas with high boat traffic, encompassing about 50 square miles, and had been awaiting the creation of more pump-out stations before petitioning for the federal action.

“It’s an important part of an overall strategy,” said Peter A. Scully, regional director for Long Island for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

The ban coincides with plans for more coordinated actions by Connecticut and New York to reduce nitrogen pollution in the Sound — mostly from sewage treatment plants and agricultural runoff — which stimulates the growth of bacteria and algae and robs the water of oxygen.

Considerable progress has been made since a conservation and management plan for the Sound was developed in 1994, Mr. Scully said, with nitrogen levels down by more than 40 percent. Dolphins returned to Long Island Sound a few years ago.

The new ban, federal officials said, extends to open waters, harbors, bays and navigable tributaries of the Sound and a portion of the East River — the area between the Hell Gate Bridge connecting Queens to Randalls and Wards Islands in Manhattan in the west and the northern bounds of Block Island Sound in the east.

Chris Squeri, executive director of the New York Marine Trades Association, which represents marine businesses, said convenient access to pump-out stations had been a crucial issue for boaters, who face $250 fines for violations. New York State says there are 68 such stations, and the E.P.A. deemed that number adequate before approving the ban.

“If they say they have ample facilities in the area, I assume they do,” Mr. Squeri said. “We swim and fish in these waters, so we want to keep the water quality good.”

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the environmental group Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said the boat restrictions would help maintain momentum for efforts to upgrade antiquated sewage treatment plants and control storm-water runoff.

The ban “means cleaner beaches, more edible seafood and a healthier economy by keeping this bacteria out of the water,” she said.

Blue Whales Spotted off King Harbor

A pod of blue whales—including a mother and her calf—was spotted Monday in the Santa Monica Bay about a mile from the mouth of King Harbor, City News Service reported.

The news helicopter from television station ABC7 caught the whales on camera, and the station aired the video during one of its morning news shows.

Recently, a Long Beach-based whale-watching boat spotted about a dozen blue whales feeding in Southern California waters.

Blue whales are a protected species, and experts believe there are more than 10,000 worldwide. Their numbers dwindled in the early 20th century, but in 1966, governments across the globe banned the hunting of the largest mammal in the world.

Blue whales can grow to about 90 feet long and live for as long as 80 years. They feed on krill and plankton from the ocean by filtering it through a mouthful of stiff fibers called baleen.

Are women victims or the main contributors to climate change?

Introduction

"In climate change induced disasters, it is primarily the poor who have suffered the most, the majority of which are women," this according to Anne Maine of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

Africa as a continent is responsible for only 3.8 percent of global CO2 emissions, yet it is one of the regions suffering most from the devastating impact of climate change. And out of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty worldwide, seventy percent are women. The impact of climate change on the poorest nations on Earth will make them still poorer while at the same time widening the societal divides between men and women. Due to their restricted access to information and resources as well as their limited involvement in decision-making procedures, women are the most victims/vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

Women also play a significant role in facilitating climate change around the world through the various socio-economic activities they are involved in. From food shortages to forest degradation and new and more complex health risks, as well as an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, the impacts of climate change threaten to further jeopardize the lives of women and girls. But just as many women are bearing the greatest burden of climate change because of their role as providers for their families; it is women who are developing the solutions that will save our world from the impacts of global warming.

1.      Women as the victims of climate change

In many climate change forums, seminars, workshops, etc, women are always represented as victims of climate change. Case in point;

In sub-Saharan Africa, women are responsible for 70-80 percent of household food production. It is usually women who gather firewood and drawing water from wells. They also play a predominant role in agriculture. If local natural resources become scarce due to extended drought or flooding there is much evidence to suggest that in parts of the world these activities are now taking much more time. Under the current scenario, women have to work more in order to ensure the food supply of their household and therefore have less access to education. In this vicious cycle, social inequalities increase to the detriment of women. 

The depriving of the girl child from an education might bring about the vicious cycle of poverty, and according to studies, might as well bring about inequality, which will undermine the social capital needed to deal effectively with climate change. 

Women are often faced with culturally grounded restrictions to participation in the public sphere. In some cases, women are not allowed to enter the public spaces without being accompanied by a man. In times of natural disasters caused by extreme temperatures, they have less access to information, be it the weather forecast or early warning systems for disasters. Research shows that the existing economic and social inequalities between women and men lead to more female victim during natural catastrophes. Women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die during a disaster. For example, during the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, 65 percent of the victims were women. In contrast to men, they were mostly in their houses when the tsunami arrived, and had not received any warnings.

Due to devastating effects of intense heat from the sun rays, water bodies dry up and women are forced to walk long distances in such of water for domestic purposes. Girls are sometimes kept home from school to help gather fuel, perpetuating the cycle of disempowerment. Moreover, when environmental degradation forces them to search farther afield for resources, women and girls become more vulnerable to injuries from carrying heavy loads long distances,9 and also face increased risk of sexual harassment and assault.

What’s more, the risk of contracting serious illnesses is aggravated by environmental hazards caused by climate change. In addition to the reference provided above of climate impacting women’s health through water scarcity and water contamination, an abundance of evidence links the evolution and distribution of infectious diseases to climate and weather. This entails a greater incidence of infectious diseases such as cholera, malaria, and dengue fever, due to the extension of risk seasons and wider geographic distribution of disease vectors.

These examples show that under the current scenario, the impact of climate change will in the long run contribute to an increase in social inequalities. In other words, due to their role in society, women in developing countries are the most vulnerable to environmental degradation. An environmental degradation to which they have little or no influence on.

"When the rural environment becomes unsustainable, it's the women whose lives are most disrupted," says Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel laureate in 2004

2.      Women as the contributors to climate change

As a result of the roles bestowed upon them in society women have more often contributed towards climate change and the effects currently being experienced. For example, in Ghana, Women who are in charge of the households have no choice than to walk for miles before getting one bucket of water to take care of the home. For some, due to the distance they decide to bring to the water side their dirty clothes, and that of their families, to wash them there, instead of walking for several miles just to fetch a bucket of water, which will not be sufficient for washing only.  According to these women, most of the water bodies they rely on for their domestic chores have turned into dry lands, leaving them no choice than to spend most of the hours of the day in search of water for their families. 

Economic status in the society also is a major factor that contributes to climate change. Women and girls comprise an estimated 70% of the world’s poor. It is a result of this that women end up in deforestation practices for purposes of clearing land for cultivation, acquiring wood fuel for domestic and commercial use, increasing costs of energy, transport, health care, and nutrition are likely to affect women more than men. Hence women resorting to walk to access goods and services, use alternative medication-traditional medicine, poor feeding habits for the women and children. All this combined contribute significantly towards climate change related illnesses like malnutrition, heat stress, cholera, diarrhea, etc.

Women farmers currently account for 45-80 per cent of all food production in developing countries depending on the region. About two-thirds of the female labour force in developing countries, and more than 90 percent in many African countries, are engaged in agricultural work. In the context of climate change traditional food sources become more unpredictable and scarce, and with the women being the main producers they transfer the effects by increasing food prices in the market place which affects the poor people, majority being the women and girls. This is a vicious cycle that women find themselves unable to change.

Women in developing countries have also subscribed to the stereotype that “women are not supposed to be heard, they are there to be seen” and as a result they have decided not to participate in any decision making process involving climate change. When decision are made, their role in society is not actively incorporated, hence being marginalized. For example, In the European heat wave in 2003, the excess mortality for women was 75% higher than that for men of all ages. Similarly, the excess mortality in the 1995 heat wave in Greater London was more pronounced for women, in ways that cannot entirely be accounted for by age. While the explanation is complex, this was largely attributed to women not involved in decision-making processes and as a result neglected the early warning systems.

Conclusion

Women—particularly those in poor countries—will be affected differently than men. They are among the most vulnerable to climate change, partly because in many countries they make up the larger share of the agricultural work force and partly because they tend to have access to fewer income-earning opportunities. Women manage households and care for family members, which often limits their mobility and increases their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters. Drought and erratic rainfall force women to work harder to secure food, water and energy for their homes. Girls drop out of school to help their mothers with these tasks. This cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality undermines the social capital needed to deal effectively with climate change.

If policy-makers and development workers do not take into account gender roles and incorporate women’s voices, then their efforts to halt climate change and help communities adapt are likely to exacerbate existing gender inequalities and not be as effective as they need to be.

"When the rural environment becomes unsustainable, it's the women whose lives are most disrupted," says Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel laureate in 2004 and founder of the Green Belt Movement, in her foreword to the publication. "If we conserved better, conflict over land, water and forests would be far less. Protecting the global environment is directly related to securing peace."

While climate change affects everyone, it does not affect everyone equally. The simple truth is that the poorest people in industrialized and developing nations suffer the worst effects of the build-up of greenhouse gases majority being the women and girls.

Anti-fracking group wins award | The New Age Online

Anti-fracking group wins award | The New Age Online