On 22nd April all over the world, more than one billion, people will celebrate Earth Day and call world leaders to (finally) act together to stop the Climate Change. The theme of the 43th Earth Day is: "the Face of Climate Change".
On the website it describes the impact of Climate Change and the urge to stop it:
A man in the Maldives worried about relocating his family as sea levels rise, a farmer in Kansas struggling to make ends meet as prolonged drought ravages the crops, a fisherman on the Niger River whose nets often come up empty, a child in New Jersey who lost her home to a super-storm, a woman in Bangladesh who can’t get fresh water due to more frequent flooding and cyclones…
And they’re not only human faces.
They’re the polar bear in the melting arctic, the tiger in India’s threatened mangrove forests, the right whale in plankton-poor parts of the warming North Atlantic, the orangutan in Indonesian forests segmented by more frequent bush fires and droughts.
These faces of climate change are multiplying every day.
For many, climate change can often seem remote and hazy – a vague and complex problem far off in the distance that our grandchildren may have to solve. But that’s only because they’re still fortunate enough to be insulated from its mounting consequences. Climate change has very real effects on people, animals, and the ecosystems and natural resources on which we all depend. Left unchecked, they’ll spread like wildfire.
Luckily, other faces of climate change are also multiplying every day.
Every person who does his or her part to fix the problem is also a Face of Climate Change: the entrepreneurs who see opportunity in creating the new green economy, the activists who organize community action and awareness campaigns, the engineers who design the clean technology of the future, the public servants who fight for climate change laws and for mitigation efforts, the ordinary people who commit to living sustainably…
Up till Monday you can upload photos and videos of people, places or animals affected or threatened by climate change. But also of people stepping up to do something about it. On Earth Day all entries will be shown digitally at events around the world, including next to federal government buildings in countries that produce the most carbon pollution. The display will also be made available online to anyone who wants to view or show it.
My entry will be a photo of my 8 year old daughter who -already for more than a year- donates half her pocket money to WWF to support the pandas. Last week we took her to Edinburgh Zoo to meet up with her "long time friend". In the zoo she also saw gorillas with information about the -endangered- mountain gorilla. My daughter instantly decided to adopt a mountain gorilla with the other half of her pocket money. Not sure where we have to take her to meet up with them thought!
I love listening to her when she tries to convince me that it's time to adopt a new endangered animal. I have to say, she is pretty good at it! She has not only spent all her pocket money on WWF, but also made us adopt a few animals as a family. We are the proud adoption family of: a tiger, panda, snow leopard, jaguar (Christmas present 2012!) and now a mountain gorilla. It is good to see the (my) next generation already so engaged and aware of the urgency to take action. I think though that the generation currently in charge, should make a (big) kick start to -at least- bring the changes to a stop. We may need the next generations input for improvement. As Einstein once said:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
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