International Events

Politicians and Scientists Ought to Talk

- Adam Clare

SciDev.net has an article about how scientists and politicians can help developing nations develop in Africa by highlighting science. By creating policies that support research and development countries will benefit from increased keeping educated labour within their borders and perhaps attracting companies to setup shop in their country.

Bernard Aduda, professor of physics at the University of Nairobi said the move would take S&T to the heart of policy making and raise socioeconomic development to levels comparative with countries in Asia.

“We need the linkage to enable MPs and scientists to work together so that we can mainstream science, technology and innovation issues in the countries’ policy making processes for the socioeconomic benefits of the citizens,” he told SciDev.Net.

Sustainable Energy in Developing Nations Rewarded

- Adam Clare

Sustainability is really neat, so it’s nice to see that the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy exist and they recently awarded some top-notch and innovative projects happening in the developing world. The winners receive a cash prize to continue their great work.

Projects ranged from solar-powered home systems and mini-hydropower plants for remote villages, to food waste and dung biogas plants for urban areas.

One of the first-prize winners, the Beijing Shenzhou Daxu Bio-energy Technology Company from China, has developed a new biomass stove that burns agricultural waste and wood instead of coal.

Planting Trees to Fight Climate Change

- Adam Clare

logoTree-Nation will plant 8 million trees in Africa in the shape of a huge heart to fight Climate Change and Poverty. We will create the park in Niger which is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one that suffers the most from climate change and desertification. Furthermore, we are affiliated with the United Nations Environment Program in support of each others projects.

We have built a great new kind of website that combines a community with our own mapping tool. Inspired by Google maps we built our own special version to be able to plant 8 million trees, all with blogs and profiles.

So via our website you can buy trees for yourself or offer and send one to someone you love, and people are doing this for Weddings, Valentines, new born babies, birthdays, to advertise a business, or simply to share some thoughts. You can plant a tree on a virtual map and a real tree will be planted in the same place in the real world. The virtual trees all have Tree-Blogs and Profiles so that you can keep in touch with the recipient and interact with others who have bought trees via our community. You can share ideas, photos, messages, make contacts and debate on environmental issues.

It really is exciting to see members buying trees, writing beautiful messages and then sending them to loved ones via our website.

Note: This was not written by me, but by Jeremiah from Tree Nation.

Women Change the World

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

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I found two articles today that highlight how women can – and do – change the world. In Africa, there was a recent meeting of women who work in development to help spur gender equality throughout the continent and embed equality into development practices.

Uganda has passed legislation stipulating that a third of the seats in parliament and local authorities should be occupied by women. Now, 29.8 percent of legislative seats are in female hands, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

“These milestones have promoted women’s visibility and voice in decision-making processes at all levels, which is the key tenet of democratic governance,” President Yoweri Museveni remarked when opening the meeting

Meanwhile in Germany, women from the corporate world met and discussed how they can fight for better gender equality within their community.

“In one generation alone we have moved from a population of women who were far less educated and represented in the workforce than men to a 21st century reality that now has 40 to 50 percent of women working worldwide,” Natividad, who is of Philippines descent, said at the opening ceremony.

Rising women’s employment has been the main driving force of business growth over the past couple of decades, she said. Women may still not be paid on average as much as men, but that would not halt their progress, she said.

Eyes on Darfur

- Adam Clare

Amnesty International has started a new campaign that aims to bring the world’s eyes onto the crisis in Darfur through a new website Eyes on Darfur. The site offers users the ability to see up to date satellate imagery of what’s going on in the troubled region. This Amnesty Interanatinal project sounds simialr to what Google Earth recently did.

Amnesty International USA’s unprecedented Eyes On Darfur project leverages the power of high-resolution satellite imagery to provide unimpeachable evidence of the atrocities being committed in Darfur – enabling action by private citizens, policy makers and international courts. Eyes On Darfur also breaks new ground in protecting human rights by allowing people around the world to literally “watch over” and protect twelve intact, but highly vulnerable, villages using commercially available satellite imagery.

let’s hope that this will get more people writing their officals to do something about the crisis!

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