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Environment

Global environmental challenges

September 19th, 2008

Will the world be a cleaner place by Monday?

Posted by: Alister Doyle

A boy salvages plastic materials washed ashore by waves in Manila bay November 26, 2007. Typhoon Mitag swirled out to sea on Monday after killing 8 people, destroying homes and flooding rice paddies in the Philippines. REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo (PHILIPPINES)Will the world be a slightly less messy place by Monday?

Organisers of an annual “Clean up the World” campaign say that up to 35 million volunteers in more than 110 countries will be cleaning up trash, planting trees, working out better ways of recycling and taking part in other ways to stop pollution.

 Of course it will take a lot more than just the Sept. 19-21 blitz but beaches from Vanuatu to Brazil, or cities from Buenos Aires to Sydney may benefit a bit.

And it illustrates a wider problem about the environment – nothing much happens unless a lot of people get involved in sorting out problems such as piles of stinking rubbish or global warming.

“We are faced with a unique challenge…about how we get practical about climate change,” said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme which backs the clean-up campaign. “Climate change is not just something that others have to address.” Uruguayan refuse collectors load a truck with paper found in the garbage in Montevideo April 11, 2008. According to the refuse collectors union “Ucrus”, at least 15, 000 people in Montevideo make their living from collecting garbage and eating, wearing and using things found in the garbage. REUTERS/Andres Stapff (URUGUAY

The clean up campaign was founded in 1993 by Australian Ian Kiernan, a yachtsman shocked by the amount of trash even in remote areas such as the Sargasso Sea in the Caribbean.

So get out your mops, your bins, your rags, your scrubbing brushes, your brooms…

May 14th, 2008

Notice more trees? Campaign aims to plant 7 billion

Posted by: Alister Doyle

Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai, Japanese Ambassador to Kenya Miyamuri and Chairman of Environmental Foundation Okada water a tree in Sabatia forest, Kenya.A worldwide tree planting campaign is aiming to reach a total of 7 billion by the end of 2009 – that means just over one for everyone on the planet.

The United Nations says the campaign has exceeded expectations since it began in late 2006 with a goal of planting one billion within a year: two billion have been planted already. That means another 5 billion by late 2009.

A lot of the plantings so far have been by carried out governments —  including 700 million by Ethiopia, 400 million by Turkey and 250 million by Mexico. That still leaves a lot still to be planted by companies and people like you and me.

Of course it leaves questions about how many survive — there are no checks to see if the saplings — like the one in the photo being planted by Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangaari Maathai (right) in 2006, grow to maturity. 

Trees absorn carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, as they grow and release it when they rot or are burned. So planting trees can take a chunk out of global warming — a U.N. official says that 7 billion trees would, if they reach maturity, soak up as much greenhouse gases as Russia emits in a year.

Have you noticed more trees in your neighbourhood? Or have you planted any?