#co2e

[hussyknee]

Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip

(Source: The Lancet)

The Lancet is one of the oldest and highest impact peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. Deliberate undercounting of deaths is a key feature of genocides.

The Electronic Intifada estimated it at 193,000 a few days before.

The reported number of martyrs on Wednesday this week was 37,718. It’s important to note that this number only includes martyrs who have been identified by name and civil ID number through the beleaguered health ministry in Gaza. Given the breakdown of reporting systems due to heavy destruction of infrastructure and personnel, this number, even with its limited parameters, is a gross underestimation. Based on more accurate figures of approximately 370 people killed daily, multiplied by 264 days of genocide, the actual number is closer to 97,680 martyred. (Per OCHA estimate of 15 martyrs per hour: Over the course of 264 days, which amounts to 6,336 hours, this number would roughly be 95,040).

...

Based on these estimates, both conservative and data-driven, respectively, the actual figures are likely as follows: • 377,280 buildings destroyed completely or partially • 95,040—97,680 martyred • 221,760 injured • 24,750 dead or dying from starvation • 42,000 missing (presumed dead, kidnapped by Israel’s occupying forces or possibly trafficked). The following ranges represent conservative estimate or lower range of data-driven population estimates: • 17,050—94,049 with chronic illnesses dead from lack of medication • 14,408—255,985 dead from epidemics resulting from Israel’s assault This means the actual number of dead is closer to 194,768—511,824 people, with 221,760 injured. And counting.

(Source: The Electronic Intifada)

Israel surrounded the last remaining hospital in the Gaza Strip with tanks and ordered it evacuated and shut down 12 hours ago.

If you still want to believe the pussy-footing toll of counted and reported deaths that can stand up to Western propaganda, after nine fucking months of dropping more than 70,000 tons of bombs on a 41 kilometer strip, exceeding World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, London combined, rather than the statistical breakdown of humanitarian orgs and medical journals, then have at. There's no point telling you to believe the victims and question your own biases towards your own heavily propagandized establishments.

But if you can do basic math, then please use The Lancet's estimated death toll. The massacre of 8% of the Gaza Strip is a conservative estimate and still apocalyptic. Resist all attempts to diminish it. Remember that this is the result of the United States's obstruction of justice and open-handed abetting of genocidaires. Keep fighting.

Btw:

While the war itself is estimated to have generated between 420,265 and 652,552 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) so far—equivalent to burning more than 1.5 million barrels of oil—this figure soars to more than 61 million tonnes when pre-and post-war construction and reconstruction are included. This is more than the annual emissions of 135 individual nations—but there is currently no legal obligation for militaries to report or be held accountable for their emissions.

(Source: EuroNews)

[jasmineiros]

I wasn't going to post this here due to the somewhat sensitive subject of idolization of celebrities and I actually already vented on Instagram stories, but once the dam breaks out it's useless to even try to contain it. And the only thing that is flooding my mind now is rage.

I already hated millionaires, but after Taylor Swift came to Brazil to that freaking circus people called a concert, I hated them even more.

In case you're not aware, Brazil is dealing incredibly badly with the climate crisis. In Rio they hit the temperature of 60°C (100F, but the sensation was of 140F). It was the highest temperature registered SO FAR. A mix of this unbearable heat and the fact that the staff managing the production of concert used certain materials such as god-damned metal to cover certain structures made several people to get severe burns and 23-year-old die of a heart attack.

Now, that's where the irony comes.

After hearing the news, the best Taylor could ever do was posting a stories saying "how sorry she was and she was so young and she was so beautiful and blablabla" but also very vehemently reinforcing that "due to her grief she wasn't going to say anything about it during the show". I mean, a person who technically loved her, had to get donations to travel across the country and literally died because of this god-damned concert and you can't even make a tiny, small tribute for her. She didn't even mention her name in the stories, which was Ana Clara, btw.

She or the staff never reached out to the family to ask if they needed anything, even though they absolutely had the means to do it. Several years ago, when a Rihanna fan was murdered, she personally paid for the expenses of the funeral, because the family couldn't afford it.

And it gets worse.

She cancelled her next performances due to the climate issues. Being herself is the biggest celebrity CO2e polluter of this year so far. And she got back to the US. In a fucking private jet.

I mean, this combo couldn't be more unbelievable. She not only completely dehumanized an incredibly painful and serious situation, as she, with the 1% of magnates that literally rule this planet, is simply the root cause of the imminent destruction of this planet but it doesn't matter, as long as she still has money being shoved into that white ass of hers.

Or maybe I'm being naive, maybe it's our fault, after all, monkeys are meant to the zoo, not to be in the presence of an untouchable, perfect and almighty nature force such as she, since apparently she can't even breathe the same air we do by just using a freaking common airplane, like a sensitive and sane person would.

The fact that she will just run out and make other concerts with that same innocent angel aura, even though she displays a borderline psychopath behavior, like she still was the 16-year-old girl writing songs about her break ups is absolutely unbelievable to me.

This is just so similar to when that cryptofascist piece of trash of Aurora decided it would be just a good idea to make a shallow and generic discourse about love and acceptance and how everyone is being cancelled nowadays when a member of her band posted and gestured dog whistle supremacy symbols on more than one occasion.

Honestly I wish I could feel anything else right now, but the only thing I can still manage to internalize and express is pure hate.

[umlewis]

[image id: screenshot of a tweet from @.f1. it reads: "saving over 500 tonnes of co2e 👏 @.mercedesamgf1 achieve 98% biofuel coverage over the 2024 european leg of the season for their race and marketing trucks and generations 🌍" /end id]

[whathappenedtodaynews]

The Taylor Swift private jet usage issue: a breakdown of how we came to know about it.

29 July 2022: A sustainability marketing firm called Yard publishes findings based on the Twitter account CelebJets. It claims Swift took 170 flights between January and July 2022. They explain they “wanted to find out which celebrities have clocked up the most carbon emissions from private jet travel since the beginning of 2022. We’ve researched over 1,500 flights to find out”.

Yard claims they decided to investigate after seeing Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott (her former partner, father to her 2 kids) receive backlash for captioning an instagram post “Should we take mine or yours?” referring to their respective jets.

It’s also quite surprising to see that the second person on the list, serial wife beater Floyd Mayweather, had basically the same amount of C02 emission as Swift, but received approximately none of the backlash she did.

The findings were quickly picked up by Buzzfeed News on the same day, and went viral soon after. Buzzfeed’s (and Yard’s report) seem to specifically point toward Taylor in an effort to distract from Kardashian jet usage, which is just as bad, sometimes taking 9 minute flights (while the shortest flight in Taylor’s jet was 36 minutes interstate). Buzzfeed also mentions there being two jets but Yard does not.

At the end of the article, Buzzfeed quotes a spokesperson for Taylor saying:

“Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals. To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect."

It is very common for celebrities to rent out private jets to other public figures, this is why a number of celebrities were named in relation to Jeffrey Epstein, because he rented his jet to them at some point.

Is it a coincidence that Kylie Jenner had just months earlier been subject of two separate public backlash incidents associated with wealth privilege - one where she and her mother acted like grocery shopping and car washes were novelty tourist attractions and the other her own private jet usage.

BUT another interesting thing is that a few days before the original Yard research report…

21 July 2022: The Guardian published their own findings on celebrity private jet usage also using the same twitter account…and Swift is nowhere to be seen. A lot of the same names as the Yard report are mentioned, but not Taylor.

At some point after the report went viral, Yard issued a disclaimer stating:

“Yard's Digital PR team is aware that this list is not conclusive to the biggest offenders, but the biggest offenders according to the data as presented on the CelebrityJets Twitter page”.

They also posted Taylor’s spokesperson’s comment and Jay Z’s lawyer’s statement that he does not own the jet in question.

They continued:

“Yard's Digital PR team is also aware this data is based on these celebrities’ planes and whilst there is no way to determine if these celebrities were on all the recorded flights the purpose of this study is to highlight the damaging impact of private jet usage.”

It appears Yard never published any subsequent reports on celebrity jet usage after 2022.

For subsequent years, other findings showed:

* 2023s highest usage went to Travis Scott and Kim Kardashian. Swift did not appear in the top 30.

* 2024s highest usage went to Donald Trump and Travis Scott, again.

* From 2022-2024, Kim K and Travis Scott are consistently in the top 10 of these findings. Swift is not.

It is strange Swift doesn’t appear high on these lists in 2023-2024, the two years she spent touring the world. But she randomly appeared atop one study, in a non-touring year, which shifted attention away from Kylie Jenner’s recent string of wealth privilege backlashes…

Yard offered another follow up in August 2022 saying aviation experts had pointed out that not all private jets are made equally:

“One of the key assumptions we made related to the DfT estimate of CO2e as a result of these flights. However, this finding broadly assumes that all celebrities were using the same grade of private jet, whereas, in reality, there are some jets on the list which emit far more emissions than others. Therefore, revisiting calculations, taking into account the specific jets being used, rather than use a broad estimate of CO2e, we have the consumption of jet fuel during each of these trips, and then identified the CO2e per gallon of jet fuel. Interestingly these different calculations, we see that the jet owned by Drake uses an average of 1,722 gallons of jet fuel per hour, whereas Taylor Swift’s jet uses a much lower 347 gallons per hour.”

Drake offered his own commentary on this issue stating:

“This is just them moving planes to whatever airport they are being stored at for anyone who was interested in the logistics. Nobody takes that flight.”

Not that Drake has never suffered backlash before but I can only imagine the sheer rage if Swift ever said “Oh, no one is on those flights”. And of all the things Drake has been dragged for, his excessive jet usage somehow isn’t one of them.

Drake’s comment does prove that a jet owned by a celebrity taking a flight doesn’t necessarily mean that celebrity specifically took it instead of driving somewhere.

[vegansforfuture]

Die Beratungsfirma "Bright Green Partners" hat sich in einem neuen Bericht mit den Umweltauswirkungen von Kuhmilch, Pflanzenmilch und PF-Milch beschäftigt und wagt zudem einen Blick ins Jahr 2040. 👍😎🌱

Besonders interessant ist, dass PF-Milch, also Milch aus Präzisionsfermentation, in Zukunft die mit Abstand klimafreundlichste Milch sein wird, da ihre Produktion nur 0,1 kg CO2e pro Liter freisetzen wird, wogegen sich die Klimabilanz von Kuhmilch zwar noch etwas verbessern lässt, allerdings auf keinen Fall auf unter 0,5 kg CO2e / Liter. Wenn Molkereien ihre Klimabilanz optimieren wollen, kommen sie um den Einsatz von PF- und Pflanzenmilch also nicht herum!

Weitere Details dazu von Vegconomist: "Laut einem Bericht der Beratungsfirma Bright Green Partners könnte Milch auf pflanzlicher Basis bis Ende 2030 10 % billiger sein als Kuhmilch und zu einem Grundnahrungsmittel werden (...). In diesem Bericht wird untersucht, welche Möglichkeiten die europäische Milchindustrie hat, dem prognostizierten Anstieg der Produktionskosten durch Investitionen in nachhaltige Alternativen zu herkömmlichen Milchprodukten zu begegnen.

Dem Bericht zufolge werden die Kosten für die Milcherzeugung in der EU bis 2040 voraussichtlich um 30 % steigen, da Umweltauflagen und die Notwendigkeit, die Kohlenstoffemissionen zu verringern, zu höheren Produktionskosten führen. Die „wahren“ Kosten der Milch, die die Umweltauswirkungen berücksichtigen, könnten den derzeitigen Preis fast verdoppeln.

Bereits jetzt zeichnet sich ein Wandel ab, da neue Marktführer im Bereich der tierfreien Milchprodukte auftauchen. Darüber hinaus werden dem Bericht zufolge Verschiebungen bei den Einzelhandelspreisen zwischen tierfreien und herkömmlichen Milchprodukten bis 2040 zu erheblichen Veränderungen bei der Verbrauchernachfrage und dem Kaufverhalten führen."

Quellen: ➡ LINK 1 ➡ LINK 2

CHANGE IS COMING! 😊💚

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

After SH video with the WWF's climate change director, any thoughts about carbon footprint only lasted until his recent trip.

He went to pamper himself on the well-being Canary Islands 🇪🇸 Gran Canaria is known throughout Europe as a good place for health. People go to the island to recover from ailments thanks to its pleasant climate, he goes to Las Palmas to revitalise his physical and mental well-being 🤔

So we expect a picture of him showing off his muscles on the best urban beach in Europe, “Las Canteras”, located in the heart of the capital of the island of Gran Canaria. His reporters friends are likely to be interested in diving in. 💁‍♀️

Or this time SH didn't go to the island to try to be an influencer for some luxury hotel in the Canary Islands 🤷‍♀️

@shinycomputerqueen Indeed is different: the carbon emissions of a flight from London to New York are 1,300 pounds of CO2 equivalent to 590 kg CO2e or 0.59 tonnes of carbon. The carbon footprint of a flight from Glasgow to Gran Canaria Airport is 481 pounds (lbs) equivalent to 218 kg of CO2 per passenger. Lower or Higher is all carbon footprint.

But is about his cynicism which implies doubting his sincerity in talking with WWF.

@kupigamawe Spotted a legend! referring to SH. This mate needs to help his potential brain 🧠 I don't think popularity is what makes someone a legend. A true legend is someone who leaves a lasting impact on others and is appreciated for their accomplishments. Even if SH has done things, he hasn't done anything particularly impressive when compared to the real legends of cinema that you mentioned earlier.

@shinycomputerqueen He should compelled to say, "Do as I say and not as I do”

[noneedtofearorhope]

so first we have

OpenAI's buzzy chatbot, ChatGPT, is probably using up more than half a million kilowatt-hours of electricity to respond to some 200 million requests a day, according to The New Yorker.

which works out to be about 0.0025 kwh per request.

according to the epa's online greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, that's about 0.001 kg co2e.

then we have

Initially estimated in 2010 by an unnamed Twitter employee to be around 0.02g CO2-equivalent (CO2e), subsequent research by numerous climate experts appears to put the ecological impact of a single tweet to be 0.026g CO2e.

so working it out, a single chatgpt request is about the same energy cost as 38.5 tweets. i couldn't find any info for how much a post on tumblr would be, probably in part because it's a 'dead' website. but given the lackluster programming they're known for, and that posts can be much larger, i'd reckon it's worse than a tweet. so, spitballing, maybe 25 posts on tumblr is roughly equivalent to one chatgpt request?

just food for thought

[yetisidelblog]

Last month, the Biden Administration released its long-awaited analysis of the environmental, economic, and public health impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

This study makes one thing clear: approving more LNG exports will drive up costs for families and supercharge global climate pollution.

Now, we’re in a 60-day public comment period, and we have no time to waste. The Department of Energy (DOE) says it won’t revise the analysis itself, but it will use our feedback to guide decisions on future LNG export approvals.

Submit your comment now to demand the DOE reject new LNG export permits. We can’t afford to let this crucial analysis be ignored — or buried.

Here’s why your voice is urgently needed:

Climate devastation: Projects like CP2 LNG in Louisiana could emit 190 million tonnes of CO2e per year—equivalent to the pollution from 51 coal-fired power plants. We can’t let these carbon bombs move forward.

Health impacts in vulnerable communities: LNG facilities are concentrated in areas already suffering from pollution and climate change. This leads to higher rates of cancer, asthma, and heart disease for people who’ve suffered enough.

Environmental destruction: Heavy dredging and construction for LNG facilities damage ecosystems, devastate local economies reliant on fishing and tourism, and threaten biodiversity.

Higher costs for families: LNG exports raise energy bills for Americans while padding the profits of oil and gas CEOs. We need policies that protect people, not corporate profits.

We’ve seen how public pressure can stop fossil fuel projects in their tracks. If enough of us speak out, the DOE can’t simply turn a blind eye — every comment becomes part of the public record. Even if the Trump administration tries to rewrite the narrative, this study will stand as powerful evidence that LNG expansion is a terrible deal for our climate and our communities.

Let’s show the DOE that we refuse to let Big Oil and Gas profit at our expense. Make your voice heard: Submit your comment today!

@upontheshelfreviews

@greenwingspino

@one-time-i-dreamt

@tenaflyviper

@akron-squirrel

@ifihadaworldofmyown

@justice-for-jacob-marley

@voicetalentbrendan

@thebigdeepcheatsy

@what-is-my-aesthetic

@ravenlynclemens

@thegreatallie

@writerofweird

@anon-lephant

@mentally-quiet-spycrab

[yhancik]

The authors are arguing that generative AI is more green than humans writing or creating visual art.

They reached that conclusion by comparing dubious estimates of the carbon footprint of tools like ChatGPT... ... WITH THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A HUMAN JUST EXISTING.

For instance, the emission footprint of a US resident is approximately 15 metric tons CO2e per year, which translates to roughly 1.7 kg CO2e per hour. Assuming that a person’s emissions while writing are consistent with their overall annual impact, we estimate that the carbon footprint for a US resident producing a page of text (250 words) is approximately 1400 g CO2e.

These four - supposedly sane - individuals thought it up, spent time researching all kind of data and calculations, wrote this down, proofread it a hundred times, published it, without questioning at one point whether this was any kind of meaningful comparison.

Found via a very good thread by L. Rhodes to whom I leave the conclusion because he words it better than I ever could:

it's dangerous on multiple levels. Dangerous first of all because they'll use it to greenwash a practice that, by any truthful measure, is increasing the amount of carbon emissions. Those 300 million monthly queries don't displace the carbon emissions of the people making them—they add to them. And I suspect they add significantly more than is reflected by the calculations of that paper. But the comparison is also dangerous because it implies that we would be better off, environmentally speaking, if you COULD replace artists—not just their work, which the paper doesn't meaningfully distinguish from their actuarial carbon footprint, but the people themselves—with generative AI. And from what we've seen and heard of their ideological commitments, that's a conclusion some AI enthusiasts would readily embrace.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

The inclusion of Amazon mangroves in Brazil’s REDD+ program

The Legal Amazon of Brazil holds vast mangrove forests, but a lack of awareness of their value has prevented their inclusion into results-based payments established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Based on an inventory from over 190 forest plots in Amazon mangroves, we estimate total ecosystem carbon stocks of 468 ± 67 Megagrams (Mg) ha−1; which are significantly higher than Brazilian upland biomes currently included into national carbon offset financing. Conversion of mangroves results in potential emissions of 1228 Mg CO2e ha−1, which are 3-fold higher than land use emissions from conversion of the Amazon rainforest. Our work provides the foundation for the inclusion of mangroves in Brazil’s intended Nationally Determined Contribution, and here we show that halting mangrove deforestation in the Legal Amazon would generate avoided emissions of 0.9 ± 0.3 Teragrams (Tg) CO2e yr−1; which is equivalent to the annual carbon accumulation in 82,400 ha of secondary forests.

Read the paper.

[thereasonsimbroke]

Microsoft's #Xbox division has made significant strides in sustainability, helping to prevent over 1.2 million metric tons of CO2e from FY20 to FY23.

By incorporating energy-saving features like Shutdown mode and collaborating with developers through the Xbox Sustainability Toolkit, Xbox has contributed to #Microsoft's broader goals of achieving carbon negativity, water positivity, and zero waste by 2030. These efforts involve reducing power consumption and optimizing game downloads for times when renewable energy is most available.

Developers like #HaloStudios and #Activision have already utilized these tools in popular titles like #HaloInfinite and #CallOfDuty. Additionally, Xbox is the first console to offer emissions measurement tools, enabling developers to reduce energy usage without impacting gameplay.

[warningsine]

Coldplay has announced that they have reduced their touring carbon footprint by 59% compared with their previous world tour – via some creative methods that include kinetic dancefloors that allow dancing fans to generate electricity, recyclable LED wristbands and the band travelling by train.

On Monday the British band announced that they were “happy to report that direct CO2e emissions from the first two years of this tour are 59% less than our previous stadium tour (2016-17), on a show-by-show comparison”.

In 2021 the band first announced a 12-point plan to lower emissions while touring, two years after frontman Chris Martin vowed to never tour again unless it was done sustainably and with a “positive impact”.

The band’s pledge for the Music of the Spheres world tour, which began in 2022, was to reduce their carbon emissions from show production, freight, band and crew travel by “at least 50%”.

Two years later, the band say they have surpassed that figure – with the help of their fans.

“We’d like to thank everyone who’s come to a show and helped charge the show batteries on the power bikes and kinetic dancefloors,” they said in a statement on their website.

“Everyone who’s arrived by foot, bike, ride share or public transport; everyone who’s come with refillable water bottles or returned their LED wristband for recycling; and everyone who’s bought a ticket, which means you’ve already planted one of seven million trees so far.

“As a band, and as an industry, we’re a long way from where we need to be on this. But we’re grateful for everyone’s help so far, and we salute everyone who’s making efforts to push things in the right direction.”

Coldplay’s shows have featured kinectic dancefloors that generate electricity through the audience jumping up and down on customised tiles.

During the show fans are also encouraged to hop on power bikes, which, along with solar installations and the dancefloors, charge smaller stage areas during concerts, as well as phone, laptop and tool-charging stations for the crew.

Coldplay’s data was collated by sustainability business Hope Solutions and their claims verified by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT Prof John E Fernandez praised the band for “leading by example … to move the entire music industry toward true and humane sustainability”.

“With each subsequent year of their tour … Coldplay is modelling a trajectory toward a low carbon, biodiverse and equitable future,” Fernandez said.

Last July, an interim report suggested the band had fallen just short of their aim, achieving a 47% reduction in carbon emissions. But the new figures released by the band suggests the tour has become more efficient as it goes on.

The band claims that “72% of all tour waste has been diverted from landfill and sent for reuse, recycling and composting”, up from 66% in 2023.

Eighteen shows were powered entirely by a tourable battery system, made from recycled BMW batteries.

Two solar-powered “ocean cleanup river interceptors” have also been paid for during the tour.

For every ticket sold – 7 million so far – a tree has been planted through the global reforestation nonprofit One Tree Planted.

Live touring is a carbon-intensive business, particularly for world tours where venues are often thousands of kilometres apart. Artists such as Taylor Swift have been criticised for excessive use of private jets for touring and personal use.

While Coldplay rely on air travel for most of their shows, Martin has pledged to take public transport to gigs where possible. He arrived for the band’s shows in Cardiff by train.

[userparamore]

Taylor is not the artist with the biggest co2 emissions, that was a fake new that spread after the kardashians were called out for overusing their private planes. And the guy was sued bc he tracked every flight taylor took and posted it online in real time, that's creepy stalker behavior, you really think hayley wouldn't have sued if some random dude did that to her???

listen i'm not interested in any asks about taylor swift. the eras tour is over for paramore. but i'll link the data made by yard to back up this claim. it's from 2022.

"Taylor Swift might be today's pop princess, but Yard's research found that Miss Swift is the biggest celebrity CO2e polluter of this year so far. Racking up a total of 170 flights since January, Taylor's jet has amassed a vast 22,923 minutes in the air – 15.9 days. Quite a large amount considering that she is not currently touring."

she's now been touring this year and i'm guessing her time in the air hasn't gone down.

"Taylor's jet has an average flight time of just 80 minutes and an average of 139.36 miles per flight. Her total flight emissions for the year come in at 8,293.54 tonnes, or 1,184.8 times more than the average person's total annual emissions. Taylor’s shortest recorded flight of 2022 was just 36 minutes, flying from Missouri to Nashville."

in this bbc article they say he posted them a day later. either way, all flights are tracked and it's public information. you can go to faa.gov right now if you want and track taylor swift's jet. what hayley thinks about this is none of my business.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Summary

This project, led by an Indian NGO Mahila Housing Sewa Trust (MHT), is on a mission to organise and empower women in low-income households to increase their resilience to impacts of climate change. To date, MHT’s initiatives have helped 25,000 low-income families across seven cities in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The project is centred around an integrated model wherein women take the lead through collective action and technology incubation to devise locally relevant, pro‐poor, gender-sensitive and climate-resilient solutions. For example, women were trained to be energy auditors who encourage households to switch to more efficient products, forming a women-led distribution network of green energy and building products. Other solutions include using sprinkler taps to reduce the flow of water, harvesting rainwater, and other behavioural changes leading to more than 60% of households reporting to have increase in water quantity and more than 32% having sufficient water during summers.

Though projects like these, MHT is empowering women to take action against four major climate risks: heat waves, flooding and inundation, water scarcity, and water-vector-borne diseases. These slow‐onset events attract less attention but frequently impact poor people, particularly women, the most.

Key Facts

Mahila Housing Sewa Trust (MHT) has helped organise 114 Community Action Groups, who have reached out to 27,227 women in 107 slums. Of the women they’ve worked with, 8,165 women were recorded to demonstrate an increase in “knowledge seeking behavior”. 

Over 1,500 women have been trained as climate-saathis, who are responsible for communicating the issue of climate change with their community in their local language. Through this communications exercise, the proportion of participants who viewed climate change as an act of god reduced from 26 % to 9 %.

To date, around 28,000 energy audits have been undertaken in slum communities, which have saved families over USD 700,000 per annum in electricity costs. These money and energy saving interventions have included installing over 200 modular roofs and 500 roofs with solar reflective white paint, while having also led to a reduction of 105 tonnes of CO2e per annum. 

The Problem

It is estimated that over 190.7 million people live in informal settlements in South Asia. These settlements are often densely populated and highly vulnerable to even the slightest changes to our climate.

MHT’s project is building the resilience capacities of over 25,000 low-income families living in slums and informal settlements across seven cities in three South Asian countries, including: Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Ranchi, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar (India); Dhaka (Bangladesh), and Kathmandu (Nepal).

Their initiatives empower women to lead local mitigation efforts to prevent key climate risks such as heatwaves, flooding and inundation, and climate change related incidences of water-vector borne diseases. These types of slow-onset events tend to attract less global attention, while also disproportionately impacting low-income households. Women are commonly the primary caregiver and responsible for household management, which renders them more vulnerable to these types of stresses.

The Solution

MHT has championed a women-led empowerment model for building climate resilience in the slums of South Asia, focused around organising groups of women in their communities. Their model builds upon the conviction that if the urban poor are provided with requisite knowledge to undertake vulnerability and risk assessments, and are equipped with available resilient‐technologies, they will be able to devise and implement locally relevant and pro‐poor, climate-resilient solutions

The project model emphasizes women taking the lead through collective action and technology incubation in order to devise these locally relevant, gender-sensitive and climate-resilient solutions. To make this possible, MHT, assists with facilitating the required infrastructure, institutional and financial mechanisms.

Helping the Planet

Through empowering women, this project is also helping reduce the emissions associated with the production of electricity in these communities. For example, one of MHT’s core initiatives trains women to become energy auditors and educate households on the nuances of energy use such as bill calculation, wattage consumption and energy wastage. As energy auditors, these women also encourage households to switch to more energy efficient products.

These trained energy auditors also act as grassroots level micro-entrepreneurs, by forming a women-led distribution network of green energy and building products. Energy auditors promote the installation of energy efficient LED bulbs and lights, modular roofs, airlite ventilator, many other solutions.

Helping People

While women from low-income families are often the most vulnerable as they have the least access to information and resources, MHT believes they also have the greatest potential to be empowered to become agents of change.

The rationale for the project is to provide these women with the requisite knowledge to undertake vulnerability and risk assessments, while also equipping them with the available climate resilient-technologies. This means they will be able to identify climate induced vulnerabilities, minimize risk and adopt locally relevant climate resilient solutions. In turn, these women also can potentially play a role in influencing better city planning and governance for pro-poor adaptation and resilience actions.

Spillover Effect

Currently, MHT is in the process of training other grassroots organisations to reproduce similar women-led groups in areas such as Bhubaneswar, Dhaka and Kathmandu.

While many other urban resilience programs are top-down and externally driven, MHT has made a concerted effort to ensure their initiatives are low-cost, contextually-appropriate and participatory.  Urban poor that have been organized under this program gather critical planning data to design their own solutions and negotiate with other urban stakeholders, as well as test and manage implementation of these solutions.

Through empowering women to help improve their homes and communities, MHT’s initiatives have also triggered behavior change in communities towards making more informed decisions. This has in turn empowered them with the necessary knowledge to demand improved government services, thus proving that this concept can be expanded to other communities throughout the world.

[beabopped]

she co2ed my h2o until i combust

[vegansforfuture]

In den USA und einigen anderen Ländern sind bereits Milchprodukte aus Präzisionsfermentation auf dem Markt. Bei dieser hocheffizienten Technologie werden Molkenprotein und Kasein von Hefen oder Bakterien in einer Art Brauerei erzeugt. Dadurch wird die Haltung von Kühen überflüssig. So teilte der PF-Milch-Produzent TheBoredCow kürzlich mit, in den USA bereits in über 2000 Märkten gelistet zu sein.👍😎🌱

Wenig bekannt war bislang allerdings, wie die Auswirkungen von PF-Milch auf Klima & Umwelt aussehen, weshalb "The Bored Cow" dazu eine Untersuchung bei Planet FWD in Auftrag gab und zu spannenden Erkenntnissen, insbesondere im direkten Vergleich mit Kuhmilch, gelangte.

Die Ergebnisse: - Der Energieverbrauch liegt bei PF-Milch etwa doppelt so hoch wie bei Kuhmilch, trotzdem sind die Treibhausgasemissionen noch immer um 44% geringer. Würde man die Methanemissionen der Rinder mit dem 20-Jahre-Äquivalent von 84 CO2e, anstatt des verwendeten 100-Jahre-Wertes von 28 CO2e, berechnen, wäre der Unterschied noch weitaus größer. - Gerade beim Landverbrauch kann PF-Milch punkten, da kaum Landfläche für den Anbau der Rohstoffe benötigt wird. - Die bei der Untersuchung ebenfalls untersuchte Mandelmilch liegt bei den Emissionen, aufgrund des geringeren Energieverbrauchs, deutlich unterhalb der PF-Milch, benötigt aber fast 7x so viel Landfläche.

Fazit: Präzisionsfermentation ist eine wegweisende Technologie, die es uns ermöglichen kann, enorme Landflächen freizugeben, die dann zur Renaturierung oder für den Aufbau von Solaranlagen genutzt werden könnten. Die EU sollte sich deshalb nicht länger dem Fortschritt in den Weg stellen und PF-Milch zeitnah genehmigen! 😎🌱

Quellen: ➡ LINK 1 ➡ LINK 2 ➡ LINK 3 ➡ LINK 4 ➡ LINK 5

CHANGE IS COMING! 😊💚