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A sustainability experiment: living with no plastics for two weeks
Strip yourself from all the plastic! You are probably aware of the fact that we are currently facing a very critical and concerning time when it comes to the state of our planet. We all do. The news is spilling with reports on global warming, extreme weather changes, plastic and chemical pollution (pesticides, insecticides, antibodies and hormones), especially since the start of the “Fridays for future” movement. We all know that these things exist, and we are all concerned. We want politicians to make a change. But be totally honest – have you ever asked yourself what role you play? What...
The Climate Is Changing Because We Aren't
Climate change... what about it? You might think that Climate Change is not serious. Well, you're wrong. Climate Change is real and it's happening all around the globe causing natural disasters. Thousands and millions of lives, especially children, are lost due to natural disasters such as flash floods and forest fires caused by extreme droughts. Extinction will most likely occur to animals and that will disrupt the ecosystem. There are people all around the world who are suffering and dying. The people in power are not taking any actions because all they think about is money and economic...
This is how the lack of reliable internet access affects me… and my community
Climate Change and the first 1000 days
“The beautiful thing about working for the environment is that, while you heal the earth, you heal humanity." Adaora The first 1000 days are critical to the development of a child. Over 200 million children in this bracket fail to attain the developmental milestone as a result of different reasons, one of them being climate change. In the first 1000 days, children are vulnerable, and as droughts escalate and flooding degrade the production of food, these fellas will experience malnutrition and hunger. They also have an enormous burden to carry as temperature rises and water become scarce since...
Australia bushfires: a blaze the size of Southern England
The past two months have seen a sharp rise in the number of fires around the globe, from blazes in Congo to Siberia. However, there is no doubt that Australia's burning bush-fires are probably the hottest topic in the news (no pun intended). Attention and large, seven-digit donations from celebrities such as Chris Hemsworth and Kylie Jenner have captivated and more importantly motivated people around the world to contribute to fight the fires. The Australian climate is normally dictated by the heat and magnitude of the air in the subtropical atmospheric belt. This means that many parts of the...
World: Dismantling
Hang onto the morning at its smallest just before the sky cracks to let in the morning’s rays. Remember the passing seasons and the gait of wisteria often buried under raucous life The cold summer sun resting quietly between satin curtains. Hold both the silence and the noise in the same hand because this world is burning too fast to hold it all. As you listen for the horizon noise of trains going, people rushing ask if you reach for the bits of this world before they become buried, returning to ash returning to the Earth for eternity, for infinity I plea, listen to the woods glowing in...
Unless
I'm just sitting here thinking about all the world's problems and how we cannot solve them unless we work together. We have to work together. Our forests are burning, our oceans slowly dying we can never stop fighting or we'll lose, unless we start caring. We have to start caring. The air is getting warmer, still our hearts are growing colder we will never grow older unless we start acting. We have to start acting. Our time is running out in this little snow globe we are almost at the end of the road unless we make a difference. We have to make a difference. But please don't lose all hope, our...
First...
If you close your eyes and I ask you to "think about 21st century", what comes to mind? Improvement of the health system? Progress? Prosperity of the economy? What is really going on in the world? Global warming and climate change are destroying animals and the environment, the situation in Yemen is still there, children are dying. Development or collapse of humanity? People continue to explore other planets, in search of a new Home. Why? What is the point of moving to another place if we simply cannot keep our Present Home. People have come a long way, from wars to modernising technology to...
How to stay safe online
We are all in this together
So, this a quotation that we say in my country, Lebanon, and which means “we are all in this together”. As you know, COVID-19 has spread all over the world, and that made me think that no matter how much we can be different in our different countries, cultures, habits, thoughts… This situation reunites us and shows us that we are not THAT different. The virus can affect me as it can affect any other person around the world! We are all in this together, so we must take care of each other, be kind, be helpful, cheer each other up, and so it can be a first step to the end of discrimination and a...
We can change our ways in order to take care of each other
The Stark Reality of the Future
The scorching rays of the sun were impossible to bear. The magnificent river, its width once as great as the Burj Khalifa was tall, was reduced to a trickle of black water. It was nearly the end of December and winter was nowhere in sight. It had been many decades since the earth had last embraced the soft, moist fall of snow. It had loathed its presence in the past but now, it yearned to have even a thousandth of a second with it. How had the humans become so selfish? How did they grow so cruel that they annihilated the Earth, the nature and the environment to such an extent that it was...
The Unexpected Environmental Consequences of COVID-19
Photos of reduced smog in China, unpolluted canals in Italy, and wild animals roaming the streets in the United States have been shared all over Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter over the past few weeks, helping give hope to a demoralized global population. However, many of those photos are some of countless examples of the harmful misinformation that has spread over the internet during the pandemic - they have perpetuated a false narrative of an environment saved by a few weeks of quarantine and ignored the negative environmental impacts that have instead ensued. To begin, the pandemic has led...
No Country for Online advocacy
In the spawn of three months, grandparents learned how to use Zoom, professors that had been teaching since the last millennium had to learn forcefully about live-streaming and virtual conferences, and humanity realized that many daily activities can be done online. Technology had been swallowing slowly our daily routines during the last decade; however, it took an accelerated and imposed growth due to this pandemic This change to online-based society seems easy and even unavoidable in the so-called High-Income countries. But Low-Middle Income countries got stuck in a slow development, where...
Generation Unlimited: Challenging violence against girls through the arts
The Starved Land
Jet streams streak across the azure blue sky. The only sign of human activity anywhere kilometres around. Clouds are almost nonexistent on the clear horizon. The tall trees and Murray pines of long ago cleared by our forebears. The landscape lies stripped naked in many large patches. Mother Earth attempts to take back what she can. Desolate shrubbery does little. Driving through this scenery has always been a surreal experience. Even a feeble clump of few trees is a welcome sight. A strange occurrence comes with the changes we've made here. Finding the lifeblood of this lifeless wilderness is...
Food - A Way Of Life
Imagine this for a second. What if everyone on earth stopped eating meat tomorrow? Forever. Does that sound like a dream come true? Or a nightmare? It appears to be a great answer to damaging gases in the atmosphere. Yet, is it? Would stripping this from our earth solve climate change? No, it's only one part of a deeper problem. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, of all total carbon emissions produced in the US in 2017, agriculture only contributed 9%. The top three contributors were transportation (29%), electricity (28%), and industrial usages, (22%). Private cars appear...
Storm and Fire
I see the fires raging, the fumes blanketing the skies. I hear a continent screaming, as its perishing ecosystem sighs. The powerless koalas are burning, unable to outrun the flames. The does and joeys are embracing over a charred buck's remains. The mighty glaciers are melting, tumbling down to the seas, and the little islands are drowning, as we go up a few degrees. The helpless turtles are emerging with plastic in their throats, and the lively dolphins are choking, no longer chasing the steamboats. The coral reefs are vanishing, and with them, our oxygen supplies. And the earth's balance is...
Little Steps for Bigger Change
Climate change is the most important issue of the present era. It is an open secret that climate change is a serious danger to humans, because all human on Earth need a healthy environment to live, including healthy air, water, and sanitation. Lately, I discovered that climate change is not only harming the environment but our mental health also. Climate change damages and decreases our mental health due through heat waves, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, which can cause us to develop stress disorders, anxiety, and even PTSD. This was found to have happened to the survivors of...