Footprints on the Mountainside

Using the paper you have, before buying excessive quantities. Old printouts, and other unwanted paper can be stapled together for a quick notepad to scribble notes on, rather than use good paper sheets.

Passing schoolbooks to other needy students helps support their educational expenses as well as decreases the number of new books brought into use. Old notebooks at the end of the year can be stripped of unused pages to be bound together to make cheap notebooks for rough work.

Use electronic media for mailing purposes, e-greetings, and storing information. It’s faster, more efficient and cheaper too. Unsubscribe from all publications you receive, but don’t bother to read. Try to subscribe to electronic versions where suitable for the ones you do read. Promote your email address more than your mailing address for contact.

Coloured newspaper makes for very interesting looking gift wrapping and some very interesting effects can be achieved through selecting the right page to use. A friend of mine marks news items and codes letters in the newsprint for special secret messages on the gift. Any old water colour works well for colouring the paper.

Printouts can be taken on both sides of a paper. This shrinks the size of the paper stack when stored or taken along, saves on ink costs, and uses the paper with maximum efficiency.

Washing hands keeps them cleaner than using tissue paper. Old fashioned reusable cloth diapers are far more light and comfortable for babies for use at home in warm climates. Plus they are cheaper.

Use recycled paper. It looks great for special purposes and creates a responsible image for you.

Remember, we are losing trees because of our very real need for paper.

Ouch. That’s a tough first one. Plastic is very useful to us and very harmful to the environment. What can be done to find a compromise my comfort and conscience can live with? Keep the necessity, use thoroughly, discard carefully and avoid as far as possible.

We’ll need to keep the plastic bags for packing stuff on treks and monsoon hikes, but use them carefully and reuse them as much as possible, rather than using fresh ones each time.

Using a biggish purse/whatever bags men use, avoiding accepting the minor carry bags is no issue. Adding a small cloth bag for emergencies would avoid asking for a fresh one while shopping. We can make sure to carry a shopping bag when going out for shopping for sure.

Loads of plastic can be recycled. Rather than throw it into the dustbin, we can sell it to the recycle shops – kabadiwallahs, bhangarwallas, raddiwallahs, etc. That money can be put to good use, or simply into a box to donate to organizations that work for the environment.

Spending some time a day at the end of picnics, hikes or on treks to make the places we visit cleaner. A quick 15 minutes effort by a group can make quick work of the plastic lying around in a natural environment and inspire the people watching them into similar acts.

Annual get-togethers for outdoor groups can be held in places that need efforts like this and a huge gang of members can make their love for the outdoors far more concrete through a spectacular and quick clean up of the place.

Remember, the plastic that gets through human efforts will lie around defacing the place for over 500 years!

Saving the environment seems such a mommoth task. It simply leaves people immobile. Where does one begin?

Some things are easy. Don’t litter. Don’t damage. Don’t waste resources. But what exactly does this involve? What does the common person do to be saving the environment? Not everyone can research. Not everyone can make it the calling of their lives. Not everyone even knows what to do.

Yet, we have a huge number of people available, who would, if pointed out, definitely be happy to make small adjustments that together can result in massive change. The key is in identifying exact things, that are quick to do and watch out for, once people know.

If it doesn’t take too much time, doesn’t involve a great deal of effort, a large number of people will happily walk the path to feel a little more secure about the state of the world tomorrow.

I find that like any other dauntingly huge task, this one seems much more doable when we break it up into bits.

First, make a not of the words/issues that occur on the subject of saving the environment: plastic, paper, forest reserves and trees, water, energy, pollution, fuel, spreading awareness……… We can keep adding to these as and when new words occur.

Let’s take each aspect and brainstorm on it (the links above open into seprate articles on each subject, to keep things managable out here). If you have ideas, please let me know, and I’ll add them in, so that we have a ready resource of stuff that is really easy to incorporate into our lives and has the potential to make a huge difference.

Nairobi, Kenya – A new report released today by WWF finds a clear and escalating pattern of climate change impacts on bird species around the world, suggesting a trend towards a major bird extinction from global warming.

The report, Bird Species and Climate Change, reviews more than 200 scientific articles on birds in every continent to build up a global picture of climate change impacts.

“Robust scientific evidence shows that climate change is now affecting birds’ behaviour,” said Dr Karl Mallon, Scientific Director at Climate Risk Pty Ltd and one of the authors of the report. “We are seeing migratory birds failing to migrate, and climate change pushing increasing numbers of birds out of synchrony with key elements of their ecosystems.”

The report, prepared by international climate change specialists, identifies groups of birds at high risk from climate change: migratory, mountain, island, wetland, Arctic, Antarctic and seabirds. While bird species that can move and adapt easily to different habitat are expected to continue to do well, bird species that thrive only in a narrow environmental range are expected to decline, and to be outnumbered by invasive species.

The report also shows that birds suffer from climate change effects in every part of the globe. Scientists have found declines of up to 90 per cent in some bird populations, as well as total and unprecedented reproductive failure in others.

Scientists also analyzed available projections of future impacts, including bird species extinction. They found that bird extinction rates could be as high as 38 per cent in Europe, and 72 per cent in northeastern Australia, if global warming exceeds 2ºC above pre-industrial levels (currently it is 0.8ºC above).

“Birds have long been used as indicators of environmental change, and with this report we see they are the quintessential ‘canaries in the coal mine’ when it comes to climate change,” said Hans Verolme, Director of WWF’s Global Climate Change Programme.

“This report finds certain bird groups, such as seabirds and migratory birds, to be early, very sensitive, responders to current levels of climate change. Large-scale bird extinctions may occur sooner than we thought.”

If high rates of extinction are to be avoided, rapid and significant greenhouse gas emission cuts must be made, WWF says.

The global conservation organization also believes that the current approach to bird conservation, focused on protecting specific areas with a high bird diversity, will fail because climate change will force birds to shift into unprotected zones. A major change in approach to bird conservation is required, according to WWF.

END NOTES:

Examples of how climate change is affecting some bird species around the world:

Africa: The tawny eagle is an arid savanna raptor found in Asia and Africa. Small changes in precipitation predicted with climate change would likely result in the bird’s extinction in its African habitat in the southern Kalahari. If the mean annual precipitation stays the same but the inter-annual (year to year) variation increases by less than 10 per cent, the bird’s population will decrease considerably.

UK: The particular vulnerability of seabirds to climate change is illustrated by the unprecedented breeding crash of UK North Sea seabirds in 2004. The direct cause for the breeding failure of common guillemots, Arctic skuas, great skuas, kittiwakes, Arctic terns and other seabirds at Shetland and Orkney colonies was a shortage of small fish called sandeels, a crucial prey species for the seabirds. As a result, the nearly 7,000 pairs of great skuas in the Shetlands, for example, produced only a handful of chicks and starving adult birds ate their own young. Warming ocean waters and major shifts in species that underpin the ocean food web are thought to be behind the major sandeel decline.

USA: An unprecedented 2002 drought in southern California caused a 97 per cent breeding decline in four species: the rufous crowned sparrow, wrentit, spotted towhee and California towhee. Breeding success dropped from 2.37 fledglings per pair in 2001 (a normal year) to 0.07 fledglings per pair during 2002, the driest year in the region’s 150-year climate record. Precipitation in this region is expected to decrease and become more variable with global warming. Even slight increases in arid conditions would make these species vulnerable to extinction in a dry year.

Europe/Africa: Pied flycatcher birds and other species are shifting the timing of seasonal behaviors in response to climate change. Shifts like these can cause problems for birds if the plants and animals they interact with do not shift at the same rate. In Europe, earlier spring peaks in insect numbers mean that some pied flycatchers (long-distance migratory birds) no longer arrive from Africa in time to match food peaks with peak demands of their nestlings. This climate-change induced mismatch is strongly linked to 90 per cent declines in some European pied flycatcher populations over the past two decades.

Australia: Illustrating the vulnerability of mountain birds to climate change, the habitat of the golden bowerbird is predicted to shrink by 97.5 per cent with a future warming of 3°C and a 10 per cent decline in rainfall. The bird occupies cool habitat in Australia’s wet tropics on conical mountains surrounded by warmer lowlands. As temperatures rise, its suitable habitat will contract, and beyond 3˚C of warming is expected to completely disappear.

For more information, please contact:
Anshuman Atroley
Communications Manager
WWF-India
Tel:+91-11-4150 4797
E-mail:aatroley@wwfindia.net

© [14 Nov 2006] WWF. Some rights reserved. WWF-India

We live in a chemical world. They are in use all around us - from pesticides to cosmetics and baby bottles to computers. Some chemicals are known to be toxic and we know very little about many others.

There are simple actions you can take to reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals. And protect wildlife from the toxic threat.

Feeling defenceless against chemical contamination?

You can cut your risks by taking a few simple precautions when you shop and how you live…

In the living room and bedroom

Avoid

• dry cleaning wherever possible
• re-carpeting when you are pregnant
• synthetic carpets, carpet underlay or upholstery with synthetic foams, foam rubber, latex or plastic coverings, because these emit VOCs
• air fresheners, go for fresh air - open your windows! If you can’t do that, use natural odour eaters such as a bowl of baking soda, or natural fragrances such as potpourri

Buy

• carpets from organic natural fibres such as wool, cotton, rattan or jute
• machine washable clothes and clothes with fewer chemical treatments such as stain repellents

In the bathroom

Avoid

• cosmetics, toiletries and perfumes with synthetic fragrances
• long-term use of permanent hair dyes, especially those carrying a warning “can cause an allergic reaction”

Use

• beauty products such as soaps, shampoos, conditioners and hair care products made from natural ingredients
• fragrance-free products
• unbleached toilet paper and sanitary products

In the kitchen

Avoid

• tinned food products
• chemical air fresheners or heavily scented cleaning products such as dishwashing liquids, floor cleaners and washing powders
• cling film when reheating or cooking food in the microwave
• microwaving food in plastic containers unless they are designed for that purpose

Use

• organic products whenever possible
• fresh, frozen or dried food rather than tinned food;
• a water filter to reduce the levels of chemical contaminants in drinking water
• non-vinyl flooring

In the garden

Avoid

• using creosote-based preservatives or products pre-treated with creosote
• using pesticides indoors or in the garden - use alternatives and try gardening organically

Use

• paints, varnishes and glues labelled ‘Low VOC content’, or those that are water-based water-based
• organic or natural paints made from plants oils - ask in the store to find which products are available.
• garden furniture not treated with creosote

In the nursery

Avoid

• polycarbonate-plastic baby feeding bottles. The vast majority of plastic feeding bottles are made from polycarbonate which contains bisphenol A, a hormone disrupting chemical that can leach into the liquid inside. Polycarbonate can be identified by looking on the packaging for PC 7 or looking inside the recycling triangle for the number 7. Wherever possible, breast feeding is always the best option
• using old and worn plastic baby bottles

Use

• baby bottles that are not made of polycarbonate
• children’s teething products and dummies from a reputable source