Crowdfunding to showcase actions and events across the world

On September 23, world leaders will gather in New York to discuss urgent action on climate change. Large scale mobilizations are being coordinated by youth groups all over the world for climate justice. Youth are united, too, with one voice in defense of the future. Youth Climate Actions wants to amplify that voice.

Youth Climate Action is launching an online platform that will show-case actions and events that youth are organizing across the world, to tackle climate change, and to pressure politicians into meaningful action. We want to send a powerful signal in the lead up to the Climate Summit. It will also be a space for youth to make real pledges for a clean and fair future, calling on world leaders to do the same before it is too late.

Our platform will launch on August 23 – but we can’t do it without you.

To get equipment to build and to host our online platform, we need funding. None of us get paid for what we do, but if we want a public good and functioning platform there are some costs we just can’t avoid.

We’re aiming for 2000 EUR by Saturday July 5th, that’s 100 EUR a day.

Please support us, and donate whatever you can. (Other currencies than Euros are possible.)

YCA crowdfunding: how ?

Ordered from lower (1) to higher costs on our side.

1. BANK transfer : IBAN = BE61 5230 4649 6017,   BIC = TRIOBEBB
   Account holder : Climate Justice Belgium, Patronaatstraat 43, 2650 Edegem, Belgium
2. PAYPAL transfer : to the email of finance@climatejustice.eu
   Please don’t email your questions here, rather the email address under contact.
3. GoFundMe platform : please go to gofundme.com/YouthClimateAction

YCA crowdfunding: rewards

Please support us, and donate whatever you can. (Other currencies than Euros are possible.) If you match or surpass one the following amounts, you can claim a reward.

• 10 EUR or more : We’ll send you a postcard from the New York Climate Summit!
• 20 EUR or more : We’ll set up a conference call with you in the lead up to the Summit to talk with our youth delegates.
• 50 EUR or more : Donating at least 50 EUR ? We’ll put your name/organisation on our platform and link to your site! (Note : organisers reserve the right to decline, for moral / ethical reasons.)

Further Contact Info:

Platform website at action.youthclimate.org, follow us on facebook.
If you have questions, email us at action@youthclimate.org

 

 

For regular update on climate change news you can follow me here: twitter.com/satwikp

Energy Rapid Fire

It has been a quarter of very big events. As far as international energy scenario is concerned, these news are what big enough to make into my Twitter feeds. A very, very quick shots in fact these are missed:

1: Ukraine issue prompted Russia to squeeze down its gas supply to and via Ukraine. Affected region includes very much of Europe. Some countries like Finland have been 100% depended on Russia, so heavy impact on their economies expected.

2: Ukraine is a major producer of Maize. But energy crisis may soar up also its food price which will affect the global food price.

3: Russian still needs to sell its gas, or this move will adversely affect its economy. So new customer hunt starts…and ends: Enter China. China, a fast growing economy with increasing energy needs, is all set to become the major energy consumer of Russian resources in coming years.

4: Russia gives a further blow to western economy by prompting its major energy firm, Gazprom, to move from Dollars to Euros as primary business currency. This move may be in response to the sugarcoated card US played by declaring Russian existing oil drilling machines and technologies to be too primitive and damaging to environment, and hence must be banned.

5: Midst all this web, oil companies from everywhere are now trying to tap the oil resources in the Arctic region. To this the global community of activists, especially Greenpeace, responded heavily since this means irreversible loss to the endangered Arctic biosphere.

6: So the western countries are now looking out for oil which will obviously lead to rise of oil prices in coming years…so US President Obama plays the next plan which nevertheless was welcomed by the environmentalists. To discourage dependence on oil (and Russia), US plans to invest on alternative energy sources. This move has already been initiated and currently there is this proposal to increase global price of one tonne carbon to €24 from current rate of €5.

7: Besides these events, the recent Turkey coal mine disaster brought a big movement among activists. Another event is the recent plan of Australian government to dump wastes on Great Barrier Reef. This may accelerate with the upcoming coal terminal at Queensland. WWF has pledged to protect the reef which, to the relief of campaigners, has made  Deutsche Bank, HSBC and more recently Royal Bank of Scotland to back out from financing the project, and the issue of declaring the reef as endangered has moved into the concerns of UNESCO.

 

You can follow me: twitter.com/satwikp

Where the heck was I?

Hey folks!

I apologize for getting myself totally out of internet for the last weeks but I could not just help it. I was away to the valley of Kashmir, settled around the Dal Lake for a week and half and took a city bus to places in and around the city of Srinagar.

I tried a lot of things: photographing beautiful kids in Hijaab, reading the history of gardens outside the gates, riding a pony up a small mountain, taking a random countryside bus to see River Jhelum flowing quietly through a valley, read Kashmiri newspapers every morning and becoming so stressed as to whether to click photographs or just witness silently places around lakes that I made it a rule to leave behind my camera and leave behind a strong itch to re-visit sometime in near future.

But this is not my personal blog…what do I have to share in this blog on climate change?

On 4th July I picked up a copy of Greater Kashmir, the largest circulated English daily of the valley and the headline stuck me like the arrow on apple. It read:

“Rice Production to fall by 30% due to Climate Change”

Never in mainstream English newspaper in India, despite having resided in more than ten Indian states, I have found a climate change issue making its way to the front page in bold font. This valley depends heavily on glacier water to produce rice and by the end of the century it has been estimated that the Himalayan glaciers may run out.

Sometime later I tried talking with a native guy who was responsible for my dinner. “Sir, in this valley…every lake you see…gets its water due to God’s grace. The ice up the mountains melt down to give us water throughout the year. In winter we get lesser water since water freezes…One day when all the ice is consumed, this valley I fear will dry up.”

Everyone will die, all it matters is how we live a happy life. So, in case some of you are still trying to run away from the sublt responsibility then: The ice will go away, but let’s throw them up so fast.

If you are not an environmentalist, not even an amateur one, then I suggest you to travel Kashmir. You will at least for once believe in science and think, can I save this valley forever…for some more decades…