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Afghan Women at the Forefront of Climate Change

Join researchers from Monash University for the launch of an edited collection of stories, essays, photos, and artwork by Afghan women.

This project, conducted by students and supported by Monash Gender Peace and Security, showcases stories, artwork and essays from young Afghan women. These women are still living in Afghanistan and have written about their experiences of gender-based oppression and climate change. They provide an insight into why the voices of marginalised women are so important if we are to solve the climate crisis.

The night will entail presentations, voice recordings from the women, and Afghan music – and will also be available on Zoom. 

Launch event details

Date: Wednesday, 26 October 2022 

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm AEDT

Location: Monash Clayton Campus (Room and Zoom TBC)

Register for this free event via Eventbrite here

Many thanks to Dr Diane Kraal, who spoke to our Think Tank meeting last year and kindly let us know about this special event.

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Zoom in to Sydney on 5 April

Earth Day 2022 may not be until 22 April, but the Zonta Club of Sydney Breakfast is getting in early with a special Zoom meeting on 5th April. Register on Humanitix for the free Zoom link.

The club is delighted to host Sian Murray and Ami Bateman, the Founders of Pleasant State – a Profit-for-Purpose BCorp Certified Australian household brand that came to life during the pandemic. Their mission is to provide locally manufactured, ethical non-toxic household cleaning products and remove single use plastic products from landfills and our oceans.

Since launching Pleasant State with crowdfunding that raised over $87,000 from over 1,500 customers in 2020, they’ve built a community of over 25,000 amazing people, and together in 2021 they saved 50,725 plastic bottles from landfill, provided 25,363 litres of toxin-free cleaning⁠, and raised $10,053 for Take 3 For The Sea.

Their goal for 2022 is going to be even bigger as they work together with their dedicated and growing customers and partner communities to prevent a total of 150,000 plastic cleaning products from going to landfill, and build a business that will take them from a crowdfunding success story, to an iconic brand you see in all forward-thinking Australian homes.

Want to know more about how these women stepped up to form their own ethical business? Register with Humanitix to attend this free event today!

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TED Countdown Summit – Summary

For four days in October, the TED Countdown team brought together over a thousand activists, industrialists, scientists, artists, investors, politicians and many others – to collaborate and commit to action on climate. This event was designed to spread knowledge and hope before COP26.

Some talks have already been released, including the unedited talk from the closing event of the Summit. This features a discussion between Patricia Espinosa (Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC), Laurence Tubiana (CEO of the European Climate Foundation) and Gonzalo Munoz, (the UN’s High-Level Climate Action Champion for COP25). They talk about their experiences from Paris, their fears and the human-ness of the COP process. They talk of the importance of building trust and generating urgency to accelerate action.

On 30 October, a live stream event took place that featured snippets from many of the talks. The video of the event has been released (2 hours 32 minutes) and gives a taste of what the four days must have been like!

Check out the following as you work through the video:

16:35:00 Amina Jane Mohammed – the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.

21:36 John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsarum’s six objectives to decarbonise and transform society. (See their book called Speed and Scale).

46:06 Ermias Kebreab, Animal Scientist on how seaweed added to animal feeds reduces methane emissions from livestock.

1:14:25 Enric Salla, Marine Ecologist on rewilding our planet and the 30 by 30 campaign that aims to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030.

1:19:00 Shweta Narayan, Climate and Health Campaigner, on how the climate crisis is a health crisis. It is impossible to have healthy people on a sick planet.

1:20:11 Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, Clean Air Advocate who shared the heartfelt story of her 9-year-old daughter, Ella. Ella was the first person in the world to have air pollution noted as the cause of death on her death certificate. Soot is now being found in mothers’ placentas. Air pollution is an invisible global pandemic.

1:23:42 Ma Jun, Environmentalist, talks about the power of transparency in China to hold governments and corporations to account for their carbon emissions.

1:34:28 Xiye Bastida and Shiv Soin – two impressive young activists listing six key demands to stop global warming.

1:41:53 Solomon Goldstein-Rose explains that we will need five times as much electricity by the end of the century and how we need a range of renewable energy sources to meet that demand.

1:49:46 Vishaan Chakrabarti, Architect and Author talking about the Goldilocks sweet spot of housing – 3 storey buildings where the rooftop space is sufficient to provide power to meet the energy needs of the inhabitants using solar panels and batteries – and where combined wastes are composted.

1:55:32 Monica Araya from the Drive Electric Campaign. Aiming for all new sales of electric vehicles by these dates: 2030 buses, 2035 passenger cars and 2040 freight vehicles. The full talk is available here.

2:05:40 Sophia Kianni, Climate Knowledge Translator. Did you know that most knowledge about climate change is in English, so this is a big problem for the 70% of the global population who do not speak this language. Sophia set up an international youth-led nonprofit called Climate Cardinals to translate climate science into hundreds of languages – using 6,000 volunteers, from 41 countries. Phenomenal!

2:09:19 Farwiza Farhan, Forest Conservationist talked about Sumini’s story. Sumini leads a team of women to save the forests, yet cultural norms exclude her from being part of the decision making processes in her village in Indonesia. We need more women in the position of leadership!

2:11:51 Nemonte Nenquimo, Indigenous Leader from the Amazon, passionately asks us to respect the forests. She talks of the forest as being her home her life, full of knowledge. She points out what she uses to eat, heal, make baskets, and how Cowari (non-forest people) think of the forest as a place of resources to extract. Mother Earth is waiting for us to protect her.

2:14:22 Sister True Dedication, Zen Buddist Nun explains why it is so hard to change the direction of our civilisation. What is missing is insight and how awakening involves the whole body, not just the mind. When we are rushing to do something, are we saving time, or losing it?

Well worth a look.

The Summit’s home page details the program so you can search for individual talks as they are released.

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The Heat is on Australia

The findings of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released this week have gone beyond being a wake-up call – they are a scream to take action.

As the Climate Council puts it:

There’s so much packed into this report – so we’ve compiled some of its key conclusions into our latest article: What does the IPCC’s latest report mean?Here’s what it all comes down to:

  1. The scale and pace at which humans are altering the climate system has almost no precedent. Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last two thousand years. 
  2. Climate change and its impacts are accelerating, and more impacts are on the way. Lack of action, despite decades of warnings, means we are now seeing these alarming changes unfold at a faster and faster rate. In other words, our climate is not merely changing, the rate of change is now accelerating.
  3. Every fraction of a degree matters. Every additional increment of warming means more extreme weather, including increases in the intensity and frequency of heatwaves, damaging rainfall, and droughts.
  4. Responding to climate change means doing everything possible to reduce emissions, while also adapting to the impacts that can no longer be avoided. Past inaction means that more impacts from climate change are on the way but the right choices made today will be measured in lives, livelihoods, species and ecosystems saved.  

The findings of this latest report are unmistakable: only stronger action this decade can prevent climate catastrophe.

Looking for ways to take action?

There is not a day to waste!