In our University we have asked 10 people to understand their level of understanding about Climate change. We have managed to ask University students from different faculties and few staff. Here are few responses from students we talked.

1st student: Sebastian Jeremiah doing Bsc. Education in Chemistry: According to him Climate change is a global problem caused by number of factors including cutting of trees, ozone layer destruction and more important Deforestation. Due to this our country would face shortage of precipitation, death of some animal species and this will leads us into poverty.

2nd student: Daudi John doing Bsc. Education in Chemistry: Daudi says climate change is a situation in which climate changes usually these changes are influenced by different factors either man made or non-made factors. Man-made factors include deforestation, mining activities, industrial activities, agricultural and construction activities like road construction which involves clearing of natural vegetation all these contribute to climate change. Due to these activities global temperature rises and hence cause changes in climate change.

3rd student: Mbuka Ayubu doing Bsc Agronomy: Mbuka says climate change is basically change in atmosphere components which now leads to melting of ice, rise of global temperature, rise of sea level.

4th student: Kiariro Theophil doing Ba: Rural Development: Theophil says climate change is global change in nature caused by increase of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere.

Possible consequences in our country (Tanzania)

All respondents mentioned the following to be possible consequences for Tanzania

• Disappearance of some animal species as result of increase in temperature

• Increases of diseases like skin cancer, malaria, all sight related diseases

• Increased poverty especially to rural people that depends entirely on agriculture

• Floods, drought and hunger that will kill millions of people

• Disappearance of Islands like Tanga, and other beaches that we have in Tanzania

What we think about the answers

It appears that people are aware of what is climate change and how it is caused however they don’t know how they are part of the problem and how they can be part of solution. It has also been found that many people confuse the term global warming and ozone layer depletion. The good thing is University students are aware what is happening in their country in terms of climate change effects but have not said how they can help their country to fight climate change.

We can conclude by saying there is still a need to educate more people about climate change.

Our class has managed to get Guardian and Daily news newspapers of 19th May 2010 both papers have articled about climate change.

Direct problems mentioned

Vulnerability of Tanzanian communities on climate change: This article talks about how Tanzanian communities living near forests, around wildlife resources and close to marine resources are more vulnerable to climate change. The article goes on saying how the livelihoods of pastoralists are affected by climate change.

Solutions proposed

Carbon Initiatives: This implies on working directly with communities to manage and restore natural forest resources. Under carbon initiatives communities will be assisted to conserve forest resources but also help them to get global carbon markets.

The papers have not given enough priority to the topic of climate change because most of articles are not reflected on the front pages but in inside page something that does not give chance for readers to read these articles.The headlines that caught our eyes are: Tourism and climate change because it talks about how our Tourist industry will be affected by climate change.

We are angry about climate change because climate change increases rainfall and this will cause floods and kill more people in our country.

I think we as young people we are responsible to fight climate change through educating people in our communities, collecting and recycling waste that in one way causes climate change and reduce our energy consumption by using alternative sources of energy available.

We are hopeful that our governments will act upon climate change through afforestation programs so that we can fight climate change. We are also hopeful that our government will control emissions of gases that cause climate change.

Because most industrial countries differ in amount they commit to reduce CO2 gases and their industrial production that contributes to climate change by over 70%.

The emotion that we feel strong connected to climate change is FEAR because we fear that if we don’t act now our Mount Kilimanjaro will lose its beautiful ice on top and floods will come and kill us all.

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