Questions from Kantonsschule Baden (3)

Definitively, we have percieved a dramatic change in the last 10 years, since global warming has revealed fauna and flora loss. Ten years ago, this was almowt invisible, even imposible to hear about, leave behind paying attention to the consequences. But, of course, climate change started many years before the 90's. Is just that, as young as we are, we have started to listen about it only recently.

Proof of climate change manifstations in our country can be numbered, even by some uniterested people:

a) Our snow mountains, like Pastoruri in Huaraz, have been affected, and you can see it. Almost every peruvian knows Pastoruri, and is visible that the ice has diminished. Today, there are even some parts where you see nothing but land.

b) Our sky. Some years ago our sky was cleaner. Ok, let's face it, Lima is not aknowledged as one of the most beautiful-sky-owning city. In fact, our sky tends mostly to be gary (because we have cloudy wheather). But now, it's nos only cloudier, but dirtier. You can sense it while you breath

Do you mind if we post our answers in spanish? Just to show you how the headlines are. Of course, we'll comment them

- Noticias nacionales:

Tala de más de 150 árboles en Chorrillos, sin consulta a los vecinos, por parte del Municipio de Lima. peru21.pe/noticia/323061/talan-arboles-medio-protestas-vecinos-chorrillos

Lima es una de las ciudades más contaminadas peru21.pe/noticia/325423/lima-mas-contaminadas-region

Lucha contra la tala ilegal en Tumbes www.peru.com/noticias/portada20090811/49280/Tumbes-combatira-tala-ilegal-con-comites-de-control-y-vigilancia-de-bosques-secos

Energias renovables en el Perú www.puntodeequilibrio.com.pe/punto_equilibrio/01i.php

Cambio climático y beneficios al Imperio Incaico www.latercera.com/contenido/739_169219_9.shtml a)

There's a diverse group of problems and solutions. For instance, we can see a group of news about environmental problems in Perú. One of the most shocking right now is the logging of several trees in one district in Lima, without the consent of the neighbours. These trees were very old and part of the community history, but now they have been taken out so the city council expands a nearby highway.

b) On the side of solutions, we can read osme efforts from different entities to insert renewable technologies in our country, for instance, eolic tech. In places such as the sea or dessertic areas, wind are stronger than ever and with this you can both suplement villages/ communities as well as factories or power companies.

c) the priority variates according to the media used. For instance, there are some specialized environmental journals where you can read all of this, but in broad every-day media environment is not the first issue to deal with.

d) LIMA IS ONE OF THE MOST POLLUTED CITIES IN THE REGION

e) Climate change: die now or live trying it out.

Sometimes indifference is the strongest feeling you can precieve from everyday people.It's terrible to see that not everybody is commited with environmental protection, and that makes us sometimes feel angry and disappointed. For example, in our school we try to carry out many programs related to environmental protection, such as ideas paper recyling. As we are in third year, we are going to end school in 2 more years, so, to araise money for our prom trip we collect all paper from school and sell it to some paper collectors that use it to prepare boxes. The amount we get paid is minimum, but in 2 years we'll see the results of our efforts.

But when we try to replicate this experience with our community, it is so difficult because neighbours might not be interested just because the are lazy enough not to classify their garbage. Still, we don't give up on our ideas and maintain our hopes up.

Some parts of the things we'd like to say have been nicely displayed by some artist. For example, th esong which was the main theme of NatGeo latinamerica or Jakc Johnson's 3 R song. Still, we think is neccesary to speak up our minds, as to the young people voice.

We could do public performances with our message. Nothing childish (because wewant to aproach young people) but some interactive street performance, open to everybody participation.

The main message would be: There's nothing that cannot be prevented nor repair. Climate change can be fought against with scientific ideas, commitment and our participation. This is not a common everyday phenomena, nor a sign of cataclism of religious belief, but a reuslt of terrible and selfish human practices in order to gain more power, despicting living creatures and environment. As this is a problem created by humans, humans can solve it.

a) The annual average temperature of coast lands in Peru is beteewn 18º and 22º,5. We had some trouble trying to find out the most extreme temperatures during the last 5-10 years, but for the current one our lowest temperature for our city (Lima)has been 16.3º. According to some news, our temperature for winter should be ocilating around 14º - 16º, but somre specialist explain that due to Pacific Ocean warming phenomena (which sustains that our temperature is abnormally +2º than usual), our minimum temperature for this year would be 17º or 18º.

Because of the abscence of winds, usually common in this time of year, this proccess does not allow cold water deep in the sea come up to the surface.

b) Of course. It is changing strangely because we have some bright days but very cold nights. Some other times, our winters were just cold, and it was ok, but now this change of temperature makes us more vulnerable to disseases because our bodies will have to adjust faster to the new temperatures. Also, in summer, we had very hot days and nights. This might sound funny, but it is not only us the ones that are affected: animals, for instance, are too. Thinking of a closer example, our pets, specially dogs, need to be refreshed up more often (like more hair cuts, more baths, more water to drink). Big hairy dogs, like samoyedos, siberian huskies and so have lots of difficults to go along the summer, keep aside street dogs (that don't have anyone to take care of).

Good question for some excersise. Let's see:

a) Waking up in the morning. First of all brush my teeth, have a 5 min. bath. Thanks god I don't have long hair, so I don't need a hair dryer. Mom puts the keetle on, to boil water, takes milk out of the refrigerator. Have breakfast. Clean up the dishes. Go to take the bus.

b) At school, we have the light bulbs on. Sometimes our teacher turns on the computer and ecran to show us some videos, images, slides, etc. Sometimes we go to the bathroom. Then the bell rings and we have our first break.There we sometimes buy sandwichs, that are heated up in a microwave oven.

c) Out of school, we sometimes go to the arcade to play games, or to some friends house, to watch videos or so.

d) Back at our house, we have lunch (might need to heat our meal in the microwave), do homework. Turn on the computer, for the homework/ to chat/ to do some researxh/... It might be on for a couple of oures, minimum. Listen to music.

e) At night, watch tv. Have supper. Go to sleep.

You can see that our lives are sourronded and lived through energy. We could not do many things without it, but sometimes we can reduce its use. For example, turning the computer off when you don't need it (or the laptop in hibernation), taking short showers, and swtiching off thw bulbs when not neccesary.

Hugue carbon print without even thinking about it, and keeping our needs to the minimum...

a) We have to dress up like for summer/ winter. Because we have shining mornings and dark cold nights. So we go out in the mornings with sweatshirts, t-shirts, ligth sweaters...and have to carry heavy jackets to use later on. It's a bit messy when you have to carruy also your backpack and maybe other stuff.

b) At nights, we cover up with an extra blanket, and have thicker pijamas. For you it might not be strange, but for us, that have not been accostumed to this practices because we had "warmer winters" it's very difficult. And the risk of catching a disease gets bigger because we are exposed to AH1N1 flu. Our school was in quarantine for one week, later on, the Ministry of Education in Peru cancelled all classe in the country for 3 weeks, to stop expansion of the virus.The thing is, the colder the climate gets, the more vulnerable we are to the flu (because it starts like a normal-every-day-ordinary flu!).

c) As mentioned before, pets are vulnerable to climate change. In summer, their hair keeps them like in a live sauna (and they are with their tongues out all the time), and street dogs in winter can't usually find shelter to hide from the cold nights.

d) Thinking of a positive thing, some actions are being taken into policies (private or public). There are more environmental and climate protective projects. International cooperation helps our government to improve living conditions of biodiversity and human life.

In terms of organizations, there are many efforts. Sometimes they don't have the name laki "do this to stop cimate change" but you can realize that eventually one goal would be it. For example, many NGO promote the use of cloth bags instead of plastic bags (like the ones you usually get form the market). The slogan is "Pon-tela" (in spanish it kaes sense:it both means "wear/use it" and "wear/use cloth". Eventually, some markets have begun to change common plastic bags for biodegradable plastic bags. This way we won't acumulate much plastic and our carbon print should be reduced.

Other efforts are from the government. For the first time in history, a tv spot about saving water has directly quoted the fact the we will be lacking it if because of glaciar melting phenomena, and that we must save it and do everything in our might to stop the terrible heating up. Also, there seems to be a growing amount of NOG/ enterprises/ companies/ etc. that are directing their efforts to perform good environmental practices, at their own places but also providing assesment (it´s something like a "new business").

As for all citizens, it's a bit difficult to know. You see, there'll always be people who throw their dirt out, but it doesn't mena they don't care at all for the environment. Sometimes they are just lacking information, some others it's because they don't have the mediums to achieve it (for example, a cloth bag could cost way loads more than a plastic one, though the saving will be seen in the long term, poor people have inmediate needs and is difficult to convince them about eco-efficient ways to protect our environment). Perhaps one of the most important things people are doing is saving energy unnnecesary. Now is more common to see people turning off the lights when they don't need it, or unppluging artefacts that will not be used at the moment.

Peru's history has shown many times that extractive "industries" have not been very keen in supporting sustainalbe development. Whether in terms of human and colective rights, or environmental protections, the existence of this enterprises has been posible not only because of the needs of the world's newly born market, but because of the abscence of coherent legislation. One good example of this was the rubber fever around the first decades of last century (about one hundred years ago). This material was needed for the car industry, so in many countries such as Peru, this industries settled down and started extracting rubber trees from our jungle.

The impact was huge, for not only biodiversity was in danger but also native communities rights (well, around that time no rights were implemented, not even thought). According to our school books of history, trees were logged indicriminatedly and very soon rubber bussinesmen gained a very bad image for native comunities. They were evil-bearers because they were contaminated with their diseases, like tifus and malaria. For this, and brutal working conditions (natives were punished severly if they didn't collected at the end of the day the stablished amount of rubber, and work in slavery conditions -they were not retributed for their work in any way), around 40 thousand natives died while the rubber fever lasted. On the other hand, just in the year 1884 around 540,529 kilos of rubber were exported, and in 1905 this amount increased to 2 million kilos. And then, the era stopped, because rubber was transplanted in India and Ceilan, brittish bussinesmen lesser production costs, and so everybody started buying from them.

So, there are some lessons that we could learn form this historical episode:

a) Never relly blindly on extractive industries, without protecting your natural heritage. This, on the economic side, is not profitable because eventually all will be gone, and on the environmental side is conter-productive because it threatens biodiversity, reducing (or extinguishing it) to very minimum amounts. Making of sustainable plans would be the best alternative.

b) Never work without the proper legislation. Otherwise, we will be vulnerating and endangering human and environmental life contidions.

c) But also, make sure that is FAIR legislation. Pitfully, we have seen later on that sometimes legislation protects intererests of the powerfull and forget the ones from the people.

a) Sometimes what we want is not what we need. It has happened that many people, perhaps all people, want a luxury life, full of commodities and just thinking about yourself. You can see this in all lottery advertising and also in media presentations of what "welfare" means. But I think we should have less-selfish perspective of living. Our conception of "self" should include individual and collective condions. So, the kind of life I'll like to live would be filled with people that really cares about each other, not because it loks would or just to show off, but because is the best and more coherent way of development we could chose.

b) Of course, the answer is "no". But not in such a dramatic way. For instance, I cannot direct my country choices, I cannot directly decide whether my country goes to war or not, signs some agreements that would benefite/ disserve the people, etc. Certainly, even some close desitions are influenced by closer social circles, such as family or friends. For example, in your career choice, parents tend to like laws, medicine, engieneering, etc... but if you decide to study other things like art, music, even social science, it is not widely accepted. Still, speaking personally, I think I have negotiated what I like with what other people might want for me.

c) It's not like a 100% no. But I think we are lacking more conversation an negotiations skills. Good reuslts can be achieved for both sides of any problem through talking. Specially in environmental issues, we can choose to have a life rapped with concrete, or a life that mixes up biodiversity contidions of living and ours.

Just walking around for hours around the city, and sometimes outside, listening music and watching how everything interacts... see how things can be complemented/ repelled by certain tipes of action. I like walking a lot.

Well, nowadays not only me but many people find it difficult to just walk around the city, because the city council has decided to break up and build more highways. Not very fun to walk around these days at all!

Well... it depends. For instance, now there is medium coverage around the activities of the Ministry of Environment. Now that I think of it, it's been since the Ministry was reated that more attention was granted to environmental issues. For example, yesterday the minister spoke at a national radio, named RPP, about Peru's fight agains transgenetic food. He claimed that we've had several different types of crops and, for centurys we have tamed several crops such as potatos, sweet potato and corn. We should protect our natural heritage and our consumption proccess through buying peruvian growth crops.

There is a certain trend, perhaps it will be more than a trend (hope so!), that consists in protecting peruvian goods and heritage, such as the culinary, crops, dance, culture, enterprises... And in this point the proclaim to protect our environment has echo in media this days. Just check out this link:

www.elcomercio.com.pe/buscar/

It show the list of news of the last days in El Comercio diary (one of the most important in Peru) when you search "cambio climatico" (climate change).

You can also read this:

www.elcomercio.com.pe/impresa/notas/crece-identificacion-lucha-contra-cambio-climatico/20090225/250941

It's a note that says that climate change conciouness awarenss is been raised.

Of course! Well, let's face, it has not still reached quite a big agreement, but, as said before, since the creation of the Ministry of Environment the climate issue has been in the spotlight. The minister, Antonio Brack-Egg, attends several meetings and promotes sustainable development for peruvians. Please, check out this website:

www.minam.gob.pe

It belogns to the ministry of environment (MINAM), and there you can see all the activites they do to protect our environment. They have also created a special website didcated to climate change, called:

www.cambioclimatico.gob.pe

and in fou ad /educacion, you can see a thematic plan of what things young people can learn about climate change.

So, as you can see, the MINAM is doing some interestign thigs. The point is that not all politicians are aware of it, and sometimes waste the power they have in discussing about corruption and trying to see each other's fault.

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