Questions from Gymnasium Linde

Our class managed to ask five people on what they know about climate, we could not manage to ask ten people because we are currently busy preparing for our final exams.

The 1st person: was our teacher who said to him climate change is a long term change of climate of specific area in planet.

The second person: These were parents who we managed to ask them at home, most of them said climate change is change of weather over a long period of time.

The third person: This one was a journalist who said climate change is a transformation of weather in a long period of time.

The fourth person: These were our fellow students in our school who said what they know about climate change is change of weather in a long period of time especially between 30-35 years.

The fifth person: This was our school bus driver who said he thinks climate change is just a change in weather from warm to cold or cold to warm.

2. The possible consequences for our country (Tanzania) that were mentioned include: environmental degradation and pollution, soil erosion which lowers soil nutrients and hence failure in agriculture, desertification which will lead into people starving because of hunger.

3. We think the answers are correct because they all talk about change of weather and climate which is what makes climate change.

We could not manage to get newspaper but our teacher Mr. Rutta Evodius brought article from DAILY NEWS paper of August 2009 with a climate change article “Rising temperatures threaten livelihoods”.

a) Direct problems that have been mentioned are the rapid melting of ice caps in Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda where it reported that ice caps in this mountain are melting so fast and it appears they can disappear in few years to come. The article also talks about negative impacts of climate change including capacity for electricity generation which then threatens livelihoods.

b)Solutions proposed include the Ministry of Environment has prepared National Adaptation Plan of Action(NAPA) to mitigate the situation.

c)The newspaper have given articles about climate change a priority as they are printed in the front pages to enable everyone read about climate change.

d) The headline that caught my eye is “Rising temperatures threaten livelihoods” because it talks about the impacts of climate change to people’s livelihoods.

e) The headline I would give an article about climate change would be “The role of youths in mitigating climate change in Tanzania.”

Anger: We think the feeling of anger comes when we are affected by environmental disasters such as floods, drought, soil erosion that are caused by climate change and killing many people.

2. Responsibility: this refers to being responsible to protecting the environment and stopping climate change.

3. Hope: this comes because with time they will be moderate rainfall and moderate temperature.

4. Indifference: Is climate changing monthly or seasonally?

The kind of emotion we feel to be strongly related to climate change is responsibility i think it tells people and everyone to be responsible in protecting the environment.

We would like the world to know that climate change is real happening and the world especially developed world must reduce emissions of green house gases that are the main cause of climate change. There is also a need to cut down the use of fossil fuels and use of technologies that don’t harm Mother Nature.

I cannot think of something - sorry.

We should do something about pollution in the streets of Dar es Salaam.

We read a lot about Switzerland and we came up the following questions:

1. What does the Swiss government do concerning large number of vehicles in your country?

2. Have you ever experienced the problem of acid rain in Switzerland?

3. Do you this floods and drought can occur in your country? What measures have been taken to control them?

4. How much does the Swiss government support African countries in environmental conservation projects?

I think I am bad at the following things which affect our environment and this is done by almost every Tanzanian:

a) Cutting and burning trees to produce charcoal which contrivutes heavily in deforestation, the government has failed to stop this and provide alternative source of energy that will not harm mother nature.

b) There is also tendence of using explosive in fishing and stove quarrying normally done illegal fishermen and men and women involved in stone quarrying to get income. This also contributes heavily in degradation of environment.

c) Haphazard waste dumping that is most common parcatice done my residents in cities like Dar es Salaam,Mwanza and Arusha where due to this there is higher accumulation of wastes that also cause environmental problems in urban cities of Tanzania.

I think in the future, if we keep treating the earth as we have in the last 20 years is that environment will be in bad condition. This means if we continue cutting down trees, pollute the environment, emit more CO2 as we are doing now we will be putting the Earth in big danger and this will affect us all regardless of where we are.

So our opinion I think more education should be given to young people like what is being done by Hot stuff chill out project making sure that younge people who are going to be leaders of tommorow are aware of the threats of degrading the environment,but also teaching rural communities how to protect the environment.

I think I would have prevented technology from taking part cause because technology has contributed a lot heavily in harming Environment. For example with technology man has produced cars that are emitting CO2 and other greenhouses into the atmosphere.

So I would prevent technology from harming the environment.

The past reveals a lot information including in the past there were a lot species like Dianosur that existed before but with increase of temperature these species have dissapeared. The past also reveals Amazon forest had a lot of tree species but due to increased deforestation these trees are dissapering causing loss of millions of trees.

a) I would choose to live a natural life that involves environmental conservation to protect the Environment for the benefits of both current and future generations.

b)No! Because people are continuing to destroy the environment which also threatens the prospect of my future life.

c) I think what is lacking is strong leadership that can promote environmental conservation in all walks of life.

Things we enjoy doing are participate in environmental conservation activities, listening to music especially Bongo FLAVOUR, watching movies.

Fortunately, no one made me attentive in climate change but rather it was my personal efforts as I am invoved in various environmental conservation initiatives where I indirectly became attentive to climate change.

But recently there is Tanzania Youth Environmental Network(TAYEN) a NGO that teaches us climate change in our school also made me more attentive to climate change issues.

Yes, I have talked about the climate change and I have done the following to change it;

- I educate my fellows young boys and girls in school about climate change.

- I participate in the environmental conservation activities such as clean up campaigns, film show in school, watering school gardens

- I also plant trees

YES I am personally affected by climate change in different ways like

Due shortage of water in my hometown Muheza, Tanga there has been an outbreak of cholera that kills my fellow citizens.We also have problem of water at home beacuse of scarcity of water and power cuts in all Tanzania resulting from drought condition.

This makes our life tough when we lack water and electicity in school and at home.

YES I have seen it several times like when we return back home I see a lot of people throwing bottles of drinking water on the ground leaving them there something that hurts soil.

As young person I am not able to shout at this person to stop him from doing that since he might be mad at me but next time I want to be a good ambassador of protecting the environment.

No I have never done that before but will begin telling people to stop hurting the environment.

A place we like is Zanzibar, Zanzibar is island and part of our country it used to be former slave market where African slaves were sold to European traders and shipped to Europe and America. Zanzibar has lots of beutiful beaches and hotels and its people are so friendly. We would like to welcome everyone to come and visit Zanzibar and our country.

The famous perosn in pur country is Preseident Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete is one of the African stronget leader and has managed to lead our country and peace and harmony.

In our communities people are helping each other in educating themselves about keeping their homes clean to avoid outbreak diseases like cholera and malaria. Through this there has been a decrease in cholera outbreak.

Solidarity and climate change have a lot in common because people have to work together to reduce the effects of climate change in their communities. But also solidarity encourages everyone in the family or society to participate fully in conserving the environment.

Climate change is change of weather patterns in over a log period of time.

EUROPE because it is very industrilized.

Drought, soild erosion, outbreak of diseases like more malria and cholera because of floods, poor agriculture due to soild erosion which wiill accelarate poverty.

Climate change change our lives at it affects us all and due to this we might be environmental refugees in our own countries.

I think the life of the next generation will be affected in terms of no trees hence more sun rays from the sun which may cause skin cancer and other related disease, more floods and drought in different parts of world, more malaria and other water related diseases.

This will have huge impact to African countries that heavily depend on natural resources like trees,water to survive.