What Is Sustainable Agriculture?

October 14, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“FAO Strategy on Climate Change. Rome, July 2017. As the impacts of climate change increase and become more intense, a global transformation to sustainable agriculture must begin immediately.”

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According to FAO´s recently updated (Rome, July 2017) strategy, a global transformation to sustainable agriculture must begin immediately. What does this mean, in concrete? What is sustainable agriculture? Is it the same as fair trade? No. Fair trade means that when you purchase a product with the label fair trade, it ensures that the production process, including worker´s salaries, has been fair. The label fair trade was created to help farmers and workers within the agricultural sector to get paid fairly for the work they do, instead of exploiting people e.g. through underpayment. Organic farming, on the other hand, or permaculture, are ways of sustainable development and growth of agricultural/farming products.

Sustainable agriculture/farming, and sustainable consumption in general, means that we as consumers choose sustainable products, but of course also that producers use sustainable methods before we as consumers purchase these products.

Some factors of sustainable agriculture/farming:

Either zero (0%) use of pesticides, or using as little pesticides as possible
Using agricultural methods/practices that harm the environment and soils as little as possible, i.e. proper soil management
Ensuring that production processes are optimized in a way that saves resources, such as fresh water: i.e. no over-consumption of fresh water resources, or other scarcities.
Improving production and transportation overall: saving resources and time
Increasing local consumption, i.e. minimizing the needs for (long) transports
Supporting close production and consumption
Basically, what this means, is that it would be optimal if everyone could grow their own food, instead of consuming all kinds of artificial and mass products that are being brought to the markets today. Agriculture and farming today, sadly, have largely become industries of efficiency of mass production and efficiency, rather than valuing e.g. soils. When soils are being exploited much enough, it leads to suffering and loss of necessary soil nutrients. So basically, the crop may be very poor in nutrients, and people have to eat more and more without getting all the necessary nutrients from the food consumed.
Minimizing food waste throughout the whole process.

Watch Industrial vs. Sustainable Agriculture:

Is Agriculture Responsible For Climate Change?

October 14, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“FAO Strategy on Climate Change. Rome, July 2017. Agriculture and food systems are partly responsible for increased temperatures but are also a fundamental part of the solution to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and promote adaptation to a changing climate.”

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Agriculture, being the third largest industry in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, is partly responsible for climate change. Especially animal farming, including all dairy and meat products, which is part of the truth to why so many people today change their lifestyles completely, turning into either vegetarians or vegans (the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan is simply that in addition to not consuming any meat, vegans also do not consume ANY kinds of dairy products, i.e. products stemming from animals, such as milk, cheese, and eggs. Even in wine production, egg white is sometimes used in the production process of wine clarification, so vegans are extremely careful about their diets.

According to many dietitians, eating less red meat is also part of a healthy diet. And, of course, consuming more plant-based products, such as fruits and vegetables. Of course no one can be forced into changing their current diet due to climate change. Everyone has their own preferences, but taking into consideration one´s health and overall well-being, it is extremely important to find a suitable balance in how and what to consume.

If you want to be climate-friendly in terms of agriculture/farming and eating habits, in addition to taking better care of your personal health and well-being, here are some useful tips:

Check your drinking and eating habits, e.g. by starting to use a food diary (even for a week or for a month). List everything that you eat, including snacks, sweets, and drinks.
Drink more fresh water. It is very beneficial for your overall health, and will help you feel less hungry.
Make sure to eat at regular hours. It is very important in order to keep e.g. your sugar levels stable.
Consume more fresh products, such as fruits, salads and vegetables. In addition to making you feel more energized, you can basically eat as much of these without gaining weight.
Consume as much local products as possible, whereby you are not only helping local farmers and businesses, but you can also more easily check/learn about the production methods. Also try to consume fresh products according to season, if you have changes in season where you live.
Become interested in how and what you consume. Care about what you eat, and how it makes you feel. If you constantly feel tired, gain weight etc., there may be something wrong with your diet. Also make sure to eat enough, it can be equally harmful to your health to eat too little.
Try to always have enough time for eating, i.e. by slowing down your eating habits. Appreciate the food you consume.

How Can Global Temperatures Be Stabilized?

October 14, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“FAO Strategy on Climate Change. Rome, July 2017. We have a window of opportunity to stabilize global temperatures to safe levels but we must act now.”

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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) states in its updated strategy (Rome, July 2017) that “we have a window of opportunity to stabilize global temperatures to safe levels but we must act now”.

What does this signify? What kinds of measures can and should be taken in order to achieve this goal?

First of all, climate (change) research indicates that the Earth´s climate is changing rapidly due to anthropogenic climate change, i.e. drastic changes on our planet, caused by human activities such as releasing immense amounts of greenhouse gases into our Earth´s atmosphere. As a consequence of these changes, responsible businesses, individuals and organizations around the world are taking rapid action in order to halt this development, and, hopefully, being able to turn it around in order to ensure us, and future generations, a planet where life can continue to exist and to thrive.

One major effort in our combat against climate change is the Paris Agreement, which was signed and adopted by 195 countries in December 2015. According to the Paris Agreement, countries have agreed upon taking necessary actions against dangerous climate change by limiting global warming, and keeping it well below 2°C. Being responsible for majority of greenhouse gas emissions, developed/industrialized countries carry the heaviest responsibilities in taking measures to halt the warming of our planet. Some countries, including Denmark and Sweden, are in fact more ambitious in their measures towards creating a sustainable environment and economy, suggesting that the Paris Agreement, in addition to what has been agreed and compromised upon, acts simultaneously as a guideline, whereby each country naturally is allowed to transform their economy sustainably to a level well above the Paris Agreement.

Some key factors to stabilizing local/global temperatures are:

Drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
Overall action towards ecological/environmentally friendly solutions
Smart urban planning, see e.g. smart cities
Sustainable agricultural and farming practices
Transformation of the energy sector
Environmental protection, e.g. responsible forestry and minimizing deforestation

Watch SciShow´s “A History of Earth´s Climate” to gain more understanding about the difference between general climate change AND anthropogenic climate change:

No Food Without Tackling Climate Change, Reports FAO

October 13, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“FAO Strategy on Climate Change. Rome, July 2017. There will be no food without tackling climate change.”

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Sounds pretty nasty, right? Read FAO´s updated strategy here:

FAO Strategy on Climate Change/Rome, July 2017

Excerpts from the report:

Agriculture and food systems partly responsible for increase in global temperatures due to the amount of greenhouse gases emitted through agricultural/farming practices around the world.
A global transformation to sustainable agriculture must commence at once since the effects of climate change worldwide increase and intensify.
The agricultural and food sectors are at high risk, facing serious challenges in adapting to climate change.
The negative impacts of climate change will affect ALL countries, although most severely in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in addition to areas with especially vulnerable ecosystems.
Climate change endangers food security through: food availability, food access, food utilization, and food stability.
The number of crop varieties around the world has decreased dramatically during the 20th century.
According to predictions, climate change may become the main driver of biodiversity loss, including loss of genetic diversity.
For each one degree rise in global surface temperatures, around 7% of worldwide population is projected an exposure of at least 20% less renewable water resources.
Agriculture currently accounts for around 70% of worldwide water withdrawals.

Watch FAO´s Climate change mitigation in the livestock sector: overall potential, options and case studies:

Why Climate Change Causes Droughts & Floods

October 13, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“FAO. Climate change has both direct and indirect effects on agricultural productivity including changing rainfall patterns, drought, flooding and the geographical redistribution of pests and diseases.”

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Not a single day goes by without news from somewhere in the world about extreme drought or (severe) floods. This has, unfortunately, become so commonplace that many people choose not to consume broadcast media at all, others simply close off their senses and become numb, others are so deeply affected by the constant local/worldwide news that they decide to take action and do something concrete to help/improve circumstances, and then there are those who are directly involved e.g. through their work in the field.

The wildfires in California this week are deeply shocking news, with at least 170.000 acres of land being destroyed so far, and mass evacuations of people losing their homes. Seven years ago, in October 2010, when I visited Napa and Sonoma Valleys, the year had been disastrous for the vineyards/the whole vintage due to heavy rainfall. Now this. Are these weather patterns, including droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and extreme floods a new normal in the United States? Or, are these extreme events consequences of geoengineering, i.e. artificial intervention by human beings into the Earth´s weather?

Why Take Climate Change Seriously?

October 12, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“FAO. Climate Change threatens our ability to achieve global food security, eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development.”

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Anthropogenic climate change is altering our environment heavily through a number of factors, including the increase in ocean acidity, extreme droughts in a number of geographical locations worldwide, more rainfall in other regions – leading to a huge increase in floods even affecting current agricultural practices and crop yields, thawing permafrost in the Arctic, and overall problems with agricultural soils around the world due to a number of reasons, such as poor soil management. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) states in its updated strategy (Rome, July 2017) that we have to implement sustainable agriculture and farming techniques to ensure global food security. This alone is not enough, however, since the risks and threats of human-caused climate change expand to all our activities, and our consumption habits.

Despite of the many problems we are facing in today´s world, where climate change is the number one threat to our planet and its ecosystem, progress is being made all over the world e.g. in terms of transforming local energy systems into renewable sources, such as solar energy. The question is, whether this transformation is rapid enough to meet the goals that were set and signed in the Paris Agreement?

Watch this video presentation, published by IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency – “Are we deploying renewables fast enough to stay below 2 degrees of global warming”?

What Are Climate Change “Hot Spots”?

October 12, 2017January 4, 2018 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“UNHCR, The Environment & Climate Change. The majority of the 59.5M people of concern to UNHCR are situated in climate change hot spots around the world, facing the risk of secondary or repeated displacement due to natural hazards and the effects of climate change.”

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When we now discuss and research anthropogenic (caused by human activity) climate change, climate change skeptics refer to the fact that the Earth´s climate has always had variations and periods of e.g. ice age, which is of course true. However, anthropogenic climate change is what we now experience as drastic, possibly even unexpected and sudden changes in the Earth´s climate, whereby e.g. the warming of the Arctic region is so influential that it can actually halt the Gulf Stream, which brings warmer weather to Northern Europe. No one knows for sure where this is leading: on one hand, currently, the climate has become somewhat milder in Northern Europe. When we used to have snow already in October, or November, now it is mainly raining until the snow arrives as late as in January.

In the past years, rainfall has increased at least here in Finland, and the weather patterns seem to be more unpredictable, or should I say, rain throughout the year. This year we had snowfall in May in Southern Finland, which is extremely rare. When Midsummer (in June) used to be the start of the short Summer here in Finland, we have now often experienced temperatures similar to Christmas, meaning that Midsummer (June) and Christmas (December) have become equally warm, or, cold, depending upon how you see it. I have a lot of relatives living in Northern Finland, Lapland. This year there is no red color in the Autumn coloring due to the weather being too warm, another example of how changing weather patterns rapidly influence the environment.

So, what are climate change hot spots? According to a number of sources, for example the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change hot spots are key regions around the world that are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The vulnerability includes several geographical factors, such as proximity to the ocean (sea level rise), and aridity. Nevertheless, anthropogenic climate change affects everything that is living on this planet.

See a map of the world´s climate change hot spots, as presented by the Global Policy Journal: Global Policy Journal – Climate Change ‘Hotspots’: Why they Matter and Why we Should Invest in them

Learn more about the topic by watching UN University´s “Enhancing Resilience to Climate and Ecosystem Changes: The Ghana Model

Climate Mitigation Necessary To Prevent Displacements

October 11, 2017 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“UNHCR, The Environment & Climate Change. Unless strong climate mitigation and adaptation measures are implemented worldwide, along with disaster-preparedness and disaster risk reduction measures, the likelihood of displacements will continue to grow.”

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According to current estimations, the number of climate refugees will grow up to 150 MILLION (150.000.000) by 2050, unless necessary actions are being taken to prevent this from happening. At the moment, one person PER SECOND is forced to flee their home due to climate change. That makes 3.600 persons per hour, 86.400 persons per day, 604.800 persons per week, 2.592.000 persons per month and 31.536.000 persons per year, on the average. Huge numbers. For a moment, put yourself in the shoes in one of these climate refugees lives, and try to imagine how YOU would feel if this happened to you.

Watch:

The World’s First Climate Refugees

Climate Change Increases The Risk Of Violent Conflicts

October 11, 2017 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“UNHCR, The Environment & Climate Change. Some of the factors that increase the risk of violent conflict within states are sensitive to climate change.”

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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has since more than two decades worked to improve sustainable environmental management in regions where especially needed. It may be a surprising fact that climate change and displacements are so closely interlinked, unless not familiar with the causes and roots of different conflicts and disasters worldwide. Today, majority of armed conflicts are state-internal, making it legally difficult for even the United Nations to intervene, in addition to the many risks that for example UN volunteers, or other volunteers, such as staff of the International Red Cross may face while trying to help civil´s in countries affected. Although committing war crimes and breaking the international humanitarian law by killing civil´s and aid workers/volunteers, this has become a general practice in (civil) wars, with actually more civil´s than soldiers losing their lives.

An example of armed soldiers attacking innocent people is Boko Haram, a group of extremists, in North East Nigeria. In 2014, they kidnapped 276 innocent school girls, part of whom were set free in May 2017 after negotiations with the Nigerian government. Yet, many of these girls are still being held hostage, and Boko Haram continues attacking innocent people in Northern Nigeria and in neighboring countries, with estimations of having killed at least 20.000 civil´s so far.

According to a number of sources, Boko Haram started its extreme activities as a response to the Lake Chad Basin Crisis, whereby Lake Chad, having been an important source of water and economic activity for the four countries (Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon) surrounding it, has dried out by 95%. As a result of this, Boko Haram has become so violent in the region that at least one million (1.000.000) have had to flee their homes.

Learn more about Boko Haram (and, Lake Chad Basin crisis) here:

One Person Per Second Displaced Due To Natural Hazards Worldwide

October 10, 2017 by Anne-Maria Yritys, posted in Change Leadership, climate action, climate leadership, Global Climate Change

“IDMC. Since 2008, an average of 26.4M people per year have been displaced from their homes by disasters brought on by natural hazards. One person per second on the average.”

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Note from author: IDMC is the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre which was established in 1998 “to fill an important knowledge gap on the global scale and patterns of internal displacement.” (IDMC).

Today, conflicts often arise as a consequence of natural disasters, such as extreme drought. The ongoing Syrian civil war, for example, is thought to have its roots in human-caused climate change. (ScienceDirect. Political Geography. Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited. Volume 60. September 2017, pages 232-244). Read the whole article here: Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited

An example video: India´s Water Crisis: A Warning To The World:

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Take a step further to create YOUR online business. Learn more about the many benefits of how to create a beautiful website with WordPress.com and how to monetize your blog/website:

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Watch:

The World’s First Climate Refugees

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