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We've decided to close the Candle Campaign after the end of a full year around. Unfortunately it didn't set the world alight! Its aim was always to help raise awareness - and it appears events have caught up to a certain extent with our position - it seems that over the last year there has been a great shift in public and Government opinion towards understanding and accepting the threat that climate change poses to our planet and way of life.
Eighteen months ago, it was still credible for some to deny that climate change was a real event - the world has got real since, culminating with the publication of the recent Stern Report. However, accepting there's a problem, and doing something about it are two different things. As the front page of the Independent suggested this Wednesday, what people say about climate change is different to what they actually do.
Its fairly obvious that subsistence cultures surviving in fragile eco-systems, would by their very nature suffer first and most, in a changing world climate. If your 're scratching a living from poor land in sub-saharan Africa, by definition there's not a great deal of margin for error in a 'hand to mouth' lifestyle. If the rains and seasons become variable because of climate change and they don't come as planned - there's not much in the way of reserves to fall back on or the resources to provide another survival option.
Animals and other species do not even have this 'luxury'. If climate change adversely affects their habitats and they fail to adapt, then its likely they will simply die and their specie vanish.
It can be argued that important time has been lost in the climate change battle since it was first brought to the World's attention proper at the Rio "Earth" Summit, in 1992. Little has been achieved in reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions - the 'free trade' ideologists have held sway.
But lack of progress shouldn't surprise anyone, since a world economic model based on profit maximisiation is inherently opposed to accepting costs it doesn't have to take, in this case environmental best practice - cleaning up your pollution is never the cheapest option. This also applies to the behaviour of the public, normal light bulbs are cheaper than energy-saving ones, so naturally people buy the cheaper bulbs, while ignoring the obvious environmental concerns.
As the WWF have said, the most practical solution is to ban the sale of normal bulbs. We agree with this view and believe its time for practicality to take centre stage over ideology. Legislation to influence behaviour should be used, as it has been before.
The killer smogs in the 1950's were cured by the Clean Air Act. If environmental laws didn't exist, then polluters would still be flushing toxins into our rivers haphazardly. We believe green taxes should be introduced, but with a purpose to them, so that people can understand why they should pay more. Air travel should include a green tax that offsets the traveller's complete carbon cost - currently around £50 for a long haul. Likewise for motorists - every time they fill up, a % green tax should be added that offets their carbon expenditure, by supporting carbon reducing schemes elsewhere. Consumers would know that their behaviour is producing an environmental cost that is imediately levied, paid and later offset.
As for tacking world hunger - the recent world trade talks have again reinforced the free trade model as the only game in town. Of course, world prosperity will gain, but within the model there is little scope for 'fairness', only 'winners' and 'losers' - because by implication thats what competition produces. This probably means, in a competitive world, the rich and strong survive, while the poor and weak not only struggle, but die in their millions. No one should need to, the world has enough to feed everyone. It seems everything is globalised nowadays, except for the concept of sharing.
Below is the original front page of 'The Candle Campaign,' beneath that is my candle message which includes some interesting links on the effect of climate change over the past year, and finally a selection of messages left by visitors.
Steve Ellis
Steve Ellis, Norwich, UK. 2005/11/11
I dedicate this candle to the world's hungry and to the millions of human and animal victims of climate change. I'm sorry for the effect my lifestyle has upon you, and I'm doing the best I can to work more sustainably with you and our planet earth...
I was compiling an feature for the living ethically website on 28th October 2005 when I came across an article on the united nations website reporting upon the plight of the world's hungry. In the article Jean Ziegler, a united nations expert on the right to food had proclaimed that 'every child who dies of hunger in today's world is the victim of an assassination.'
My first impression was to think he was overreacting and potentialy sensationalising a serious issue, but as I read on I began to think maybe he was right.
The article said "...the world's agricultural production should be able to feed 12 billion people, but globally, 852 million are consistently undernourished, 100,000 people die of hunger every day, and a child under 10 years of age dies every 5 seconds ... he called this a daily massacre of human beings through malnutrition." For the full article click here
I totalled it up and discovered according to his figures, 36.5m people and 6.31m children die annually from hunger and malnutrition - that's more than half of the population of the UK each year. Yes he's right I thought, its a staggering and truly obscene figure. Of course death from hunger and famine is nothing new, but recent technological advances in the last 20-30 years have put the world into a position of relative abundance - the facts show that nobody need go hungry anymore. From this perspective, you could probably argue that death through hunger is a genocide of neglect caused by the wealthy world looking the other way, because (a) its preventable and (b) how much now is attributal to man-made climate change? What's the answer? I believe there is only one real answer, we need to get real; share more with the hungry of the world and face up to climate change and our part in it.
UPDATE 2006/Oct/30 - The Stern Report published today, confirms some of my worst fears. Comissioned by the Treasury, it reviewed the likely effect of climate change upon the world economy, its peoples and nature. It predicted some dire consequences if carbon emmissions were not cut globally - Found upon the BBC News Website, the report said: "The Stern Review forecasts that 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately. It warns that if no action is taken:
- Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people
- Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world's population
- Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct
- Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of "climate refugees"
The world needs to share the relative abundance that industrialisation and technological advance has brought it. This becomes more apparent when its realised the price we've paid for this bounty is climate change. Unfairly, it's likely unstable weather patterns will impact more strongly upon the poor and malnourished in mainly agrarian third world societies. Its our pollution, our way of life, it's their suffering. Probably, as climate change bites harder and where food becomes scarce, human and animal populations will be forced to migrate, or 'ethnic cleansing' will take place to ensure the populations that remain can live sustainably from the land - maybe this is already happening in the Darfur region of Sudan to a certain extent.
UPDATE 2006/May/15 - According to the 'Indypedia' and quoting from the World Health Organisation, they estimate160,000 annual deaths worldwide are attributal to the effects of climate change. Also Christian Aid has estimated the effects of climate change could kill 184 million people in Africa before the end of the century.
UPDATE 2006/Oct/28 - BBC News carried a report published by organisations working in Africa that suggested Climate Change was already having a profound affect upon populations in Africa, which could negate all the efforts being made to alieviate poverty there - "Andrew Simms, from the New Economics Foundation, said: "Global warming is set to make many of the problems which Africa already deals with, much, much worse," he said. "In the last year alone, 25 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have faced food crisis. "Global warming means that that many dry areas are going to get drier and wet areas are going to get wetter. They are going to be caught between the devil of drought and the deep blue seas of floods." He added that the "great tragedy" was that Africa had played virtually no role in global warming, a problem he said was caused by economic activity of the rich, industrial countries.
I think this year (2005) has shown climate change is beginning to have a real, visible effect, and over future years the evidence suggests it will likely worsen. We've probably already seen evidence of climate change victims this year - those suffering from famine in sub-saharan africa. (UPDATE 2006/Jul/31 - "The Overwhelming scientific Concensus is that most of this (global) warming is caused by rising CO2 emissions directly attributable to human burning of nature's vast stores of coal, oil and natural gas. In the face of this, the silence on global warming from the leaders of the rich world gathered in St. Petersburg was deafening." Published by The Independent on 2006/Jul/19 in response to the hottest July day ever recorded in the UK.
UPDATE (2005/Dec/01 - A scientific study has forecast that climate change will impact heavily on the driest regions of Africa in the future. It also said rainfall dropped by 20% over the last quarter of the 20th Century, resulting in millions of deaths from famine - in Ethiopia etc. Its a pretty good bet to suggest that these first droughts beginning in 1970 signalled the start of the process we know now as climate change. Also if we give climate change a starting date, it makes it a real process and then it becomes easier to organise governments and peoples against it). UPDATE 2006/Mar/28 - BBC Report again shows the risk of famine in Niger in the run-up to this years harvest. UPDATE 2006/Apr/15 The UN Launches US$426 Appeal for 8m people at risk from food & water shortages from continuing drought in the Horn of Africa - the UN said "the five or six year drought cycles of the past have become yearly or bi-yearly leaving some 15 million people at risk in addition to the 8 million in immediate danger." “The rain has stopped falling. The waterholes have dried up. The crops have failed when they can do cropping and the livestock are dying.”
Whether it is an increase in poor health from diseases such as malaria or shrinking water supplies, (6,000 people, mainly children die daily from dirty water according to the UN) nations in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and South America are vulnerable to the consequences of changes in global temperatures. The problem for us in the rich first world is that it's probably the carbon and other greenhouse gases we've emitted from over 250 years of industrialisation that is causing the climate to change and that's unfair on other societies in the third world, especially those who are mainly agrarians, nomads and hunter gatherers. They work more closley with the rhythm of nature, only to find this rhythm is being distorted by climate change - which threatens their way of life and even their lives themselves. UPDATE (In fact, Scientists released a study on 2005/Nov/16 confirming that climate change presents an ethical dilemma to the world - they said 'Global warming poses an enormous ethical challenge because countries that produce the least amount of greenhouse gases will suffer the most from climate change...' Source, Reuters.co.uk. ALSO BBC News published an article 2006/Mar/26 reporting upon a UK Government report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act which describes how climate change is likely to impact most upon the world's poorest people in Africa & Asia)
As well as the suffering of humans from the mismatch of the Earth's foods resources, and the looming threat that climate change brings to the already poor and starving of the world, we should not forget that animals and other species suffer too from the human domination of this planet. Their habitats are under sustained pressure through human activities that compromise their evolutionary ability to survive - they cannot adapt quick enough to the burdens we place upon them. The effect of climate change will only exacerbate this situation. Recently, Reuters reported the WWF were warning that world fish stocks are under threat from climate change. They also reported how a warming Pacific Ocean has caused plankton to migrate north, in turn causing record lows in sea and bird life. A warmer arctic means the sea is taking longer to turn to ice and so the polar bears can't hunt and are turning to canabalism, and seals are beginning to starve. Jan 06 UPDATE. Stories this month suggest global warming could drive whales to extinction. Also, new studies suggest warmer seas will wipe out plankton - the microscopic food source that underpins marine life. Another warning about the future prospects of polar bears is issued as they face an extinction threat from the effects of climate change and chemical pollution. Update 2006/Sep/11 - Kew Gardens say climate change is causing problems for tree and plant species worldwide.
An article in The Independent suggests the polar ice cap is melting quicker than expected - it's likely this century will see Britain lose its connection to the gulf stream, the warmer water that keeps our winters mild. The BBC reports that Antarctica is losing its ice sheet to water quicker than previously thought. Update 2006/Sep/07 - Russian Scientists have discovered greater levels of methane gas are being released into the atmosphere than previously predicted as the Siberian bogs begin to melt because of climate change. The BBC has also learned that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the chief global scientific body on this subject, is about to report that climate change can only be attributable to greenhouse gas emissions and is therefore not a naturally occuring event. Update 2006/Jul/05 - BBC Panel says "climate change is real and dangerous."
The New Scientist published an editorial on 2006 March18, saying "Every shred of scientific evidence shows global warming is really happening - politicians around the world had better start dealing with it." The article points to melting glaciers, shrinking arctic sea ice, and whales and the Siberian tree-line moving northwards as further evidence of a warming panet. Update 2006/Aug/11 - Nasa Satellite Data shows the melting of Greenlands ice sheet has speeded up since 2004 and the Arctic Ice Sheet is shrinking alarmingly also. Update 2006/Sep/04 - Antarctic Survey reports that ice core samples reveal CO2 emissions are higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years. Also, the New Scientist reports that CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere at its fastest rate ever in 2005. Meanwhile Nasa reckons 2005 was the wamest ever year on record since the introduction of reliable thermometers. Update 2006/Aug/25 - European Scientists conclude that climate change is responsible for a shift in the traditional seasons, with spring arriving earlier in the year. Update 2006/Aug/30 - Meanwhile Campaigners warn that the Caribbean potentially faces stormier weather and natural disasters in the future because of climate change. Its likely the free market will lack the resolve to meet the climate change challenge and probably the world's governments will need to offer incentives and /or to take the lead in looking at ways to reduce CO2 emissions. Update 2006/Aug/04 - Royal Society President makes a plea to Governments to invest more in energy technologies to tackle climate change. Update 2006/Aug/31 - A top US Scientist Suggests the pace of climate change is quickening much faster than predicted. Uk Think Tank Suggests World is consuming faster than Earth can provide, creating an 'eco debt.'
The Independent published an article on 2006 April 15 quoting "The world's temperature is on course to rise by more than three degrees Centigrade despite efforts to combat global warming, Britain's chief scientist has warned. Sir David King issued a stark wake-up call that climate change could cause devastating consequences such as famine and drought for hundreds of millions of people unless the world's politicians take more urgent action." More on this at BBC News. Update 2006/Jun/15 - Carbon Trust Report suggests UK Businesses will waste £500m worth of energy over the summer months through inefficiencies. Update 2006/Jun/29 - Intl Energy Agency Report suggests a global switch to efficient lighting could save a 10% in electricity consumption. Oxford University Report Suggests UK must Cut Air Travel to meet CO2 Emissions commitments.
There's no doubt the live8 concert and g8 summit focused attention both on world poverty, hunger and climate change. Despite the achievements, I felt it would be good to build on this momentum and provide people with a constant campaign, so I came up with the idea of candlecampaign.com and decided to launch it on 2005/11/11 - at the 11th minute on the 11th hour.
Sam Ellis, Norwich, UK. 2005/11/11
Technology has given our world enough resources for all to share, so why do we allow some to starve to death?
Vic Sutton, Norwich, UK. 2005/11/13
Thank you for this campaign. With prayer, love and understanding may we all help to feed the world's hungry.'
Thelma Sutton, Norwich, UK. 2005/11/13
May this candle give hope, love and peace to the poor and starving of the world.
Jenny Hall, Long Eaton, UK. 2005/11/20
Light a candle with me, for the children dying in poverty - especially in Niger. Many little lights can bring light in the darkness. God help us to make a difference.
Sue Ayrton, Norwich, UK. 2005/12/14
I pray that this candle light for the world's poor and hungry and sick will grow into thousands and give light to a dark world.
Nick Hurn, Norwich, UK. 2005/12/19
If we could contribute just a fraction of what we spend on defence? Towards feeding our brothers and sisters, what a difference we could make.
Sas Taylor, Birmingham, UK. 2006/01/03
It only takes a little effort for us all to make small changes which can make a huge difference to the plight of our planet and its less fortunate inhabitants.
Ann Henderson, Ontario, Canada. 2006/01/10
Fully support Fair Trade and those who are less fortunate.
Praveen Ohal, Ranchi, India. 2006/01/17
If each one of us spared one day a month to serve and help children by going around - I am sure children would not die of hunger.
Rottuk Victor, Ruaraka, Nairobi. 2006/01/19
Lets's all stand up in the fight against hunger.
Ayesha Chowdhury, Cheshire, UK. 2006/01/20
Always strive to make a small but significant difference in everything we do.
Carol Parsons, Bournemouth, UK. 2006/03/06
Just do what you can.
Karen Michlmayr, Bordeaux, France. 2006/03/22
Om Mani Padme Hum.
Angela Timms, London, UK. 2006/04/07
At our first breath and our last breath we are all equal. Happy is the man who has all that he needs. When man lived with nature, man had all that he needed. When some men wanted more, others were left with less... Love and light...
Fiona Doubleday, Bakewell, Derbyshire, UK. 2006/04/07
In lighting candles we seek calm. In calm we seek peace. Let us seek peace and light a candle.
Kayleigh Hodgson, Grimsby, UK. 2006/08/23
Pain and suffering should not exist, not in a world as beautiful as this.
Mariko Nakata, Sapporo, Japan. 2006/09/30
A loss of their life is a loss of OUR life. A loss of their future is a loss of our future.
© Ethical Earth Limited 11 November 2006
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