Climate Solutions Project
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Pedaling the Path to Empowerment
Guest post from Rudmila Rahman of Arohi at arohicycling @ gmail . com
On Friday Feb 25th, a group of thirty passionate women from diverse walks to life got on their bicycles and rode through Dhaka to promote bicycles as an alternative means of mobility for women in Bangladesh. They cycled more than 5 kilometers together, through the streets of Dhaka. They joined this rally organized by Arohi - Bangladesh’s first women’s cycling initiative aimed to gather a critical mass of individuals who are interested to promote cycling for women in Bangladesh in order to ride a bicycle to work, school or for recreation, with an aim to break the stigma attached to a girl on a cycle
They believe this, in turn, will promote freedom of mobility in Dhaka for women, as well as a cleaner environment. Bangladeshi women face significant barriers from family, neighbors and society in getting on a bike a riding around town in bright daylight. Freedom of mobility is seriously curtailed in Dhaka if women don't feel safe to travel independently in their own city. Over 35% of female commuters in Dhaka depend on a cycle rickshaw and as more major roads ban these rickshaws, daily mobility for women is threatened furthermore. Arohi’s tagline: “Pedaling the way to empowerment” summarizes the links that we plan to draw between cycles, mobility and empowerment.
Arohi will follow in the coming months with awareness and advocacy events with the community and local government. The organization’s long term objectives include creating broader social impact by increasing uptake of cycling on target communities of highly mobile women such as students, garments workers, NGO field workers, etc through developing a model that will encourage urban cycling and provide rental bicycles to these communities. First create the path and then motivate others to follow!
Beyond the objective of empowerment, bicycling is a clean and green way to travel in a city which has one of the highest levels of air pollution in the world. The density of airborne particulate matter can reach 463 micrograms per cubic meter- the highest level in the world. Pollution from vehicles is the main cause of smoke, smog and dust. Therefore, Arohi plans to combine the perception of cycling as an alternative to mobility through cars and public transport and work with the Dhaka City Corporation to promote cycle friendly interventions in the city for both men and women.
The response to a cycling initiative in Dhaka has been tremendous. But a major hurdle is the fact that the last time many women got on a bike was when they were 10 years old, for reasons such as social taboo, family displeasure or a lack of self-confidence. To commemorate international Women’s Day, Arohi will to host a bicycle training workshop to help interested women learn how to maneuver on two wheels in Dhaka and take the first step toward the path of empowerment.
A Little Village in the Sun
Reposted from The Hindu, Jan 7, 2005 written by AD Rangarajan
Here is a bright little village in Andhra Pradesh that is all solar and smoke-free — the first of its kind in the country.
Bysanivaripalle, 125 km northwest of Tirupati, has 36 families. Their main means of livelihood is sericulture. The eco-conscious residents of the electrified village went in for the first biogas plant in the region two decades ago. The officials of the Non-Conventional Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NEDCAP) did not need to put in much effort to motivate them to go solar.
Intersol, an Austrian non-governmental organisation, sponsored the provision of "Sk-14" cookers here last year. Gadhia Solar, a Valsad-based environmental body that imports, supplies and installs them, executed the job. It is the single largest cluster of cookers that Gadhia Solar has installed anywhere. A group of schoolchildren from Austria visited the village last year to witness the project.
"With 23 biogas plants and 26 solar cookers, we do not have to use a matchstick," says Sadananda Reddy, a progressive sericulturist who was honoured by the Karnataka Government recently for his top quality cocoons.
Himalayan Hope: Empowering Women for Sustainable Development
Crossposted from the Environmental Defense Fund blog
In Delhi, it’s easy to lose hope in the fight for environmental protection and climate mitigation – a thousand new cars every day; thousands of tons of garbage that make their way to the landfills coming from millions of homes, industries, and street sides; constant new construction of flyovers and widening of roads; and the sensation that it is too big for any individual, even any well-intentioned local politician to make a difference.
An overnight train ride away from Delhi, though, there exists another world. One that is full of enormous challenges in a rapidly changing climate, but also one full of Himalayan hope. The Environmental Defense Fund, in partnership with the Hunger Project and local NGOs in Uttarakhand, are giving female political and community leaders the tools they need to be able to engage in the development decisions happening every day.
One cold but warming day in mid-January, I had the honor to join Richie Ahuja to visit a leadership program, bringing together more than 100 of these female leaders from throughout the Kumaon district. Some of these women (and three generations of their family members) travelled by bus for more than 2 hours to reach this workshop, through winding mountain passes from their villages. Many of these women were Sarpanches (elected heads of villages) or members of their panchayat (an elected board of community representatives), while others were community leaders of other kinds, working with Self-Help Groups in their village.
Renewable Energy at Bhil Academy
by Naiara Tejados, from Real Medicine Foundation Blog
In Jhabua, electricity is scarce and typically only available for a few hours a day. After the sun went down, the children could do little but go to sleep: our children could not study at night or even walk to the toilets because of the darkness.Designing for the Future, Learning from the Past
Today is a hot, sticky day in Delhi, almost 38 C in the shade, and in my apartment, less than ten years old, I’m sweating as I type underneath the fan. In fact, I’m sweating even when I turn on my air conditioner. And yet, outside, in Delhi’s most beautiful park, Lodhi Gardens, I can sit outside in an open air tomb built almost five hundred years ago, and I feel cool.
If I were in Jaipur right now, in hot, dry western India, where it is more than 42 C, and yet feels like 30 inside the forts of the ancient Rajput kings. Admittedly, it may be hotter now than it was in the summer of 1734, when it was built, but these palaces were designed to keep their residents cool without electricity, conditioned air and refrigerants. How? By recognizing some fundamentals of heat and physics.
If we want to design for the future, we need to learn from the past. We have known for hundreds of years that solids cool more than liquids which cool more than air. And yet, in US and in India, corporate attempt to cool spaces and people with air. We also know that the human body loses its heat from radiation far more than from convection (moving air over your surface) or even perspiration (though, it sure feels like sweating is the only option, right now!). Yet, our air conditioning systems rely on convection – blowing cold air over all of us. Instead, we can design like the Rajputs, just as Infosys has done with its new buildings
Garbage Girl on a Clean-Up Mission
Crossposted from The Tribune
She is fondly called the “garbage girl” of Bhagsunag. Jodie Underhill, a resident of England, had come to Dharamsala as a tourist. However, today she is actively involved in saving the higher reaches of Himalayas from solid waste spread by trekkers that as earned her the name of ‘garbage girl’ of Bhasunag.
Every week she can be seen on the rocky 7-km-trek that runs from the grassy summit of Triund through the hills of the Dhauladhar range, with a group of volunteers and donkeys bringing back 35 sacks of trash.
The bags, displaying messages for proper disposal of solid waste, can be seen at every tea shop enroute Triund and near the resting places of tourists.
While talking to The Tribune, she said, “I am surprised how such huge quantity of broken glass reach the virgin heights of mountains. It seems that trekkers carry beer and whisky bottles and are dumping there.”
She has managed to raise a group of volunteers from among the local youth and visiting tourists who have been named as “Mountain Cleaners”.
Launching a Community of Care in Khan Market
After months spent discussing with restaurants, students, NGOs, and wastepickers who work in the high-profile Khan Market of Delhi, we are finally ready to launch a waste management and composting project to manage the more than 300 kilos produced each day by restaurants, florists, and other vendors in this marketplace! All compost generated will be sold directly to consumers and used to build community gardens in schools and parks and rooftop gardens in the market itself! It's a great chance to showcase the true potential of decentralized community waste management!
Jammu & Kashmir Solutions Fair!
The Kashmir valley, often referred to as Paradise on Earth, is famous for its beautiful mountainous landscape; in recent years though, Kashmir has seen rapid environment degradation. These changes have taken place due to various reasons such as deforestation, melting glaciers, and the depletion of snow cover. This has lead to problems such as shrinking water supply, shrinking water bodies and wetlands, soil degradation, etc. Further, J&K also faces problems such as under utilization of funds, technology inadequacy, lack of education and awareness on environmental problems and lack of government support.
Students at IIT Bombay "Opt for Optimization"
At Azeotropy 2010, IIT Bombay's fest held in early March, students will be competing on effective Life Cycle Assessment - the analysis of the energy and resources used in the complete life cycle of a product or system. It will be an amazing learning for hundreds of students, to understand more about the power fo Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool for evaluating true sustainability. As the organizers say, "By this competition, we aim to encourage the use of LCA as a tool for corporate decisions as well as governmental policy-making in India."
The exact challenge is: "You have to carry out a Life Cycle Assessment of the "Production of ammonium nitrate from Natural gas" to calculate the total energy consumption of the process and make a poster for the same. System Boundaries are from Cradle to gate i.e. from raw material production to factory gate, and does not include the impacts of further supply chain or distribution mechanism. You have to estimate "energy consumption per unit production" that have incurred (directly or indirectly) during the process.
Climate Solutions Tour in the Philippines Sets Off in Solar Car!
We've just found out that the Solar Car Tour in the Philippines has launched! Follow them online on facebook or check back here as we share some of the media they've created! We got the following incredible email from Vince Perez, the former Minister of Energy in the Philippines, head of WWF Philippines, and an Alternative Energy global guru. He wrote:
We finally did a similar project to Caroline's and Alexis' Climate Solutions Tour in India.
We have formed a corporate consortium and built a 100% solar power car dubbed “Sikat” (rays of the sun) in partnership with a local De La Salle University. Sikat is currently on a one month national road show from south to north of the entire Philippine archipelago, visiting a total of 14 engineering schools in 14 different cities around the country.