What’s holding you back?

What’s holding you back? Dear Friend, You know how grave a threat the climate crisis is -- not just today, but also to the future of human civilization on this planet we will pass on to our children and grandchildren. You know that it’s up to us to protect a climate balance that supports and nurtures a healthy and prosperous future for the generations that will follow us. The good news is that we can -- but only if we take urgent action. That’s why I’m writing to invite you Scope Intervention and be part of extraordinary group of citizens who are committed to solving the climate crisis, now and forever. By being part of us, you will be empowered to communicate the reality of the climate crisis, inspire your local community and help to confront the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. With so much on the line for our planet and with your chance to help solve the challenge of our time right in front of you, I’ve got just one question. What’s holding you back? Sincerely Scope Intervention team

Lets Do something

The recent flooding of Nairobi had twitter coming up with all sorts of funny pictures and tweets... and that’s ok because we (Kenyans) come out as strong people who through bad times can still get to laugh.
Good for us, we are a happy country.  At the same time we want to blame Governor Kidero for controlling rain and it is his fault that he let there be too much down pour while he had not unclogged the drainage system in Nairobi.  Whenever a natural disaster strikes we want to blame someone for not doing something.  We have heard time and time again of global warming and climate change, it’s like a song that we have not yet internalized as a Nation.

Lake Nakuru with no Flamingos.. The salty water lake just turned in to a fresh water lake .

The rains that are destroying, house furniture, businesses and cars... Climate change people...Climate change. When will we do something about it? Does it have to be until it personally affects for you to want to do something about it then? The Late Professor Wangari Maathai fought so hard for us to be able to live in a better environment.  I don’t have to point out everything that she had for us and the earth you all know, you all read it and had her speak about it. Then why aren’t we doing as she did and more so that our children and children’s children can live in a habitable world?

We are wasting a lot of time yapping about other issues that will be inconsequential in the long run after various other natural disasters strike. What is the ministry doing about this? I think that more money should be poured into environmental conservation for two reasons. One... Climate change is happening and so the wildlife and the panoramic scenery that we are boasting about will not be present for the said tourist to pay top dollar to come see. Two… Resources are getting scarce due to climate change and people’s way of living is bordering desperation…and that’s a breeding ground for a very bad and selfish people.
The sooner we each give a **** to the climatic changes happenings and do something about it the better of we will be later then everybody can go back to their greed and selfish driven ambitions. Can we all agree to do something geared towards environmental conservation???????

Gladys Cheruiyot
Communications and Advocacy Officer
Scope Intervention Organization

GAS MASKS FROM BIRTH TILL DEATH…???

Clean water and fresh air are free gifts to us from nature. Trees that surround us purify the air we breathe despite the tones of poisonous gases we release annually .What we don’t know  is that as we cut these trees  the more the gas will increase and it may reach a time we have  to wear gas masks  24/7. Imagine that for a minute…wont you miss just being free and breathing fresh air.??? Being forced to carry an oxygen tank like a school bag; won’t that be just tiresome? 

Well as we enjoy breathing fresh air there is a small island located in southeast china called Miyakejima, where residents wear gas masks even during wedding ceremonies .It’s not some form of fashion but as a result of volcanic eruptions that took place back in 2000.The island people before 2000 had already adapted to recurrent volcanic eruption but in 2000 the worst happened. This volcanic eruption caused poisonous gases to leak from earth that forced the 3600 island residents to evacuate, but the citizens won’t stay away.

Surprisingly after this eruption was followed by 17,500 earthquakes which hit the island between June 26^th and July 21^st. During this eruptions and earth quakes, Miyakejima was enveloped in ash plumes reaching 10 miles in height, pyroclastic flow (fast flow of superheated gas), and heavy ash fall alongside crater collapses. This disaster also led to high levels of toxic sulfur dioxide regularly leaking up through the ground making 20% of the land uninhabitable. 

Sulfur dioxide at high concentration affects lung function, worsens asthma attacks and aggravates heart diseases' in sensitive groups. Three months after the disaster the government took action and forced a mass evacuation in September. For five years, Miyakejima was declared off limits. The island was left with dead trees, rusted cars, and abandoned buildings. Slowly the evacuation order was lifted and in 2005 residents were allowed to return to their homes. Others preferred to remain in Tokyo but surprisingly 2,800 chose to return, but had to adopt wearing gas masks and dangerous gases seeping through the air. 

Despite all these gas tourism is leading in the area, with tourist purchasing gas masks from ferry stations. Due to the eruption there is a great view from sightseeing, from a boned houses, crushed cars and areas that erupted. The lives of these island people are forever tied to wearing gas mask and protective gears but not by choice but circumstances. Our current status where really don’t really give that much to climate change and combating its effects might lead to one day  all of us living the same life style with no alternative. Before we reach there let’s keep planting trees…it’s that simple!!!!!!

Author: Angela Keter (Advocacy and Communication Officer-Scope Intervention)

Email: kangela@scopeintervention.org

10 Most beautiful places on earth we must conserve

Here is a list of 10 most beautiful places on earth that you should visit.

10. Bamboo Forest, Japan

9. Geiranger Fjord, Norway

8. Nairobi National Park

7. Iguazu Falls, Argentina/Brasil

6. Moraine Lake, Canada

5. Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

4. Victorial Falls Zimbabwe/Zambia

3. Tianzi Mountains, China

2. Maasai Mara National Researve

1. Rice Terrace Fields in Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam

Abuse on Environment is abuse on women

Abusing the environment is like abusing the African woman just as striping a woman is gender abuse. There is more to gender abuse than we are aware of. Some of this gender abuses have passed on like normal activities to us and we never realize a specific gender is being abused by them. Believe it or not degradation of the environment and the effects of climate change largely affect the women in our society.

In a UN meeting held in New York Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka the Executive Director of the United Nations Agency dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women said “women are on the frontlines, bearing the brunt of climate change”. She noted that women and children are 14 times more vulnerable than men in climate change related natural disasters, such as floods and droughts. 

According to researcher’s women are the ones who will be affected mostly by climate change in different parts of their life cycle especially during child bearing from the fetus to the growing of the child. The survival of women and children mainly depend on the natural resources that are available.

“In Kenya women are the first victims of environmental degradation, because they are the ones who walk for hours looking for water, who fetch firewood, who provide food for their families.”Wangari Maathai .

Most the time in Kenya men leave their women in their rural homes to go and work in urban areas .These women left at home have to go to their farms every morning and take care of our their livestock .
The current climate changes has led to unpredicted weather patterns, floods and drought .Our women are left to deal this effects. They are the ones who have to wake up early in the morning to walk for miles to look for water and firewood. While we pollute our rivers our women have the responsibility to wash clothes, cook food and bathe their children. They are the ones who mostly go to these rivers to fetch water. They are the ones who will be directly affected by the chemicals in this water .While trees are being cut deforestation is taking place leading to drying up of rivers and scarcity of firewood .
Our women are the ones after all this who have to walk for miles looking for this necessities .These women are our mothers, sisters, daughters and wives. Despite their daily efforts to ensure our children are clean, well fed and in school things we do largely affect them and go unnoticed. Women bring us up and ensure we get the best they can afford, they spend nine months of their lives carrying each child, the rest of their lives are spent raising us but we never appreciate these efforts. For each tree that is being cut a woman has to walk further for firewood, as we pollute our rivers our women have to walk further to find different sources of water. As we sit in our comfort zones enjoying money from selling timber a woman out there is walking for miles looking for a river that is not dried up.

Author: Angela Keter (The author is a communication and advocacy officer at Scope Intervention)

Email: kangela@scopeintervention.org

5 simple reasons why we should take care of our trees

At the very beginning of our human experience, trees were considered sacred and honorable: oaks were worshiped by the European Druids, redwoods a part of American Indian ritual, baobabs a part of African tribal life, to the Chinese the ginkgo link and monkey puzzles to the Chilean Pehuenche. Romans and scholars during the middle Ages venerated trees in their literature.

The trees around us are extremely important and have always been necessary for improving the human condition - both during its life and after harvest. It is not a stretch to believe that without trees we humans would not exist on this beautiful planet. In fact, some claim can be made that our mother's and father's ancestors climbed trees - another debate for another site.

The modern human community has other, more practical reasons to admire and honor trees. Here are some of the reasons why trees are necessary for improving our worldly condition. The list might not be exhaustive but the message will remain, trees are important.

          1.   Trees are food

We all gather our nutritional products from trees including fruits, nuts, seeds, leaves, bark and even sap. Tree products have been an important part of diets for thousands of years, from early humans gathering fruits and nuts to the first cultivation of plants and animals.

2.           Trees Produce Oxygen

We all need this to live. A mature leafy tree produces as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year. What we also don't realize is that trees that clean the air we breathe.

3.           Trees Clean the Soil

Trees filter sewage and farm chemicals, reduce the effects of animal wastes, clean roadside spills and clean water runoff into streams. Trees absorb dangerous chemicals and other pollutants that may have entered the soil. Trees can either store harmful pollutants or actually change the pollutant into less harmful forms.

4.           Trees Stores Carbon “Sinks”

To produce its food, a tree absorbs and locks away carbon dioxide in the wood, roots and leaves. Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gasses causing global warming. A forest is a carbon storage area or a "sink" that can lock up as much carbon as it produces. This locking-up process "stores" carbon as wood and not as an available "greenhouse" gas.

5.            Trees are medicine

An estimated 50,000 plant species are used medicinally.  Medicine from trees, extracted from the wood, bark, roots, leaves, flowers, fruits or seeds is fundamental to the well-being of millions of people. Where access to modern pharmaceuticals is limited, trees offer living pharmacies open to anyone with traditional knowledge on their medicinal properties.

My name is Kenfrey Kipchumba Katui and I am the Founder and the Executive Director of Scope Intervention.  Write to me via director@scopeintervention.org

It's my duty, it's your duty

 Every person in Kenya is entitled to a clean and healthy environment and has the duty to safeguard and enhance the environment. I often see on TV residents in certain areas complaining of dumpsites being close to their homes, sewage burst obviously caused by blockage from probably plastics which have been disposed by the residents themselves and many other environmental hazards that they offload to the government.

We Kenyans tend to point fingers at others while we are the same people responsible for what has happened,   when it comes to thieves all Kenyans are the first to stone the culprit because they feel the loss of their property even though it’s not the same thief that probably stole it. A politician clears a forest that should be there and the residents are first to cheer. You are being mind played by politicians so that they can grab the resources to enrich themselves at the expense of your environment. We just sit and let them do it and does nothing History has taught us that failure to understand and appreciate the value of the nature has led to the downfall of civilization. We are here trying to fight for our rights and the main right here the core right here is our environment.  Why aren’t we fighting to preserve it? Everybody wants more, but what happens when you get more and floods hit and you lose all? What happens when you get more and the air is too toxic and water is contaminated that the more won’t help you at all? Have you sat down and thought of what the future holds when we have finished all our forests, we are drowning in garbage and the air is to toxic for use to breathe????

When you have done your part and contributed to environment conservation, look for more, because then you have a place to enjoy your more. Plant a tree, dump your waste properly and where you can try not to contribute to any kind of pollution because as I stated it is our environment not just my environment. Professor Wangari Mathai had her hair ripped of her head and she was whipped because she wanted me, you and our children to have clean air, good water and a sustainable place to live in. She did that for you and yet she doesn’t know you on a personal level. So it’s not about what’s going to help you alone, its for the betterment of humanity. This is my plea to all of you.

Author: Gladys Cheruiyot (Communication and Advocacy Officer-Scope Intervention)

Email: cheruiyotg@scopeintervention.org